Wizards of the Coast has just announced Magic: The Gathering Darkhold Destiny, its latest Marvel set at a New York Comic Con panel. This is the third Marvel collaboration for the card game, but where the first two aimed to present superheroes as they already exist in the Marvel canon, Wizards of the Coast was able to concoct its own storyline for Darkhold Destiny.
The whole thing revolves around Doctor Strange, Thor and Ghost Rider all trying to fight against Hela and Dormammu invading the multiverse. It’s a theme much better suited to Magic: The Gathering, and the first cards introduced new mechanics like Vengeance, which resembles the Adventure mechanic introduced in Throne of Eldraine, but wrong.
Even though there was a lot of information in this panel, the expansion doesn’t release until April 8 of next year, so there are still a lot of details that WotC is keeping close to its chest. And keep in mind that there are still two more Universes Beyond sets coming next year that we don’t know anything about.
Magic The Gathing x Marvel @ NYCC Live Blog
All times are EST
8:35 p.m.: And that’s the show. Darkhold Destiny looks like a cool set, but there’s still a lot Wizards hasn’t revealed. But it’s a good start!
8:33 p.m.: WotC has announced a special promotion for Doctor Doom, King of Latveria for Avengers Doomsday. you’ll be able to pick it up if you go see the film at a Regal Cinemas on opening weekend “while supplies last.” This is the face of the Dr. Doom commander deck, and it’s done in the style of the MCU, so I expect it to go quickly.
8:31 p.m.: One more thing. There will be three Dr. Doom-inspired Secret Lair drops, just in time for the new Avengers movie. They’re not revealing what cards are in the drop yet, but there is Dr. Doom art, and they told the crowd “you’ll have to guess which reprint that is.” I guess we’ll wait.
8:26 p.m.: There’s new Secret Lair, a countdown kit, a giant box of 30 cards. This thing is about to cost a plot money. Most people will get it in non-foil, but there will be a random chance that you get it in traditional foil, and an even rarer chance of getting it in surge foil. I guess the Secret Lair boosters didn’t work, but we can at least bet on whether they are good or not. The Secret Lair launches on November 2.
8:22 p.m.: There will be two lots, a regular lot and an “Arcanum” lot. Both will have their own mechanically unique promotional card. Hopefully this card doesn’t get too expensive! There are also two stage boxes, also filled with mechanically unique cards.
8:19 p.m.: For the suite of products, we have Booster Packs, Collector Boosters, Prerelease Pack and Draft Night (which also contains a Collector Booster). There will also be four commander decks, Strange Academy (WUB), Gods of Asgard (RGW), Midnight Sons (WB), and Lords of Hel (BR). There will also be collector’s editions for each deck which will be fully adorned with surge foils.
8:16 p.m.: The base lands are inspired by the lands from Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, with flavor text that tells the story. Unlike this D&D set, each basic terrain type has two variations, one before Hela and Dormammu’s invasion and one after. They look awesome.
8:13 p.m.: One more map, Khonshu Temple. It’s a common black/white land and goes in tapped unless you control a dimension. Dimension is sort of a new card type, and Wizards isn’t revealing it yet. I hope they are better than Battles.
8:10 p.m.: They brought back Arcane, which was a card subtype that hadn’t really existed since Kamigawa block in the 2000s. We have a black modal spell and a red “Rise From the Nether” that creates 3/1 creature tokens. Bring Splice back to Arcane.
8:08 p.m.: Hela’s card looks awesome, it introduces a new keyword, Vengeance, which is essentially just an adventure you run while the card is in the graveyard. So if Hela is your commander, you can send her to the graveyard when she dies, then put her in the command zone when you cast a spell from the graveyard, and do a little loop.
8:05 p.m.: They presented Magik as a double-sided card. WotC didn’t add all of the X-Men, but Magik fits the vibe of the set and she looks awesome. She can transform into Darkchild, and you can pay 4 life points to give her indestructible. She will therefore be quite difficult to kill.
8:03 p.m.: But even with all the art, there must be maps. The centerpiece is The Darkhold, a legendary artifact for three mana, and you can tap it, place sin counters on it, and draw a card for each sin counter. It’s like an evil version of The One Ring.
8:01 p.m.: The set will be themed around three different types of magic. Arcane for Doctor Strange & Co, Divine for gods like Thor, and Dark Magic for villains like Hela and Dormammu. But some heroes might use dark magic.
7:57 p.m.: Once they got the green light, WotC apparently had to invent a lot of stuff. The first two sets were all about superheroes, but with Darkhold Destiny the company was much more interested in focusing on villains. So we have Hela as Thor’s foil, and the Dread Dormammu as Doctor Strange’s foil. Hela x Dormammu is a pretty cool team, I’m not going to lie.
7:53 p.m.: The main heroes of the set are Doctor Strange and Thor, who fit the theme of the set perfectly. And it’s not Thor as Avenger, it’s Thor as god. It seems like the story really took shape after the Magic designers presented their idea of a darker Marvel world.
7:52 p.m.: There will be new crossover comics, which will be released through Infinity Comics. The first issue will be released in February, with another closer to the April release. This should introduce people to the world that Marvel and WotC have built together.
7:50 p.m.: Now they’re displaying some of the art, and it looks like something from Innistrad. Ok, maybe not exactly Innistrad, but very similar vibes.
7:49 p.m.: Marvel and Wizards have been working together on this set for years. Marvel Super Heroes and Spider-Man focused solely on getting everyone’s favorite characters in the game, but Darkhold Destiny focuses more on world-building. The world was the focus, then WotC added characters that would fit later.
7:47 p.m.: Darkhold Destiny releases on April 8 and will be the second set next year, after Nauctis. Moon Knight, Ghost Rider, Blade will all be here, as well as traditional MTG creature types like elves, dragons, angels, and vampires.
7:43 p.m.: They start by playing the Wizards teaser released earlier today. They created a whole new Marvel story unique to Magic: the Gathering. As soon as the teaser ended, the room exploded with joy.
7:40 p.m.: Mark Rosewater & Co took the stage and Rosewater is wearing a blue Marvel shirt. And they also dragged a replica of the Darkhold on stage. Here we go!
7:27 p.m.: Now with Darkhold Destiny, this makes up the third Marvel set. The first two each had one of the Infinity Stones, so it’s extremely likely that the third is in this one. I wonder which one it will be!
7:17 p.m.: I got to the sign and it looked like they opened the doors early! The room is absolutely packed and people seem excited to see more Darkhold Destiny. We have about 30 minutes left before the show starts.
6:15 p.m.: I’m about to head over to the panel, but it looks like Wizards of the Coast has already announced the new set on YouTube. It’s Darkhold Destiny, and it feels like a completely original Marvel release. None of the cards or mechanics have been announced, but it fits the world of Magic much better than Spider-Man or Marvel Superheroes.
Jackie Thomas is the senior technical editor at IGN and the queen of PC components. She’s been covering gaming hardware for over a decade for IGN, TechRadar, Gizmodo, PC Gamer and more. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
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