The Soul Stone MTG card was revealed last week. That, alongside hints that the rest of Thanos' Infinity stones would be appearing in Magic: The Gathering in the future, and head designer Mark Rosewater's declaration that Spider-man was "the beginning, but far, far from the end," of Wizards of the Coast's Marvel partnership, leaves one obvious conclusion…
…There could be as many as six Marvel MTG sets on the way before we are done with this particular Universe Beyond - one for each rock.
Now, I like Marvel as much as the next man (i.e. I think it basically lost the plot after Avengers: End Game) but six sets is a LOT. Too many, some might say. At the current rapid pace of the MTG release schedule, that's an entire year's worth of Marvel sets - although how they'd be spread out is anyone's guess.
I really hope this speculation is wrong. Because the mere idea of a half dozen releases in this comic book universe makes me feel exhausted. Mix Marvel burnout with product fatigue, and you've got a recipe for a seriously tired Matt.
I've more or less made my peace with Universes Beyond being a big part of Magic until it stops making bucketfuls of money or rising sea levels swallow the land, whichever comes first. And while I think Marvel is not a good fit for Magic - its contemporary setting unable to blend in with the fantasy universe the way Final Fantasy or Lord of the Rings did - I'm more or less fine with anything getting one set.
I know the pattern by now. Some of them I will love. Others I will hate, but either way there'll be another release along in a week or two to take my mind off it.
But I'm extremely unkeen on one property getting such a massive slice of the Magic: The Gathering pie. How many MTG planes have we visited six times? I'm pretty sure the answer is five. Dominaria has obviously had a squillion different sets, Ravnica has had 10, and both Innistrad and some variant of Mirrodin have been visited seven times each. Then Zendikar has had exactly six sets.
I don't want a non-Magic: The Gathering property to be as big a part of Magic as Zendikar. When people ask 'What's Magic: The Gathering all about?' I don't want 'Marvel tie-ins' to be a more accurate answer than Tarkir, Lorwyn, Kamigawa, or Theros.
The only gleaming silver lining, the thing filling me with hope, is that I can't think of six Marvel set ideas that would be as strong as MTG Spider-Man. You've got Avengers and X-men, then what? Could the Guardians of the Galaxy sustain a set all by themselves? Could the Fantastic Four?
Perhaps you could wangle another one out somewhere, but my hope is that there'll be a couple of sets with one stone each, then an Avengers-themed set, where Thanos appears, that gets in two or three. Or perhaps I'm worrying about nothing and every set will have two. Maybe The Mind Stone gets revealed this evening, and I've totally jumped the gun.
However many Marvel cards they make, at least we'll have alternate names and proxies for every single one of them, thanks to the comic book creator's insistence they not appear on MTG Arena.
My curiosity levels are dialled up to 11 to see exactly how Magic handles that particular problem. Who are all these Spider Human Heroes going to be? Some race of virtuous, hitherto-unseen spider lycanthrope from Innistrad? Spider-riding cowboys from Thunder Junction? I can't wait to find out!
How many Marvel sets would you like to see in Magic? Let us know on the Wargamer Discord. And don't miss our list of the best MTG commanders and Commander precon decks.