Last year, Wizards of the Coast announced a partnership with Capcom to release a set of Universes Beyond Magic: The Gathering Cards based on Street Fighter. Yesterday, the entire Secret Lair set was revealed, sporting eight mechanically new Magic cards representing the original eight characters from Street Fighter II. Fortunately, all of them are flavorfully spot-on to their fighting game counterparts and look to be fun additions to any Commander deck they’ll fit in.
Each card looks to be lovingly crafted to mimic their fighting style as best as possible within the Magic ruleset. Ryu, is, of course, always training and delivering devastating attacks, while Ken can put a little extra fire onto his beefy attacks. Chun-Li utilizing Multikicker is just a chef kiss design, and Dhalsim with reach and plenty of card draw will control Commander games like he controls Street Fighter matches. My favorite is E. Honda, who encourages your deck to go wide with creatures and can buff up to one hundred of them while attacking. It’s all just super fun stuff to play around with in all of these new cards.
You can see the whole Secret Lair set below:
Ryu, World Warrior
Mana Cost – 2W
Legendary Creature – Human Warrior
Training
Hadoken – 4R, Untap, Discard a card: Ryu, World Warrior deals damage equal to his power to any target. If excess damage was dealt to a creature this way, draw a card.
Power/Toughness – 2/4
Art by Jason Rainville
E. Honda, Sumo Champion
Mana Cost – 4WW
Legendary Creature – Human Warrior
Sumo Spirit – As long as it’s your turn, each creature assigns combat damage equal to its toughness rather than its power.
Hundred Hand Slap – Whenever E. Honda Sumo Champion attacks, up to one hundred target creatures each get +0/+X until endo of turn, where X is the number of cards in your hand.
Power/Toughness – 0/7
Art by Victor Adame Minguez
Chun-Li, Countless Kicks
Mana Cost – 1WU
Legendary Creature – Human Soldier
Multikicker W/U-hybrid
Which Chun-Li enters the battlefield, exile up to X target instants cards from your graveyard, where X is the number of times Chun-Li was kicked. Put a kick counter on each of them.
Lightning Kick – Whenever Chun-Li attacks, copy each exiled card you own with a kick counter on it. You may cast the copies.
Power/Toughness – 3/3
Art by Martina Fačková
Dhalsim, Pliable Pacifist
Mana Cost – 2GW
Legendary Creature – Human Monk
Reach
Teleport – Dhalsim, Pliable Pacifist has hexproof unless he’s attacking.
Whenever a creature you control with reach attacks, untap it and it can’t be blocked by creatures with greater power this combat.
Fierce Punch – Whenever one or more creatures you control deal combat damage to a player, draw a card.
Power/Toughness – 1/3
Art by Victor Adame Minguez
Ken, Burning Brawler
Mana Cost – 1RR
Legendary Creature – Human Warrior
Prowess
R/W-hybrid: Ken gains first strike until end of turn.
Shoryuken – Whenever Ken deals combat damage, you may cast a sorcery spell from your hand with mana value less than or equal to that damage without paying its mana cost.
Power/Toughness – 4/2
Art by Yongjae Choi
Guile, Sonic Soldier
Mana Cost – 1URW
Legendary Creature – Human Soldier
Whenever Guile, Sonic Soldier enters the battlefield or attacks, put a charge counter on him or remove one from him. When you remove a counter this way, choose one –
- Sonic Boom – Guile, Sonic Soldier deals 4 damage to any target.
- Flash Kick – Guile, Sonic Soldier gains lifeline and indestructible until end of turn.
Power/Toughness – 4/4
Art by Wesley Burt
Blanka, Ferocious Friend
Mana Cost – 3RG
Legendary Creature – Human Beast Warrior
Haste
Rolling Attack – Blanka, Ferocious Friend has trample as long as you’ve cast three or more spells this turn.
Electric Thunder – Whenever BLanka becomes the target of a spell, he gets +2/+2 until end of turn and deals 2 damage to each opponent.
Power/Toughness – 5/5
Art by David Rapoza
Zangief, the Red Cyclone
2BRG
Legendary Creature – Human Warrior
Zangief, the Red Cyclone must be blocked if able.
Iron Muscle – As long as it’s your turn, Zangief has indestructible.
Spinning Piledriver – Whenever Zangief deals damage to a creature, if that creature was dealt excess damage this turn, that creature’s controller sacrifices a noncreature, nonland permanent.
Power/Toughness – 7/4
Art by Maria Zolotukhina
I can’t wait to pick up the Street Fighter Secret Lair and build around Guile’s charge counters or amass a hundred creatures to swing with alongside E. Honda. The collection is now available for pre-order through Wizards of the Coast’s Secret Lair site. There you can find a handful of other new Secret Lairs featuring Kamigawa-themed art like the Pictures of the Floating World collection that updates a handful of land cards with gorgeous ukiyo-e art with Japanese text. There’s also a fun set of spells that lets us know new Planeswalker Kaito Shizuki a little better. Check them, and the Street Fighter cards out if you’re looking to spice up your Magic collection.
