Precon Upgrade Guide
The Fantastic Four Upgrade Guide
What to cut, what to add, and how to play the four-color precon from Marvel Super Heroes, led by whichever member of Marvel's First Family you pick to lead it.
Picking this precon up?
Shown here is the commander's card art, not the box.
Buy The Fantastic Four on TCGplayer →Quick verdict
The Fantastic Four is for a player who wants to cast a pile of instants and sorceries and get rewarded for it four different ways depending on which co-commander is leading that game. It's good out of the box for a table that plays a slower, grindier style of Commander, since the deck's real payoff is stacking small per-spell bonuses across a long game rather than closing fast. Its biggest weakness is the mana base: four colors with no single fixing lands beyond the precon's own Vibranium-flavored duals means color screw is a real risk before any of that value shows up.
TurnZero rates The Fantastic Four a 4 out of 5 on strength and a 4 out of 5 on difficulty, the most demanding of the four Marvel Super Heroes precons to sequence. See it alongside every other precon we cover on the precon directory.
How the precon plays
Every one of the four co-commanders shares the same trigger condition: at the beginning of combat on your turn, if you've cast a noncreature spell that turn, something good happens. Invisible Woman makes a defensive Wall token, Human Torch gains flying, double strike, and haste, The Thing gets four +1/+1 counters, and Mister Fantastic, Reed Richards draws a card off any token entering. The deck backs that up with a run of Rebound spells ( It's Clobberin' Time! , Flame On! , Fantastic Elasticity , Invisible Force Field , Terramorph ) that effectively cast themselves a second time for free the following turn, so a single spell often triggers the combat bonus on back-to-back turns.
Valeria Richards, Precocious makes every noncreature spell a mana cheaper and draws a card off the first one each turn, while Whirlwind of Thought and Mind's Dilation turn the same habit into more cards over a longer game. Galactus, Devourer of Worlds and Silver Surfer, Galactus's Herald are the deck's top end: Silver Surfer tutors Galactus straight to hand, and a ten-mana indestructible flying trampler that exiles a permanent on arrival is a real way to end a stalled game once the ramp gets there.
Which co-commander should lead?
All four ship as legal commanders on their own, not as a linked partner pair, so the deck is really four different builds sharing one 99. The choice changes what the deck is trying to do each game.
Human Torch is the most straightforward face for a first game: the trigger alone makes him a real clock. The Thing rewards an upgrade path that leans harder into counters synergy, and Mister Fantastic is the best fit once the deck's token count actually goes up. Invisible Woman is the safest pick for a slower table that punishes overextending.
What works out of the box
Valeria Richards, Precocious ↗
Discounts every noncreature spell by one and draws a card off the first each turn. The deck's best mana sink.
Whirlwind of Thought ↗
Turns the deck's entire gameplan into a card every time it fires. A real long-game engine for 3 mana.
Galactus, Devourer of Worlds ↗
Indestructible, flying, tramples, and exiles a permanent on arrival. The precon's actual finisher once the mana is there.
Silver Surfer, Galactus's Herald ↗
Tutors Galactus straight to hand and forces extra attacks once it connects.
It's Clobberin' Time! ↗
A modal removal spell that comes back next turn for free off Rebound. Efficient twice over.
The Fantasticar ↗
Becomes a creature for free and grows into a real threat the more noncreature spells get cast.
What needs improvement
Four colors with no black is a genuinely hard manabase to build, and this precon's fixing (a handful of battle-land-style duals, Chromatic Lantern , Arcane Signet ) is a reasonable start but thin for how color-hungry the payoffs are. See the Land & Mana Base Guide → before adding anything else, since more fixing is the highest-leverage upgrade this specific 99 can get.
The curve is also lopsided: a ten-mana commander and a seven-mana Genesis Ultimatum sit well above most of the deck's actual plays. See What Makes a Curve and Why It Matters → for how to weigh a splashy top end against consistently hitting land drops. The Spellslinger archetype guide → covers the same noncreature-spell shell this precon is built around and where decks like it typically add protection for their payoffs.
10 cards to cut
Each of these has a real function. None of them earns its slot in this specific 99.
Ultimate Nullification asks you to sacrifice a legendary creature as an additional cost in a 99 built almost entirely out of legendary Heroes. The cure is worse than most boards it's answering.
Negative Zone Portal needs four creature cards exiled from an opponent's graveyard before it does anything, far too slow a payoff for a two-mana artifact.
Bovine Intervention hands the opponent a real 2/2 body in exchange for the artifact or creature it destroys, a worse rate than the deck's other removal.
Taunt from the Rampart is a political goad spell that doesn't advance the noncreature-spell plan directly and can just point a bigger threat at you.
H.E.R.B.I.E., Lovable Robot is a small utility body with minimal impact on the board for a two-mana slot this deck can use better.
Willie Lumpkin, Postman is a 1-power unblockable creature that does very little before it connects, and dies to any incidental damage.
Promise of Loyalty is a symmetrical edict that also costs you creatures, unreliable in a deck that isn't creature-heavy to begin with.
Monologue Tax only rewards an opponent's second spell each turn, a passive, situational Treasure that the deck's own ramp already covers better.
Seize the Day is win-more: an extra combat only matters once the board is already ahead, which this precon isn't reliably by the time it's live.
Cut a Deal draws every opponent a card before it draws you one for each of them, helping the table roughly as much as it helps you.
First upgrades
Budget, first
Wayfarer's Bauble ↗
More of the fixing this exact manabase needs most, for one mana.
Swords to Plowshares ↗
Premium one-mana removal, a clean upgrade over Bovine Intervention's worse rate.
Next
Mystic Remora ↗
Draws a card off any noncreature spell cast at the table, not just yours. A near-perfect thematic and functional fit.
Reflecting Pool ↗
Fixes toward whatever colors are already on the battlefield, without the color-identity restriction Arcane Signet carries.
Heroic Intervention ↗
Protects the board, and specifically Galactus and the payoff creatures, from exactly the wipe this four-color deck fears.
Higher-investment
Rhystic Study ↗
The format's best pure card-advantage engine, and this deck already wants to be casting a lot of spells to fund it.
Cyclonic Rift ↗
A one-sided reset that leaves the board clear for whichever co-commander is leading that game.
Fierce Guardianship ↗
Free protection for Galactus or a key payoff at exactly the turn it matters, paid for by the deck's own colors.
Win conditions
The upgraded deck still wins the way the precon wants to: cast noncreature spells before combat to turn on whichever co-commander is leading, let Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora refill the hand along the way, and close with Galactus, Devourer of Worlds once Silver Surfer, Galactus's Herald has found him. Cyclonic Rift overloaded is the deck's cleanest way to clear a stalled board the turn before that attack, and Heroic Intervention or Fierce Guardianship protects the payoff long enough to get there.
The upgraded 99, in shape
The finished list keeps the precon's core engine untouched (whichever co-commander leads, Valeria Richards, Precocious , the Rebound package, Galactus, Devourer of Worlds as the top end) and shores up the two things the precon actually lacked: real fixing for a demanding four-color manabase and real card advantage that doesn't wait on a ten-mana bomb to matter. The political and slow filler is gone, replaced by cheaper interaction and protection the base 99 never had. The deck still plays the same patient, spell-first game it always did; it just survives long enough to get its payoffs online more consistently.
Who should buy this precon
A good fit for a player who wants a genuinely flexible deck, since the four co-commanders let one purchase become four different builds over time, and for anyone who enjoys sequencing noncreature spells for value rather than just casting the biggest creature available. It's a weaker fit for anyone new to four-color manabases, since the color demands here are real and unforgiving before the upgrades arrive.
Track how the upgrades actually perform.
TurnZero HQ keeps a win rate per deck version, so you can change ten cards, play ten games, and see the difference instead of guessing.
Create Free Account