The Ultimate Marvel’s Spider-Man Limited Set Review

Last updated on September 15, 2025

Iron Spider, Stark Upgrade | Illustration by Kevin Glint

Drafter-Man! Drafter-Man!

Does whatever a drafter can.

Enters drafts, twenty bucks.

Mana floods, blames his luck.

Look out, here comes the Drafter-Man!

Oh, I’m incredibly excited for this set. I seem to say that a lot recently, but the truth is I just love a lot of these Universes Beyond properties. Growing up in the UK, I never had access to comic books. Comic book stores were few and far between, and I didn’t kwnow they even existed in this country until I was much older. I did, however, love watching the Spider-Man animated series in the 1990s, and I was about 12 when Tobey Maguire wore the Spider-Suit in the early 2000s. Since then, I’ve been a big Spider-Man fan and a fan of all things Marvel. I’m sure this is going to be a blast, and I look forward to seeing what’s in store for us next year as we continue with other Marvel properties.

Today we look at the new Magic: The Gathering Marvel’s Spider-Man set and evaluate each individual card for use in Sealed, Booster Draft, and particularly Pick-Two Draft.

As always, I want to remind you that this review is based on my initial impressions of the cards. It’s hard to figure out how these cards play out without knowing things like the speed of the format or the relative power levels of the colors and archetypes. Many cards will under- or over-perform based on initial impressions as the SPM Limited format takes shape. My reviews are largely based on the card’s quality in a vacuum or the assumption that the archetype they belong in is playable.

Rating System

Unstable Experiment | Illustration by David Palumbo

I use a comparative rating system on a scale of 0-10. Here is a rough guide to what each rating means:

10: The absolute best of the best. 10s make a meaningful impact on any game, especially when you’re playing from behind, and they’re extremely tough to beat.

Examples: Ouroboroid or Elegy Acolyte.

8-9: Extremely good cards, usually game-winning bombs and the most efficient removal spells, though not quite good enough to be a 10/10. Could also be the mythic uncommon of the set (though these are harder to predict).

Examples: Nova Hellkite or Genemorph Imago.

5-7: Important role-players. These are typically great uncommons that really drive you towards playing a particular color, like build-arounds and good removal, as well as very powerful commons.

Examples: Codecracker Hound or Rayblade Trooper.

2-4: The average Limited card. Most commons end up in this range, and most of your Limited decks are made up mostly of these.

Examples: Selfcraft Mechan or Nebula Dragon.

1: These cards are weak, and you hope never to play them in your main deck, though they aren’t completely useless if you need them in a pinch.

Examples: Luxknight Breacher or Insatiable Skittermaw.

0: Virtually unplayable in every scenario, and you should never put these cards in your main deck. Typically cards that were designed with Constructed play in mind but are awful in Limited.

Examples: Cosmogoyf or The Eternity Elevator.

A Note About Pick-Two Drafts

Spinneret and Spiderling | Illustration by Le Vuong

Marvel’s Spider-Man is the first set that Wizards of the Coast is releasing that is specifically optimized to work with their new Pick-Two Draft concept, so it’s worth looking at this for just a moment. A Pick-Two draft is just like a regular draft, except with four people in a draft pod instead of eight. You take two cards at a time instead of one (hence the name). It’s as simple as that.

The significant difference with these drafts is that your pod opens far fewer packs. You’re only seeing 12 packs’ worth of cards instead of the usual 24. You may already be familiar with the fact that your decks often look worse when you draft with six players rather than eight because you only open 18 packs in total, and this problem is exacerbated when we reduce that even more.

So, how does Spider-Man differ from other Draft sets? In which ways is it optimized for this format? Since we see fewer cards during the draft, there are simply fewer cards in this set. The main set (SPM) has a little over 180 cards in it as opposed to, for example, 261 in Edge of Eternities or 293 in Final Fantasy. In addition, we only have five draftable archetypes instead of the usual 10, condensing the cards into just a few playable decks. Finally, you’ll see quite a few cards that use hybrid mana, which allows you to play them in a wider variety of decks.

The jury’s out on whether this is a good direction to go in, but I do like that WotC have actually thought about the impact of this new format and have adjusted the set accordingly. The biggest downside is that we just get fewer Spider-Man cards. But with there being more Marvel sets on the horizon, I’m sure we won’t miss out too much.

Set Mechanics

As with any new set, Marvel’s Spider-Man has a suite of new and returning mechanics. Let’s have a look at them and how they play out.

Connive

Spider-Man is the one comic book superhero who probably has the most eclectic lineup of villains out there. You can’t have a Spider-Man set without featuring as many of these villains as possible. The connive mechanic returns from Streets of New Capenna, the original villain set.

If a creature “connives”, you get to draw a card, then discard a card. If you discard a nonland card this way, that creature picks up a +1/+1 counter. Conniving is pretty simple but very powerful. It also helps to trigger abilities that care about either drawing or discarding, both of which of course feature in Marvel’s Spider-Man.

Mayhem

Mayhem is another villain-related mechanic and a new riff on the classic madness. A mayhem ability allows you to cast a card from the graveyard as long as you discarded it in the same turn. That’s it, nice and simple. Connive is a great way to discard these cards, but just about anything that can discard a mayhem card for a bit of free value is bound to be good.

Mayhem is extremely powerful. Discarding a card is typically a downside, but discarding a mayhem card and casting it basically means you never actually discarded it at all. It’s a very easy way to get ahead on card advantage, and I expect this to be very important in Marvel’s Spider-Man.

Modifications

Returning from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, we have modifications. A creature is considered “modified” as long as it has any type of counter on it, if it's equipped, or if it's enchanted by an aura you control.

This mechanic is far less interesting. It wasn’t good back in Kamigawa, and I’m not sure much has changed since then. There’s not much to say. If a creature is only good while modified, it’s probably just bad overall. There are exceptions, of course, but this just feels like a non-starter.

Web-Slinging

Perhaps the most unique aspect of Spider-Man is his webs. Spider-People use them in so many different ways, from traveling around New York City, to rescuing civilians, to webbing up bad guys, to disabling enemy tech, and so much more. There had to be a mechanic that uses Spidey’s webs, and this is what we got.

Web-slinging is an alternate casting cost: You just need to pay the cost of the web-slinging ability and return a tapped creature you control to its owner’s hand. This sounds really good, as the ability to bounce creatures and reuse their enters triggers is a tried and tested strategy in our game. It’s kind of clunky, however, as the creature you return has to be tapped. As such, small fliers or otherwise unblockable creatures are going to be very useful to enable this as often as possible.

Draft Archetypes

Unlike most Draft sets, Marvel’s Spider-Man has just five draftable themes across the five allied-color pairs:

• Azorius (): Modifications
• Dimir (): Villains and Connive
• Rakdos (): Mayhem and Goblins
• Gruul (): Creatures with mana value four or greater
• Selesnya (): Web-Slinging

White

Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer

Rating: 6/10

Quintuple white is a prohibitively difficult cost to overcome. We saw this play out with Zodiark, Umbral God in Final Fantasy, where the quintuple black casting cost held it back from seeing much play. That said, Zodiark ended up just good enough to pick up early and build a mono-black deck around it. Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer looks a lot stronger than Zodiark, so you could definitely take this early and build a mono-white deck to support it. This might even be easier in the Pick-Two format, so this’ll be interesting to see play out.

Arachne, Psionic Weaver

Rating: 5/10

A creature with a web-slinging cost of 1 is bound to be very valuable. We don’t care so much about looking at your opponent’s hand and making something a little more expensive. In fact, there’s a vanilla common in Marvel’s Spider-Man that has identical stats and the same web-slinging cost to Arachne, Psionic Weaver, and they’re both about as good as each other.

Aunt May

Rating: 4/10

Aunt May is the always lovable guardian to Peter Parker and a Soul Warden variant is a perfect fit for her card. These cards are usually a bit hit or miss, but the fact that Aunt May gives +1/+1 counters to all spiders definitely makes it more interesting. This stands out as a great card for the green/white web-slinging deck, but other white decks probably won’t care too much.

City Pigeon

Rating: 4/10

You need a couple of things to enable the web-slinging ability: good abilities when a creature enters or leaves, and ideally a way to tap them. City Pigeon does both while being a solid 1-drop that can carry modifications. This looks to be one of the better commons in white and a great enabler for both of white’s archetypes.

Costume Closet

Rating: 4/10

Costume Closet looks almost identical to Explorer's Cache, a card that performed quite a bit worse than it initially looked. We do have a modified deck to enable though, so it might do better in Spider-Man than in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. I’m sure this’ll be fine, but it’s not something I’m likely to be excited to pick up.

Daily Bugle Reporters

Rating: 4/10

Both options for Daily Bugle Reporters are highly desirable. Either you get a 4/5‘s worth of stats for 4 mana, which is fairly decent, or you get a slightly restrictive Gravedigger. This looks like it fits well into both of white’s archetypes, and I’m sure it’ll be a decent card.

Flash Thompson, Spider-Fan

Rating: 3/10

While it’s obviously appropriate that this card has flash, the ability to tap or untap something on entering is a pretty minor effect. Flash Thompson, Spider-Fan’s best application is probably to untap something to use as a blocker during combat, but that’s far too situational to pin your hopes on it. Much like when the character was a bully in high school, I’d say that makes this Flash Thompson card much more of an annoyance rather than something that’s going to make a significant difference.

Friendly Neighborhood

Rating: 4/10

The core of Friendly Neighborhood is simply a 4-mana spell that creates three 1/1 tokens. That’s not bad on its own, and the aura that’s left behind bumps this up by a couple of points, too. Sorcery speed keeps this card’s ability from getting too strong, so you can’t use it in the middle of combat. I think you’ll find this to be a fairly average card, though good in the right kind of aggressive deck.

Origin of Spider-Man

Rating: 5/10

The fact that you get a 2/1 creature up front for an initial investment of 2 mana means everything else you get from Origin of Spider-Man is just pure upside. Unfortunately, all you get is a +1/+1 counter and a turn of double strike on a creature. That’s definitely not nothing, but I hoped for more. Origin of Spider-Man is a solid card for sure, but it isn’t broken, and you can probably pass on it for something more premium.

Peter Parker / Amazing Spider-Man

Rating: 6/10

It sounds very difficult to cast a triple-colored card in Marvel’s Spider-Man with few mana fixing options. You can of course play this just as Peter Parker, a 0/1 that creates a 2/1 token on entering, and that’s very good. But unless you actually have access to the third color, Peter’s potential is significantly limited. Even then, giving all your legends a web-slinging cost isn’t exactly game-breaking. I do like the base rate you get on the Peter Parker side here, but the Amazing Spider-Man side isn’t likely to make a difference.

Rent Is Due

Rating: 0/10

This is a typical example of a card that just wasn’t designed for Limited. There are too many things that need to go right for you to enable Rent Is Due, and it does absolutely nothing until you get there. This looks great in Constructed formats where you can easily build around it, but it’s not going to be remotely playable in a Draft environment.

Selfless Police Captain

Rating: 3/10

We’ve seen this exact card a few times before, and it’s always fine. Selfless Police Captain starts out as a 2/2 for 2 mana, which is always at least decent, then it leaves something relevant behind after it dies. Very solid card, and great for enabling the modified deck, too.

Silver Sable, Mercenary Leader

Rating: 6/10

In a vacuum, Silver Sable, Mercenary Leader is already a 3/4's worth of stats for 3 mana, so you know you’ve got a good deal no matter where the counter goes. Lifelink is one of the most valuable abilities in Limited, so you gain a leg up in any damage race when you give it to a modified creature each turn.

Spectacular Spider-Man

Rating: 7/10

This screams “annoying” to me right away. For the fairly low price of 3 mana, you can flash in Spectacular Spider-Man and immediately sacrifice it to protect your team from removal. While that’s not terribly exciting, that additional option on what is essentially a 3/2 with flash and flying sounds fantastic. Just having this hero in play makes it significantly more difficult for your opponent to interact with you, and that makes it quite the powerful card.

Spectacular Tactics

Rating: 4/10

This is a great lesson in card evaluation. A spell with only one of these modes and not the other would be far too narrow, but the ability to do either of them lets Spectacular Tactics cover a lot more situations. This looks like a spell that’s worthy to play in the main deck, and it’d be a very welcome addition to any white deck.

Spider-Man, Web-Slinger

Rating: 5/10

I’m very high on Spider-Man, Web-Slinger, and I’m giving it the rating to match. The fact that this can return a creature to your hand for just 1 mana is very impressive. The efficiency of that alone really sells this for me. This is going to be a key common to pick up when you draft the green/white web-slinging deck, and I can’t imagine there’s any number of these that you’d be unhappy to play in your deck.

Spider-UK

Rating: 6/10

Having lived in the UK all my life, I have, shall we say, mixed feelings about this card. I’ll leave it at that.

Spider-UK is, of course, very good. It’s a great enabler for the web-slinging deck, and it shouldn’t be too hard to enable its end step trigger as long as you fill your deck with cheap, efficient creatures. City Pigeon looks like it’ll pulling its weight a lot in Marvel’s Spider-Man.

Starling, Aerial Ally

Rating: 2/10

A 3/4 with flying for 5 mana used to be great, and it was actually highly desirable in some sets. But as sets have grown stronger and more streamlined in recent years, these 5-drops have become worse and worse. Starling, Aerial Ally is still quite playable and the enters trigger is a nice bonus, but I don’t think you’re ever going to miss it if you don’t pick it up in the draft.

Sudden Strike

Rating: 4/10

Both of white’s archetypes in Marvel’s Spider-Man look quite aggressive, so a spell like Sudden Strike loses a considerable amount of utility despite how clean and efficient it is. A player that you beat down with your aggressive deck is less likely to attack you back, and removing a blocking creature doesn’t help you get damage through. Still, 2 mana to kill anything in one shot is worth consideration, especially in a color that typically lacks removal.

Thwip!

Rating: 1/10

These sound effect names might be my favorite cards in Spider-Man. It’s very difficult to describe sound effects through a purely visual medium, and this is how comics tend to solve that issue. These onomatopoeias have become infamous over the years, especially thanks to the stylistic choice to have them appear on screen during fight scenes in the Batman TV series of the 1960s.

Anyway, Thwip! isn’t very interesting, as 1-mana combat tricks that only give +2/+2 haven’t performed well in the past. This is probably best off staying in your sideboard, but it’s not completely useless if you have no removal.

Web Up

Rating: 6/10

This card is literally just Banishing Light, a card that we’ve had for well over a decade now and that’s pretty much always good. In Limited, you just need ways to remove problematic creatures from the board, and Web Up is white’s best way to do that.

Web-Shooters

Rating: 3/10

Back in the day, creatures like Master of Diversion and Territorial Hammerskull were among the best commons in their respective formats. You’d perhaps think that giving this ability to any creature would be good, but it’s far too costly in the long run. I do think Web-Shooters is good, especially in the modified deck, but it’s far from being among the best commons in Marvel’s Spider-Man. It might even be unplayable depending on how the format develops.

Wild Pack Squad

Rating: 1/10

Given how much trouble Silver Sable’s goons gave me in Insomniac’s Spider-Man game, I’d have expected this card to be a lot better. Frankly, I think Wild Pack Squad looks terrible. Only giving first strike and vigilance doesn’t actually help a lot of creatures to get through combat favorably. This needed to give a power increase to make me interested, but now, I doubt it’ll ever leave my sideboard.

With Great Power…

Rating: 0/10

We all know the quote, surely? With great power comes great responsibility. Ever since those immortal words were spoken by Uncle Ben in the first Spider-Man movie, they’ve been inescapable throughout pop culture.

Sadly, this card doesn’t do them justice. Putting With Great Power… on a creature and having your opponent kill said creature opens you up for the easiest two-for-one swing you can get. It’s not even that good when it manages to resolve, and it costs a lot of mana. I know I’m going to randomly die to this card at least once, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’ll probably win more games of Magic if you never put this in your main deck.

Blue

Amazing Acrobatics

Rating: 3/10

Tapping two creatures is a mediocre effect that’s great when you can win the game the following turn, but it’s awful any other time. If you don’t want to play a counterspell, Amazing Acrobatics isn’t for you. But still, Cancel with upside often proves to be a reasonable card, so it should see play in the right deck.

Beetle, Legacy Criminal

Rating: 3/10

Being a Phantom Monster is always a good start, but it still needs a little something extra to make it playable these days. Fortunately, the graveyard ability certainly counts as enough extra. Not only will Beetle, Legacy Criminal serve as a strong villain creature, but it’s also a great option to discard to a connive ability to get some extra value.

Chameleon, Master of Disguise

Rating: 5/10

A clone that only copies your own creatures is very limited in scope, but Chameleon, Master of Disguise’s mayhem ability is a huge upgrade. Even if you just cast it as a 2/3 with no abilities when you have nothing to copy, this card is always going to be a good option to discard.

The Clone Saga

Rating: 5/10

This saga has a lot of potential to be powerful, but there’s one big issue that holds it back for me: The first chapter is so weak. Sometimes, taking turn 4 off to cast The Clone Saga and not add the board just isn’t going to be possible without falling really far behind. Granted, you should be able to catch back up when you reach chapter two, but that’s only if you have something worthwhile to copy with it. There’s definitely a lot to like here, but there’s a chance it’ll be far too slow for Spider-Man Limited.

Doc Ock, Sinister Scientist

Rating: 2/10

It could be easy to look at this card and be amazed at the thought of an 8/8 with hexproof for just 5 mana. Except it could also be a 5-mana 4/5 with no abilities. While a good villains deck should be able to enable this well enough, Doc Ock, Sinister Scientist won’t be active a little too often for my tastes. Still, it’s not the worst card to play, and it’ll make the cut in some dedicated villain decks.

Doc Ock’s Henchmen

Rating: 1/10

There’s not really much going for this card. It’s too small for its mana cost and doesn’t really do much. Doc Ock's Henchmen can enable some conniving, but it’s not very good at doing that, so I’m sure we can find better.

Flying Octobot

Rating: 6/10

Flying Octobot looks like an excellent payoff for the villain deck. It reminds me quite a bit of Dimir Spybug, an excellent card in its own right. If you can play this robot on turn 2 in a dedicated deck for it, then it’s very likely to pick up a counter virtually every turn, which makes it a very legitimate threat in just a few short turns. Even when drawing it later in the game, you only need one or two villains to enter before it becomes a relevant card on the board. This is great, and it should be a strong early pick if you want to draft villains.

Hide on the Ceiling

Rating: 5/10

Perhaps the most obvious thing to do with this card is to flicker your own creatures or artifacts and reuse their enters triggers. That’s not bad, but Hide on the Ceiling does quite a lot more than that. You can save your creature(s) from removal, or you could even use it proactively to remove your opponent’s creatures from the board, which removes their ability to block your attackers. This card has quite a few good but niche applications, and it’s flexible enough to keep my attention, even if it isn’t particularly broken.

Hydro-Man, Fluid Felon

Rating: 2/10

This card looks like it may have quite a few applications in some Constructed formats, but it’s a bit too weird for Limited. Double blue for a 2/2 pseudo-prowess creature is all that Hydro-Man, Fluid Felon really amounts to and that’s not that great. Especially with a difficult casting cost tacked onto it. I could potentially see a mono-blue deck in this format, in which case this might be a good way to accelerate you into casting a 5-mana instant on turn 4? Still, I’m not too hopeful with this one.

Impostor Syndrome

Rating: 1/10

I’m sure this meme-tastic card will turn some heads in Commander, but it requires a bit too much setup to be a quality Limited card. Impostor Syndrome is a 6-mana enchantment that does absolutely nothing by itself, which is too much of an inherent downside. We’d need the upside to offset that in a big way, and I just don’t think it does.

Lady Octopus, Inspired Inventor

Rating: 0/10

This card looks incredibly strong for other formats, but Marvel’s Spider-Man doesn’t have a particularly strong focus on artifacts. Even if you could cast something for free with Lady Octopus, Inspired Inventor, you’re not actually getting much of an advantage over simply playing it as usual unless you do it often. This is simply unplayable, but I’m excited to try it out in Standard alongside Repurposing Bay.

Madame Web, Clairvoyant

Rating: 4/10

While blue fits Madame Web’s character a lot more, this card feels like it would be much more at home in green. As it stands, Future Sight is a very powerful effect to have in your deck, but one that’s as restrictive as Madame Web, Clairvoyant and on such a poorly-statted body just makes me think it won’t be worth it very often.

Mysterio, Master of Illusion

Rating: 9/10

“I think I had a bowl of Mysterios for breakfast.” Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2 (Video Game)

Quentin Beck, a.k.a. Mysterio, is one of Spider-Man’s most iconic villains, played by Jake Gyllenhaal in Spider-Man: Far From Home. This card is also absolutely ridiculous. For just 4 mana, you can flood your board with 3/3 tokens that your opponent is now forced to deal with.

Sure, they could just use a single removal spell to deal with all of them at once, and if they do so, Mysterio, Master of Illusion was just a typical 4-drop that demanded an answer. But what if they don’t have any removal? Can your opponent really survive for long while they take hits from an army of 3/3s? No, they can’t.

Mysterio is absurd in a dedicated villains deck and you should probably pick it highly.

Mysterio’s Phantasm

Rating: 3/10

Mysterio's Phantasm is a nice, solid creature for just about any blue deck. Reasonable stats, 2 mana, flying, and a little bit of self-mill. Not bad at all.

Norman Osborn / Green Goblin

Rating: 9/10

Norman Osborn is perhaps the most famous villain in the world of Spider-Man, which is why he just had to be the villain in the first movie, portrayed absolutely brilliantly by Willem Dafoe.

This card is a fantastic representation of the character, an evil, conniving man with political aspirations who transforms into the maniacal Green Goblin and sows mayhem through New York City. It’s also just a great card. You don’t even need access to the other colors, because Norman Osborn on its own is extremely powerful just as a Looter il-Kor that grows every time you discard a nonland card to it. But if you ever get the chance to transform it into Green Goblin, you really pile on the pressure. Norman is great, and you should definitely take this card early in a draft.

Oscorp Research Team

Rating: 2/10

I do love a sweet control card. What could be better than to sit behind a defensive creature like Oscorp Research Team and to leave the mana open to draw two cards each turn? As it happens, there’s quite a lot that’s better. But will that stop me from doing it whenever I can? Of course not.

Robotics Mastery

Rating: 6/10

While I do dislike auras in general, auras that have a high potential to trade for a card the moment you play them are definitely worth another look. If you can flash Robotics Mastery in during combat and take out a creature, then this is extremely good. You essentially trade this card for an opposing creature and made two good tokens at the same time. You do still have the potential of a massive blowout if your opponent is able to kill your creature with this on the stack, but this looks like a very powerful card assuming you can play around that.

School Daze

Rating: 6/10

The best part about instant-speed draw spells is that you can leave mana open during your opponent’s turn for a counterspell of some kind, then you can cast your draw spell instead if you don’t end up using the mana.

What’s great about School Daze is that it’s literally both of the cards that you’d want to hold open in this scenario rolled into one. Not only that, but the counter mode is just Dismiss! This is great, and I hope the SPM Limited format is slow enough to support using it.

Secret Identity

Rating: 1/10

Rk Post has absolutely knocked it out of the park with this artwork, referencing the card Unmask. That’s not only thematic, but Rk Post also did the art for that card.

Still, while Secret Identity is a flexible card that can function as either a combat trick or a hexproof enabler to counter removal, blue rarely cares about these effects. Putting them together on the same card is good, but I don’t think it’s good enough to make me want to play this in the main.

Spider-Byte, Web Warden

Rating: 7/10

I mean… this is literally just a Man-o'-War, which we already know is a fantastic card. Spider-Byte, Web Warden is a great tempo play, it deals with a lot of annoying threats, it kills tokens, and so much more. This card is always good in Limited, and I don’t see that changing now.

Spider-Man No More

Rating: 4/10

Witness Protection ended up being quite a decent removal spell back in New Capenna. Spider-Man No More may cost 1 mana more than that, but the effect is still very good. It also gives defender, so the now 1/1 creature is even more useless than usual. Blue doesn’t really get good options for removal, so this will easily suffice.

Spider-Sense

Rating: 1/10

Given that most of the spells we play in Limited are creatures, any counterspell that can’t counter a creature is already too narrow to see much main deck play. This just looks like a solid sideboard card, and the web-slinging cost gives you quite a bit of potential when you bring it in.

Unstable Experiment

Rating: 4/10

The classic spell that lets you draw two cards and discard one is one that you can definitely run in any deck, but you’re rarely excited to see it. Unstable Experiment has a few extra things going for it.

Firstly, discarding cards is something that blue, black, and red actively want to enable mayhem cards. But perhaps even more importantly, this could work as a combat trick. If you can discard a nonland card to it, this instant lets you put a +1/+1 counter on a creature in the middle of combat. If that lets you win a fight, you’ve just scored yourself a free bit of card advantage. This card has quite a bit of potential with all of that considered, so I’m eager to see how it plays out.

Whoosh!

Rating: 6/10

We’ve seen this exact card before, first as Into the Roil and then again as Blink of an Eye. It has been fantastic in every set in which it’s been printed, and I don’t see Marvel’s Spider-Man being any different. Bouncing a permanent and drawing a card is a very powerful ability, and you even have the flexibility to cast this on the cheap if you don’t need the card back. This is my early pick for the best blue common and maybe even the best common in SPM, it’s that good.

Black

Agent Venom

Rating: 8/10

This card reminds me greatly of Midnight Reaper, one of the best rares in Guilds of Ravnica and a great Standard card. Note that this trigger has no “once per turn” limitations on it, so flashing this in right before multiple creatures are going to die should net you several cards for your trouble. Agent Venom is a very powerful and flexible card. I also have to give props to the designers for giving this flash, given that it’s the superhero alter-ego of Flash Thompson.

Alien Symbiosis

Rating: 1/10

While this is an excellent top-down design for the symbiotes, I don’t like it all. Like I always say, auras suck. Even though you can keep casting Alien Symbiosis from the graveyard, it costs you a whole card each time, so you lose out no matter what. Even when you consider that you can discard the excess lands you draw, +1/+1 and menace is hardly enough of a bonus to warrant playing this.

Behold the Sinister Six!

Rating: 9/10

As much as I want to rate this as a six out of ten, it’s just too good for that. The downsides to consider here are that Behold the Sinister Six! is a 7-mana sorcery spell that requires you to have some decent things to reanimate from your graveyard. But that’s about it. If we then consider that this should be very easy to set up in a black deck, thanks to all the discarding you’ll do, this starts to look a lot more promising. I think the sweet spot is to reanimate three creatures, and that seems very doable indeed. Any more than that, and you’re off to the races! This is bound to end a lot of games and is just cheap enough that it’s actually realistic to do, so I’m sure this is going to be strong.

Black Cat, Cunning Thief

Rating: 9/10

One of my favorite designs ever was Gonti, Lord of Luxury. It was such a simple design and yet it ended up incredibly powerful in both Limited and Constructed. Black Cat, Cunning Thief is very similar to Gonti, except it steals two cards out of the top nine. It may not have deathtouch, but I’ll trade that for an extra stolen card any day! While Black Cat is in the worst color to pair with web-slinging, if you ever manage to return it and recast it, I don’t see how you lose that game. What a great card for a really great character.

Common Crook

Rating: 3/10

We’ve seen this design a few times now, most recently with Final Fantasy’s Undercity Dire Rat, and it’s always just fine. It’s nothing special, but Common Crook can be a solid 2-drop to get your mana curve started and potentially accelerate you into something bigger.

The Death of Gwen Stacy

Rating: 5/10

Perhaps the most famous scene to come out of Andrew Garfield’s Amazing Spider-Man movies, as Gwen Stacy falls to her death and he’s unable to stop it. The second and third chapters of The Death of Gwen Stacy are a little inconsequential, but this is always just 3 mana to kill any creature, and that would be worth playing on its own.

Eddie Brock / Venom, Lethal Protector

Rating: 8/10

Venom was such a popular Spider-Man villain that he even spawned his own comic series. Venom is an alien symbiote, a being that relies on other lifeforms to survive. Eddie Brock is his most well-known host body, though many Marvel characters have played host to Venom and the other symbiotes.

As a card, Eddie Brock isn’t particularly impressive. Reanimating a creature for free on entering is a great ability, but the restriction to 1-drops holds it back too much. What I’m looking at here is the power of Venom, Lethal Protector, which is incredibly powerful on its own. Much like The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride, Venom can just plow through your opponents and give you a bunch of card advantage while doing so. It’s three colors, which is difficult to do in Marvel’s Spider-Man, but at least one of them is green, which gives you access to a bit more mana fixing than usual.

Gwenom, Remorseless

Rating: 9/10

Bolas's Citadel is an absurdly powerful card, so the idea of getting it active for a turn just from attacking with this monster is just incredible. Thanks to lifelink and deathtouch, attacking with Gwenom, Remorseless is always going to work out for you. Firstly, and most importantly, it doesn’t need to survive the combat for you to utilize its ability. All Gwenom needs to do is attack. Most of the time, you’ll be able to trade it off in combat, gain a bit of life, then cast a couple of free spells off the top of your library. This is pure value, and there’s very little holding it back.

Inner Demons Gangsters

Rating: 2/10

Discard outlets for a mayhem deck are going to be important, and you could definitely use Inner Demons Gangsters for that. Sadly, these demons are so weak that they’re not likely to do much else.

Merciless Enforcers

Rating: 3/10

Since Merciless Enforcers starts out as a 2/1 with lifelink for just 2 mana, you can’t go too wrong with it. It’s a strong play early, and it helps you to keep up in a damage race. Then, if you ever need something to spend excess mana on, there are worse things to do than to ping your opponent for a point of damage and gain a little bit of life back.

Morlun, Devourer of Spiders

Rating: 8/10

This card is such a simple design that it’s brilliant. Cards in the past like Blind Hunter and Grasping Thrull have shown us just how powerful life drain can be on a creature, and yet here’s one that can drain for as much as you’re able to pay into it. Imagine if you were to cast Morlun, Devourer of Spiders for X=5, gain 5 life, and put a massive 7/6 lifelinker into play. You even have the option to play Morlun for much cheaper if you just need something to fill a spot on your curve. This card has everything you need: It has power and flexibility, it’s a strong play when behind… it’s just great.

Parker Luck

Rating: 0/10

No thanks. Random amounts of life loss aside, you’re not going to win if you play symmetrical draw effects. In other formats, Parker Luck is going to be fun when you manipulate the top card of your deck, but here it’s just straight up terrible.

Prison Break

Rating: 6/10

Five mana to reanimate a creature has always felt a little too expensive, even with an extra +1/+1 counter in the mix. However, 4 mana looks a lot more enticing. You do want to set up a good creature for Prison Break, but assuming you have an abundance of discard outlets to enable that and set up the mayhem cost, this should be a great card.

Risky Research

Rating: 4/10

We’ve seen cards like this before, like Read the Bones or Diresight, and they’ve always been pretty good. Risky Research’s surveilling makes all the difference, not only to set up what you draw, but also to help fill the graveyard for anything that might care about that.

Sandman’s Quicksand

Rating: 5/10

Infest is a card that has a high upside but can often be too situational when you have small creatures of your own. Sandman's Quicksand gets around that downside beautifully. In any mayhem-based deck, this is bound to be quite powerful, especially against any go-wide deck.

Scorpion, Seething Striker

Rating: 3/10

I kind of wanted more from Scorpion, Seething Striker. A 3/3 for 4 mana isn’t very impressive, even with deathtouch, and its triggered ability isn’t all that exciting either. It’s definitely a playable card, but an uncommon legendary villain makes me want Scorpion to do more.

Scorpion’s Sting

Rating: 6/10

Like many other simple cards in SPM, we’ve seen this before! Last Gasp is a great card. Not only does Scorpion's Sting kill off small creatures, but the fact that it’s an instant means you can also use this during combat to take care of even bigger creatures. This is great and will probably be the best black common.

The Soul Stone

Rating: 9/10

Well now. Avengers: Endgame was one of the biggest movies of all time, so I think we all know where this is going. But just in case, in the Marvel Universe, there are six Infinity Stones, and each embodies an aspect of the universe: Power, Space, Time, Reality, Mind, and Soul. While each stone is powerful on its own, collecting all six gives their user unimaginable power. This formed the basis of the Infinity Gauntlet storyline in the comics and the Infinity Saga in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If we’re seeing the first stone here, we’ll see the others in future sets, presumably building up to an Endgame-like showdown.

As a card, The Soul Stone is actually very powerful. Two-drop mana rocks are very good, accelerating you to a 4-drop on turn 3. Then later, you can harness the Soul Stone and turn it into a very powerful artifact that reanimates a creature for free every turn, much like Virtue of Persistence. On top of that, it’s very hard to interact with, and you have a lot of agency over when and how you harness it. This is bound to be a big card in Spider-Man and very annoying to play against.

Spider-Man Noir

Rating: 3/10

I’m not sure how good a super-exalted trigger will be in SPM Limited, but it’s probably not enough to make up for an under-statted 5-drop. The biggest thing holding Spider-Man Noir back is the fact that it’s a hero, not a villain. Not working with any of the “villains matter” cards is bound to be a big downside, and it’s not that impressive in the first place.

The Spot’s Portal

Rating: 6/10

Instant-speed all-purpose removal that actually gets around effects like indestructible and anything that triggers on dying sounds pretty good to me. Black decks in Marvel’s Spider-Man are bound to be villain-based, so you won’t lose life too often, but even so, The Spot's Portal is just clean enough that you can play it in any deck.

Swarm, Being of Bees

Rating: 3/10

You really want to cast Swarm, Being of Bees for its mayhem cost for it to be worth it. But if you do, then like all mayhem cards, it’s just going to be great value. Costing 1 mana is also great, and it makes it a lot easier to cast Swarm on the same turn as the spell or ability that discarded it.

Tombstone, Career Criminal

Rating: 6/10

Gravedigger is a classic card for Limited and seeing a new variant of it is always exciting. Black’s archetypes are both villain-centric, so it shouldn’t be too much of a downside that Tombstone, Career Criminal only recurs a villain creature. As long as you have a good number of them and can reliably get something good back, Tombstone is a great addition to any villain deck.

Venom, Evil Unleashed

Rating: 2/10

A 4/5 with deathtouch for 5 mana really isn’t that impressive. What’s interesting though is the ability to exile Venom, Evil Unleashed from the graveyard, which can give even more value to your discard or connive abilities. I don’t think this Venom is going to see a ton of play, but this ability definitely has a home.

Venomized Cat

Rating: 3/10

This looks like a very reasonable 3-drop to me. Black cares more about discarding cards than milling them in Marvel’s Spider-Man, but a little bit of free self-mill isn’t usually a bad thing. Then, deathtouch lets Venomized Cat trade for just about anything, which isn’t too bad to see on a 3-drop.

Venom’s Hunger

Rating: 4/10

Being a 5-mana sorcery makes me kind of hate this card. If you have hardly any villains in your deck, which I think will be unlikely for a black deck, Venom's Hunger is barely even playable. Assuming your deck has a lot of villains, you can play this card and it’s fine, but there are a lot of better removal spells out there.

Villainous Wrath

Rating: 8/10

Board wipes are extremely good in Limited. Since you’re the one casting it, you can play in such a way that lets your opponent overextend into the board while you keep your better creatures in hand. Then, Villainous Wrath gives you a major advantage which you can often turn into an easy win. The life loss here is just icing on the cake, but not enough to make this any better than your average 5-mana sweeper.

Red

Angry Rabble

Rating: 3/10

We don’t expect all that much from common 2-drops, but Angry Rabble does have a few things going for it. Each of its three (count them) abilities is fine, though very minor, and they all add up to what will probably just be a very solid card.

Electro, Assaulting Battery

Rating: 4/10

I’m not really a fan of Electro’s card. Double red makes it a little difficult to cast, and its abilities just aren’t all that interesting in most Limited games. Plus, none of the dedicated Draft archetypes are focused on casting instants and sorceries. I think I might be looking at Electro, Assaulting Battery a little harshly, because it can definitely do some work, but it simply looks like it needs you to built around it to a greater degree than you’re prepared to do in a Limited environment.

Electro’s Bolt

Rating: 5/10

Two mana for 4 damage is great, and even better when you essentially get a free card out of the deal by casting this with mayhem. Electro's Bolt is what a premium, common removal spell looks like, and your mayhem deck should take as many as it can find.

Gwen Stacy / Ghost-Spider

Rating: 4/10

Gwen Stacy is a wonderful character in the Spider-Verse who has been given her dues in more recent years. She began as an early love interest of Peter Parker before being fleshed out and becoming a superhero in her own right.

This card leaves quite a lot to be desired though. Gwen Stacy is just fine as a 2-drop 2/1 that essentially draws a card. The problem is that in SPM with very little mana fixing, paying a cost sounds a lot more difficult to do than usual. We have a cycle of five duals and only one of them supports this card. I’m giving this rating on the assumption that you simply can’t use Ghost-Spider, though if you manage to, the card can be quite powerful.

Heroes’ Hangout

Rating: 1/10

As cute as the artwork on this card is, I don’t think we’ll play it very much. The Patrol Night option is just awful, and sorcery-speed pump spells are rarely any good at all. The Date Night option is quite a bit better but still just a worse Sleight of Hand in a color that probably doesn’t want it. I don’t see ever wanting to cast Heroes' Hangout, though it’s not completely unplayable if you desperately need more spells in your deck.

Hobgoblin, Mantled Marauder

Rating: 5/10

Hobgoblin, Mantled Marauder is quite an aggressive creature that might not hit very hard if you play it on turn 2, but on subsequent turns it can deal quite a lot of damage. Assuming you have the right black/red shell, you ought to discard cards on most turns to enable mayhem, which enables this card as well. Also, I suppose the Vivi Cauldron decks in Standard needed an extra bump to make them competitive, so this’ll find a good home there, too.

J. Jonah Jameson

Rating: 4/10

We all knew this card was coming! J. Jonah Jameson is Peter Parker’s boss at The Daily Bugle, brought to life on the big screen by the incredible J.K. Simmons, who always calls Spider-Man a menace. You just had to make his card care about creatures with menace.

As a card, J. Jonah Jameson is fine, though might be a little over-costed. Giving any creature menace permanently and then getting a Treasure each turn for a bit is good, but it might not be enough to make up for playing a Gray Ogre.

Masked Meower

Rating: 4/10

This card reminds me a lot of Insolent Neonate, a card that was printed back in Shadows over Innistrad as a cheap enabler for madness. That card was very good, and while I think haste is a fair bit worse than menace here, I’m sure Masked Meower will still be very good, particularly in a deck that wants to enable mayhem cards.

Maximum Carnage

Rating: 0/10

I don’t like this at all. I can’t imagine ever wanting to play a card that doesn’t at least trade for a whole card in some way. The only way Maximum Carnage gives you any kind of card parity is if you can force an opponent’s creature to attack into your bigger blocker. That’s incredibly situational, and most of the time you’re actually looking at a weak enchantment that sits around for a few turns doing barely anything. I’d stay away if I were you.

Molten Man, Inferno Incarnate

Rating: 4/10

This is a weird design, and one that’s going to come with a high amount of variance in how good it’ll be. First off, Molten Man, Inferno Incarnate should always be at least a 2/2 when you have one Mountain in play and you search for another. That’s not very good at all, but then sometimes you’ll draw Molten Man and it’ll be a 3/3, or a 4/4, and it starts to look a lot better. The difficulty I have is that you can’t rely on its mana acceleration, and at the end of the day it’s just a vanilla creature of an unreliable size. I’m willing to take a chance on Molten Man, but I’m not sold yet.

Raging Goblinoids

Rating: 6/10

This is essentially a modern-day version of the classic Arrogant Wurm, except hard-casting it for 5 mana looks a lot better than it used to. Mayhem is such a powerful mechanic already that you’ll play just about any mayhem card you can find, but Raging Goblinoids is still one of the better ones.

Romantic Rendezvous

Rating: 4/10

We usually see some variant of Tormenting Voice in almost every set nowadays, and it always lands as a fairly mediocre card that can have value in some specific decks. This version that riffs on one of the first Spider-Man movie’s most memorable scenes looks very good. Not only is Romantic Rendezvous a good mayhem enabler, but thanks to the way it’s worded, if it’s the last card in your hand, you don’t have to discard anything and you just get to draw two cards.

Shadow of the Goblin

Rating: 2/10

While I like the idea of a card that can enable mayhem every single turn, I really don’t like how little agency you have over it. You’re forced to discard every turn, which is sometimes going to work against you. The other ability to ping for 1 damage is barely even relevant. I really don’t know what to make of Shadow of the Goblin as a package, but I’m leaning towards not wanting it. I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

Shock

Rating: 4/10

One mana for 2 damage doesn’t kill a lot of creatures, but it’s efficient enough to keep our attention. Shock is a card that’s decades old at this point, and it’s proven its worth many times over the years.

Shocker, Unshakable

Rating: 5/10

Do you get it? It’s a card for the Shocker, so it Shocks a creature and your opponent when it enters! That’s a very good ability, but it seems really over-costed to see on a 6-drop. That mana cost holds Shocker, Unshakable back from being a truly exceptional card in Marvel’s Spider-Man, but the ability is still strong enough that it ought to be quite good.

Spider-Gwen, Free Spirit

Rating: 2/10

This doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s a 2/3 with reach, but I’m supposed to want to tap it? I don’t know, Spider-Gwen, Free Spirit looks incredibly mediocre to me and not likely to make the cut a lot of the time.

Spider-Islanders

Rating: 3/10

This may be just a vanilla creature, but mayhem really is that good. If you can cast Spider-Islanders for its mayhem cost, you’re pretty much up a card already, and you get a discounted 4/3 at the same time. Great common.

Spider-Punk

Rating: 4/10

While not quite a typal lord, having all your spiders enter with a +1/+1 counter is pretty reasonable, and you can even grant them haste instead if that happens to work out. The other abilities here are virtually useless, so that’s about all we’re looking at. Spider-Punk isn’t a bad card by any means, but it’s also one that’s quite limited in scope for SPM Limited, despite how brilliant this is as a top-down design.

Spider-Verse

Rating: 6/10

The big downside here is that since it costs 5 mana, you’re unlikely to be able to cast anything in the same turn. That aside, if you get to copy a bunch of spells without any additional mana investment, Spider-Verse is absolutely worth taking that turn off. The obvious way to trigger this in SPM is with mayhem spells, so you can only play this in a deck that’s full of them. Still, there’s a lot of free value to be gained here, so it’s worth setting up if you can.

Spinneret and Spiderling

Rating: 5/10

There are, naturally, quite a lot of spiders in Marvel’s Spider-Man to help support this card. A 1-drop that’s relatively easy to grow each turn, much like Hired Claw, is really strong and has a lot of potential. The only catch I can see is that Spinneret and Spiderling doesn’t do anything by itself, so you need at least one more spider to get it going.

Stegron the Dinosaur Man

Rating: 3/10

Stegron the Dinosaur Man is both a weak 5-drop creature and a weak combat trick, but combine them both into the same card and it does become playable, much like Ironhoof Boar in the past.

Superior Foes of Spider-Man

Rating: 6/10

Three mana for a 3/3 with trample is already a good start. Naturally, what’s selling this is the ability to “draw” a card whenever you cast a big spell, which you can comfortably do starting form the turn after you cast Superior Foes of Spider-Man on turn 3. Assuming this survives for a couple of turns, you end up drawing a couple of free cards off of this while applying a good amount of pressure, exactly what you want to see for an archetypal build-around.

Taxi Driver

Rating: 3/10

This is a 2-drop 3/1, which is already a decent rate for an aggressive creature. Giving other creatures haste is a decent ability, too. This usually comes on a weak creature and is therefore not very good, but Taxi Driver actually isn’t bad even before you use the ability.

Wisecrack

Rating: 6/10

One of Spider-Man’s most endearing traits is his quick wit. He often utters quips and one-liners when fighting villains, and this makes him one of the most entertaining superheroes in the genre, at least for me.

Wisecrack is also pretty good, very similar to Cut Propulsion in Edge of Eternities. It can destroy 80 out of the set’s 116 creatures, which I’d say is a pretty good rate.

Green

Damage Control Crew

Rating: 6/10

No matter whether you get an expensive spell back from your graveyard or you exile an annoying artifact or enchantment, you’re getting a great deal. Sure, there’ll be scenarios when neither option is available to you, but it’s worth waiting until they are, because Damage Control Crew is an easy two-for-one just waiting for you to make use of it.

Ezekiel Sims, Spider-Totem

Rating: 4/10

Giving +2/+2 to a creature on your turn is quite a good ability, but it’s not all that great when it appears on a mediocre 5-drop. The problem is that Ezekiel Sims, Spider-Totem has an aggressively-slanted ability on a defensively-slanted creature, which doesn’t quite add up. I don’t see this one coming together all that often, but it’s not a bad card by any means.

Grow Extra Arms

Rating: 3/10

Two mana doesn’t sound all that good for +4/+4, but 1 mana sounds pretty great. As such, if you have plenty of spiders in your deck, you can’t go too wrong with Grow Extra Arms.

Guy in the Chair

Rating: 2/10

Three-drop mana dorks just aren’t that good. The extra ability on Guy in the Chair might be good, but it’s so expensive that I don’t see it being good enough. I can’t believe they did Ganke dirty like this. He’s a great character and deserved better.

Kapow!

Rating: 4/10

Fight spells haven’t aged particularly well over the years, but Kapow!’s +1/+1 counter should go a good way towards helping your creature win. It also leaves you a little bonus for later turns which isn’t bad at all. Green has better ways to kill creatures, but removal is still removal at the end of the day.

Kraven’s Cats

Rating: 4/10

Three simple words: threat of activation. You never have to actually activate this creature’s ability for it to be useful. Once you’ve played your third land, your opponent can’t afford to block Kraven's Cats with anything smaller than a 4/4, then you’re free to spend your mana on something else after combat. This is a great 2-drop that should be perfect for aggressive decks.

Kraven’s Last Hunt

Rating: 7/10

If we ignore the second chapter for a moment, both the first and third chapters give you a full card’s worth of value. That makes Kraven's Last Hunt a pretty powerful two-for-one assuming you get to that final chapter. Kill a creature first, then get something back from your graveyard later. Sounds like a great deal to me.

Lizard, Connors’s Curse

Rating: 6/10

Four mana for a 5/5 is a good start, and turning something else into a 4/4 can put a lot of power and toughness onto the board for very little mana. You can use this to turn off the abilities of an opponent’s creature, but turning it into a 4/4 might backfire on you a bit. Still, the option to grow your own creature into a 4/4 or neuter an opponent’s one makes Lizard, Connors's Curse quite a strong card.

Lurking Lizards

Rating: 2/10

If you cast Lurking Lizards on turn 2, it’s going to be at least two turns later before you even have a shot at getting a +1/+1 counter. And that’s not even guaranteed! This feels far too weak until it triggers. I remember how good Sahagin was in Final Fantasy, but that also became unblockable and was supported by a very well-designed archetype. I don’t think this quite meets the same standards.

Miles Morales / Ultimate Spider-Man

Rating: 7/10

Even though I grew up with the classic Peter Parker, Miles Morales has really grown on me in recent years. He’s such a deep and interesting character, and I can’t wait to see more from him.

This card is also interesting. Miles Morales is extremely good, just as a 2-mana 1/2 that comes with two +1/+1 counters. It’s a little difficult to transform it into or cast it as Ultimate Spider-Man given the three colors, but at least it starts out green, so you should have access to a little more mana fixing. If you do, Ultimate Spider-Man should be enough to take over a game, especially because it’s basically untargetable.

Pictures of Spider-Man

Rating: 3/10

This is basically the green Stock Up, right? While the comparison is striking, Pictures of Spider-Man falls quite short. The fact that you could very easily miss, even in a creature-heavy deck, is quite off-putting. This isn’t too bad, but don’t be too upset when you only hit one creature. It’ll happen from time to time, but hopefully you won’t completely miss too often.

Professional Wrestler

Rating: 3/10

We all know the origin story, don’t we? Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider and gets spider powers. His first instinct is to find a way to make money from them, so he tries to become a wrestler, fighting Crusher Hogan.

Enter: this card. Professional Wrestler is a great top-down design since it gives you a bit of money and only fights one-on-one. I think this is pretty solid, and it’s a decent common to fill out the curve in a red/green deck.

Radioactive Spider

Rating: 4/10

Speaking of Radioactive Spiders… this one is a top-down design that just doesn’t work for me. It just isn’t a good idea to sacrifice this to search for a spider hero, or at least it’s not the reason to play it in the first place. I see it more as a minor upside on top of the base creature, which is actually a good 1-drop.

Sandman, Shifting Scoundrel

Rating: 8/10

The fact that you can reanimate Flint Marko from the graveyard over and over makes it look like an incredibly dangerous threat, even if you must have a land in the graveyard for each activation. Add to that the facts that Sandman, Shifting Scoundrel grows rather large and has seemingly borrowed pseudo-unblockability from Greater Sandwurm, and you’re looking at a pretty damn good rare.

Scout the City

Rating: 4/10

I’d already be very satisfied with a simple green Anticipate that fuels the graveyard. Yet, we’re also treated to some lifegain and an alternate mode of Plummet! I mean… yeah, I’ll definitely take it.

Spider-Ham, Peter Porker

Rating: 6/10

I mean… sure, this character is a joke. That was the point, so it’s appropriate that the card itself has a ridiculous design too. I can’t really keep track of all these different creature types, but spiders stand out for obvious reasons. Spider-Ham, Peter Porker is just a great typal lord for any hero-based deck in this format given that most of the heroes are also spiders. Even if you somehow can’t make use of the +1/+1 bonus, this is still a 2/2 with a free Food token, so it’s never a bad card.

Spider-Man, Brooklyn Visionary

Rating: 5/10

If you can cast this version of Miles for the web-slinging cost, you get a great deal: a 4/3 plus an extra land and the chance to reuse a creature, all for just 3 mana. I’m pretty high on this ability, and Spider-Man, Brooklyn Visionary is a great use of it.

Spider-Rex, Daring Dino

Rating: 3/10

Spider-Rex, Daring Dino is a fine thing to ramp into, but we’ve seen better honestly. It’s just a big dork, and that’s it. It’ll definitely do, especially in the red/green big stuff deck, but I just wish it did something when it enters like gain a bit of life.

Spiders-Man, Heroic Horde

Rating: 6/10

Not only is this a great creature to cast for its web-slinging cost, but it’s also a great creature to return to your hand to pay a different web-slinging cost. This is exactly what I’d like to spend 6 mana on, and we’ve even seen some great ways to utilize several spider creatures in play.

Strength of Will

Rating: 1/10

Strength of Will is a combat trick that does very little to help your creature survive combat, but instead it puts a punch of +1/+1 counters on it so it’ll be better in the next one. I don’t want to play this. Above all else, it’s just too situational. You don’t know if you’ll have a good opportunity to use this and get a bunch of counters, and you also open yourself up to a blowout.

Supportive Parents

Rating: 4/10

Miles’s parents, Jefferson Davis and Rio Morales, play key roles in his development as a character.

This card looks fairly good. Tapping two creatures to float 1 mana isn’t terribly important once you already have the 3 mana to cast Supportive Parents. What’s particularly good is the ability to tap whatever creature you want to return to your hand for web-slinging. Abilities that allow you to do this are going to be valuable for this deck to allow you to utilize the best triggers.

Terrific Team-Up

Rating: 5/10

This feels like it’s supposed to be better than it actually is. Terrific Team-Up doesn’t need to cost 4 mana, but it does so that it always triggers the red/green deck. At 2 mana, this isn’t much better than a simple bite spell, but that’s all it needs to be. It still kills just about anything.

Wall Crawl

Rating: 6/10

Four mana for a 3/2 plus some lifegain doesn’t quite cut it. However, tack on a Glorious Anthem that buffs your spiders in the color that’s full of them, and you have got yourself quite the build-around. Naturally, you need your deck to contain plenty of spiders before Wall Crawl is any good, but it’s absolutely worth building towards when you get it.

Web of Life and Destiny

Rating: 7/10

I’m struggling with this one, but I’m think it’s very powerful. Once you’ve landed Web of Life and Destiny, you get a completely free creature every turn, as well as one on the same turn you cast it. The trick is how you actually cast it in the first place. Given how powerful the effect is, I imagine that it only needs to cost about 5 or 6 mana before you're interested, and virtually any creature-heavy deck should able to do that. Still, token generators are going to be great to enable this a little faster if you have access to them. Overall, this sounds like a powerful card and isn’t that difficult to enable, so I’d say it’s absolutely worth playing.

Multicolored

Just a quick note about the multicolored cards in Marvel’s Spider-Man. Due to the fact that SPM only supports five 2-color archetypes, multicolored cards that fall outside these color pairs are naturally bumped down a grade or two since you have to splash them more often than just naturally play them in a deck that happens to be those colors.

Araña, Heart of the Spider

Rating: 6/10

Everything here is strong. A 3/3 for 3, a +1/+1 counter every turn, and the odd free card any time to connect with your opponent. It’s very powerful, but Araña, Heart of the Spider is a perfect example of cards that don’t fit an ally color archetype in Spider-Man Limited. Red/white isn’t a supported color combination, and this isn’t quite worth splashing for. The rating here is very much based on this card’s power level in a vacuum, despite the fact that it may see virtually no play given the color requirements.

Biorganic Carapace

Rating: 9/10

I’m still not sold on this modified creatures deck, but if it has any legs at all (eight, perhaps?) then Biorganic Carapace looks extremely good in it. +2/+2 plus at least one free card when it connects is really strong. But it doesn’t end there, because throw in something like double strike or additional modified creatures and you draw too many cards for any opponent to keep up with. I’m not a fan of this deck, but it’s probably worth it to take this card and give it a go if you see it early in a draft.

Carnage, Crimson Chaos

Rating: 7/10

Carnage is one of the most terrifyingly powerful villains among Spider-Man’s infamously diverse portfolio. Carnage, Crimson Chaos isn’t quite as terrifying as that, but if you can use it to reanimate anything with a good enters trigger, you’re on the right track. Especially in a mayhem deck, you should be able to enable not only this card’s mayhem cost, but also a good target for its ability. This should really help to pile on the pressure, which is exactly what these decks should look to do.

Cheering Crowd

Rating: 5/10

This is a really weird one. I really dislike the idea of giving my opponent a significant advantage of any kind. But the more I play this out in my head, the more it appears as though no matter how much Cheering Crowd does for your opponent, it does a lot more for you. You both get additional mana, yet you’re more likely to be able to make use of it, plus you’re the one that ends up with a creature that grows every single turn. I’m still not completely sold, but I’d like this to be a strong card in SPM.

Cosmic Spider-Man

Rating: 0/10

Don’t get me wrong, this effect is incredibly powerful. Five colors, however, is wildly uncastable, and Marvel’s Spider-Man doesn’t look all that capable of producing all five of them at once. If you can prove me wrong, then by all means do so, but I don’t think it’ll happen.

Doctor Octopus, Master Planner

Rating: 9/10

The brilliant Otto Octavius, a.k.a. Doctor Octopus, is easily the most sinister of all of Spider-Man’s villains. And yes, that is a pun.

Blue/black’s archetype is based around villains, so a typal lord that gives +2/+2 is bound to do a significant amount of damage on the turn you play it. Even if Doctor Octopus, Master Planner doesn’t sway combat all that much, the fact that you’ll also draw up to eight cards is more than enough of a reason to want this at the top of your curve. Seven mana is quite a lot, but you get more than enough for what you pay.

Gallant Citizen

Rating: 6/10

Like many creatures before it, we’re well aware that 2 mana for a 1/1 plus an extra card is a great deal. Even more so when you consider that the green/white archetype is all about returning creatures to your hand. As long as you can tap Gallant Citizen, it’s bound to be one of the best things you have to bounce for web-slinging costs.

Green Goblin, Revenant

Rating: 6/10

This is such an easy way to enable mayhem while you give yourself a good amount of value, too. Green Goblin, Revenant works perfectly fine just on its own, but when you start to factor in the ability to draw even more cards, you’re starting to look at something quite a bit stronger. You just need to connive once earlier in the turn, and suddenly this discards one card but draws you two more. I can’t wait to try it for myself!

Jackal, Genius Geneticist

Rating: 0/10

I want to like this, but it simply doesn’t work. Assuming you don’t buff it somehow, you need to cast a 1-drop creature to get the ball rolling, which SPM simply doesn’t have. There are only two 1-drops in blue and green, both are rares, and one is unplayable. So then, you’d need to have red or white in your deck to have some 1-drops to copy. By this point, I’m out. Three colors or some kind of pump spell all to enable Jackal, Genius Geneticist simply isn’t worth the effort.

Kraven, Proud Predator

Rating: 4/10

Even if you have a 7-drop in play, Kraven, Proud Predator is still just a big vanilla creature with vigilance. That’s fine, but absolutely not that big of a deal. It’s already a 3/4 at the bare minimum, so you’re unlikely to cut this from most red/green decks, but you’re also unlikely to want to take it too early in a draft.

Kraven the Hunter

Rating: 7/10

Kraven the Hunter is a much beloved Spider-Man villain, enough so to have an entire movie based on him, though a really bad one at that.

As a card, Kraven the Hunter is held back by being black and green, but it’s powerful enough to probably be worth splashing, particularly in a deck that has plenty of removal to make sure you can trigger its ability often.

Mary Jane Watson

Rating: 7/10

The illustrious Mary Jane Watson, perhaps the most famous love interest of Peter Parker. A card for this character was always going to care about spiders or heroes in some way, and card draw is the best way to do that. On top of that, Mary Jane Watson’s hybrid mana lets it fit into virtually any spider-themed deck you might have. What a great card!

Mister Negative

Rating: 8/10

There are two scenarios here. Either you’re behind on life, in which case Mister Negative gives you a potentially huge life swing, possibly swinging the game back into your favor. Or you’re winning the game, in which case Mister Negative gives you the extra cards to secure your victory. Both sound pretty good, but you’re just hampered by the fact that this is a 7-drop in a color pair you won’t play. If you can overcome that, this is quite the powerful card.

Mob Lookout

Rating: 3/10

This creature isn’t all that great, but Mob Lookout does have a few things going for it. It obviously enables mayhem costs, but it’s also a cheap villain, a modified enabler, and a hybrid cost to allow you to cast it in a wider variety of archetypes. That all adds up to a useful common that’s bound to see a bunch of play.

Morbius the Living Vampire

Rating: 7/10

It’s Morbin’ Time! Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Despite being the protagonist of one of the worst superhero movies of all time, once upon a time Morbius was a Spider-Man villain.

Morbius the Living Vampire isn’t particularly powerful, but it’s still a great card. It’s an easy two-for-one, just by trading it off on the field and then exiling it for a free card later. Alternatively, it’s a great option to discard to a connive ability. Either way, I’d be very happy to start my villain deck with a copy of this.

Prowler, Clawed Thief

Rating: 7/10

Miles Morales looks up to his Uncle Aaron more than anyone else, so it’s a huge shock to the system when it turns out that he’s The Prowler.

Prowler, Clawed Thief is a phenomenal villain payoff. Since it has menace, the more it grows, the more dangerous it gets. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get it conniving turn after turn, and it’ll keep applying pressure while you cast mayhem spells and fill up your board.

Pumpkin Bombardment

Rating: 6/10

One mana for 3 damage is excellent, and it’s just about the most efficient rate you’re ever going to get. It may cost you an extra card, but as we’re aware, mayhem is a great ability that just needs enabling, which Pumpkin Bombardment does beautifully. And of course, you can just pay the extra 2 mana if you really need to.

Rhino, Barreling Brute

Rating: 7/10

Now, if I were to build a ramp deck, I’d want a payoff that costs around about 6 or 7 mana, that can deal large chunks of damage, and that can hopefully draw me a card or two. Oh look, that’s exactly what we’ve got here! Rhino, Barreling Brute is really strong, and it’s the perfect curve-topper for any red/green deck.

Rhino’s Rampage

Rating: 4/10

This is little more than just a simple Prey Upon. +1/+0 does very little to help your creature win the fight since it gives no boost to toughness. At least red/green decks ought to have the biggest creatures in the format anyway, so Rhino's Rampage ought to work fine. It’s just not that impressive.

Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly

Rating: 7/10

Two mana for what’s likely to be a 5/4 or 6/5 with trample at the very minimum sounds excellent. Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly is the only red card with web-slinging, so the cost is a little weird, but green has a lot of great creatures to return and make this creature enormous, all while getting to reuse a powerful enters trigger.

Scarlet Spider, Kaine

Rating: 6/10

The biggest downside to mayhem is the simple fact that sometimes you won’t have the mana to cast a mayhem spell in the same turn as your discard outlet. The fact that Scarlet Spider, Kaine costs 1 mana makes it both great to cast and also to enable another mayhem spell. Shouldn’t be too difficult to cast a discard outlet, mayhem this, then mayhem another spell and potentially only spend about 4 or 5 mana to do all of it. Sounds good to me.

Shriek, Treblemaker

Rating: 4/10

This isn’t a great discard outlet, but it is one. With a flexible casting cost and some quite annoying abilities, Shriek, Treblemaker is a decent card but not really something I’d miss if I were to draft a mayhem deck.

Silk, Web Weaver

Rating: 9/10

Silk, Web Weaver looks like a great build-around for this web-slinging deck. This deck should cast a lot of creature spells, and you might be able to loop two web-slinging creatures to effectively cast as many spells as you’d like. Not only that, but Silk can then give your team an Overrun-style buff to close out a game. It’s an excellent card and a great way to start to build this deck in draft.

Skyward Spider

Rating: 3/10

Skyward Spider isn’t a bad creature to stick a counter or whatever else onto, but unless you do it’s incredibly mediocre. Despite the hybrid mana cost on offer, this really is a purely white/blue card. Not just because of the archetypal significance, but because casting this for double blue or double white in any other color combination sounds completely untenable.

SP//dr, Piloted by Peni

Rating: 7/10

Assuming you can give this counter to something with flying or some other kind of evasion, the ability to draw a card immediately is exactly where you want to be. There are plenty of ways to do that, so if you’re going to play the modified deck, SP//dr, Piloted by Peni is about the best payoff you’re going to get. And a good one too, because Peni Parker is such a great character and she deserves some good attention.

Spider Manifestation

Rating: 5/10

Two-drop mana dorks are very good in Limited, let alone ones with such flexible casting costs. Spider Manifestation is castable in any green deck but also any red deck. It’s pretty great that even a black/red deck can have access to this if it wants it. It doesn’t really stand out among its counterparts, but its flexibility is second to none.

Spider-Girl, Legacy Hero

Rating: 7/10

Spider-Girl, Legacy Hero is probably the best creature in Marvel’s Spider-Man to return to your hand with a web-slinging ability. Not only is token creation one of the better payoffs you can hope for, but since it gives itself flying, it’s remarkably easy to tap it. This is exactly the card I’d look for when drafting the green/white deck.

Spider-Man 2099

Rating: 4/10

You need to jump through a few too many hoops to make Spider-Man 2099 work. While a once per turn trigger that deals damage to any target is usually great, it requires you to cast a mayhem spell in that turn as well as have blue and red mana in your deck at the same time, which is just a little too difficult to put together in SPM Limited. I could definitely be wrong on that, but for now I don’t think we’re very likely to want to play this.

Spider-Man India

Rating: 6/10

Spider-Man India isn’t quite the payoff I wanted for a green/white deck, but it’s still pretty good. The ability to give your creatures flying is a great way to enable further web-slinging, which is great for all of the abilities stuck on creatures that are otherwise too difficult to tap. Don’t get me wrong, this card is great, but it still needs other cards to pair with it to unlock its full potential.

Spider-Woman, Stunning Savior

Rating: 4/10

Forcing your opponent’s creatures to enter tapped just isn’t that strong of an ability. It’s not nothing, but most of this grade is given to the fact that Spider-Woman, Stunning Savior is a 2/2 with flying for 2 mana with a flexible hybrid mana cost. That’s good enough on its own, and it isn’t something we need to worry about with the rest of the ability.

The Spot, Living Portal

Rating: 8/10

Banisher Priest is a great Limited card at any mana cost. The Spot, Living Portal is very powerful, and it allows you to exile something from your own graveyard so that when your opponent finally deals with it, you also get a card back. This is excellent, and frankly the only thing that holds it back is the color commitment.

Sun-Spider, Nimble Webber

Rating: 6/10

Your average white/blue deck is bound to have at least one or two search targets waiting for Sun-Spider, Nimble Webber. Assuming you get your card from it, it’s a decent-sized flier that drew you a real spell, which is very good. Kind of like Delivery Moogle, which was definitely a good card.

Superior Spider-Man

Rating: 4/10

I’m not a fan of this very much. At least if you copy a creature on the field, you have some guarantee that it’s the best creature on the board, but copying something from the graveyard has a lot of catches. You should definitely play Superior Spider-Man if you’re blue/black, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to pick it up.

Symbiote Spider-Man

Rating: 7/10

Despite being a black card, I think this is one of the few cases where a multicolored hybrid card is actually better off in a deck other than the one that features both of its colors. White/blue is a much better home for Symbiote Spider-Man because it has more flying creatures and ways to give flying, which makes it much easier to accomplish this excellent combat damage trigger.

Ultimate Green Goblin

Rating: 5/10

Ultimate Green Goblin is billed to us as essentially an over-statted creature with a “downside”, yet there are more efficient creatures in Marvel’s Spider-Man. Still, mayhem is a powerful mechanic, and this is both a payoff and an enabler, so it’ll absolutely be worth playing.

Vulture, Scheming Scavenger

Rating: 6/10

This villain payoff is rather annoying. Giving flying to your whole team is incredibly strong, which is why it comes on such a relatively weak 6-drop. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that you can often win the turn after you cast Vulture, Scheming Scavenger if you just have a team of villains ready in waiting, so having one copy of Adrian Toomes to top out your curve sounds pretty good.

Web-Warriors

Rating: 7/10

Whenever I see a creature like this, I always think of Ridgescale Tusker, which was a mythic uncommon back in Aether Revolt. The green/white deck has a lot of ways to create creature tokens as well as ways to pick up and reuse this ability, which makes Web-Warriors an excellent curve-topper for it. The hybrid mana allows you to put it into other decks, but it’ll excel in green/white.

Wraith, Vicious Vigilante

Rating: 6/10

This feels like a higher grade than a card like Wraith, Vicious Vigilante should get, but context matters. The white/blue modified deck is full of combat damage triggers, and this is the perfect card to enable them. It’s as simple as that. In many sets, this wouldn’t be much better than Phantom Warrior, but I think SPM should be different.

Artifacts

Bagel and Schmear

Rating: 3/10

Trinkets like Bagel and Schmear are never bad to put into your deck, but you don’t really need them. I think you’re best off to play this in a white deck so you can utilize the +1/+1 counter ability, specifically to create a modified creature in white/blue. Otherwise, you can usually do better.

Doc Ock’s Tentacles

Rating: 2/10

Making a big creature even bigger isn’t really worth doing. Equipment is far better when you equip it to smaller creatures, and Doc Ock's Tentacles costs far too much to do that with it. If it gave a creature trample or something, then maybe we’d be in business, but as it stands this just isn’t good enough.

Eerie Gravestone

Rating: 3/10

This is a roundabout way to essentially draw two cards in exchange for one. That’s not all that bad, even though you may miss on the activated ability. As such, don’t run Eerie Gravestone in a non-black deck, and make sure you have enough creatures to increase the likelihood that you’ll hit off the second go.

Hot Dog Cart

Rating: 1/10

We know by now that 3-drop mana rocks just aren’t good enough without a significant upside. The Food token that Hot Dog Cart creates just isn’t what we’re looking for.

Interdimensional Web Watch

Rating: 1/10

If only this were a mana rock that allowed you to cast any spell, then we’d be on to something. As it stands, Interdimensional Web Watch enables you to cast the two cards you’ve exiled, if you even need it to do so, or the odd mayhem spell, but I don’t think that’s worth spending a whole card to do.

Iron Spider, Stark Upgrade

Rating: 7/10

There really aren’t enough artifact creatures or vehicles in Marvel’s Spider-Man to make Iron Spider, Stark Upgrade pop off. But no matter, it’s pretty absurd just by itself. Kind of like a Chronomaton with vigilance, which was a great card in its own right.

Living Brain, Mechanical Marvel

Rating: 1/10

With so few artifacts in Marvel’s Spider-Man, I don’t see what Living Brain, Mechanical Marvel is doing here. It’s kind of funny when you pair it with The Soul Stone, but I don’t think that’s anywhere near good enough to make this happen.

Mechanical Mobster

Rating: 1/10

Even if you discard a nonland, Mechanical Mobster is only a 3/2 for 3 mana. Despite the fact that you got a connive out of the deal, this creature is just far too weak.

News Helicopter

Rating: 3/10

Three mana for a pair of 1/1s is fairly reasonable on its own. Where I particularly like this card is in a web-slinging deck. News Helicopter is a flying creature with a good enters trigger, hence a great card to pick up with a web-slinging cast.

Passenger Ferry

Rating: 2/10

I don’t think this is where we want to be. Vehicles are good to enable the tapped creatures required for web-slinging, but I doubt that Passenger Ferry’s ability is worth going for. After all, it doesn’t make itself unblockable, and it’s fairly easy to kill off in combat.

Peter Parker’s Camera

Rating: 1/10

There are quite a few good abilities to want to copy in SPM, but the problem is the need to spend a whole card on Peter Parker's Camera and have the extra mana available at the right time. I don’t know if that’s going to be worth it without a very dedicated deck and some very good abilities.

Rocket-Powered Goblin Glider

Rating: 8/10

The rate on this equipment is exceptional. You do ideally want to cast Rocket-Powered Goblin Glider for its mayhem cost and get a free equip, but +2/+0 with flying and haste is fantastic for the low price of just 2 mana to equip. Being colorless, it can also just go in any deck, so the white/blue deck is still happy to see it, even without any good ways to discard it.

Spider-Bot

Rating: 1/10

We’ve seen a few cards like Spider-Bot in the past, and they’re just not good enough. Marvel’s Spider-Man lacks mana fixing, so this isn’t completely terrible if you really want to splash a third color, but otherwise you shouldn’t bother with this at all.

Spider-Mobile

Rating: 4/10

Because back in the seventies, Spider-Man needed some better merchandising options. Vehicles that are simply raw stats aren’t usually that good, but Renegade Freighter was pretty good back in the day and enough spiders allow Spider-Mobile to do a fairly good impression of that original train from Kaladesh.

Spider-Slayer, Hatred Honed

Rating: 3/10

While the pseudo-deathtouch ability isn’t bad, what I like about Spider-Slayer, Hatred Honed is the graveyard-based ability. It’s expensive, but essentially a free bonus if you simply discard this to a connive ability or something similar.

Spider-Suit

Rating: 2/10

Three mana to equip is just a little too much. +2/+2 is quite a significant buff though, so the odd white/blue deck might want to play Spider-Suit. I don’t think it’s worth running anywhere else though. I can’t imagine we’ll see many villains don the Spider-Suit just yet.

Steel Wrecking Ball

Rating: 3/10

Artifact-based removal spells often suck, but this card offers the same rate of damage as a 5-mana red burn spell often does. Those cards are mediocre, and so is Steel Wrecking Ball, but it certainly isn’t the worst to play one if you need more removal.

Subway Train

Rating: 6/10

When you factor in the green mana, Subway Train is basically a Borderland Ranger but in vehicle form. Plus, while vehicles are clearly worse than creatures overall, this gives you the ability to tap down creatures to use for web-slinging costs, so it may have a bit of extra utility than usual. SPM has very little in terms of mana fixing, but this is easily one of the best options.

Lands

Daily Bugle Building

Rating: 3/10

Daily Bugle Building is another great top-down design. JJ Jameson wants to paint Spider-Man as a menace, and this land lets you do exactly that! It’s reasonable to fix your mana, too, so I’d generally play this in most decks in Spider-Man Limited.

Multiversal Passage

Rating: 4/10

This is a great land for Constructed formats, but in Limited Multiversal Passage is little better than an Evolving Wilds. Still, that’s pretty good, and it’s worth running in literally any deck in SPM. It’s just a question of when should you take it in draft, and the answer is simply to take actively good playables first.

The Common Surveil Lands

Rating: 4/10

Mana fixing is always good to have access to. These are reminiscent of the campuses from Strixhaven (e.g. Quandrix Campus), which were very good. Naturally, these only appear in the five supported color pairs, but they’re also good enough that you could pick up one or two if they’re only in one of your colors, as getting a few free surveils late in the game is a very valuable ability to have.

Oscorp Industries

Rating: 6/10

Not only does Oscorp Industries easily fix mana for two decks in SPM Limited and enable splashes, but the mayhem ability on this improves its utility massively. Even if this were in the wrong colors, I’d still want to run it in any deck with enough discard outlets.

Urban Retreat

Rating: 7/10

Same as with Oscorp Industries, this isn’t just great to fix your mana, but the utility it has is incredible. I’d in fact run Urban Retreat in any deck that had some good ways to use it. Even in a black/red deck, I’d be very happy to run this as a colorless land that had the option to return a good creature to the hand and reuse its enters trigger.

Vibrant Cityscape

Rating: 4/10

Evolving Wilds, even under a different name, is always a good option for mana fixing. You should simply play Vibrant Cityscape in every deck to fix its mana, but you just don’t necessarily need to pick it up over any particularly good cards for your deck.

Source Material Bonus Sheet

Marvel’s Spider-Man comes with its own bonus sheet, known as Source Material. Each of these cards pulls a classic piece of artwork directly from the Spider-Man comics and applies it to a classic Magic card. This sheet is a lot rarer than bonus sheets of the past because a card appears in only one out of every 24 Play boosters, so you’re only going to see one of these in every two drafts. Still, they’ll come up, so let’s have a look at what they all do.

White

Comeuppance

Rating: 4/10

This is really situational, but because Comeuppance can kill around 70% of SPM’s creatures, this could be somewhat reasonable. The biggest difficulty is that this is designed to be a control card, and white isn’t remotely controlling in Marvel’s Spider-Man. I could be way off the mark here.

Leyline Binding

Rating: 7/10

Spider-Man is strictly a 2-color set, which means Leyline Binding is basically a 4-mana, instant-speed Banishing Light. That’s already really good, even though this isn’t going to cost 1 mana any time soon.

Nine Lives

Rating: 0/10

Buying time like this just isn’t worth spending a card on. Nine Lives just isn’t good enough at all, so leave it in the sideboard and try to play it in formats where you can assemble combos with it.

Path to Exile

Rating: 8/10

One mana to exile any creature is incredibly efficient. Giving your opponent a free land is a significant downside, certainly more than you get from Swords to Plowshares. However, this downside becomes much less of an issue the later you get into the game, so it’s really not enough to stop us from wanting a Path to Exile.

Reprieve

Rating: 7/10

Essentially countering a spell while you draw a card is an incredible deal for just 2 mana. It doesn’t really matter that Reprieve sends the countered spell back into your opponent’s hand, especially if they had to spend a ton of mana on it.

Rest in Peace

Rating: 0/10

I wouldn’t play Rest in Peace in most sets, let alone one with no graveyard theming. It does shut off mayhem spells, but since your opponent can simply cast them without mayhem, this isn’t a winning strategy at all.

Wedding Ring

Rating: 0/10

Marking all card draw and lifegain symmetrical sounds terrible to me. Wedding Ring benefits your opponent just as much as you while it costs you a whole card, which is bound to put you down on the exchange.

Blue

Clever Impersonator

Rating: 8/10

Clone is always a good card in Limited, as it can basically always be the strongest creature on the board. This throwback to Khans of Tarkir is no different, though Clever Impersonator can copy noncreature permanents as well. I don’t think that’s going to come up quite so much, but it's a nice free bonus to have.

Counterspell

Rating: 5/10

Counterspell always seems to make it onto these bonus sheets, and it’s always quite funny when you catch someone out with it. So yeah, it’s a pretty good card, like a simple blue removal spell, so you should probably take it and play it.

Doc Ock, Armed and Dangerous (Lorthos, the Tidemaker)

Rating: 1/10

Lorthos, the Tidemaker is a wonderful design as an octopus with a bunch of 8s all over the card. Sadly though, one of those 8s is its mana value, this is just not remotely castable in most decks. If you reckon that you’ll be able to get there, then it should dominate the board once you get to attack with it, but that’s easier said than done.

Mindbreak Trap

Rating: 0/10

Casting multiple spells in a turn is nowhere near common enough in a game of Limited to rely on it. Even then, Mindbreak Trap’s biggest strength is the ability to deal with multiple spells on the stack at once, which is even less likely to happen. This is massively over-costed for what it does.

Mystic Confluence

Rating: 10/10

The fact that I haven’t given a single 10/10 rating yet hasn’t escaped my notice. As such, Mystic Confluence might actually be the “best” card in Marvel’s Spider-Man and the Source Material sheet. It’s just enormously powerful with so many applications. You can bounce three creatures at once, counter a spell and draw two cards, just draw three at the end of the turn, and anything in between. If you’ve never played against this card before, just pray you don’t have to play against it in SPM Limited.

Ponder

Rating: 3/10

Ponder is one of the greatest 1-mana cantrip spells of all time. That said, cantrips are wholly unnecessary in a Limited setting. Unless you have a Draft archetype that cares about casting sorcery spells, as blue/red often does, you don’t need these at all. Still, they’re clearly not bad if you need an extra playable.

Rite of Replication

Rating: 5/10

Four mana to copy a creature is usually good, but token copies are easier to bounce or deal with otherwise. Still, the effect is good enough. The 9-mana kicked version of Rite of Replication is funny enough to have sold me on it when it first came out 16 years ago, but 9 mana is nearly unattainable in Limited, and it’s just not going to happen. Sure, it might work every so often, but I doubt I’ll ever see it during SPM Limited.

Traumatize

Rating: 0/10

Without more mill effects to back up a Traumatize, you’re not going to win any games this way. It’s just not worth running.

Black

Feed the Swarm

Rating: 4/10

The life loss on Feed the Swarm is significant if you want to destroy anything good, so this can be potentially quite dangerous. However, the efficiency is still very good, so it’s worth playing. Just be well aware of how much life you can afford to lose.

Hex

Rating: 0/10

If Hex were designed recently, it might have been made playable, but unfortunately, 2005 was a different time. This has to have six legal targets, or you can’t cast it at all. It’s nearly uncastable in any average situation.

Infernal Grasp

Rating: 7/10

Killing any creature for 2 mana is a great deal, and unlike Feed the Swarm, this amount of life loss is extremely manageable. Infernal Grasp is clean, efficient, and very powerful.

Opposition Agent

Rating: 1/10

Opposition Agent is a brutal card in many formats, but searching your library is something we don’t do very often, if at all, in Limited. This is very little more than simply a 3/2 with flash for 3 mana, which you’d rarely play anyway.

Reanimate

Rating: 8/10

One mana to Reanimate any creature is incredible value. In fact, no other card in Magic can do this for quite so cheap. There’s a reason why this effect is colloquially named after this card. It’s iconic. Yes, the life loss can be significant, but when you only spend 1 mana, it’s worth the cost to reanimate just about any size of creature.

Saw in Half

Rating: 4/10

This weird fan-favorite has never been in a proper Limited environment before. The best use of Saw in Half is to kill your own creature in response to a removal spell, which not only invalidates that removal, but also potentially gives you a big advantage by doubling up on that creature’s abilities. I’m not sure where this will ultimately land, but it looks like a decent trick to me.

Venom, King in Black (Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon)

Rating: 9/10

If you can hold up your black mana appropriately, Skittles is an almost invincible threat that closes games fast. It does suck a little that Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon is the only poison card in SPM and MAR. As such, you’ll need to hit three times to win a game, but that’s definitely doable. This is a powerful threat that opponents absolutely must deal with.

Red

Goblin Bombardment

Rating: 6/10

A free sacrifice outlet with a really good ability on it makes for an extremely valuable card. There’s no reason to build around sacrificing creatures in Marvel’s Spider-Man, but Goblin Bombardment is a very powerful card regardless. This is probably even worth splashing in a green/white deck with a bunch of tokens.

Spider-Gwen, Web-Warrior (Najeela, the Blade-Blossom)

Rating: 3/10

There are hardly any warriors in Spider-Man, so you have to look at this purely in a vacuum. In which case, Najeela, the Blade-Blossom is obviously fine, but it’s extremely limited in ability.

Relentless Assault

Rating: 0/10

Additional combat phase cards like Relentless Assault are too situational to rely on in Limited. They’re great in other formats only because you can build around them to some extent, but they don’t work in your average Limited deck.

Savage Beating

Rating: 2/10

I’ve just said that additional combat phase cards are too bad in Limited, and they are, but Savage Beating at least has a little promise. The option to give your team double strike at instant speed is quite interesting, and I’d be up to give it a try if I ever see it.

Shock

Rating: 4/10

One mana for 2 damage doesn’t kill a lot of creatures, but it’s efficient enough to keep our attention. Shock is a card that’s decades old at this point, and it’s proven its worth many times over the years. Wait a minute… is anyone else getting a feeling of déjà vu?

Thrill of Possibility

Rating: 3/10

Much like Tormenting Voice, whenever we see these cards in sets, you only really play them if you have a good reason to do so. In SPM, that reason is to enable mayhem. Play this in black/red, but I wouldn’t bother in red/green.

Unexpected Windfall

Rating: 4/10

Essentially, this is a bigger and better Thrill of Possibility, which makes me wonder why that’s also on this sheet. Not only does Unexpected Windfall let you trade one card for two more, which enables mayhem and the like, but you can also use the Treasures to accelerate you to a bigger play the next turn.

Winds of Change

Rating: 0/10

No matter how you play Winds of Change, you’re still going down a card for no real value. This card is far more likely to lose you a game than win one, which makes for something you should never play.

Green

Arachnogenesis

Rating: 6/10

Arachnogenesis is a potentially huge blowout for any combat phase. In a vacuum, just creating two tokens when your opponent attacks you with two creatures is a great start, especially when you have cards that care about spiders. Scale it up from there, and if you have other spiders on the board already, this instant should allow you to deal a huge blowout to your opponent without taking any risks for yourself.

The biggest downside is how Arachnogenesis is a lot less effective when your opponent attacks you with a bunch of spiders. You can still create a bunch of tokens, but without preventing the damage, you can’t do quite as much. Don’t be afraid to board this out in such a situation.

Master Weaver, Web Protector (Arasta of the Endless Web)

Rating: 8/10

Instants and sorceries are very commonly played, so it’s not difficult to imagine Arasta of the Endless Web scoring you a few free spider tokens in most matchups. The fact that you get them entirely for free means there’s basically no downside to run this in basically every green deck, especially as Arasta itself is more than big enough to justify spending 4 mana on it.

Beast Within

Rating: 1/10

Destroying an opponent’s annoying permanent and replacing it with a 3/3 isn’t that much of a downgrade. You still have to deal with that 3/3, which is easier said than done. You could potentially upgrade your own creature, perhaps in response to a removal spell, but that’s too narrow an application for one card. I don’t think that Beast Within is worth it at all.

Heroic Intervention

Rating: 1/10

Two mana for hexproof and indestructible is just a little bit too expensive. This isn’t Commander, where we always want to be prepared in case a board sweeper comes along. Heroic Intervention typically only protects one creature from one removal spell, which isn’t a terrible use of a card, but we can generally do better.

Hunter’s Insight

Rating: 6/10

It’s a bit on the conditional side, but when you consider that Hunter's Insight could easily draw you about three or four cards for just 3 mana, I’d say it’s worth giving a try. Especially in red/green, where you could potentially draw even more.

Parallel Lives

Rating: 0/10

Doubling tokens isn’t worth a whole card. Parallel Lives is a great reprint to see for Commander, but in Limited this is next to useless.

Silkguard

Rating: 4/10

The part we care about here is the ability to put +1/+1 counters on each of X creatures. As an instant, you also have the ability to use Silkguard as a combat trick. The hexproof part is a fine addition, but if we compare it to Snakeskin Veil, this is a little bit too expensive to rely on it in quite the way.

Tangle

Rating: 2/10

As far as Fogs go, this is one of the better ones. You get to effectively stop two combats’ worth of damage with a single card. That’s still not that great and probably not worth spending a card on, but you could certainly do a lot worse than Tangle.

Multicolored

Iron Spider, Civil Warrior (Alibou, Ancient Witness)

Rating: 1/10

With virtually no artifact creatures in Marvel’s Spider-Man and the fact that red/white isn’t a supported color combination, I don’t think Alibou, Ancient Witness is remotely playable. It’s not entirely implausible, but it’s definitely not good.

Terminate

Rating: 7/10

Two mana to kill any creature is a very good rate on return. Terminate is one of the most clean and efficient removal spells in SPM and MAR, and you should absolutely pick this up early if you happen to be black/red.

Wrap Up (in Webs)

With Great Power… | Illustration by E. M. Gist

I’m really looking forward to Marvel’s Spider-Man. I’m a huge Marvel fan in my own way, and this is the first set in what I assume is a fairly long saga. I love this first step on the ladder, and I can’t wait to see what else is on the horizon.

Which archetypes are you hoping to play at your Spider-Man Prerelease, or in SPM drafts? Will you try out this set in Pick-Two? Let me know in the comments below.

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Until next time, take care of yourselves!