What Are Jumpstart Front Cards in MTG?

If you searched for Great Lakes Avengers and landed on a card page that says it is not legal anywhere, you are not missing a secret Commander tech piece. You found a Jumpstart front card.

Jumpstart front cards are the cards sitting at the front of sealed Jumpstart packets. They identify the packet's theme, color, or flavor hook. They look like Magic cards because they use Magic card framing and names, but they are not normal deck cards.

Think of them as labels with collector data attached.

Great Lakes Avengers is a packet marker

Great Lakes Avengers comes from Marvel Super Heroes Jumpstart Front Cards. Its type line is just "Card," and its rules text is basically a theme note: theme color green.

That means it tells you something about the Jumpstart packet. It does not give you a spell, permanent, commander, token, attraction, sticker, emblem, or deck-building object.

The practical table answer is simple:

• Do not put it into your Commander deck.
• Do not count it as one of your 99.
• Do not use it as a commander.
• Do keep it with your collection if you track sealed-product inserts, oddities, or set completion.

That is why Scryfall can list Great Lakes Avengers while also showing it as not legal in Commander, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Pauper, and the rest.

Why these cards show up in databases

Magic card databases are not only for tournament decks. They also help collectors identify what came in a product.

Jumpstart products need front cards because the sealed packets are built around themes. A front card might say Ramp, Blink, Savage Lands, Counterargument, or DOOM. That label helps you know what packet you opened before you shuffle the playable cards together.

For collectors, that matters. If you are trying to track a sealed product, complete a set entry, or identify a loose insert in a box, the front card name is useful.

For deck builders, it matters in the opposite direction. You need to know that the listing is not a green light for play.

Listed does not mean legal

This is the trap.

Players see a database page and assume every listed object is a playable Magic card. Most of the time, that shortcut works. With product inserts, front cards, art cards, minigame cards, and similar objects, it does not.

A legal Magic card needs more than a name and image. It needs to be a game object that the rules and format legality support.

Jumpstart front cards fail that test because they are not intended to be cast, played, included in a deck, or used as a commander. They are product markers.

So if you see a card page with:

• type line "Card"
• theme text instead of normal rules text
• legality marked not legal in every format
• a set name like "Jumpstart Front Cards"

you are probably looking at a front card or another product object, not a deck card.

How to use them in a collection tracker

There is nothing wrong with tracking front cards in your collection. In fact, a complete collection tracker should let you keep weird product pieces separate from playable deck inventory.

The key is to label the mental bucket correctly.

Track Great Lakes Avengers as a collectible object. Do not treat it like a green card you can slot into a deck. If you own one, it can matter for set completion, binder organization, trade notes, or sealed-product nostalgia. It just should not inflate your count of playable cards.

That distinction gets more important as Universes Beyond, Secret Lair, Jumpstart, promos, and supplemental products keep producing game-adjacent objects. A clean collection should answer two different questions:

• Do I own this object?
• Can I legally play this object in this deck?

Those are related, but they are not the same question.

What to do when a card page looks weird

When a page looks like a card but every format says not legal, slow down before building around it.

Check these details:

1. The type line. If it only says "Card," that is a warning sign.
2. The oracle text. Theme notes are not functional rules text.
3. The set name. "Front Cards" usually means product packaging support.
4. The format legality. If every format says not legal, treat it as non-playable unless your table explicitly agrees otherwise.
5. Whether the object has a normal mana cost, color identity, and card type.

That checklist will catch most oddities before they become a deck-building mistake.

Rule 0 is not the default answer

Could a casual table agree to do something silly with a Jumpstart front card? Sure. Commander tables can agree to almost anything if everyone understands the ask.

But Rule 0 should not be used to pretend the card is normally legal. If you want to build around a front card as a joke, say that plainly before the game. Do not present it as a hidden legal commander or a forgotten card from a Marvel product.

For normal deck building, leave front cards out.

The practical answer

Great Lakes Avengers is collectible MTG product material, not a playable Magic card.

That is still useful information. It tells you why the card page exists, why the legality panel looks strange, and why it should sit in your collection record instead of your deck list.

When you run into Jumpstart front cards, treat them like labels: worth tracking if you care about owning everything, ignored when you are counting legal deck cards.

If you are sorting a pile with playable cards, front cards, tokens, and inserts mixed together, keep the inventory honest in GrimDeck's collection tracker. Then move only the legal cards into the deck builder, where the weird product markers cannot accidentally become your 100th card.