One Of Marvel's Best Games Is Finally Getting A Major Upgrade

Marvel fans have a lot to be excited about on the gaming front this year, including the heavily anticipated Wolverine game from Insomniac, Magic: The Gathering’s Marvel Super Heroes set, and the still rather mysterious Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, just to name a few. 2026 will also be the year that one of Marvel’s best games gets a long-awaited major upgrade, and after radio silence for some time, we finally have all of the details on what to expect from it.

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Since its debut in 2012, Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game has been one of the best and most popular Marvel games on the market, and over the years, it has continued to add new heroes, new villains, and new upgrades. That said, fans have heard rumblings on a huge update to the game for years now, and Upper Deck has revealed that Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game Second Edition is finally happening, and the best part is that the 2nd Edition is launching later this year.

Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game Retains What You Loved, But With a Much-Needed Modern Update

Even more than 13 years later, Marvel Legendary has continued to be a regular favorite on game night thanks to its strategic gameplay and extensive Marvel roster. Now Upper Deck is introducing a complete evolution of the game that takes into account other Legendary expansions that have released in the years since, and almost every card in the core set has been redesigned, rebalanced, and refined.

That includes all-new original artwork for every single card in the base game, and as you can see in the cards above and below, the artwork is looking fantastic. The new artwork has more room to shine as well, as the borders have been removed on the sides and top, so the artwork can fully expand across the card. It gets better though, as now each hero’s individual 4-card set will feature a new piece of artwork on each card as opposed to the previous version’s identical artwork.

You can get a sense of this in the Spider-Man Web-Shooters card side-by-side comparison below. While the previous version’s artwork was great, having each card be unique is a welcome change, and the new artwork on the web-shooters card has a more stylistic look that immediately sets it apart from the original.

The snazzy new artwork is from the talented team of Andrea Adiletto, Don Aguillo, Tazio Bettin, Lip Wei Chang, Lorenzo Di Santo, Nahuel Lopez, André Meister, Johnny Morrow, Lorenza Pigliamosche, Simone Ragazzoni, Riccardo Robaldo, and Ryan Smallman.

New playable characters and Masterminds to battle will also be added to the game, including a major fan-favorite hero in Miles Morales’ Spider-Man. Miles takes over a spot from Deadpool in the original, but don’t worry, as you can still play as Deadpool by picking up the Legendary Deadpool set. There’s also a new villainous Mastermind in the game, courtesy of Doctor Octopus, and the new Villain group, Sinister Syndicate, has also been added.

The 2nd Edition will also have 10 S.H.I.E.L.D. Officer Specialists mixed in with the normal Officers, and will also include Daring Sidekicks and Special Bystanders, with 42 Bystanders in the game as opposed to the 30 from the original game. On the gameplay side, not only have many of the characters been rebalanced, but there’s also a new “Warmup Round” in 4 and 5-player games that helps prevent the chance of early villain escapes. Players will also have the option of a Starting HQ Mulligan, which allows players to agree on a mulligan if at least 2 cards in the starting HQ cost 7 or more.

There are also changes coming to the Villains of Marvel Legendary, as Second Edition introduces Epic Masterminds. When you flip over the Core Set’s Masterminds, you will find new Epic Masterminds, which are significantly more challenging than the standard versions, but even the standard Villains have been made to be more challenging than the ones in the original game. The original 8 schemes have also been rebalanced and updated to be more challenging, and there’s also an all-new 9th included as well.

Other highlights include updated qualities of card stacks to use for each number of players, which allows players in larger games more time to win, and a tweak to solo mode that removes the extra card from the Villain Deck after each Master Strike. The solo mode Villain Deck now allows around 4 extra turns before it runs out.

Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game doesn’t have a release date yet, but it has been confirmed to release this year, and we’ll keep you posted when we learn the exact date.

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