Universes Beyond — outside IPs appearing in Magic the Gathering — has done wonders for the world’s most complicated game. Set after set has broken record after record. Marvel is clearly so impressed with this that we’re back for a third Marvel set in two years. This time, however, we’re not breaking records so much as breaking the mold.
Announced at New York Comic Con, Marvel Darkhold Destiny is the first Universes Beyond set created around an original story. It follows a brand-new character through a new Marvel Comics release, written by Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly in collaboration with Wizards of the Coast’s narrative team.
You can read the comic’s first chapter when it releases digitally on February 26, 2027, with the physical edition releasing alongside Marvel Darkhold Destiny on April 7, 2027.
Marvel Darkhold Destiny obviously centres around the Darkhold — an ultra-powerful book in Marvel lore, and the McGuffin underpinning the likes of WandaVision, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, and Agatha All Along. If you’ve been following the MCU, you know what this book is.
Naturally, this means the legendary artifact is becoming a Legendary Artifact.
The Darkhold rewards you for being sinful by blessing you with power in the form of card draw. All it costs is your life, but that’s OK because thanks to its second ability, your low life total is your opponent’s problem, too. In a way, it kinda looks like a ‘fixed’ The One Ring, in that it is functionally similar from the card draw perspective, but without the protection and colourless sides that make it so obnoxiously overpowered.
Marvel Darkhold Destiny set across nearly 30 Dimensions, as hinted at in Temple of Khonshu. We don’t know yet what that looks like mechanically — whether it’s a Land subtype or a type of Enchantment, for example — but we’re excited to find out.
Based on the Basic Land cycle, we can assume we’re also going to Asgard, the Dream Dimension, Svartalfheim, Limbo and, presumably, the UK.
The reference to Captain Britain may well be a bit of throwaway text because the story actually revolves around four main characters — Doctor Strange, Dormammu, Hela and Thor — alongside a character called amusingly Magik. I see what they did there.
So, for those of you who have been saying how strange we haven’t seen Marvel’s greatest sorcerer in Wizards’ Marvel sets, now you know why… And what else is Strange famous for? That’s right — we’re getting a new Infinity Stone. Volkan Baga has one again smashed it with some fantastic artwork.
As you might expect, this means a bunch of new superheroes, supervillains and eldritch horrors will make their MTG debuts in this set, too. One such example is Gargantos, the Endbringer, from the new Commander decks. It looks like damage matters may be a bit of a theme here, looking at Hela, Mistress of Darkness from the main set.
Rumours abound that Wizards is gearing up to add Commander to MTG Arena, the digital client where you can play each new set as it releases, but we’re yet to have official confirmation of this.
We’d love to see the Commander cards come to Arena, but even if we don’t, you can play Marvel Darkhold Destiny in April 2027, with digital preorders coming a few weeks before the set releases.
