After playing a ton of games with the Marvel Battles base set, Magneto has become my favorite deck. He offers some unique abilities and advantages in certain matchups which are worth exploring. While he did not Top 8 at Gen con, there was a Magneto list on the bubble that was later written about. Having both Flight and Range is a big deal for an MC, and can make Magneto useful in many roles, which is a theme we will see later as well.

Leveling

Level up (4): At the start of your turn, if Magneto is face-up, he gains an XP.

At first, Magneto is easy to dismiss because he looks like a "win-more" card. That is, he only gains XP if the game is already going well for you (not getting stunned). If you go first, you do get a free XP to start the game. After that, you want to survive combat each turn in order to level up quickly.

This most likely will lead to playing defensive plot twists and some early game cards that protect your Magneto. How you do that exactly is up to you, though at the end of this article I will detail my take on it. I detail more about this nuance in the next section.

Super Powers

Here we see again what appears like a very strange combination of abilities for Magneto.

Level 1 Power: Magnetic Force Field - Combat : Magneto gets +0/+4 this combat.

Level 2 Power: Mutant Supremacy - Main : KO a face-down resource

These two powers are both very good, but are good against different decks typically. The first power helps stall and is most effective against aggressive decks, in addition to helping magneto level up. With 4 defense to start with, it's not too common for the opponent to make a pass-attack against you in the first turn or two (An attack where they don't need to play anything, just pass priority to you.) Priority helps you when deciding to use this ability (you can wait till you need to.) Even if you don't level up, this power helps keep aggressive decks at bay.

The level 2 power is great against other control decks. It is central to the main strategy that Magneto decks should employ. You want to have your mid and end game support characters doing battle against only your opponent's mid game support characters. By destroying resources, you don't allow them to play their 6,7,8 drops, but you still get to, which should keep combat very favorable for you. You can see that against a deck which doesn't play 6,7,8 drops to start, this isn't terribly useful, but once you get your big guys out, you are effectively at this game state anyway, which is a winning one.

Team Affiliations

I have actually made and won many games with every combination of teams for Magneto. However, there a few reasons why I only pick two for this article, namely that they are the best well rounded of the teams. If Underworld has a decent defensive plot twist, they will be a pretty good team to play as well. (Play dead doesn't qualify as decent).

Guardians

This is what I have played at tournaments to reasonable success. Guardians is a very strong team which brings a lot to the table, as we saw earlier in Deck Discussion: Storm.

Guardians Magneto

Deck Archetype: Magneto Control
Deck Author: GameTheoryGuy

Main Characters

• Magneto (MC Level 1)
• Magneto (MC Level 2)

Supporting Characters (28)

• 2 Cosmo [BANNED]
• 4 Yondu
• 4 Mantis
• 4 Green Goblin
• 3 Groot
• 4 Iron Man
• 2 Quasar
• 3 Adam Warlock
• 2 Thanos

Plot Twists (14)

• 3 Even The Odds
• 1 Extinguish
• 4 Find Cover
• 4 Metal And Fire
• 2 Trickster God

Locations (18)

• 4 Fortress
• 4 Knowhere
• 4 Laboratory
• 4 The Vault
• 2 Training Ground

As seen here, Yondu helps out early and Mantis provides ramp (to be fair, Mantis is in every Magneto deck I play). Green Goblin has been excellent, allowing me to slow down aggressive decks that play a bunch of characters as well as having flight to attack pesky Cosmos or Scarlet Witch, and team attack with Magneto.

Late game, there's not much better than the 1-2 punch of Adam Warlock and Thanos. Because this deck does use many of its green locations, it can sometimes be optimal to just let Adam Warlock recover naturally and save a fortress for later. Only do this if the opponent doesn't have access to extinguish or Thanos SC though.

Metal and Fire is very good, since it is a combat trick that cannot be countered by Even the Odds and punishes team attacks by aggro decks very heavily. If you draw 2-3 of these, Captain America can never beat you and simply loading -1/-1 counters on Gamora or Wolverine can make them completely useless as well.

Even the Odds is excellent of course, as if the opponent is relying on pumps early to stun your magneto through his magnetic force field, a timely even the odds can trade with 3 cards. Late game, this plus Metal and Fire form a great defense to keep your big characters safe from pumps and team attacks.

Quasar is an interesting addition, but can be very useful. A strong character with flight and ranged is always nice, and can help starve the opponent more by trading locations (1 of yours for 1 of theirs). If you're ahead, this is great because they need the locations more than you do.

Iron man is almost a staple, as reusing locations and providing a flier to protect your characters or ranged attacker is very useful, even out of team.

You will see that the deck is lighter on support characters than most decks, so you need to be careful to protect your late game characters. If you do end up fighting a control deck and can't keep them from reaching their big drops, you are in for a tough game and will need to play very carefully to not get overran by their threats.

Next I show a second decklist, one that teams with x-men.

Magneto X-Men

Deck Archetype: Magneto Control
Deck Author: GameTheoryGuy

Main Characters

• Magneto (MC Level 1)
• Magneto (MC Level 2)

Supporting Characters (31)

• 4 Iceman
• 3 Hope Summers
• 4 Mantis
• 2 Deadpool
• 3 Green Goblin
• 3 Storm
• 3 Cable
• 2 Wolverine
• 3 Iron Man
• 2 Adam Warlock
• 2 Thanos

Plot Twists (10)

• 4 Find Cover
• 4 Metal And Fire
• 1 Trickster God
• 1 Uncanny Defense

Locations (19)

• 4 Fortress
• 4 Laboratory
• 4 School For Gifted Youngsters
• 4 The Vault
• 3 Training Ground

A similar deck, but this version utilizes the "combo" of Iceman-Hope Summers-Deadpool for multiple freezes, early or late. The most notable other addition is Cable, who can provide some defense as well as take out problem characters, such as ones with many +1/+1 counters. He also can kill Adam Warlock and threaten opposing MC's regardless of any defenses they might have. I would save him if possible until you need him, rather than just dropping him on turn 5.

Storm helps to mitigate aggressive strategies, and also is a good Cosmo killer. She has high enough stats to protect magneto fairly well.

Magneto is a strong main character, and many different builds can work. All of mine focus on the dual-threat aspect of his powers, with the goal to play your late game against their mid game, while having early insurance against fast decks. Leave feedback on your favorite Magneto builds, and as always, let me know what articles you would like to see in the future.