Trade Guide for Marvel Super Heroes

(Avengers Assemble!|Art by Steve Ellis)

Cardsphere Traders assemble! The Cardsphere Team is pleased to announce Marvel Super Heroes is available to trade, including cards with the MSH, MSC, and MAR set codes.

Friendly greetings, I'm John Sherwood, unofficial new set correspondent. We're rolling into the second full set of Marvel's cross-over into Magic: The Gathering.

I'm doing my best to not become collateral damage as Earth's Mightiest Heroes and nefarious villains battle from the depths of the sea to the outer reaches of space.

Check out the links at the end of this article for a direct source to each of Marvel's newest collection offerings on Cardsphere, otherwise, read on for our trade guide on the coolest cards to collect!

Shiny Space Rocks

Another of Marvel's cosmic magic items takes centerstage in cosmic foil. Wizards of the Coast printed just 150 of The Mind Stone's borderless, textless, alternate-art version, illustrated by Madeline Boni.

As a point of curiosity, Madeline painted a Mind Stone for Final Fantasy Commander.

On a more relevant note, she also produced the equivalent version of The Soul Stone for Marvel's Spiderman.

I genuinely believe Madeline is brilliantly rocking the shiny space rocks.

While I love these illustrations, I despise the superficially limited quantity. As mentioned above, there are only 150 of these in the wild.

The chance of opening this Infinity Stone in a Collector Booster is infinitesimal. If you do want to get one without booster gambling, then get ready to fork out some funds.

At time of writing, index price for The Soul Stone's cosmic foil alt-art is an astronomical $24,645, and I'm sure The Mind Stone will join the ~~Reserved List~~ Universes Beyond space race.

Thanos and the gauntlet borderless treatment is back. While The Soul Stone sits in the socket on The Mad Titan's little finger, The Mind Stone rests in the central socket.

If you're collecting these versions to assemble your own Infinity Gauntlet, keep in mind they appear in less than 1% of Collector Boosters. Hopefully you'll have better luck listing an offer here on Cardsphere.

Borderless Alt-Art Lands

A new cycle of dual lands is dropping in Marvel Super Heroes, and I love that they reward playing basics. I also love the generic naming, which opens up their potential for reprints in Magic's own multiverse.

I even love the art in Dark Fortress enough to forgive the cutaway on the bow being on the wrong side. I'm betting David Alvarez isn't an archer, but still I think he's a great illustrator.

The perspective on these alt-art borderless versions of Gathering Place, Gleaming Bastion, Hidden Lair and Training Compound pulls me right into the action like the visual effects of a good comic book.

Borderless Scene

Marvel Super Heroes features a total of seven borderless scenes between five in the main set and the Heroes United and Villains Unleashed scene boxes. Each scene focuses on different eras of Marvel storytelling.

The Fantastic Four will probably be the easiest to collect, as it's the only one composed entirely of uncommons. The others are a mix of rarities.

Borderless Logo

Twenty-eight (in)famous Marvel characters appear superimposed over their signature logos on solid backgrounds. It's a neat concept as both a nod to the set's comic book origins, and potential template for future Magic alt-arts.

These borderless legendary creature cards are distributed via play boosters and collector boosters in both nonfoil and traditional foil.

Borderless Source Material

Sixty Marvel Source Material cards feature images originally from Marvel Comics. These cards have the same MAR set code as Spider-Man source material cards.

They include reprints from the Secret Lair Marvel Superdrop as well as three versions of Heroic Intervention.

1 in 24 Play Boosters contains a nonfoil source material card. I'll take those odds over Thanos snapping up an Extinction Event.

You can hedge your bets on source material cards appearing in Collector Boosters.

The fancy packs are guaranteed to have at least one source material card, and about 1 in 4 will be traditional foil.

Borderless Classic Comic

The classic comic treatment is a lot like the source material bonus sheet. The illustrations come from actual Marvel Comics, although they've been adjusted to include card names, rules text and other Magic card attributes.

Unlike source material cards, these classic comic cards have the MSH set code, and are therefore legal in Standard.

The fifteen creatures with a classic comic version are a mixed bag of four rare and eleven mythic rare legends. They are all traditional foils, and only packed in Collector Boosters.

Showcase

The showcase comic frames are not Marvel source artwork, but they are heavily inspired by it. Five of the seventeen are Sagas, and I think that subtype is where this particular showcase style shines.

Nonfoil and traditional foil showcase cards may come in either play or collector boosters.

Extended Art

As always, extended art cards feature the same art as the regular printing, with the modern Magic frame removed to reveal more imagery. As usual, I went through them all to pick one that does it better than others.

The regular frame on Clever Concealment ironically conceals one of the Fantastic Four characters sneaking past Dr. Doom.

Meanwhile, the extended version displays the entire team. Extended art versions of both main set and preconstructed deck cards appear in some collector boosters.

Full-art Basics

Two five-card cycles full-art basic lands show the locales of Marvel stories in times of peace or turmoil.

The Calm City basics show heroes trying to have a normal day.

Then the City Chaos portray the type of day we expect in a super hero story.

Nonfoil full-art basics appear in all booster products, including bundles and Jumpstart. The traditional foil variety comes only from play and collector boosters.

Sequel Setup

While I have no idea what's next for Marvel cross-overs into Magic, I'm surprisingly optimistic. Personally, Spider-Man saturated me with a bit too much New York City, and too many variations of the same costume.

If that set was a midnight ice-cream binge, then Marvel Super Heroes is a continental breakfast buffet. We didn't completely escape NYC, but the wider variety of settings, characters, and plots covered in this set feel more balanced between all things Marvel.

While I'm not personally buying any of these cards, it's not because I don't like them. I think this is a great set, and I'm excited to see how other people enjoy it.