There is a specific kind of frustration that only shows up when two hobbies collide. You want the action figure. Someone else wants the card taped to the back of the blister. Neither of you wants to pay for the other half, and the manufacturer has decided you both will.
That is the situation Hasbro created last October, and it is about to repeat. Pre-orders for the second wave of Marvel Legends Series 6-inch figures tied to Magic: The Gathering went live on August 13, with figures expected to ship in October 2026. Each one carries an exclusive alternate-art promo card that exists nowhere else. Last year's version of this experiment produced promo cards that now trade for more than the figures cost at retail, which means the pricing question for this wave is no longer theoretical.
What Is Actually in Wave 2
Four figures, revealed by Hasbro at San Diego Comic-Con in July and priced at $39.99 each at most retailers, though Entertainment Earth has listed them closer to $49.99.
The lineup pulls from comics rather than films. Doctor Doom is built on the Doom 2099 armor design, not the Avengers: Doomsday look. Captain America is the older, weathered Steve Rogers from Avengers: Twilight. Black Panther comes from Secret Wars, carrying a vibranium spear and an Infinity Gauntlet with all six stones. Malice is Sue Storm in her Fantastic Four villain gear, a version that recently got renewed attention through Marvel Rivals.
Black Panther is an Amazon exclusive in North America. The other three are available through Entertainment Earth, BigBadToyStore, GameStop, Zavvi, and Hasbro Pulse, which handled the direct-to-consumer pre-order.
The cards are the interesting part. Each figure ships with a borderless alternate-art promo: Doctor Doom, King of Latveria; Captain America, Team Leader; Invisible Woman; and T'Challa, the Black Panther. All four are face commanders from the Marvel Super Heroes Commander precons, meaning the cards themselves are not new designs, only new treatments.
What Wave 1 Taught Us
The first wave landed on October 1, 2025, built around the Marvel's Spider-Man set. Four figures at $39.99: Battle-Damaged Spider-Man, Mary Jane Watson in the Iron Spider suit, Anti-Venom, and Man-Wolf. Each included a traditional foil borderless promo whose art matched the figure's sculpt.
Nearly a year later, those promos have separated sharply from their base printings. As of late July 2026, Iron Spider, Stark Upgrade sat around $48. Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer was near $42.50. Spectacular Spider-Man was around $18, and Huntmaster of the Fells, the Man-Wolf card, held roughly $16.
Huntmaster deserves a note. It was not part of the Spider-Man set at all. Wizards borrowed an existing card and gave it Man-Wolf art because the pun was too good to leave alone. That makes it the only promo in wave 1 without a matching set printing, and it is the one card in the group with an audience outside Marvel collectors entirely.
The headline number is that all four wave 1 promos outpaced their base versions, and two of them approached or exceeded the sticker price of the entire toy. If you bought a $39.99 Anti-Venom figure in October 2025 purely for the card, you roughly broke even on the card alone and got a free action figure. That is not a normal outcome for a pack-in.
Running the Numbers on This Wave
The base versions of the wave 2 cards are cheap right now. Doctor Doom, King of Latveria leads at about $6.26. Captain America, Team Leader is around $4. Invisible Woman and T'Challa sit near a dollar each.
That tells you almost nothing about where the promos land, and it is important to understand why. These prices reflect precon commanders that were printed in volume inside sealed Commander decks. The promo versions are gated behind a $40 toy with a finite production run, an entirely different supply curve. Wave 1's base cards were similarly unremarkable before the figures shipped.
The realistic framing is a range. If wave 2 tracks wave 1, expect the strongest card in the group to settle somewhere in the $35 to $50 band a year out, with the weakest in the mid-teens. Doom is the obvious favorite. He has the deepest Commander following of the four, the most recognizable armor design, and he is the character Marvel's film slate is currently orbiting. T'Challa has a similar case through Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra and the next Black Panther film.
But the range assumption rests on demand holding, and there is a reason for caution. The Marvel Super Heroes set was enormous. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks confirmed it set records for both day-one and month-one revenue and became the fastest Magic set ever to reach $300 million, though Final Fantasy still holds the all-time crown. Enormous sets mean enormous print runs, and enormous print runs eventually depress the surrounding ecosystem. Wave 1 rode a Spider-Man set into a market that had not yet absorbed a second Marvel crossover. Wave 2 arrives into a market that has.
The Sealed-or-Open Problem
Here is where the two hobbies genuinely conflict, and there is no clean answer.
The card is sealed inside the blister. Opening the package to pull the card destroys the mint-on-card premium for figure collectors. Leaving it sealed means the card is unsleeved, uncertified, and pressed against cardboard for however long you hold it.
Three approaches make sense, depending on what you actually are.
If you are a figure collector, buy one and leave it sealed. Do not chase card values you are not going to realize. Store the package flat and out of light, because the promo's art panel fades the same way any printed insert does.
If you are a card player or a card collector, buy the figure, open it immediately, and sleeve the card. The figure retains most of its loose value if it is complete with accessories, and loose Marvel Legends move steadily on the secondary market. You are not throwing away $40 to get a $30 card; you are converting a $40 purchase into a card plus a resellable figure.
If you want both outcomes, buy two. It is the expensive answer, and it is the only one that actually works. At $39.99 plus shipping, doubling up on all four figures is a $320 commitment before tax. Pick the one or two you care most about rather than doubling the entire wave.
The Black Panther Wrinkle
The Amazon exclusive complicates things more than it looks. Single-retailer exclusives in the Marvel Legends line have a consistent history of uneven allocation. They restock unpredictably, they go out of stock without warning, and they frequently see the sharpest early aftermarket spikes precisely because there is no second channel to absorb demand.
If T'Challa, the Black Panther is the promo you want, treat the Amazon listing as the constraint. Set a stock alert, and do not assume a BigBadToyStore or Entertainment Earth listing will appear later as a fallback. It may not.
How to Play This Wave
Order the figure you want for the figure, not for the card. Speculating on a promo whose price will not be established until roughly November means guessing at a market that does not exist yet.
If you are buying to flip, wave 1 suggests the window matters. The promos did not reach current levels on day one; they climbed over months as the sealed supply dried up and Commander players who skipped the figures had to buy in. Anyone selling into the first two weeks after shipping is almost certainly leaving value behind.
Watch the Doom listing specifically. If Doctor Doom, King of Latveria clears $25 within a month of release, the wave is following the wave 1 pattern and the other three are likely undervalued in that moment. If it stalls under $15, the Marvel crossover fatigue argument is winning and this wave is a toy purchase, not an investment.
Key Takeaways
- Wave 2 pre-orders opened August 13, 2026, with figures shipping in October at $39.99 across most retailers.
- The lineup is Doctor Doom 2099, Captain America, Malice, and Black Panther, the last of which is an Amazon exclusive in North America.
- All four promos are alternate-art versions of Marvel Super Heroes Commander precon face commanders.
- Wave 1's promos ran from roughly $16 to $48 a year after release, well above their base printings.
- Current base card prices, from about $1 to $6.26, are not a reliable predictor of promo value.
- Decide sealed or opened before you buy, and buy two if you need both.
Prices in this piece are estimates drawn from listings and market data as of late August 2026. Collectible values move quickly, especially around pre-order and release windows, so verify current numbers before committing money.