With great power comes great present-buying responsibility, and Magic: The Gathering’s new Marvel’s Spider-Man set makes it very easy to be the hero this holiday season.
Magic: The Gathering – Marvel’s Spider-Man
Buy Now | Price: $5-$70
It’s been a good while since Wizards revealed their partnership with Marvel, and we’re finally starting to see the start of that relationship with the Spider-Man set. While it’s had a contentious release (Spider-Man bias aside), I’m mostly positive on this set, besides a few cards that feel like filler. The art is phenomenal, particularly the full-art cards like the Mysterio cards, and they did a pretty good job picking iconic comic panels for some of the variants.
In terms of mechanics, I actually really dig some of the new stuff added to this set (even if I’m a bit bummed they didn’t focus on stun counters, which seemed like a no-brainer here). I put together a standard deck to muck around with, and I think some folks are really sleeping on some fun combos you can do with this set. The Mayhem and Connive mechanics in particular work almost too well together as you use Connive to discard cards into your graveyard, and Mayhem to then be able to play those cards AND get a +1/+1 counter on top of that. The two mechanics combo together wonderfully and are begging for a Commander deck that really dials in on it.
As a big fan of a card’s mechanics gelling with its narrative, I love how they made transforming cards work here. You can play the Peter Parker card on its own, and then pay a mana cost to flip him into Spectacular Spider-Man. It works like any other transform card in Magic, but the marriage of the design and story is a nice touch, especially since you can play the higher-cost transformed side right away if you want to, which is nice.
Overall, while the set has its quirks, I’m really digging it and eager to see how the complete Marvel set looks when it launches next year. I’m glad this set exists, if only because it might get some new players into the scene, as it’s a great introduction to Magic: The Gathering for someone who’s had a curiosity in the game but has been hesitant to finally dip their toes in. (Diego)
