I don't like superheroes, but Magic: The Gathering's Spider…

I am going to be very honest here, but I utterly dislike superhero movies. I find them predictable, but more than that, they're just uninteresting at a core level for me. The last I've actively watched was probably The Dark Knight Rises, and that's just because I had already started the Batman trilogy, and I wanted to see it through. This is like, 12 or 13 years ago. Even with everyone praising The Dark Knight trilogy and it having incredible reviews on sites like IMDB, even higher than most of the movies I think were the best I've ever seen, I just didn't love it because superheroes simply don't resonate with me. As such, I didn't have Spider-Man as a Magic: The Gathering set on my bingo card for 2025, but here we are, courtesy of Universes Beyond.

Out of all the MTG Legendary creatures inspired by characters in Spider-Man comics/media, one of my favorite cards from the set is City Pigeon, and I'm not even kidding you. So how is it possible that someone who just never got into superheroes, not even their comic versions, is suddenly a fan of Spider-Man in Magic: The Gathering? The answer is surprisingly simple, and it has a lot to do with gameplay. I may not love the heavy superhero themes in all the cards' art (in fact, I hate it, thanks), but I have to give Wizards of the Coast props for how the set plays — especially in Limited.

Limited is a format made of Magic: The Gathering's drafts or sealed, where players build decks on the spot by using cards from booster packs.

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By Carla Carmona

Why I Enjoy MTG's Spider-Man Set Despite Disliking Spider-Man As a Whole

Magic: The Gathering's mechanics in Edge of Eternities were top-notch and spot-on for the set, so between my indifference toward superheroes and how much I loved EoE, I thought I'd happily skip Spider-Man and call it a day. Boy, was I wrong. I'll try everything once if I don't think there are health/economic risks to it and if it doesn't harm anyone, so I decided to give Spider-Man's pre-release a go, and I'm happy I did it.

A lot of cards have an interwoven web (pun intended) of mechanics or abilities that can have very cool effects on the typical gameplay loop. The aforementioned City Pigeon creates a Food token when it leaves the field, so you can attack with it, web-sling it out of the field in favor of something more powerful, and put it back for just 1 mana. Black/Blue villain decks are fun cause they allow you to do a bit of self-mill/discarding while also drawing with some recursion on the side. A Grixis deck with Green Goblin and mayhem? One of the best experiences ever in Limited, which I got to try after swapping decks with my partner. Magic: The Gathering's Standard meta is a different beast, and I'm not sure yet where Spider-Man fits there, if at all, but Limited is where this set shines.

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I got Behold the Sinister Six! In my second booster, and since I already had cards like Doc Ock, Sinister Scientist, Common Crook, Inner Demons Gangsters, and Mob Lookout, a Black/Blue deck dedicated to villains and drawing/discarding was a given. I didn't win all my games, but I sure had fun, and a lot more than I ever could expect from a Magic: The Gathering UB set based on Spider-Man. And trust me, my expectations were very, very low.

MTG's Spider-Man Finally Does Hybrid Mana Justice

Additionally, Magic: The Gathering's Spider-Man mechanics include a higher number than usual of cards with a hybrid mana cost. The set is fairly small, at 188 cards, and yet it includes 16 cards with hybrid mana pips. These are:

Cheering Crowd (Red/Green)
Gallant Citizen (Green/White)
Mary Jane Watson (Green/White)
Mob Lookout (Blue/Black)
Pumpkin Bombardment (Black/Red)
Rhino's Rampage (Red/Green)
Scarlet Spider, Kaine (Black/Red)
Shriek, Treblemaker (Black/Red)
Skyward Spider (White/Blue)
Spider Manifestation (Red/Green)
Spider-Woman, Stunning Savior (White/Blue)
Sun-Spider, Nimble Webber (White/Blue)
Symbiote Spider-Man (Blue/Black)
Ultimate Green Goblin (Black/Red)
Vulture, Scheming Scavenger (Blue/Black)
Web-Warriors (Green/White)

Scarlet Spider, Kaine, technically doesn't have a hybrid mana pip in its regular mana cost, but rather in its mayhem cost.

Hybrid mana is fantastic in Limited and formats like Pauper because it usually still provides cards with abilities tied to their multi-color nature without forcing a given mana color to play them. This gives players a much-needed respite from making sure their mana sources in the deck are perfect, and it means that playing the cards is much easier if experiencing a drought of a given color. Personally, I've always hated how sometimes you just can't play cards in your deck because the RNG gods are not in your favor, and you're drawing multiple lands of a given type in a row, but not the one you need. This is also why I typically play Blue commanders in MTG or decks that have Blue as one of their colors, so I can draw more and have fewer mana issues.

Anyway, hybrid mana is great, and it's something I'd love to see more of in the game, especially considering that some great sets like MTG's Tarkir: Dragonstorm had fewer cards with this type of mana cost. Tarkir: Dragonstorm is the perfect example because it's all about clans and their three-color identity, and yet, out of 271 cards, only 10 were given the hybrid treatment.

Should You Give MTG's Spider-Man Set a Try?

peter-parkers-camera-mtg-magic-spider-man

All this considered, I'm more than happy now with the knowledge that future MTG sets will feature more hybrid cards, as confirmed by the game's lead designer, Mark Rosewater. Rosewater, MaRo for short, took to his blog a few days ago to answer a fan's question regarding the higher rate of hybrid mana cards in the Spider-Man set's list, stating that this is a shift in design philosophy that will see more hybrid cards to help Limited formats. Even if you don't like Spider-Man in MTG, which I mean, I hear you, it's hard to argue that this is not a redeeming quality, especially in the long run.

So, final verdict. Should you try the Spider-Man set even if you don't like it? I can't answer for you, but I can tell you that I expected to heavily dislike this set, and yet it's growing on me from a gameplay perspective. Unless you try it, you won't be able to fully experience what I'm trying to say here. Is it a perfect set? No, but themes aside, it's a fun set that works in its self-sustained environment very well, and that's more than you can say for other sets that will go down in history as some of the best WotC has ever made. Does this mean I'll watch Spider-Man movies and/or collect comics? Also no, most definitely not, but as a fan of making fun decks in Magic: The Gathering, Spider-Man scratches that itch ten times over, even if just in Limited.

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