Magic: The Gathering® | Marvel's Spider-Man: Magic Meets Marvel

Today is the start of Magic: The Gathering® | Marvel's Spider-Man previews. Corey Bowen, the lead set designer for Magic: The Gathering | Marvel's Spider-Man, and Eric Engelhard, the "strong second" on the set, both have articles talking about this set in which they will go into detail on specific mechanical elements of the set. I'm going to talk about the big picture, but I promise I'll show a preview card before I'm done. Also, in true comic book fashion, there are a lot of flashbacks today. The story of how Magic: The Gathering's Marvel sets—and this set in particular—came together involves a lot of looking to the past.

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The Origin Story of Universes Beyond

Our first flashback for today goes back a number of years. Aaron Forsythe called me into his office. There was a project he was working on, and he wanted my input on it. That project ended up being the initial idea for Universes Beyond. Aaron walked through what he thought it could be, how we would execute on it, and what it might mean for the future of Magic. He spent close to half an hour walking through all his ideas. He had made a PowerPoint presentation to organize his thoughts, and I think I was the first one he showed it to. At the end of it, he asked what I thought. My reply was, "Dibs on Marvel."

I've been a fan of comics for as long as I can remember. One day, when I was nine, I woke up to discover that my dad had bought a number of comics near where he worked, which he left on the counter for me. One of those was a Spider-Man comic. Those were the very first comics I owned. From there, I started collecting comics. I read every comic I could get my hands on. I borrowed comic books from the library. I spent hours at comic book shops looking through back issues, buying as many as I could afford. Reading comics became a lifelong passion. I still read at least one comic every day.

Now for a quick aside. When Aaron first pitched the idea of Universes Beyond, I was a fan of the concept. R&D had been talking about incorporating other properties into Magic from when I first showed up at Wizards 30 years ago. In fact, one of our earliest attempts at an on-ramp product, the ARC system, used Magic-like mechanics on other properties. But I don't think I truly understood the full power of Universes Beyond until I played my first Limited game with cards depicting the Marvel Universe. I have enjoyed many of the properties we'd previously adapted with Universes Beyond, but Marvel was something different. It's what I'll call a passion property.

A passion property is not just one you enjoy, but one you identify with. A property that, by being a fan of it, helps define who you are. For example, if you ask someone to identify my "look," they'll say, "A superhero t-shirt with a flannel on top and jeans." I probably own over 200 superhero t-shirts, many of which are Marvel. I've seen the vast majority of Marvel movies and TV shows, and I don't mean just the MCU films (though I've seen all of those). I am a dyed-in-the-wool fan. The only other property that I am this passionate about is Magic. So, when I had the opportunity to bring those two loves into one product, it was bliss.

That's the moment that I truly got Universes Beyond: the pure unadulterated joy of seeing a property as near and dear to me as Marvel characters portrayed on Magic cards, getting to play with them in a game, having my two loves join forces in one glorious union, was so much fun. It made me understand the lightning-in-a-bottle magic that Universes Beyond represents.

Flash forward a few years. Aaron came to my desk and said, "I have a project I think you're going to like." We were pitching to Marvel and needed some sample cards to show them. Aaron is also a huge fan of Marvel, but he knew I was the person for the job. He asked me to make a variety of different card types, including several legendary creatures. He said that most of them should be the obvious ones, but I should do one deep cut. I was super proud of my deep cut. It was the perfect mix of a card that I thought fans of Marvel and fans of Magic would love. I put it into the second Marvel set (which I led; more on this in a moment), and it did very well in our internal rare poll. I can't wait for you all to get to play with it.

Normally, before our business team talks with a licensor (in this case, Marvel), we do a little work in R&D to figure out if the property will be a good fit for Magic. Is there enough material to work with? Does it have the breadth of things we need to make a Magic set? Is there enough variety in creature sizes? Is there enough material to make cool, compelling cards? The result involves us figuring out two key things: how many unique Magic cards could we make, and what type of product could we make with them?

Our work looking into Marvel brought us to three big conclusions. One, the Marvel Universe, as a property, is ideal for Magic cards. The characters mostly have special powers that allow them to stand out from one another, and they wear colorful outfits, specifically designed to have a strong appeal in the visual medium of comics. Also, the Marvel Universe, much like Magic's Multiverse, is one filled with magic. Not everyone wields magic, but its role in the Multiverse is fundamental. It is a force characters have to interact with on a regular basis.

Two: there's endless material. Marvel has been creating a giant shared world for over 60 years (and many more years than that if you count its precursors), one with tens of thousands of comic books and works in countless other mediums. It has thousands of characters and storylines to work with, along with voluminous amounts of cool objects, places, and moments.

Three: there's such a breadth of material that we could find answers for just about anything we would need from a game-design perspective. For example, one of the ongoing challenges with many Universes Beyond properties is having enough things that fly. Marvel had literally the opposite problem. So many characters can fly that we often asked ourselves, "Does this creature need to have flying?"

We were so optimistic about the idea of doing Marvel sets that we even made the idea the subject of one of our hackathon teams. Hackathons are an event we do from time to time where we stop other designs for a week and work in teams on focused products. Modern Horizons and Jumpstart, for example, both came out of hackathons. The results of the hackathon for Marvel cemented the idea that Marvel would be an amazing partner for Magic.

This led us to make a multi-product deal with Marvel. We would be making a number of randomized booster sets and additional products like Secret Lair drops. The randomized booster sets would focus on Marvel's comic books. The reason this matters is that sometimes characters outside the comics are different than their comic book counterparts. For these sets, we are matching the comics.

As is always the case with Universes Beyond, we always talk with our partners, as they are the experts on their property. With their input, we decided the best first set would be focused on Spider-Man. The character is both well-known and has a universal appeal among all age groups. It would be a great introduction to Marvel. Because we were making multiple products, we were willing to explore different sizes. I bring this up because this Spider-Man-themed set started as a small set. And by a small set, I mean 100 cards. The set didn't even have commons.

That set size and structure had a number of impacts. The biggest is that a 100-card set is not enough to support a Limited format. The smallest set we ever did that could be drafted by itself was Coldsnap. That set had 155 cards and was pushing the boundary of a draftable set size. The lack of commons would also make enjoyable Limited gameplay near impossible. The idea initially was that the set would be legal in all formats and focused on Commander.

Building Magic: The Gathering | Marvel's Spider-Man

This might answer why I, a giant Marvel fan, didn't lead this set's design. (After all, I did call dibs.) The second set was going to be a large set, so I was assigned the vision design of that set. (And when we get to its preview column, I promise I'll have a lot to say about it.) So, Magic: The Gathering | Marvel's Spider-Man started as a small set without plans for a Limited environment. This is also why, for example, the set doesn't have Commander decks. But something happened as the design team started working on it: they realized the set needed to be bigger.

Spider-Man has an extensive supporting cast. He has one of the deepest rogues' galleries in comics. He has numerous allies, love interests, family members, and friends. And that's just in his home dimension. Start adding in all the various Spider-People from across the Spider-Man multiverse, and there were a lot of potential inclusions for the set. If we were going to make a set capture Spider-Man and friends, why not make the set big enough to fit them all in?

But before I dive into that story, I need to back up and walk through a different story. Prior to any of the design teams starting for the Marvel sets, we had a series of meetings where we asked the question, what exactly does it mean to be a Marvel set? You see, the Marvel sets would be the first time with Universes Beyond where we would be making multiple sets with the same property. We needed to explore what that meant. Would there be a through line? Would mechanics overlap? What exactly does making a suite of Universes Beyond sets mean?

In that meeting, we came to several conclusions. First, we decided that each set should stand on its own, meaning each set had its own mechanical identity. Mechanics were allowed to overlap between Marvel sets, but that should come about because sets wanted to use the same mechanic. It was not a requirement. We decided, though, that there were a handful of things we wanted to show up in multiple Marvel sets.

Sagas representing classic comic storylines

Sagas were designed to capture the idea of a story. Comics famously use sequential stories. In fact, it's hard to talk about a character like Spider-Man without recounting famous storylines he was involved in. Magic: The Gathering | Marvel's Spider-Man set has a cycle of Sagas. Here's one I showed off this year at the Magic panel at San Diego Comic-Con:

In the Marvel hackathon, we came up with a cool idea about how we could do Sagas in a way that leaned into the medium of comics. We are using that treatment as part of our Booster Fun treatments for the Marvel sets. Click below to see it.

As you can see, we turned the cards into comic pages with each chapter being its own panel. This special Saga treatment will be available to any Marvel set that wants to use it.

Double-faced cards representing dual states

When we first created double-faced cards (DFCs) in the original Innistrad block, we did so to capture the idea of dark transformation, but DFCs have proven very good at capturing any creative element that has duality to it. It turns out, duality is something comics do quite a bit. The most classic example of this is the idea of the secret identity. When Spider-Man isn't stopping crime, he lives his life as Peter Parker. Wouldn't it be cool to have a card that represents both Peter Parker and Spider-Man? Here is another card we revealed at San Diego Comic-Con:

The double-faced cards in Magic: The Gathering | Marvel's Spider-Man do something we've never done before on double-faced cards. Normally, a DFC is a transforming card (you cast side A, and it can turn into side B) or a modal card (you can cast side A or side B, but it stays as that version). The new DFCs are both transforming and modal. You can play Peter Parker and then later transform him into Amazing Spider-Man, or you can just cast Amazing Spider-Man. Note that you can't transform Amazing Spider-Man into Peter Parker.

We realized that making cards for the Marvel Universe allows for several cool DFC designs, so all Marvel sets will have access to them if they want them.

Infinity Stones

Players love to collect Magic cards, so we asked ourselves if there was anything collectible from the Marvel Universe? It turns out there is: the Infinity Stones. One of these, The Soul Stone, shows up in this set. Here is The Soul Stone:

Now we can return to our in-progress story. Corey and his design team realized there was a lot of source material they wanted to capture. In addition, the set wanted all the things I just talked about (Sagas, double-faced cards, and one of the Infinity Stones). With a 100-card set, that was too cramped. The solution was to make the set bigger. The guiding philosophy was to let the set become the best version of itself. In the end, that would mean raising the set size from 100 cards to 188 cards. Once the set was a 188-card set, it raised the next big question. It now was big enough for a Limited format. What type of Limited format did the set want?

Time for another flashback. Chris Mooney was a finalist in The Great Designer Search 3. When a new hire is brought into R&D, we always start by putting them on design teams. This allows them to learn how those teams function and slowly build up their skills, with the eventual goal of having them lead their own teams. Part of this transition involves letting new designers lead smaller teams, at first, to build up their confidence and demonstrate their skills.

A common early team lead will be a mini team, a design team usually put together to solve a specific design prompt. For example, maybe a mechanic isn't working out and we want a team to explore replacement options. In Chris's case, the team they oversaw was given the assignment of finding ways to improve draft. Erik Lauer, the former head developer for Magic, served as Chris's strong second.

The team explored all sorts of different ideas—different types of mana fixing (Cryptic Spires came from this), different pack structures, and different ways to adapt Booster Draft. One of the exercises was to list all the various weaknesses of Booster Draft. Two of the biggest were that it takes eight people (often times at a store; it's hard to get eight players to draft) and takes a while to draft (time commitment is a huge factor in what people play in stores). Was there a way to address those two issues?

This was the origin of a new type of draft, what we call Pick-Two Draft. It's essentially Booster Draft as you know it, with two changes. First, it uses four players rather than eight. Second, instead of drafting one card at a time, players draft two cards. We had previously made a product called Double Masters that had players draft two cards at a time. We liked how that played, so it was something Chris's team was thinking about. Pick-Two Draft played well, so when Chris handed in their write-up, it was at the top of their list of ways to improve drafting.

Now, we return to the design of this set. The set was a little different than a normal set, and the design team was interested in perhaps trying something new. Corey brought Erik Lauer onto the team to advise, and the discussion got to Pick-Two Draft. Spider-Man was chosen as a theme because it did a great job of being an introductory product. Eight-person draft itself is a barrier to entry for many players. So, what if this became the first product designed specifically for Pick-Two Draft?

What exactly would that entail? For starters, an eight-person draft is normally built with ten (usually two-color) draft archetypes. Because this set was a bit smaller than our usual sets, was there a way to include half as many draft archetypes since there would be half as many drafters? The design team chose to focus on the ally-color pairs to build draft archetypes around. You can read Corey's article for more details on those archetypes.

The design team then asked if there were any other fundamental changes they could make. A big one they explored was having all the cards be passed in the same direction. Left, left, left would be simpler than left, right, left. All the pick-two drafts were left, left, left for a while, but playtesting showed that the minimal gain of better messaging wasn't worth the extra confusion created by having Pick-Two Draft be different than Booster Draft in three ways. The fewer differences, the better. It made it easier for players to jump between eight- and four-person drafts.

Adapting the set to Pick-Two Draft required a couple things. First, blending between draft archetypes was important. We wanted to make sure that a player going into one color early had viable options regardless of what cards they drafted. Second, players tend to get into their archetype faster in Pick-Two Draft, so it was key to have a lot of cards that players could fight over because they were usable in different archetypes. This led the design team to be more aggressive with their use of hybrid mana as those spells were usable in four out of the five archetypes.

For the longest time we called the format "Four-Person Draft," as that seemed the most important change. When we tested it out at a MagicCon, we called it "Lightning Draft" to highlight the speed of the format. In the end, we chose to go with the name Pick-Two Draft because we realized it was the change to normal drafting that was most important for players to know. Yes, it being a four-player draft format was important, but most players realized that. The thing we found that most playtesters forgot during the draft was that they got to pick two cards. By using Pick-Two Draft as the name, we felt we had the best chance of cementing that core difference into player's heads.

The one other big change that happened to the set was that during its design, R&D revisited format legality for Universes Beyond sets. Universes Beyond sets are a great on-ramp to Magic, yet their legal Constructed formats were difficult for new-player entry. This led to the big change of making Universes Beyond sets legal in all formats, which this set adapted. This allowed it to have some cards aimed at Standard and some at Commander.

Corey's and Eric's articles will walk through the nitty-gritty of the set's design. My one last story is about my role on the set. When we do Universes Beyond sets, we have what are called SMEs (pronounced "smee"), which stands for subject matter expert. As I explained above, I am a huge Marvel fan and was a perfect fit to be a Marvel SME. That meant that I regularly went through the set (and later other Marvel sets) leaving notes about how the mechanics or flavor elements were a mismatch for the comics. I also regularly chatted with Corey and answered whatever questions he had. I did convince him to include a character that wasn't in the set.

What character? Well, it turns out it's my preview card for today. Ezekiel Sims was a character created by writer J. Michael Straczynski and artist John Romita Jr. back in 2001. He was a mysterious figure that showed up in Peter Parker's life, explaining to him that he was part of a web of Spider-Totems that connected together a series of characters with Spider-like abilities.

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A Super-Powered Magic Set

And that is my tale of how we began work on the Marvel sets and Magic: The Gathering | Marvel's Spider-Man in particular. Again, please read Corey's and Eric's articles to get the skinny on the mechanics, cycles, and individual card designs of the set. I'm always eager to hear feedback, but I'm extra excited to hear feedback about a Marvel set. You can email me or contact me through my social media accounts (Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Bluesky, and TikTok).

Join me next week for another installment of Making Magic.

Until then, may playing Magic: The Gathering | Marvel's Spider-Man bring you as much joy as it brings me.