It’s not even June, and the upcoming Universes Beyond: Final Fantasy set is already the best-selling Magic: The Gathering set in history. Judging from the reactions to the cards, it seems like it’s going to be a home run. The flavor is out of this world and the design spaces feel incredibly unique - what do you mean red has landfall strategies now with Zell Dincht? What do you mean Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER gives you an emblem that slowly drains your opponents? And just what exactly does Vivi Ornitier do?
These distinctive cards and countless more fill this set to the brim, and to be quite frank, set the bar for Universes Beyond quite high. Sure, The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth was a slam dunk as well, but not every Universes Beyond set has been so lucky, and the pressure will certainly be on for upcoming releases, lest Wizards of the Coast make the same mistakes that led to Universes Beyond: Assassin's Creed, which didn’t receive the best reception.
One thing’s for certain, and that’s that these Universes Beyond sets can send huge ripples throughout the secondary market with each card revealed. It’s happening right now with Final Fantasy, and each day we see a Moonmist or Sigil of Sleep more than doubling in price seemingly overnight. These price changes are largely due to speculation, seeing as the set isn't out yet, and rightful anticipation of the legions of new players that will join the game (at first) purely out of recognition of their favorite franchise. Once Final Fantasy releases and the dust settles, we’ll have a better idea of where these cards end up financially, but until then all the chaos that preview season brings has been sure to help out extra savvy sellers who bought into the right cards.
So using the power of pure speculation and wishful thinking, how can we get ahead of the upcoming Marvel and Avatar Universes Beyond sets? What do we think are some possible contenders for cards to snag or fill out trades leading up to these sets, while everyone has Final Fantasy fever? Some of these picks might seem outlandish, but I’ve outlined some of my Hail Mary choices below.
For Marvel’s Spider-Man
This is the set we can make the most educated guesses for at this moment, as we’ve already seen six cards previewed, but the one that makes the most sense to me to theorize on would have to be the man himself, Sensational Spider-Man (Borderless). This card aims to capitalize on distributing and removing stun counters, a relatively newer mechanic that we haven’t seen too much of in the command zone.
Stun counters started being widely printed in 2022 with Dominaria United, and have been receiving trickles of support since then, but the first card that comes to mind to really capitalize on Spider-Man’s ability has to be Sleep-Cursed Faerie. It only costs one mana, so you can easily cast it the turn after Spider-Man hits the field and remove all its counters to draw three cards. Mind you that’s pretty much all it does except be a 3/3 flying body, but that’s not too bad if you need to guarantee a bunch of card draw early on and get a blocker out. For $0.30 though, it may be worth stocking up on some to see if any further stun counter synergies get printed or if people buy into the hype of Spider-Man.
The Watcher in the Water from the Lord of the Rings set is also worth noting, as it will give you a bountiful reservoir of stun counters to play around with, only at the cost of five mana. Speeding up the impending doom of an inevitable 9/9 is no joke, and if put in the proper deck, the card’s other abilities can keep the stun counter engine for Spider-Man going, giving you exceptional card draw. Base versions of this card are around $2, and we’ve already seen movement on some of the other variants lately (the borderless poster variant is up $50 since the beginning of the year, and regular borderless versions are slowly trending up as well). So before this also becomes less obtainable it might be worth it to get a copy.
| Sleep-Cursed Faerie | | |
| Sleep-Cursed Faerie (Extended Art) | | |
| The Watcher in the Water | | |
| The Watcher in the Water (Borderless Poster) | | |
| The Watcher in the Water (Showcase Scrolls) | | |
For Marvel’s Other Sets
Beyond Spider-Man, we know Wizards is planning on exploring other Marvel properties as full, Standard-legal sets. The question is, which groups of superheroes have enough content and enough fandom to sustain a full set release? There's likely going to be something set around the Avengers, which is itself a grab bag of many different archetypes, and as such is hard to speculate on. I do think there's room to explore some Guardians of the Galaxy themed cards, which could be extra relevant in the wake of Edge of Eternities - perhaps in this case there’s room for certain Alien-centric cards to grow, such as Adipose Offspring or Gallifrey Council Chamber, the latter of which has already been seeing some buzz due to the upcoming space-themed set.
However there’s one other property under the Marvel umbrella that has enough juice to fill a full set, and that's X-Men. They have a sprawling entourage of potential legendary creatures in their recognizable heroes and villains, perfect for Commander, which we know Wizards likes to keep in mind, and put simply, they just have the content.
Think about it: Spider-Man is objectively the most popular superhero, so it makes sense to have a set around him, but beyond that does someone on the same level, like Iron Man or Captain America, really have enough going for them to sustain a set of 250+ unique Magic: the Gathering cards on their own? X-Men just makes sense, which is why I think there may be potential, some day, to capitalize on these new creatures by picking up relevant Mutant cards now.
Not only does the Mutant subtype make sense with X-Men thematically, but we even have Jenova, Ancient Calamity coming up in Final Fantasy, potentially hinting at more Mutant synergy popping up in future Standard-legal sets. For Commander though, there are some really interesting cards from the Universes Beyond: Fallout set that could work in this scenario. While many of them rely on rad counters, there are a handful that could serve to work well with a more general Mutant typal strategy.
First up is Jason Bright, Glowing Prophet, who might not seem too impressive at first, but definitely has the capability to give some decent card advantage with some anthem effects, especially combined with a sacrifice outlet. He’s only a quarter at the moment, and even more, surge foils are going for $1.50. All it takes is looking at other surge foils that shot up recently to see that just a little bit of printed synergy can get these cards moving, and once they do the sky’s the limit.
Then there’s Vault 87: Forced Evolution, which not only can turn relevant creatures into Mutants, but can draw you some cards in the process as well. It might seem like too much work to get there, but this is actually really solid for five mana and worth the effort. Plus, with cards like Storyweave, Satsuki, the Living Lore, and even Sigurd, Jarl of Ravensthorpe, this process can be sped up, making Sagas like this one more reliable. Vault 87 is also only a quarter for its base version, and just $3 for surge foils, and follows the same logic as Jason Bright. All this to say these are both solid pickups if indeed X-Men is in our future.
| Jason Bright, Glowing Prophet | | |
| Jason Bright, Glowing Prophet (Extended Art) | | |
| Vault 87: Forced Evolution | | |
For Avatar
And finally, we have the Avatar: The Last Airbender set coming out in November, which we know next to nothing about. I’ll admit, I’ve never watched Avatar before, so my knowledge on the series is limited. But being in tune with the character’s element seems key, and in this way I think cards revolving around the devotion mechanic might be worth checking out. It makes sense that the higher your devotion is to, say blue, would make your Katara character that much stronger, and as such perhaps we can expect new cards that artificially boost your devotion beyond simply the colored pips you have on your field.
If, and that’s obviously a big if, this is the case, then it would make sense that cards which rely on devotion would get stronger as well. The two I would look out for would have to be Nyx Lotus and Karametra's Acolyte. Nyx Lotus has been sitting at around $5 for some time now, but once it’s broken by a new card I can see it climbing much higher. As it stands it’s just an okay mana rock in my eyes - you do need to build a bit of a board before it can really go off. But if there were something that manipulated devotion into your favor, it could really help put out some huge bombs, making it a solid pickup at this price.
Then there’s Karametra’s Acolyte, which also turns devotion into mana, only this time exclusively in green. For less than $1 for foils from way back in the original Theros set, this is an easy pick to round out trades or help fill out your carts. And, to be honest, it’s just a pretty damn good green card in general. Barring a reprint, this has some potential if devotion ends up being relevant in the Avatar set.
| Nyx Lotus | | |
| Nyx Lotus (Extended Art) | | |
| Karametra's Acolyte | | |
| Karametra's Acolyte | | |
In Conclusion
As mentioned before, these are just my educated guesses, but somewhat educated guesses are better than complete shots in the dark. We won’t get more details about these sets for a little while, so until then it’s fun to imagine what the possibilities could be. Whether or not they turn out true, well… that’s the fun of speculating, isn’t it?
Further Reading:
When Everything Is Rare...
The Value of the Secret Lair Commander Deck Everyone's Invited
Checking in on Aetherdrift Prices
