Magic: The Gathering (MTG)’s new Spider-Man Universes Beyond set is a wild new addition to the ongoing TCG that’s fantastic fun, despite brimming with a sense of chaos. It’s loud and bouncy in nature, introducing a raft of colourful new heroes and villains, with a bounty of cool ideas in new mechanics (particularly Web-slinging), and bright comic-inspired treats that add flavour.
The only challenge, as someone who primarily plays Commander, is in the overarching lack of synergy amongst cards that should be brimming with it.
Heading into the set, I had wild ideas about specifically-flavoured decks – I knew I was keen on building Venom as a Commander, and I also wanted to build out Morbius the Living Vampire. (Not for the bit – I genuinely love the character, and somewhat resent that he’s become the butt of internet jokes.) Patiently, I waited for those card reveals, imagining what sort of mechanics I’d be building around. Only, when both cards were announced, they had a surprising lack of bite, despite being Legendary Creatures.
Building Eddie Brock as an MTG x Spider-Man Commander
Morbius, it turned out, is blue-black, and while he has the whopping combo of flying, vigilance, and lifelink, he relies too heavily on graveyard exiling to be useful. Eddie Brock (the most viable version of Venom) is a bit better, having menace, trample, haste, and the ability to sacrifice creatures to draw cards and put large permanents on the battlefield – but you will need to mine other parts of MTG to ensure deck synergy works well.
I’m not super into crossing streams when it comes to the MTG base and Universes Beyond sets. I recently built the Sonic the Hedgehog Secret Lair cards into a Commander Deck, with the help of Bloomburrow, which made sense in my head. But with MTG Spider-Man, I wanted to primarily build an in-universe Marvel set (including some other Secret Lair cards, like the Groot-starring Unnatural Growth, and the Wolverine-starring Rite of Passage).
There’s not a lot of base game MTG cards that really fit in here, given the relatively ‘real-world’ approach of the Spider-Man universe.
If you’re building a Spider-Verse set, it’s less of an issue, as you can lean into cosmic themes to pair multiple universes and vibes – but my love for Spider-Man‘s more classic stories isn’t well-served here. To build Eddie Brock, for example, I need to mine sets like Lost Caverns of Ixalan for giant creatures that can have their mana value lowered for play, and later, sacrifice. I’ve also needed to put in some Gisa/Liliana graveyard mining cards to ensure I can maximise the amount of creatures on the battlefield, as well as put in some one mana value cards to get some synergy going with Eddie Brock.
Cards like Kraven, Proud Predator and Kraven the Hunter do work in the deck, as both rely on large creatures being on the battlefield, which feeds into Venom, Lethal Protector’s sacrifice mechanic. Cards like Rhino, Barrelling Brute also serves the approach of getting larger mana value creatures on the battlefield, as well as Spider Manifestation (possibly the creepiest card of the set).
Tombstone, Career Criminal makes for a fantastic inclusion as well, as he reduces the cost of playing Villain cards, and if you can cycle him in and out of the graveyard, he lets you return other Villain cards from your graveyard to your hand (although having a smaller mana value cost might help him interact with Eddie Brock slightly better).
Certain cards like Arachnogenesis and Master Weaver, Web Protector also work well, allowing you to add spiders to your creature repertoire, if only to add interference for other players, and make your deck feel a bit more Spider-Man in nature.
Personally, I would’ve liked to have seen more creatures with obvious synergy in this particular set, given Commander has become one of the more popular MTG playing formats in recent years. With the set being absolutely filled with Legendary Creature heroes and villains, it does feel chaotic, with synergy all over the place.
MTG: Spider-Man‘s Spider-Verse focus won’t be for everyone
Part of the reason for this wildness is that rather than focussing on classic Spider-Man, the set chooses to adapt the heroes and action of the Spider-Verse chronicles. The reality is this in-universe comic event has inspired an entirely new generation of Spider-Man fans, with so many falling in love with the franchise’s mythos through this event, or its film adaptation.
This MTG set directly adapts the comic version, with newer heroes like Spider-Gwen aka Ghost-Spider, Spider-Punk, and more, heavily featured. (Many of these heroes were introduced prior to Spider-Verse, but achieved renewed popularity with their appearance in this event.)
The bulk lot of the heroes being inspired by their Spider-Verse appearances means the set does feel more Spider-Verse than it does Spider-Man, making Peter Parker himself fade into the background, in a set that should be all about this iconic hero.
I’m not trying to be bitter or old-fashioned in this assessment, but my personal preference would’ve been for more representation of the golden era of Spider-Man mythology, the 1990s. There are a few neat comic book treatments (particularly for Eddie Brock) that call back to this era, but the vibe is somewhat diluted by that more modern Spider-Verse focus, in a way that gives the set a bit of an identity crisis.
With classic villains paired with wild universe-crossing antics, and having representation for Peter Parker’s own ‘normie’ life in New York subways, bagels, and pigeons, there’s some tonal dissonance in the set, as a complete package. It almost gets away with it, because at its core, this remains a very fun, creative set with cool, eye-catching comic treatments – but sorting through a bundle is a bit like experiencing whiplash, regardless.
As a Marvel diehard keen to see what’s next, I appreciate what MTG: Spider-Man is building, and how it adapts the comic book source material.
It’s hard to complain there’s simply too many cool heroes and villains running around, given they can technically be combined with other MTG cards for greater synergy (and I suspect this is intentional, to inspire further exploration for new players). It’s also really cool to see mechanics like Web-slinging appear, with this encouraging you to team up your heroes and swing them in and out of battles. But in the inevitable next Marvel sets, I’d prefer to see much clearer ideas about direction and intention, with cards feeling more like they belong together.
Regardless of these bugbears, the set still brims with real comic book charm, and a hope for better, brighter Marvel collaborations to come.
Magic: The Gathering – Marvel’s Spider-Man Booster Packs, Collector Booster Packs, and a Bundle were provided by Wizards of the Coast for the purposes of this review.
