March of the Machine: Multiverse Legends, Team-Up cards, Battle cards + more

With March of the Machine rushing over Phyrexia: All Will Be One, reveals ended up being released over the first Pro Tour of the season, on a special draft panel.

As spectators rushed to keep up with both the final match and the next set’s cards, March of the Machine marched on to present incredible Team-Up Creature cards, which feature iconic heroes together facing the Phyrexian army, the return of Planechase, a few Secret Lairs, and even Multiverse Legends reprints, which are already the focus of much discussion throughout the MTG community.

Booster fun, new Planeswalkers and Commander decks, gain lands and double-faced cards completed the set of news for this upcoming set, which will be further teased and presented throughout March, eventually to be released in April. An additional end chapter for this lore-focused set will come along in May, titled March of the Machine: The Aftermath.

There is much to see still, as the very secretive Battle Cards haven’t yet been previewed. Let’s take a look at what we know so far:

A few very interesting Commanders were revealed in the panel. These cards show iconic Magic characters teaming up to face the dreaded Phyrexia army, and the community has already started joking about which unlikely pair would be the funniest to have revealed.

Though some of these will be Standard-legal, others are legal in only Eternal formats, such as Goro-Goro and Satoru. Goro-Goro and Satoru is also a prerelease promo card for the MOM set.

Goro-Goro and Satoru

Goro-Goro and Satoru

> Mana Value:

> Type: Legendary Creature - Goblin Human

> Rarity: Mythic Rare

> Stats: 3 power, 4 toughness

> Passive Ability: Whenever one or more creatures you control that entered that battlefield deal combat damage to a player, create a 5/5 red Dragon Spirit creature token with flying.

> First Ability: 1: Creatures you control gain haste until end of turn

Katilda and Lier

Katilda and Lier

> Mana Value:

> Type: Legendary Creature - Human

> Rarity: Mythic Rare

> Stats: 3 power, 3 toughness

> Passive Ability: Whenever you cast a Human spell, target instant or sorcery card in your graveyard gains flashback until end of turn. The flashback cost is equal to its mana cost.

Slimefoot and Squee

Slimefoot and Squee

> Mana Value:

> Type: Legendary Creature - Fungus Goblin

> Rarity: Mythic Rare

> Stats: 3 power, 3 toughness

> Passive Ability: Whenever Slimefoot and Squee enters the battlefield or attacks, create a 1/1 green Saproling creature token

> First Ability: , Sacrifice a Saproling: Return Slimefoot and Squee and up to one other target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. Activate only as a sorcery.

Thalia and the Gitrog Monster

Thalia and the Gitrog Monster

> Mana Value:

> Type: Legendary Creature - Human Frog Horror

> Rarity: Mythic Rare

> Stats: 4 power, 4 toughness

> First strike, Deathtouch

> Passive Ability: You may play an additional land on each of your turns. Creatures and nonbasic lands your opponents control enter the battlefield tapped. Whenever Thalia and The Gitrog Monster attacks, sacrifice a creature or land, then draw a card.

Yargle and Multani

Yargle and Multani

> Mana Value:

> Type: Legendary Creature - Frog Spirit Elemental

> Rarity: Mythic Rare

> Stats: 18 power, 6 toughness

Ghalta and Mavren

Ghalta and Mavren

> Mana Value:

> Type: Legendary Creature - Dinosaur Vampire

> Rarity: Mythic Rare

> Stats: 12 power, 12 toughness

> Trample

> Passive Ability: Whenever you attack, choose one:

- Create a tapped and attacking X/X green Dinosaur creature token with trample, where X is the greatest power among other attacking creatures.

- Create X 1/1 white Vampire creature tokens with lifelink, where X is the number of other attacking creatures.

Drana and Linvala

Drana and Linvala

> Mana Value:

> Type: Legendary Creature - Vampire Angel

> Rarity: Mythic Rare

> Stats: 3 power, 4 toughness

> Flying, Vigilance

> Passive Ability: Activated abilities of creatures your opponents control can’t be activated. Drana and Linvala has all activated abilities of all creatures your opponents control. You may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to activate those abilities.

Though this new card type is still very much in the shadow as of now, at this time in the teaser season, there is already some information about what this new feature will bring. Through an e-mail promoting the release of March of the Machines, Wizards of the Coast informed players “the double-faced Battle card will be available in every Set and Draft Booster”.

In Phyrexia: All Will Be One, the Atraxa, Grand Unifier card already teased the card type in its description: “Artifact, battle, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker, and sorcery are card types”.

All that is known so far is that these cards will be double-faced, and included in every Set and Draft Booster. Fans have been speculating thoroughly what this new feature could be, and some are convinced it will be cards depicting the great Phyrexian battle, with some even suggesting a mechanic similar to the forgotten and scraped “Skirmish” mechanic, whose theme was heavily focused on big battles.

We covered a few possibilities for this new card type here.

Besides the "Battle" cards, a number of additional 'double-faced' cards were also previewed:

Planechase

For Commander, a series of new features have been revealed. Maybe the most eye-catching one is the return of Planechase cards, 10 for each Commander deck, which have been confirmed to be 5 in total. There will be five new place cards, four reprint ones, and one “phenomenon” card, with a one-time effect.

The “Planechase” cards add the feature of a “planar deck” to the MTG gameplay, which is a separate deck with the plane cards that can change the rules of the game. A passive effect transforms the gameplay of the match, and the chaos effect can be triggered through the use of the Planar die.

A few Planechase cards have been revealed so far, namely, Isle of Vesuva, Spatial Merging and Towashi:

Isle of Vesuva

Type: Plane - Dominaria

Passive Ability: Whenever a non-token creature enters the battlefield, its controller creates a token that’s a copy of that creature.

Chaos ability: Whenever Chaos ensues, destroy the target creature and all other creatures with the same name as that creature.

Spatial Merging

Type: Phenomenon

Ability: When you encounter Spatial Merging, reveal cards from the top of your planar deck until you present two plane cards. Simultaneously. Planeswalk to both of them. Put all other cards revealed this way on the bottom of your planar deck in any order.

Towashi

Type: Plane - Kamigawa

Passive Ability: Modified creatures you control have Trample and “Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player or Planeswalker, draw a card.” (Equipment, Auras you control, and counters are modifications)

Chaos Ability: Whenever Chaos ensues, distribute three +1/+1 counters among one, two, or three target creatures you control.

Five New Commander Decks

The themes of the new 5 Commander decks have been revealed as well. There will be:

> A white-black Phyrexians deck (Growing Threat)

> A white-blue-black Knights deck (Cavalry Charge)

> A red-green-white +1/+1 counters deck (Call For Backup)

> A red-blue-white convoke deck (Divine Convocation)

> A green-blue-red artifact tokens deck (Tinker Time)

Remember, all of these will include 10 planechase cards each.

As every MTG World Champion gets the opportunity to help create one of their very own Magic card, alongside the rest of the March of the Machines release there was the 2021 Champion Yuta Tahakashi’s card: Faerie Mastermind.

Faerie Mastermind

> Mana Value:

> Type: Creature - Faerie Rogue

> Rarity: Rare

> Stats: 2 power, 1 toughness

> Flying, Flash

> Passive Ability: Whenever an opponent draws their second card each turn, you draw a card.

> Activated Ability: : Each player draws a card.

It is meant to be playable in Legacy and Vintage, but players have already been wondering about this card’s playability in Commander itself.

Alongside the new cards preview, a few Secret Lairs were revealed to come soon. A few of them will be exclusive to WPN local game stores, in an effort to encourage more engagement with these locations. These WPN exclusive variations will have the compleated theme that has been published previously on the 10 Planeswalkers in the ONE set.

These variants will come for the cards: Ugin, the Ineffable, Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord, Sarkhan, Dragonsoul, and Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God. They are “What-if” versions of the characters, just like half of the compleated Planeswalkers in ONE.

A few more Secret Lairs were announced for the March of the Machine set, namely for the cards Wheel and Deal, Questing Beast, Olivia Voldaren, Walking Ballista, and The World Tree. This is just the first of the three Secret Lair drops for this set. The new Halo foil, a new feature for this upcoming set, will adorn one card in each set, with no repeats.

For each March of the Machine Draft, Set and Collector packs (Jumpstart boosters excluded), there will be at least 1 Multiverse Legend card, with Collector boosters containing 3–4 cards per booster. These cards are reprints of older iconic MTG cards, Legendary creatures, much like Brothers War Retro Frame artifacts and Strixhaven Mystical Archive cards. Each Multiverse Legend card will be framed in their homeland colors, and they can appear in the new “Halo” foil treatment, unrevealed so far.

These incredible cards can also come in their serialized version, as there are 500 serialized cards for each card.

As for Legality, each card should be legal depending on the format they’re already legal in. In draft, however, you will be able to play them if you draw them from a March of the Machines booster. Arena will also be receiving these cards, and though this may seem like an unbalance will come for these two formats, a Wizards of the Coast employee on Reddit stated that some cards will be pre-banned*.

Check out below the two previewed Multiverse Legends cards:

Here you’ll find all the previewed cards from March of the Machine.

Dual Lands

Alternative Arts

March of the Machines will be teased all throughout March, and will be officially released in April. The mini-set that will follow, March of the Machine: The Aftermath, is set to come in May. There will be 50 cards for the latter. Check out below a full schedule:

> March of the Machine Story: March 16–28

> Set Debut, Cinematic Trailer and Previews Begin: March 29,

> Card Previews: March 29–April 4

> Complete Card Image Galleries: April 5

> In-Store Prerelease Events: April 14–20

> MTG Arena and Magic Online Digital Release: April 18

> Global Tabletop Release: April 21

> In-Store Launch Party Events: April 21–23

> March of the Machine: The Aftermath story: May 1

> March of the Machine: The Aftermath previews: May 2-3

> March of the Machine: The Aftermath Tabletop Release: May 12