“We’re Not Stopping At Two Infinity Stones:” Magic: The Gathering’s Head Designer Teases More Marvel Sets

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The collectible card game Magic: The Gathering has become increasingly popular, largely due to its ‘Universes Beyond’ sets. These sets feature characters and settings from other popular franchises, such as Avatar: The Last Airbender, Final Fantasy, and Marvel. This has been exciting for fans of both Magic: The Gathering and these other franchises, with last year’s set successfully bringing the world of Spider-Man into the game.

It’s also been a unique challenge for the team, one that has no signs of slowing down anytime soon. During an interview with egmr.ru during Summer Game Fest 2026, Magic: The Gathering Head Designer Mark Rosewater delved into the set — and teased that it’s far from the end of their collaboration with Marvel.

CB: Congratulations on the new set! It’s a fun expansion of the universe.

We’re calling this set ‘Avengers-plus’ because it heavily features characters like the Young Avengers and Fantastic Four, as well as some X-Men – specifically those with ties to the Avengers.

CB: Does that mean we’ll see more of the Marvel Universe in future sets?

MR: I can say that this is not the last Marvel set. We made a deal with Marvel to do multiple sets. There are more coming. If there are things you don’t see in the set, well, maybe we’re planning to do it later. We’re fans of it all, the X-Men, the whole Marvel universe. One of the things we love is just how big it is. Marvel was our first multi-set [collaboration]. I’ll just say, we’ve only made two Infinity Stones. We’re not stopping at two Infinity Stones.

Read on for the rest of our conversation with Mark Rosewater, where we talk about getting the power levels right for the Marvel set, what we’ve learned from working on Universes Beyond, and what makes collaborating with the superhero brand so special.

When incorporating all the diverse Marvel characters into Magic: The Gathering, the biggest hurdle is figuring out how each one fits into the game’s existing rules and mechanics.

I really love using the color pie as a guide for characters. I’ve been a proponent of it for quite a while. When designing heroes, it’s usually pretty clear which colors fit them. What’s unique about Marvel is its long history with these characters – there are so many different interpretations. Compared to other universes, we had a lot more flexibility with Marvel characters, because we could draw from so many different versions of them.

For the popular characters that we did multiple versions of, we purposely tried to do different color combinations to let more people have access to the card. That’s been super fun, and one of my favorite things about doing Universes Beyond is the challenge of figuring out what they all are. Our job is to find a way to make Magic cards out of them.

If I want to change something else in the game, I go to a creative team and ask, ‘Can we change this character?’ They go, “Yeah, sure.” But here, that’s Iron Man. I can’t change Iron Man! So, what is Iron Man? You figure that Tony Stark is blue and red, which makes a lot of sense. Maybe a little bit of white. Then you craft that out and build the character in ways that make sense.

This also provides a great opportunity to try out new ideas. For example, the character Wolverine gains a special healing ability each time he’s injured, which is a smart way to incorporate healing into the gameplay.

We’re really just defining the specifics here. The game already includes healing mechanics, so it’s not a new concept. We’re focusing on how this particular healing ability integrates into the gameplay and functions. The game does heal, but usually at the end of a turn. With Wolverine, we wanted his healing to happen at a different time, which aligns with his character – his healing factor is a core part of who he is. We felt this approach was a good way to capture that in the game.

One of the best parts of creating cards for Marvel is finding the sweet spot between staying true to the characters and making them work well as a Magic: The Gathering card. We don’t just want to represent them accurately—we want the process to be enjoyable. A big part of that is identifying what makes each character special and focusing on that, then building the rest of the card around it. It’s all about finding that perfect balance.

What did we learn from designing the previous Universes Beyond sets that helped us when creating the Marvel set?

Part of it is that Universes Beyond has been a runaway success. I believe that your greatest weakness can be your greatest strength pushed too far. One of the strengths of Magic is its depth. We’ve made 35,000 Magic cards. If you want to explore Magic, it’s a deep game — the flip side of that is that it is intimidating to learn. In game design circles, we call it “Barrier to Entry.” The gap between ‘I know nothing’ and ‘I know enough to play my first game’ is a decent gap.

We’ve been working on attracting new players to Magic: The Gathering, and Universes Beyond has been a fantastic tool for that. When people are excited about a specific theme or property featured in a set, they’re more likely to learn the game. This creates a natural pathway for them to become long-term players. We often see new players who started with a Universes Beyond set, like the Marvel sets, then become interested in exploring everything else Magic has to offer. Universes Beyond has proven to be a very effective way to introduce people to the game and keep them playing.

The interesting thing was how organically this particular set blended in with normal Magic. I thought, when I first started out with this set, that it would be a little different from a normal Magic set. It’s ended up being just a really cool magic set. It blended more than I thought it would blend. The draft archetypes are these cool takes on Magic draft archetypes, and they make sense. It was more seamless than I ever thought it would be.

What’s been your favorite archetype in this set?

I really enjoy playing Black/Red Villains – it’s my favorite deck in the draft format. There are some good strategies to counter it, though, like Green/White. We intentionally designed this set to feel classic, with ten different two-color draft archetypes. Most of these archetypes are familiar, while a few offer something a little different, and I think the result is really well-balanced.

This Marvel set is fantastic. We’ve really captured everything fans love about Marvel, and it’s also a strong Magic: The Gathering set on its own. Even if you’re not familiar with Marvel, you’ll find it’s a really fun Magic set to play. That’s what we were aiming for – creating amazing sets that celebrate our partners’ properties while also being incredibly enjoyable for Magic players.

Following select pre-release events, Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes will release on June 26, 2026.

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2026-06-10 00:40