The newest Secret Lair for Magic: The Gathering is a crossover under the Universes Beyond product line with Street Fighter, and there’s already talk about brewing decks with them in one of the most popular formats, Commander. The cards will be available to preorder until March 18, so there’s still time to order these and start building decks. Each card is a legendary creature, which means that all of them can be played as the leader of a 99-card deck designed around their abilities.
Given these cards are inspired by Street Fighter, each one has a combat-based ability, whether it’s a power and toughness boosting effect, an attack-based trigger, or simply something aggressive. In addition, the flavorful Magic and Street Fighter crossover abilities call back to the powerful moves that the original characters had in their game - Chun-Li’s card even has a pun regarding Magic’s Multikicker mechanic. Deg and building decks around these characters will require strategies that take advantage of their unique mechanics.
Combat and Magic’s Commander format have a tough and interesting history, as many of the best ways to end a game are combos or one-shot kills like Craterhoof Behemoth. When each player starts at 40 life, it’s hard to kill opponents with combat damage. Aggressive decks will still often have powerful near-game-ending combos that deal large amounts of combat damage in one fell swoop. The Street Fighter commanders and their respective MTG Commander deck builds don’t immediately break any formats and some don't have many other cards to build around, but with the right cards, they can still be incredibly fun and powerful to play with. Here are some of the commanders that could be fun to create decks for.
Zangief’s Indestructibility Lets MTG Players Use A “Voltron” Commander Strategy
Zangief’s main calling card ability is Spinning Piledriver, which puts opponents in the tough position of sacrificing non-creature permanents. However, since his rules text also states he must be blocked each turn, he’s a great way to get rid of smaller threats. The last piece of relevant information is that Zangief is indestructible during its controller’s turn, meaning that players will be free to attack often. This means that decks based around Zangief will often be about suiting him up with equipment, auras, and new MTG creatures with Reconfigure to deal combat damage often.
These MTG decks are often called “Voltron” decks, named after the television show where multiple mechs combined with each other to create one large threat. By stacking equipment like Sword of Feast and Famine, Embercleave, Tanuki Transplanter, and Mask of Griselbrand on Zangief, players can set up no-win situations where Zangief deals massive amounts of damage to opponents and other creatures. Even though Zangief must be blocked, cards like Rancor and Shadowspear can help him deal damage to creatures and also hit opponents.
Chun-Li Points To An Aggressive Blue-White Spellslinger MTG Deck
Chun-Li is very similar to cards like Narset, Enlightened Master, which let players cast instants and sorceries on attack. However, Chun Li’s ability is limited by the fact that players must still pay the mana cost of the spell in order to cast them. That being said, there are still ways to take advantage of the new Secret Lair card, such as using inexpensive draw spells to refill hands.
Chun-Li cares only about instants, so even though extra turn spells might still be worth playing, most of these can’t be exiled by Chun-Li’s ability. Cards like Opt, Gitaxian Probe, Defiant Strike, and other combat tricks that draw cards will be useful in creating an engine that lets players continue to cast spells late into the game. Protecting Chun-Li will also be important as she’ll often be a target of removal, but if she leaves the battlefield and enters the command zone, her controller will still be able to cast cards with kick counters on them. Continually building up a stack of instants to cast with Chun-Li will carry players into the endgame and using powerful spells like Swords to Plowshares and Brainstorm from the Mystical Archives will stop opponents from reacting and attacking.
Dhalsim, Pliable Pacifist Is A MTG Card That Turns Defensive Magic Decks Into Aggressive Ones
Reach isn’t necessarily a creature attribute that’s called out on cards. Creatures don’t usually give “all creatures with reach +1/+1” or “all creatures with reach vigilance.” This puts Dhalsim in a tough position, as although decks centered around him are possible there won’t be as many fun “reach lords” to build around. However, as a card, Dhalsim can make decks that care about toughness aggressive by making their threats unblockable.
Decks like Arcades, the Strategist can turn Dhalsim into a 3/3 that makes every zero-powered creature an unblockable threat. Even by himself, Dhalsim can use cards like Assault Formation and Huatli, the Sun’s Heart to make low-powered creatures large threats. Alternatively, Dhalsim can be used in decks like Doran, the Siege Tower to make certain walls and creatures from the new Kamigawa set and elsewhere better at attacking. The card draw effect on Dhalsim doesn’t grow with the number of creatures one has, but it’s still a nice bonus to pair with the unblockable effect.
For those that miss out on the sale or want versions found in booster packs, The Street Fighter Secret Lair cards will be reprinted by Wizards of the Coast in around six months. A similar event has happened with the Stranger Things Secret Lair, which is great for players who want these cards at lower prices or with Magic-themed art. Once these cards find a home in a non-limited print run, many more players will be able to build around these fun effects without having to integrate the Street Fighter IP or Stranger Things IP into Magic.
However, there’s no doubt that these cards were designed with these characters in mind. Some are better than others at leading a commander deck, but the designs are unmistakable. Throw in the included Hadoken-themed Lightning Bolt, and this Magic: The Gathering Secret Lair does a fairly great job of representing Street Fighter with the game’s mechanics. When using Ryu, Ken, Guile, and the rest of the fighting crew as commanders, it’ll feel like the characters’ specific moves and strengths are shining through and leading the deck to victory.