Following on from the Star Trek spoilers we saw yesterday, New York Comic Con has delivered another fantastic treat for Magic players. As revealed in the MTG panel earlier tonight, the Marvel set for 2027 will be called Darkhold Destiny, and we got our first look at its new cards today. With a fresh take on one of the game’s most broken cards, some sweet new mechanics, and some golden oldies making a comeback, this set is shaping up to be stellar when it drops on April 9th next year.
Hela, Mistress of Darkness MTG
Hela, Mistress of Darkness introduces an all-new MTG mechanic: Vengeance. Like a twisted take on Adventure, these are spells on creatures that can only be cast when said creatures are dead and in your graveyard. In this case, you can cast a new Sorcery called Dark Tutor, which is a strictly-better Grim Tutor that also lets you Entomb the chosen card if you so wish.
Ignoring Hela herself for now, this is a pretty solid new effect for multiple formats. In Standard, it’s a nice addition to Darklight Phoenix decks, as a way to dump Phoenix into the graveyard, or grab some sacrifice fodder to reanimate copies already there. With self-mill like Dark Matter Manipulator
Dark Matter ManipulatorWhen this creature enters, mill three cards.
This creature gets +2/+0 for every seven cards in your graveyard. and Overlord of the Balemurk
Overlord of the BalemurkImpending 5—{1}{B} (If you cast this spell for its impending cost, it enters with five time counters and isn't a creature until the last is removed. At the beginning of your end step, remove a time counter from it.)
Whenever this permanent enters or attacks, mill four cards, then you may return a non-Avatar creature card or a planeswalker card from your graveyard to your hand. in the mix, it shouldn’t be hard to put this right into your ‘yard to access it right away, either.
Dark Tutor is also an easy include in Commander, where Grim Tutor sees play in over 197,000 decks as-is. This version has lots of extra utility, letting you set up cards like Anger, or dump big creatures into your ‘yard to reanimate them in decks like Slimefoot and Squee. Heck, it can even set up infamous combos with cards like Worldgorger Dragon. You do need to build around it to an extent, with discard outlets or self-mill, but this new tutor feels strong enough to warrant it.
Unfortunately, Hela herself isn’t nearly as interesting as her accompanying spell. While that ability can be very strong alongside cards that let you pay life in bulk, such as Necrodominance, six mana still feels like too much for something with no immediate impact on its own. For this reason, I expect the card to see play mainly in Commander decks that can bypass casting Hela, such as those running Birthing Pod or Sneak Attack
Sneak Attack{R}: You may put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. That creature gains haste. Sacrifice the creature at the beginning of the next end step..
The Darkhold MTG
Like its Middle-earth cousin, The One Ring, The Darkhold is a legendary artifact that taps to draw cards, scaling its draw as it accumulates counters, and dealing you damage in the bargain. The major difference here is that the damage is based on the cards you have in hand post-draw, which means in most cases it’ll be far worse than the damage from The One Ring. At minimum, you’ll be taking damage equal to the cards drawn, but if you had any other cards before that, this could be a serious beating.
For this reason, The Darkhold feels much more specialized than The One Ring, likely best suited to aggressive decks that can reliably empty their hands. In Standard, it could potentially be a good fit in Orzhov Lifegain decks, for example, which have a fairly low curve and can balance out the life loss this brings. Further back, decks like Dimir Aggro in Pioneer could also find slots for it, and maybe even certain Affinity builds in older formats.
As strong as it could be in constructed, The Darkhold looks far more interesting in Commander. With higher life totals, plenty of decks should be able to afford the life loss here. The second ability, which is literally just a slightly pricier Repay in Kind, is great for Commander as well. When paired with life payment outlets and cards like Platinum Angel, this becomes a legitimate win condition, which is insane upside on an already solid draw engine.
The Darkhold looks particularly nice for cEDH, where abundant fast mana and cheap interaction make emptying your hand trivial. Thanks to its low cost, it can easily come down on turn one thanks to Dark Ritual, too, which is a major upside for a lot of lists. Overall, this new MacGuffin looks like one of the more exciting Commander cards we’ve seen in some time, and I’ll be very surprised if it isn’t a staple somewhere or other when it drops next April.
Magik, Illyana Rasputin//Darkchild, Demon Uncaged MTG
Like both of the MTG Marvel sets before it, Darkhold Destiny appears to feature some transforming MDFC creatures, with Magik, Illyana Rasputin leading the charge in today’s first look. Magik herself is a fairly simple 3/3 for three that impulse draws you a card each upkeep, making it a much worse Phyrexian Arena in many ways. Given how far Arena has fallen from grace in Commander in recent years, this isn’t an amazing start for this card.
Fortunately the back side here, which can be cast for five mana, is considerably more exciting. Instead of impulse drawing one card you get to do so until you hit a nonland card, which at least guarantees you some action. Since you can make land drops this way as well, it’ll often draw you at least two usable cards, which feels pretty solid, especially when you factor in the free protection effect. There’s even some combo potential here, as you can exile all the nonland cards in your deck with Selective Memory, then let Darkchild exile your whole library.
In an interesting new twist on the transforming MDFC formula, you can’t simply flip Magik over by paying five mana, but need to fulfill a condition instead. Sacrificing two permanents in a turn is very doable, especially in higher bracket decks running plenty of Fetchlands and cards like Lotus Petal
Lotus Petal{T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color., but for a lot of decks this just won’t be possible. While this could allow Magik to see play in Standard Jund Sacrifice decks, in Commander, it will probably see play as a five-mana creature, or won’t see play at all.
Hela’s Arcanum MTG
As teased with Hex Magic in Marvel Super Heroes, the Arcane subtype is back in a big way with Darkhold Destiny. Hela’s Arcanum pairs it with another returning mechanic, Bloomburrow’s pawprint cards, to great effect, creating a highly flexible instant with strong Commander potential indeed.
For the most part, I expect players will run Hela’s Arcanum for that third ability, which is a pretty excellent instant-speed board wipe. Since it spares Zombies, it’ll naturally be fantastic in Zombie Typal lists like Grimgrin, Corpse-Born, but any deck can use it alongside the middle ability to at least preserve one of their creatures. Given how low Commander mana curves have gotten recently, this feels like a potent option at instant speed.
Of course, the beauty of the pawprint cards was their flexibility, and Hela’s Arcanum offers that too with its first ability. This can be a mini-Overrun
OverrunCreatures you control get +3/+3 and gain trample until end of turn. (Each of those creatures can deal excess combat damage to the player or planeswalker it's attacking.) on your alpha strike turn, or a brutal combat trick on defense. Though you’ll almost always get the best value from the other abilities, being able to slot this in where needed is excellent and makes the card a great all-around package for Commander.
Low-Rarity Goodies
In addition to the rare and mythic big hitters, today’s stream also revealed some low-key, low-rarity role players. Penance Stare is the most exciting card in this bunch, giving white a hard one-mana removal spell under the right conditions. While it has to compete with the more consistent Erode from Secrets of Strixhaven, I could still see this seeing play in Standard and Pioneer, in tempo-driven decks that really don’t want to give away lands.
Another uncommon we saw today was Rise from the Nether, which, sadly, is mainly interesting because it’s an Arcane spell. While it counts more card types than cards like this normally do, it only creates vanilla 3/1s, which is deeply underwhelming. Without Haste, these tokens will likely die to a board wipe before they can do much, which makes this a seven-mana do-nothing in many scenarios. Though some budget Spellslinger decks will undoubtedly enjoy it, without serious Arcane support this feels incredibly weak.
Speaking of unconfirmed support, Temple of Khonshu is the very definition of the phrase. This is a new Orzhov dual land that enters untapped if you control a Dimension, which is presumably a new card subtype we haven’t seen yet. We have literally nothing to go on with regard to what this type will look like, but based on the name, my guess is it’s a modern take on World Enchantments. Since Temple of Khonshu is a common land, I expect Dimensions will matter more in Limited than in constructed, but time will tell.
Gargantos, the Endbringer MTG
While most of the spoilers in today’s first look came from the MTG Marvel: Darkhold Destiny main set, we did get one Commander card in Gargantos, the Endbringer. Given its borderless artwork, this is almost certainly either a face Commander for a precon or a card from a Scene Box. Either way, it delivers on this new set’s cosmic-horror promise incredibly well.
This is largely down to Gargantos’s last ability, which is essentially a built-in Super State or Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar. This avoids the common issue with running big beaters like this in Commander: the need to slowly bash each opponent down one by one. Since it naturally doubles its own counters each turn, Gargantos is a surprisingly strong candidate for a Voltron Commander, which we don’t see every day in Golgari colors.
Naturally counter synergy cards like Doubling Season
Doubling SeasonIf an effect would create one or more tokens under your control, it creates twice that many of those tokens instead.
If an effect would put one or more counters on a permanent you control, it puts twice that many of those counters on that permanent instead., and Equipment like Genji Glove
Genji GloveEquipped creature has double strike.
Whenever equipped creature attacks, if it's the first combat phase of the turn, untap it. After this phase, there is an additional combat phase.
Equip {3}, will make Gargantos incredibly deadly. If you’re feeling really evil, you can even end the game in a single swing by granting it infect with something like Tainted Strike or Grafted Exoskeleton. Of all the new cards revealed today, Gargantos looks like the best fit for the command zone, and could make a really interesting build-around come April.
A Tease for the Time Stone?
That’s all the new cards from today’s first look stream, but we also got a sneaky little extra treat in the artwork Wizards chose to reveal. Among a few other (excellent) pieces, we got the above art from Volkan Baga, which very much appears to be the set’s Infinity Stone. Baga illustrated both The Soul Stone
The Soul StoneIndestructible
{T}: Add {B}.
{6}{B}, {T}, Exile a creature you control: Harness The Soul Stone. (Once harnessed, its ∞ ability is active.)
∞ — At the beginning of your upkeep, return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. in Spider-Man and The Mind Stone in Marvel Super Heroes, and this art is clearly from the next piece in that line.
While this confirms we’ll get another Stone in Darkhold Destiny, exactly which one remains a mystery. Right now, most signs point to the Time Stone. For one, the Stone in the art is green, which matches the Time Stone in the MCU and the color scheme Wizards has followed for the Infinity Stones so far. The Time Stone also has a strong affinity with Doctor Strange, who will likely play a significant role in this set given its themes of magic and mysticism.
Though the rest of the artwork doesn’t exactly scream ‘Time Stone,’ this seems like the best bet given what we know so far. In any case, we have no information on what the card actually does, but we can expect another Indestructible two-mana rock with an expensive activated ability given the other cards in the cycle. It’s great to get a glimpse of the next card in this powerful cycle, which will likely be a chase card from the set when Darkhold Destiny drops on April 9th next year.
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