Doom Prevails is MTG Marvel Superheroes’ bad guys deck and it’s a familiar story by now: another blue, black, and red Commander precon filled with all of the nasty characters.
While it’s full of flavorful designs, it must be said that the Doctor Doom deck lacks focus. If you want to turn this precon from a disorganized band of squabbling rogues, all pulling in different directions, to a carefully plotted scheme to take over your Commander night, here are 12 easy changes you can make.
Before we get started, we need to talk about what this deck, and the face commander Doctor Doom, King of Latveria, is doing. Doom lets a villain connive each turn and gives them menace, making attacks easier and allowing you to draw and discard each turn. He also blasts every opponent for two life whenever you discard lands.
So with this ruthless ruler at the helm, we want to be playing a bunch of villains, looting as much as we can to cycle through lands, and – whenever possible – using the connive keyword.
1. Leader, Super-Genius
Cut card: Klaw, Master of Sound
Leader, Super-Genius gives us an extra, free connive on each of our turns, and transforms every connive effect from a draw-1, discard-1 loot into pure card advantage.
We’re swapping out Klaw, who steals cards, and gets indestructible when you cast a spell from exile. That’s neat, but it’s not something this deck does much of. As you’ll soon see, the Doom Prevails deck is a bit of a catch-all for interesting villain ideas WotC couldn’t fit into the main set, and there’s plenty that can be lopped out with zero fuss.
2. Norman Osborn / Green Goblin
Cut card: Damocles Base, Sword of Kang
Norman Osborn from the Spider-Man set is a perfect fit, giving us an unblockable conniver who later on lets us cast all the cards we discarded from our graveyard.
Damocles Base, however, is just a big dumb vehicle that could remove some creatures or draw us some cards, but our opponent always gets to pick the worse of the two options. Plus, it’s not even a villain!
3. Monument to Endurance
Cut card: Skullclamp
Monument to Endurance slots in perfectly with our self-discard theme, giving us three great options: card draw, ramp, or life loss. If we can, we’ll want to be triggering all three on each of our turns.
Skullclamp is a brilliant card, but it’s inclusion here is honestly baffling, since this is not a token deck and doesn’t have many ways to get value from the equipment. I think Wizards just thought it was too perfect a fit for M.O.D.O.K to leave it out, but we won’t be following their lead.
4. Green Goblin, Revenant
Cut card: Helmut Zemo, Mastermind
Green Goblin, Revenant will help us replenish our hand after all the discarding we’ve done, plus it’s an evasive creature that takes Doctor Doom’s menace buff very well.
Helmut Zero is very fiddly to get going in this deck, as it’s a creature based deck with fairly few instants and sorceries total. I’d want a good number of two mana spells before I considered playing this villain, and Doom Prevails doesn’t deliver.
5. Ultimate Green Goblin
Cut card: Abomination, World Ravager
Ultimate Green Goblin can still be cast after discarding them to connive. Plus they’re another discard outlet, and give us temporary treasure-based ramp. While forced discard can be dicey, we’re adding enough card draw options and synergies here that this will usually be all upside.
Abomination is somewhat similar to this goblin (and I don’t just mean their skin-care regime) but instead of creating value, this is just a stompy creature that will be a lightning rod for removal. Doctor Doom can win through more sophisticated means!
6. Doctor Octopus, Master Planner
Cut card: Tri-Sentinel, Act of Vengeance
With Doctor Octopus on the board, there’s definitely no need to worry about our discard effects, as we’ll shoot up to eight cards at the end of each turn. He also gives a major buff to all our other creatures, making this a finisher well deserving of the seven drop slot.
More deserving than Tri-Sentinel, methinks, another big hitter that smacks in hard for big damage and can remove small creatures from the board, but does little to synergize with the rest of the deck.
7. Cool but Rude
Cut card: The Frightful Four
Villains are very cool and inarguably rude: world domination is pretty uncouth. This radical enchantment gives us more looting, and as we level it up, we get a new way to whittle our opponents down through indirect damage. I would play this card even if it didn’t have a level 3 ability, so the Gamble tacked on is just gravy.
It’s a much better option than The Frightful Four, another creature that gives our opponents’ too much agency when it comes to playing around the downside. If the most this four-drop manages is two damage, when it’s zapped by a removal spell, you’re going to feel frightful.
8. Oscorp Industries
Cut card: Crumbling Necropolis
Oscorp Industries is a three-color land we can cast from our graveyard, and it’s a straightforward upgrade to Crumbling Necropolis.
9. Unstable Experiment
Cut card: Night’s Whisper
Unstable Experiment is a better draw spell in this deck than Night’s Whisper, as we wish to connive as often as possible.
10. Carnage, Crimson Chaos
Cut card: Puppet Master, String Puller
We can keep stripping out random villains and replacing them with more relevant alternatives all day long. Carnage, Crimson Chaos can bring something back, but more importantly it’s a villain with Mayhem we can cast from discard for two mana. Puppet Master is doing… goad stuff… what?
11. Crucible of Worlds
Cut card: Progenitor’s Icon
Crucible of Worlds is a brilliant tool for any deck that wants to be dumping lands in the bin. Now we don’t have to worry about making sure we still have some in hand to play.
Progenitor’s Icon is not massively impressive as a three mana mana rock. Giving our villain’s flash is solid, but it’s an effect we’ll survive without.
12. Spymaster’s Vault
Cut card: Swamp
Though it may not come up very often, Spymaster’s Vault is a relevant, conniving utility land that’s well worth cutting one basic for.
We could go even deeper, but if you want to improve your Doom Prevails precon while keeping the basic shape of the deck in tact, this should be a great jumping off point.
Let me know what cards you’re putting into your Marvel decks over on the Wargamer Discord.
Source: Wargamer
