Wizards of the Coasts’ monstrous trading card game IP Magic: The Gathering has recently announced a new Secret Lair collaboration with some of Marvel’s most iconic superheroes: featuring cards for Spider-Man, Iron Man, Wolverine, Storm, and more.
For those unaware of what a Secret Lair is, it’s basically a limited time available set of cards for special occasions and following a specific theme. Obviously here the theme is Marvel, and the cards consist of original cards for Marvel heroes, as well as reprints for format staples like Sol Ring.
This move is one many people have been anticipating for a while, though its implementation likely leaves a lot to be desired. These Secret Lair sets are not popular to begin with, and the few people they are popular with, Commander players, have recently been hit pretty hard with major changes from Wizards of the Coast. On the flipside, Marvel Comics have recently been recovering a bit of their power, after struggling for a long time to sell decently they recently had volume 1 of Ultimate Spider-Man hit the top 20 graphic novels sold for the month, reaching manga levels; probably the first time this has happened for a recent Marvel comic in a long, long time.
So for better or worse these are change heavy times for both companies, and their branching out into a card game or reaching for multi-million dollar properties is a proper next step to capitalize on the changing waves that both Marvel and Magic are going through.
Will this release change the perspective anyone has on either of these companies or properties? No, but for those few that are excited to take their Iron Man deck to fight their friend’s Ryu deck and recreate Marvel vs. Capcom in cardboard form this is likely an exciting prospect for them.