Marvel Super Heroes releases on June 26th. In addition to the main set, there are also four brand new Commander precons. Each of them features some of the most iconic characters from the Marvel Universe. In this article, I’m going to take a look at the Fantastic Four precon and discuss the best ways to upgrade it.

Fittingly for Marvel’s famous foursome, this is a four-color precon – the first one we’ve seen since Commander 2016. The deck is all about casting noncreature spells and getting powerful triggered abilities when you do.

FOUR COMMANDERS FOR THE PRICE OF TWO!

If you thought the deck being four colors was unique, there’s something else that’s really cool about this deck that we’ve never seen before: it has four brand-new cards that can each serve as the deck’s Commander. This is because every member of the Fantastic Four got a legendary creature card. That’s one of the best things about this deck – getting 4 really interesting and viable 4-color Commanders.

All four of them have an ability that triggers at the beginning of combat on your turn, provided that you have cast a noncreature spell. Mister Fantastic draws you a card, Invisible Woman makes a 0/3 Wall token, Human Torch gains a bunch of keywords, and The Thing gets four +1/+1 counters.

Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and The Thing also have attack triggers that allow you to spend mana of their four colors, and if you do get some kind of effect. The Invisible Woman makes a creature unblockable and buffs its power, the Human Torch makes it so that his combat damage to an opponent is dealt to all opponents, and The Thing doubles counters on all of your permanents.

Mister Fantastic works a little bit differently, as his four-color ability is an activated one. He can double a triggered ability twice. 

In the end, I think Mister Fantastic makes for the best Commander for this deck because – fittingly enough – he’s the most flexible. While each of the members of Marvel’s First Family are impressive and could do a good job as a Commander – they are geared towards more specific strategies. 

The Invisible Woman wants you to go wide with tokens, the Human Torch wants you to go a Voltron route, and The Thing wants you to have lots of counters. This makes each of them viable as the Commander for a lot of other decks, but this deck doesn’t have enough of a focus on any of those things to really get them going.

Meanwhile, Mr. Fantastic can just make two copies of his own triggered ability, or those of any of his teammates. The deck also features many other triggered abilities that are well worth copying.

NEW CARD HIGHLIGHTS

In addition to getting more potential Commanders than usual, this deck also has many more brand-new cards that we typically see in a Commander precon. Counting the Fantastic Four themselves, there are a whopping 30 cards in this deck that have never been seen before, and some of them are going to impact the Commander format as a whole.

Let’s start with a look at the children of Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman – Valeria and Franklin Richards. Valeria might just be the most important card in this deck, as she’s got the power to just be a staple in spellslinger decks. Cost reduction is always great and drawing cards is even better. She gets especially good if you can also cast spells during each of your opponents’ turns.

Franklin isn’t quite as impressive as his sister, but Discover 6 is a great payoff for casting a noncreature spell. Free spells are always powerful.

The deck also has a couple of excellent white spells. Ultimate Nullification is a very powerful sweeper since it exiles all creatures and all graveyards. The set up of sacrificing a legendary creature isn’t automatic, but this deck has enough legendaries in it for you to pull that off.

Invisible Force Field’s ability to make multiple permanents indestructible until the end of turn is going to work incredibly well against sweepers. When it rebounds, it’s sometimes more difficult to get something good out of it, but a free spell is going to set up your spellslinger payoffs quite nicely.

Nova Flame gives the deck a second powerful board sweeper. It does take the right creature and lots of mana, but sweepers that can allow you to make your best creature survive perform incredibly well, and that’s what Nova Flame is going to be.

You couldn’t have a Fantastic Four deck without Galactus, and he gives us a huge non-Eldrazi colorless creature that has a massive impact on the board. He’s going to be a nice thing to ramp into in many different Commander decks. However, he does kind of feel out of place in this particular deck since he has no abilities related to noncreature spells and the deck isn’t really about ramping.  

With it’s focus on noncreature spells, the deck also has some other incredibly strong payoffs for casting them. The Fantasticar is kind of a subpar vehicle, but if you can chain enough noncreature spells together you end up with quite the board presence. Side note: Keep an eye on this card in Vintage, where Mishra’s Workshop can get it down on turn one.

Unlike most cards in this deck, Medusa likes it when anyone casts a noncreature spell, and that means in a 4-player game she has the potential to get absolutely massive.

First Family is a draw spell with an absolutely incredible ceiling since it pays you off for both casting spells and playing lots of colors. I don’t think it works that well in this deck, though. After all, even though the Commanders in it have 4-color identities, they are all mono-colored cards. First Family might have a better future in decks that feature WUBRG Commanders.

$50 UPGRADES

This deck is very strong out of the box, but there are some small upgrades that can make it even better. These changes are focused on giving the deck additional “noncreature spell” payoffs that are also triggered abilities. That way Mister Fantastic’s card draw trigger will be easy to trigger and he’ll also have plenty of abilities that are worth copying.

Shark Typhoon and Monastery Mentor both spit out tokens anytime you cast a noncreature spell. Copying the Typhoon’s trigger is especially spicy, since the tokens it can generate can be so massive. Of course, this deck’s ability to chain spells together also means the Mentor and it’s creature tokens can really go off.

Astrologian’s Planisphere was made for this deck. It loves noncreature spells and it loves when you draw extra cards. Mister Fantastic can help with the card draw, and the deck’s focus on noncreature spells means that whatever the Planisphere is equipped to is going to be a threat. Third Path Iconoclast is another card that can help you go wide as you cast more spells.

While the deck does come with some cost reduction, this deck could use even more. After all, you need mana to use the abilities of the Fantastic Four, and you’re more likely to have it if you’re spending less mana on your noncreature spells.

These are two of the best spellslinger payoffs in the game. They might have really weak stats, but getting cards and mana any time you cast or copy an instant or sorcery is no joke. These two can build a massive advantage.

Including any of the Secrets of Strixhaven Paradigm Lessons is a pretty good idea for this deck. Not only are they noncreature spells, you also get to cast them for free every turn thereafter. That means getting at least one free noncreature spell trigger a turn. I think Improvisation Capstone is the best one for this deck because it can easily give you even more spell triggers per turn. Mister Fantastic can even double the Paradigm trigger!

You can find the updated decklist here.

I removed the following 9 cards to make room for these changes:

• Negative Zone Portal
• Path of Discovery
• Bovine Intervention
• Tragic Arrogance
• Collective Effort
• Galactus, Devourer of Worlds
• Silver Surfer, Galactus’s Herald
• Mister Fantastic, Reed Richards
• First Family

FURTHER UPGRADES

While the above upgrades will go a long way towards making this deck great, if you have a bigger budget, there are some additional changes that you can make.

Fierce Guardianship and Deflecting Swat are staples for a reason. They are excellent ways to protect your Commander and they’re free any time you want to do that. This deck can get added value out of them because they’re noncreature spells.

Vivi and his Persistence are great fits for this deck. Vivi will gain lots of counters and produce lots of mana, while Vivi’s Persistence gives you a way to make sure you’re casting a noncreature spell every turn. Both of them can ping your opponents into oblivion, too.

This deck loves noncreature spells and payoffs for using them, and Bria might just be the queen of that kind of synergy. That’s because she gives your entire board Prowess and can make a creature unblockable every single turn, provided you’ve cast a noncreature spell.

While Mister Fantastic is the best way for this deck to make copies of triggered abilities, Lithoform Engine can do it too – while also having the ability to make copies of instants, sorceries, and even permanent spells.

END STEP

This Commander deck looks really sweet. It has great cards in it that make the deck very powerful, while also supplying you with lots of cards that are also very useful in the Commander format more broadly.

What changes do you want to make to this deck to make it stronger? Let me know over on X or Bluesky.