You know the drill. New set drops, you sit down at the prerelease table, and someone plays a card with a keyword you have never seen before. You squint at it. You ask your opponent what it does. You feel like a tourist in your own game.
Not this time. We are going over every new mechanic in Marvel Super Heroes right now, before the set hits, so you show up already knowing how everything works.
Plan
This is the big new one, and honestly it is a lot of fun once you get it.
Plan is a new enchantment subtype. Think of it like a quest you set up at the start of the game. You play a Plan card and it just sits there, watching, accumulating plan counters as you do things. Once you hit a certain number of counters, the Plan sacrifices itself and pays you off with something powerful.
Every time a Villain you control enters the battlefield, it drops a plan counter on the enchantment and gives you a small bonus right away. When that fifth counter lands, the whole thing sacrifices itself and you get the big reward.
The flavor here is perfect. Doctor Doom does not just attack you. He schemes. He sets things in motion. He lets the pieces fall into place over multiple turns until suddenly everything goes sideways for you. That is exactly what this mechanic feels like at the table.
If you played during Zendikar back in 2009, Plans will feel familiar. Quest cards worked almost the same way, building up counters until something big happened. Plans are that idea, updated and tied to the Villain creature type.
The key thing to understand is that Plans give you value along the way, not just at the end. Each counter trigger does something small. The payoff at threshold is the big moment, but you are not just waiting around doing nothing in the meantime.
In Commander
Plans want you going wide with Villains. The more creatures you play each turn, the faster your Plans advance. If you are building Doctor Doom as your commander, you want a solid curve of Villain creatures and some tutors to find your Plans consistently. The Doom Prevails precon is built around exactly this.
Power Up
Power Up is a one-time activated ability that lives on Hero and Villain creatures. You pay a cost, something happens, and that ability is gone forever. You can only use it once per card.
The twist that makes it interesting: if you use the Power Up ability on the same turn the creature entered the battlefield, the cost is reduced by that creature's mana value.
Say you have a 4-mana creature with a Power Up ability that normally costs 6. Play that creature and immediately use Power Up on the same turn, and you only pay 2 instead of 6. Show up and immediately go to work.
Thanos, the Mad Titan is the clearest mythic example. His Power Up costs WUBRG normally, but drop him and activate on the same turn and the cost drops significantly.
In Practice
Power Up rewards you for having open mana the turn you cast your big creatures. In Commander you can plan around this. In Limited it changes how you think about your curve. You want to leave mana open when you drop your key creatures so you can immediately activate the upgrade rather than waiting a full turn cycle.
This is similar to Exhaust from Aetherdrift earlier this year, but the discount for same-turn activation is what makes it feel different and more rewarding to play around.
Teamwork
Teamwork is an additional cost on some instants and sorceries. To pay it, you tap creatures you control whose total power adds up to the required amount. In exchange, you unlock extra effects on the spell.
Most spells with Teamwork are modal cards where you normally have to choose one effect. Pay the Teamwork cost by tapping your creatures, and you get both effects instead.
Normally, you choose: destroy a target noncreature artifact, OR have a creature you control deal damage equal to its power to a creature an opponent controls.
Tap creatures with total power 4 or more to pay Teamwork 4 and you do both.
Teamwork is basically Convoke's cousin. Instead of tapping creatures to reduce mana costs, you are tapping them to unlock extra modes. It rewards you for having a board and punishes you for being behind.
One thing worth knowing that does not show up on the card text: the power totals combine. You do not need a single creature with exactly 4 power to meet a Teamwork 4 cost. Two 2/2s work. A 3/3 and a 1/1 work. Five 1/1 squirrel tokens work. You just need the numbers to add up.
The flavor is obvious and great. The Avengers do not just stand around while one person handles a problem. They work together, and together they accomplish more than any one hero could alone.
In Limited
Teamwork is going to matter a lot in how you evaluate creatures. A 3/3 for four mana looks fine on a curve. That same creature is also fuel for your Teamwork spells. Board presence pays dividends in multiple ways, so staying ahead on creatures is even more important than usual.
In Commander
Teamwork spells are going to be serious pickups for go-wide token strategies. If you are running a token deck, you can turn your army of small creatures into massive spell upgrades every turn.
Returning Mechanics Worth Knowing
These are not new to Marvel Super Heroes, but they are central to how the set plays. If you are jumping in fresh, here is the quick version.
Connive
Draw a card, then discard a card. If you discarded a nonland, put a +1/+1 counter on the creature that connived. This is the heart of the Doom Prevails Commander precon. It rewards you for having lands in hand you do not need, and it lets your Villain creatures grow over time.
The Commander Precons
There are four Commander precons for this set: Avengers, Fantastic Four, Wakandans, and Villains. If you are picking up a precon to play with, the Villains deck is the one most built around the new mechanics — Plans and Connive are both central to that strategy.
Hero and Villain Creature Types
These started in the Spider-Man set and are back in a big way. Cards care specifically about whether you control Heroes, Villains, or both. When you are building or upgrading a Commander deck from this set, pay attention to these subtypes in your support pieces.
Double-Faced Cards
Bruce Banner flips into The Incredible Hulk. These work exactly how they always have. Something on one side triggers the transformation to the other. Nothing new here mechanically, just great flavor execution.
Worthy
Worthy is a keyword found on red and white creatures. It exists for one reason: Mjolnir, Hammer of Thor.
Mjolnir has an "equip worthy" cost that is dramatically cheaper than its normal equip cost. Only creatures with the Worthy keyword can pay that reduced rate. Everyone else can still equip it, but they are going to pay through the nose for the privilege. Thor can pick up his hammer in a single mana. Random 2/2 Soldier token is going to have a harder time.
Mechanically it is a simple gate. Flavor-wise it is perfect. It would feel wrong if just anyone could casually wield the hammer of the gods, and the card text makes sure they cannot without consequences.
What to Watch For
Worthy creatures will be more valuable than they look on paper if Mjolnir ends up being as powerful as it appears. Even a mediocre red or white creature suddenly becomes a relevant equipment target if it is the only Worthy creature on your board. Keep that in mind when evaluating the weaker Worthy cards in Limited.
Harness and the Infinity Stones
Infinity Stones are artifact cards with a new mechanic called Harness. The Mind Stone is the confirmed white-aligned one, and based on how the Spider-Man set worked, there are likely others across different colors.
Each Infinity Stone has a harness cost you can pay once. Once you pay it, the stone is harnessed, and its ongoing ability triggers at the beginning of each of your end steps from that point forward. You can activate the ability multiple times before harnessing, but the harnessed state is permanent and changes how the card functions for the rest of the game.
Before harnessing, The Mind Stone does whatever it does as a normal artifact. Pay the harness cost once, and from that point on, its ability triggers at the start of every one of your end steps. You cannot un-harness it, and the ability will keep triggering every turn.
The design is clever for casual play. You have a choice about when to commit. Harness it early and the value accumulates over a long game. Harness it late when you need the trigger immediately. The stone is useful either way, but the harness decision has timing and resource implications.
In Commander
End step triggers are strong in Commander because you are taking more turns and getting more triggers than in a two-player game. If the Infinity Stones have good enough effects, the harnessed versions could be serious long-game pieces in any deck that can afford to run them.
That is it. You are ready. Prereleases start June 19 and you now know more about this set than half the people at your table.
Building a Commander deck around Doctor Doom, Squirrel Girl, or any of the new Villains? The Vault builds a full 99 from EDHREC popularity and tells you exactly what you already own.
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