Spider-Man Swings into Magic the Gathering!

In a little over a month, on September 26th, Universes Beyond: Spider-Man will bring the classic Marvel character into Magic: the Gathering. This includes a wide array of the various depictions that the friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man has seen. From recent cinematic debuts and comics all the way to having vintage comic-strips from quintessential artists, everyone’s favorite iteration should see some form of representation. Now, how this upcoming set will affect competitive play is still a matter of debate, but there is no doubt that various collectors are going to find a large amount of value within it. Whether that is a casual fan pulling their favorite character out of a booster pack or a high-end investor searching for a serialized infinity stone, this set is geared towards enjoying the cards themselves.

Introducing a new type of foiling, Cosmic foiling, The Soul Stone has been spoiled as the ultimate chase for this set. Similar to the singularity foil Sothera, the Supervoid from Edge of Eternities, these cards will work to replace serialized cards within collector’s packs by having a Cosmic foiling. The work to create new foilings with a specialized art on the card is much more effort than just putting a serialized number on the bottom of a card, to be completely honest. While the numbering is very helpful with verifying quantity, this new process works to eliminate the variations in price from the different possible serialization numbers. Why have the amazing moment of pulling the best card possible in the set be ruined because it wasn’t a funny/more valuable number? These specialized art cards work to make sure that pulling the best card still feels like pulling the best card. Not to mention that The Soul Stone is going to be a heavily used card. The strength of having a 2 cmc indestructible mana-producing artifact, in black, with an amazing late-game strategy stapled onto the bottom is unquestionable. This will be a must-have card in MtG’s most popular format, commander.

Now back to the web-slinging Brooklyn teen. Or the Green Goblin. Or the Spider-Dino? The Spider-Dino. Swinging through everything in its’ path, Spider-Rex, Daring Dino will make a hero’s entrance in this Universes Beyond. Of course it’s funny. Overlooking what this big stompy boy is swinging from or even how the spider-web is maintaining its’ strength, this is a heavy favorite for one of the best cards spoiled from Spider-Man. At a common rarity, it does not seem like much. And 6 mana is heavy cost, albeit in green. There’s more to this card than that. This is an upgrade of Colossal Dreadmaw in every form. Same cmc. Same power and toughness. They both have trample. The kicker for Spider-Rex is having both reach and ward 2. Reach solves an issue that a big green stompy deck usually has, and that is dealing with fliers. Ward 2 is just the cherry on top. There’s no reason that this card should not replace Colossal Dreadmaw after its’ release. The legendary typing just works to prevent mono green from abusing it in the current standard meta. Every commander deck will replace Colossal Dreadmaw with this fun spider-dino, just like The Soul Stone. Each of them will find their homes as staples in commander, but what of the rest of the set?

The focus on artwork is extensive within this set. Whether that be with new art in the form of a borderless panorama set of scene cards (that are also a new product from MtG), or vintage art. Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, both iconic names from Marvel, made an appearance on a Magic card this year! The Fantastic Four also make an appearance on this San Diego Comic Con promo of The Amazing Spider-Man. An effort to truly pay homage to Spider-Man in all of its’ various forms, the classic art as well as comic text effects on the card description is such a home run. Stats and abilities completely aside, this artwork is fantastic! MtG and Wizards of the Coast have worked hard to provide the best fan-service possible with the art in this set, and I’m here for it.

Now, there’s arguments to be made about the efficacy of this set for competitive play. Even the ‘good’ cards from this set will be iconic moments/characters within the Marvel universe. Not the Magic universe. Competitive play will have a detachment from classic Magic lore with a shift to another property’s lore entirely. Yes, it’s been seen before with the other Universes Beyond. Final Fantasy is the only outlier because it is the first Universes Beyond set to see standard competitive play. The amount of reprints from classic MtG sets made it feel as a soft reset with occasionally powerful cards in the form of Final Fantasy characters (looking at you, Vivi). Spider-Man: Universes Beyond feels like an attempt to convert individuals that collect comics to collecting Magic: the Gathering cards. This could spell disaster for standard. Power-crept cards that are focused on a secondary market, with an even more hyper-focus into non-MtG players could lead to a portion of high-level players taking some time off to let the standard go back to normal. Either that, or the banlists could get wild. Whatever happens, this set is sure to shake up Magic a bit. At least the artwork is great.