Marvel Super Heroes is here — and for Pauper Commander, it’s the single biggest release we have ever seen. This set is the second installment in Wizards’ multi-year team-up with Marvel, drawing on every corner of the Marvel Universe to deliver one of the largest casts of uncommon legendary creatures ever printed in a single set. But volume is not the same as power. To their credit, Wizards has made a clear, conscious effort to keep these cards at a reasonable power level — great news for the Limited environment — less thrilling for those of us hunting for the next format-warping cPDH commander. As such, there is no single card here that screams “broken,” nothing that stands head and shoulders above our existing commanders.
There’s a lot to talk about with so many cards: in this review, we are going to do two things. First, we will look at why so many of these commanders will likely never see competitive PDH play. Then we will count down our top 25 picks across both Marvel Super Heroes (MSH) and the Marvel Super Heroes Commander and Jumpstart cards (MSC). The top 10 are cards we believe deserve consideration for competitive play. The remaining 15 have real potential, but need experimentation and exploration before we can call them tournament-ready.
Let’s get into it.
Why So Many Cards Didn’t Make the Cut
Before we celebrate the standouts, it is worth understanding why the overwhelming majority of this set won’t have legs at a competitive PDH table. Three reasons come up again and again:
- Not enough support. This set introduces fresh mechanics like teamwork, featured on [[Agent Maria Hill]], and Power-up, featured on [[Wonder Man, Hollywood Hero]], that synergize beautifully with new keywords — but there simply aren’t enough of these effects in Pauper yet to make them worth building around.
- Not enough value. A great many of these commanders simply duplicate effects we already get from commons. [[Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff]] as a 2/3 with menace; [[Ultimo, Civilization’s End]] as an expensive edict creature — these are fine designs, but it’s tough to justify them in the command zone. Some are clever but painfully narrow (I was excited about [[Spider-Woman, Secret Agent]] before I fully realized just how niche the applications were), and others price out genuinely powerful abilities behind mana costs too steep to realistically pay. It’s worth remembering these cards also exist to fill out booster packs, and that balanced power levels keep Limited healthy.
- Built-in brakes. Wizards has been effectively preventing recurring loops, stapling “once per turn” clauses onto abilities or timing them to the beginning of specific phases so they can only fire once per turn. Many of these designs would be far scarier without those restrictions.
The Watch List: 15 Commanders With Potential
These are the commanders that didn’t make our top 10, but earned our attention. They may not pan out, but each one has a play pattern or an ability that could become genuinely powerful with the right 99 behind it. We’re counting down.
#25 — Voracious Brood
Ceiling: It’s big, and there are plenty of synergistic cards to keep the graveyard stocked. The card design uniquely rewards you for continuing to fill your graveyard once it’s on the battlefield, preventing your mill cards from going “stale” later in the game.
Floor: It brings no evasion, no protection, and no built-in value beyond its body. Against any deck packing graveyard hate, it’ll be significantly weakened upon recast.
#24 — Echo, Perceptive Prodigy
Ceiling: Copying an ability is a powerful ability being introduced to PDH, and Echo opens the door to enormous value. Four toughness is a welcome bonus for survivability.
Floor: There’s no clear path to victory here. The copy ability is limited to abilities you control from creature sources, and while there are absolutely lines that could close a game — hello [[Peregrin Drake]] — it’s hard to see them coming together consistently and the commander ability seems to function more as a source of protective redundancy once combos are enacted rather than contributing to development toward those win attempts.
#23 — Shuri, Wakandan Inventor
Ceiling: Making your artifacts cheaper is always a welcome effect, and the ability to turn artifacts into copies of other artifacts carries serious theoretical upside.
Floor: …but there’s no obvious way to abuse that ability for anything beyond incremental gains. Without a payoff that breaks the symmetry, it stalls at “neat” rather than “game-winning.”
#22 — Wiccan, Young Avenger
Ceiling: Impulse draw, forever. For a deck that wants to keep cards flowing, that’s a tantalizing promise.
Floor: With [[Mica, Reader of Ruins]], [[Longshot, Rebel Bowman]], and two other cards later in this article competing for similar play styles, this one underwhelms. It may be fun, but it’s likely to be overshadowed by more capable mono-red commanders running similar storm-style gameplans.
#21 — Moonstone, Harsh Mistress
Ceiling: Running mass-discard effects while keeping access to everything you discard is an effective bit of card advantage — you get the disruption without paying the symmetrical price.
Floor: In a world where [[Hollow Marauder]] exists, Moonstone has stiff competition. Worse, the mass-discard effects she wants aren’t plentiful enough — certainly not at low enough mana values — to reliably power the gameplan.
#20 — Blue Marvel, Adam Brashear
Ceiling: Blue Marvel has the bones of a strong Voltron commander: ward {2} for protection, flying for evasion, and a self-buff that adds a +1/+1 counter each time you draw your second card in a turn. Blue Marvel has a lot of his own keywords, reducing the need for support cards and allowing you to play higher value selections in the 99. He could be a real threat. Mono-blue is also an excellent control color, giving you the time and space to see a Voltron plan through to the end. It looks a lot like a [[Sailor’s Bane]] gameplan, which has been largely successful.
Floor: He may simply be too expensive. He comes down a touch late, which means opponents could already be executing their own plans before you land your first hit — and once a commander this costly is removed, getting him back into the game is an uphill battle.
#19 — Grim Reaper, Lethal Legionnaire
Ceiling: Returning your creatures to the battlefield already attacking is a powerful effect, and black has the mill and landcycling tools to fill the graveyard with excellent targets quickly.
Floor: It might just be too slow. The once-per-turn ability asks for four mana, includes a finality counter, and requires Grim Reaper to be attacking. With the recently released [[Forum Necroscribe]] stapling free resurrection onto other useful spells, the competition has become steep.
#18 — Iceman and Firestar
Ceiling: This commander gives you utility you can clip onto your other spells for free. It’s not blow-the-doors-off powerful, but the incremental value here could be enough to make it relevant over a lot game. In terms of assembling combo lines, being able to tap down attackers while also cycling for your pieces has viability.
Floor: It’s not the most exciting commander on the page, and it may struggle to attract a dedicated pilot willing to push it to where it could be.
#17 — She-Hulk, Attorney-at-Law
Ceiling: It’s rare to see the word “double” on a PDH commander — not including “double strike” — and She-Hulk doubles the +1/+1 counters on all of your creatures, at instant speed. That is an absurd amount of value.
Floor: …and it comes at an absurd price. Seven mana may be too steep an ask for the effect. That said, She-Hulk lives in green, so the high cost might not be the dealbreaker it first appears. Who’s going to girlboss this commander so hard I regret leaving her at 17?
#16 — Red Hulk
Ceiling: Red Hulk is awesome. He deals damage to any target whenever damage is dealt to him. Reach lets him sit back as an effective blocker while he pings opponents down and controls the board. And if you assemble a strong storm turn? Imagine sending 13 copies of [[Grapeshot]] at this guy. That’s game over.
Floor: Six mana is a heavy cost, and repeatable ping damage is hard to come by — most sources sacrifice themselves to deal it. The card design is extremely cool; whether it’s effective remains to be seen.
#15 — Whiplash, Vengeful Engineer
Ceiling: Mono-black [[Arabella, Abandoned Doll]]? We’ve seen this gameplan succeed in other contexts, and Whiplash has the wheels to take us for a spin. At just one mana, he comes down fast and starts swinging early.
Floor: Whiplash’s equipment are going to be more mana-intensive than Arabella’s small creatures, and the best black equipment doesn’t quite match the best Boros creatures for raw impact. He also enters tapped — likely to stop the obvious haste-equipment shenanigans — and if he dies, you’ll need to pay to re-attach all his gear.
#14 — Titania, Rugged Rumbler
Ceiling: Titania reminds me of [[Daemogoth Woe-Eater]] — a card I always felt had strong potential. She’s a 5/5 for three mana with built-in protection and, crucially, none of the mandatory upkeep cost that held the Daemogoth back. Green brings trample, black turns her additional discard cost into an advantage, and she can come down on turn one off a [[Dark Ritual]].
Floor: Honestly? The floor is pretty high. She’s cheap, she’s strong, she can’t do you wrong. Without a value-generating or game-winning ability, the only real question is whether a vanilla-ish 5/5 body hits hard enough in a competitive field.
#13 — Attuma, Atlantean Warlord
Ceiling: With a draw ability reminiscent of Kutzil and SP//dr, Piloted by Peni, this is the most appealing tribal commander I’ve seen in a long time. Many Merfolk come with evasion built in, and Attuma draws based on whether you attack — Akiri-style — rather than on damage dealt. Drawing three cards a turn will be easy, and converting that card advantage into board control while you chip away sounds like a viable plan.
Floor: Go-wide strategies can struggle in PDH, so while the deck is viable, it remains to be seen whether it can get strong enough to place in tournaments.
#12 — Ronin, Shadow Stalker
Ceiling: Our second mono-black equipment commander — an exciting turn for the color. Turning life into mana is exceptional (hello, [[Channel]]!), and while it’s once per turn, it isn’t restricted to your turn. Flash equipment let you invest life on your opponents’ turns too.
Floor: The question is whether this archetype and color can make good enough use of the life-for-mana trade to turn the corner into winning. With so many equipment now entering pre-attached tokens they’ve created, you also get a board state almost for free. I’m not sure Ronin deserves top 10, but it’s close for me.
#11 — Karolina Dean, Runaway
Ceiling: Five colors, and five mana every single turn. The restriction against casting spells from your hand looks tight, but we’ve already watched TonisBolognis pilot [[Vhal, Candlekeep Researcher]] // [[Agent of the Shadow Thieves]] to great success under similar constraints. At a casual level there’s plenty to cast from graveyards, exile, as well as activating channel abilities. It remains to be seen whether a talented pilot can turn five extra mana a turn into a competitive engine.
Floor: Wizards cleverly made this a once-per-turn ability by tying it to the start of your main phase — a restriction Vhal // Agent never had to face. I love a five-color commander, so I’m rooting for it, but time will tell.
Tournament Viable: The Top 10
These are our top picks for Marvel Super Heroes commanders we expect to actually see at competitive tables. Because we anticipate them showing up in top 4s, our evaluations here are against a high bar, and we’ll compare them against existing commanders to gauge where they might land in the meta. We may pick at their weaknesses — but make no mistake, every card in this section stands tall above everything we’ve covered so far.
#10 — Flatman
Ceiling: A big card in every sense. Flatman effectively keeps a three-mana, +9-power spell on standby, and the ability to flip his attack without needing extra cards is both fun design and genuinely dangerous — he can easily one-shot players with commander damage with a bit of support.
Floor: At first glance he may need too many support cards to reach the heights we’d want. He’ll certainly be fun; the jury is out on whether he’s fast enough to take players out consistently.
#9 — Captain Mar-Vell, Space-Born
Ceiling: White has a deep reservoir of powerful cards locked to sorcery speed — and this is the first time we’ve seen a commander hand white players the ability to cast all of their cards at instant speed. Because it’s a genuine first, it’s an open question whether the deck has enough raw power to go as hard as it needs to.
Floor: At five mana he’s a touch costly, and white’s effects may not scale into top-4 territory. There’s also a timing wrinkle: sitting right after a land-pass player like Gretchen Titchwillow can throw off your windows. Handing opponents the choice of whether your cards have flash isn’t ideal — it’s often not a real choice, your opponents do need to play cards, but it’s a concession all the same.
#8 — Thor, Odinson
Ceiling: Built-in evasion, built-in buff, and vigilance so he can hold down defense too. Double prowess lets Thor grow fast — so fast that playing dedicated buff spells is probably incorrect in his builds. Since he’s already getting bigger on his own, spending those slots on control and support gives you a more consistent, well-rounded deck rather than a glass-cannon that dumps everything into a single attack. Boros offers excellent spells and the protection mechanic, which can both protect Thor and make him unblockable, as well as haste to start swinging quickly.
Floor: He’s expensive. For what he brings, five mana may not be enough of a discount. He reminds me of [[Jeskai Brushmaster]] — a deck that has seen competitive play but with below-average results. For one more mana, Thor loses access to blue while gaining vigilance and flying. If Brushmaster couldn’t break through, I’d be surprised if Thor brings enough to the table.
#7 — Speedball, New Warrior
Ceiling: Speedball is a curious one. He has access to Izzet — a strong color pair — and an ability that buffs him quickly while offering its own protection, as his ability effectively gives him hexproof from spells.
Floor: I’m not sure he’ll have the consistency to reach competitive heights. Because the buffs are temporary, I question whether he has the resource pool to consistently close out games. But there’s real potential here, and I’m genuinely excited to find out the answer by playing with him across the table from me.
#6 — Black Widow, Double Agent
Ceiling: No other Pauper commander can offer deathtouch and first strike on its first attack — and every attack thereafter, for the rest of the game. Black Widow is going to either rack up commander damage fast or make every one of her attacks brutally expensive to block.
Floor: Orzhov isn’t home to the strongest buff cards, so growth will be slow — there are some +1/+1 counter tricks, but nothing explosive. Ceiling is that you’re in excellent control colors, so using Black Widow as a clock while your 99 controls the board is entirely viable. Lean on edicts and your opponents may not even have the two blockers they need to stop her.
#5 — Captain America, Living Legend
Ceiling: Captain America compares neatly to [[Veteran Beastrider]], a commander that’s seen competitive success — except Cap adds blue. That’s significant for control and protection pieces, and it widens the range of tap effects you can double dip on using his ability. There are plenty of creatures that tap for mana, and others that tap for draw or cycling effects, giving the archetype an interesting second gear. I’ve also heard real enthusiasm for a Petitioners build. Whether you pick him for the meme or the power, Cap’s got punch.
Floor: While control and protection are plentiful, he does not himself support any combos and does not have access to great beaters. The issue, as with most control decks, will be to close out games.
#4 — Mister Fantastic, Reed Richards
Ceiling: Mister Fantastic synergizes with token-making cards, and I think he has the makings of an excellent mono-blue combo shell — letting you run strong cards that incidentally make tokens and rewarding you for each one. Token creatures become blockers, and every one of them draws you a card.
Floor: At four mana he’ll be a little slow. While the value on offer is appealing, finding the right balance between commander synergies and a way to win will be challenging.
#3 — Hawkeye, Young Avenger
Ceiling: The ability here is tremendous. Pingers are among the strongest effects in the format — including the new common, Hawkeye’s Bow — and Hawkeye buffs all of your non-combat damage: pingers, spells, abilities, the works. Board wipes just got a whole lot better in red. Better still, that damage buff scales with buffs to Hawkeye’s power. She has the potential to do real damage and bring home trophies.
Floor: The biggest obstacle is the lack of protection that continues to haunt mono-red lists. A deck like this needs both enablers and payoffs — here, the 99 and its damage sources are the enablers, with the commander supplying the payoff of added damage. It’ll be fascinating to see how the deck balances the two. It’s also worth mentioning that the damage replacement effects require Hawkeye to be in play at the time they resolve. Removing the commander can remove the damage - it’s a significant vulnerability.
#2 — Iron Man, Master of Machines
Ceiling: Artifacts and affinity strategies are already incredibly strong in Pauper, and Iron Man has everything you want in a Voltron commander: evasion, vigilance to keep a blocker back, card draw, access to blue, and a self-buff mechanic that frees you from running buff spells entirely. Fill the deck with high-impact artifacts to keep him threatening while you stack up effects across your board. Very strong.
Floor: With one extra card per turn, you may run out of artifacts to play before attacking if you rely only on Iron Man for card draw.
#1 — Wiccan, Rising Magician
Ceiling: You’re effectively stapling a [[Turn to Mist]] onto every noncreature spell in your deck, except it can target all nonland permanents. The value ceiling is enormous. Every commander on this list still has to prove itself against the real world, but I love the potential in this mono-blue Wiccan. Mono-blue can lack the survivability to grind out varied matchups, yet the ability to flicker any non-land permanent — yours or an opponent’s, including attackers and combo pieces — with any instant in your deck is exceptional.
Floor: Five mana is a touch more than I’d like, but your mana rocks can trigger Wiccan to flicker your draw and recursion pieces in the late game, giving every card a way to stay relevant at any stage.
Comparison: Wiccan reminds me of [[Lagrella, the Magpie]], who sees competitive play with above-average (if not staggering) results. Where Lagrella can struggle with mana fixing and balancing card types, Wiccan is mono-blue and can be an outstanding flicker deck while running zero flicker spells in the 99. What Wiccan lacks is Lagrella’s reach — it can’t select as many targets to broadly affect the board state — but the potential is real, and I would not be surprised to see this commander turn up in tournament top 4s.
Bonus: Notable Commons
Plenty of commons will make their mark in their own niches, but there is only one card at common which seems positioned to radically shift how decks play. No card is generated more conversation at the common level than Hawkeye’s Bow. T2 winning combos? Excellent wincon for Rocco in PDH? For more details, check out this article.
I’m also excited for the basic landcycling commons for PDH. They’re especially valuable in multicolor decks, allowing you to fix mana as needed. We’ve gotten ten of them this release cycle — five from MSH and five from MSC. They’re not all winners, but you’ll absolutely see them showing up in lists due to their flexibility.
Play These Commanders at Commander Clash 2026!
Want to take any of these heroes and villains for a spin? Every commander that saw its first printing this year is legal for the PDH Commander Clash 2026, happening this December! It’s a fun, one-of-a-kind event — everyone who came out last year had an absolute blast, and we’d love to see you there. Find all the details and register here: PDH Commander Clash 2026.
See you on the battlefield!
