What to do with Magus

Everything I'm Looking Forward to Trying with Magus

Magus is the Super Premium Season Pass bonus variant this month. Is this odd, evil Adam Warlock worth your money? Here is everything I want to try with Magus.

What is His Role?

Magus is basically a new way to reach into your deck in the same way Lockjaw, Jubilee, Iron Lad, and Blink are. He has similar synergy hooks as Iron Lad since the copied text can take advantage of his 3/5 body. However, he explicitly won't perform the copied card's On Reveal and he won't be able to use its Activate because he will have already been Activated. Unless the plan is to re-proc with Odin or Jocasta, that leaves Ongoing, End of Turn, and static abilities.

The real question is which turns you can skip, for how much Energy, and still not have a terrible turn. Sure, you could skip 2 Energy to dig for a critical part of your strategy like Victoria Hand or Madame Web, but what else are you doing on your turn to make that worthwhile? For each of the scenarios below I've tried to frame them in the context of whether or not that would represent a useful turn and effective use of that Energy. You can precisely target Magus if you only have one card of that Cost in your deck, which is his greatest appeal.

Skip 6 on 6

Floating the entire last turn is only going to be worth it if you're getting something critical. Tribunal springs immediately to mind, but Eson is intriguing as well.

Skip 5 on 6

More likely you're going to skip 5 Energy, rather than 6. In some cases you'll want to wait until Turn 6 to do that to avoid being countered by your opponent or seeing them retreat. Blue Marvel plus a 1-Cost card like Squirrel Girl is very appealing for low Series play and feels worth the skipped Energy more than a lot of what Magus can do. Digging out your deck's big Ongoing payoff (Darkhawk, Ronan, Devil Dino, Ajax) and putting it on a 5-Power body feels strong.

Skip 5 on 5

More often Magus will be used to dig for a critical 5-Cost set up card. Across all of the scenarios I theorized and gamed out, guaranteeing your Sera on Turn 5 is the most promising. Using Magus to get something like Professor X’s lockdown with a 5-Power body is exactly the type of play that feels “worth” the 5 Energy, whereas most of the ideas I've seen for Magus don't. 

Power Surfer

Copy deck code

With this Surfer deck we can skip to copy Galacta, Sera, or even Agony as a cute play in a pinch and then play out a boatload of cards on the final turn.

Skip 4

Skipping 5 and 6 feel the most powerful, but there are a few cards I can imagine being important enough to skip 4 Energy for. Doom 2099 is so critical to his deck's strategy that it might be worth putting Magus in for the dig.

Skip 3 on 6

Back to turn 6 again, skipping 3 and using 3 Energy makes for a far less all-in Magus strategy. This strategy puts a lot on Magus' ability to target, but that means building your deck in a way that you will have a reliable target. If you're going to build Cerebro 5 with Magus, you probably don't want both Moonstone and Mystique at 3-Cost. Affliction has some solid synergy with Magus since you often have only good targets at 3-Cost and Anti-Venom allows you to play something without using Energy.

MA5US

Copy deck code

That Evil

Copy deck code

Skip 3 on 4 or 5

Just as we can skip 5 on 5, we could skip 3 on 4 to grab a critical set-up piece. Playing a 1-Cost card plus Marvel Boy or WWBN is probably the most appealing thing here.

 Skip 2 or 1 Whenever Convenient

There are dozens of cards at 1 or 2-Cost that might be worth digging for, given the relative lower risk of skipping a smaller amount of Energy. The type of card that would be with this effort will fit some specific criteria:

• Critical to our deck’s strategy.
• Targetable. That is, we can make a deck without a ton of bad targets at that same Cost.
• Better with a 5-Power body.
• Otherwise synergistic with skipping Energy.

The most interesting cards here to me are probably Agony and Victoria Hand, but something different may pop out at you.

Skip 0!

Yep! This is one of the coolest things you can do with Magus! (Cool. Good? Eh…)

I love the idea of getting free value out of Magus. It's not entirely free though – you do have to make them actually go off with Grandmaster, Odin, or Misery though, they will not perform their On Reveal without that.

Hidden Hammer

Copy deck code

Is He Worth It

Magus' issue is that a lot of what he's best at grabbing doesn't feel especially powerful right now. In the days when Sera ruled the meta, Magus would have become a format staple. Professor X is weaker than he's ever been. Hammers have never managed to crack the top tier. It's highly questionable if Magus will be able to elevate his best synergy partner. If the meta shifts back in favor of the cards Magus is best at enabling, he'll feel much more powerful. If you're tight on resources, skip. If you're a shenanigans fiend or card completionist, there is certainly fun to be had.

Below the paywall, there is more discussion of Magus use-cases, a few decks, and the most shenanigans-y of shenanigans play lines. Our paid supporters help us make longer content that takes more work. If you want to support our efforts, consider joining today!