Marvel’s Spider-Man has not been received with the level of enthusiasm we’ve seen with prior Universes Beyond sets (which, often, is still relatively low). I’m not saying it’s without reason—it’s a small set that was reconfigured from being a Beyond Booster set into a tentpole set that’s legal in Standard. It’s chock-full of common legendaries and introduces a lot of issues from a Limited perspective. However, I can’t help but notice that a lot of people are complaining about the “feel” of the set rather than the actual pragmatic issues—especially players who don’t even need to include them because they play casual formats. The Magic content creator discourse for this set has just been overwhelmingly insidious and self-reinforcing. I don’t mind, though—I’m going to be enthusiastically web-slinging my City Pigeon in Atlanta.
For Standard, the power level is about what you would expect. There are a couple of lands that I’m excited about in particular: Oscorp Industries and Multiversal Passage.
A standout issue with three-color Standard mana bases right now is the reliance on Verges while only half of the shock lands are legal (and not wanting to run the surveil lands). I’m happy to say that Multiversal Passage fixes this problem pretty well in my playtesting so far. The best part about this card is that, combined with Starting Town, it creates a good-enough band-aid for the abysmal mana bases of Azorius and Rakdos.
Oscorp Industries is also piquing my interest. It’s not too heavy of a deckbuilding cost to get card advantage out of this—have we ever seen that out of a land? Not that I can recall. The ceiling on this card is so, so high. It’s also worth noting that both of these cards are extra ways to turbo-flip Cecil, which is something I did a lot of during playtesting with black-based midrange decks.
Hey, it’s not-quite-Thalia! Arachne is (likely) not going to reach her full potential for a few sets, but web-slinging for one mana has inherent value beyond just discounting herself. Given how much support for Pixie has been printed in the last few months, she’s almost certainly locked in as at least a 2-of in Pixie, and I think this could find its way into Selesnya Cage decks too. There are a lot of matchups where her effect feels heavily one-sided—against Vivi Cauldron you could name sorcery or enchantment if you’re not worried about bouncing your own Stormchaser’s Talent, against U/W Control you’d likely name instant, etc. It may be until Lorwyn that we see this card truly shine, though, since half of the white mana bases are rough.
This is my for-fun pick, okay? I get to force my pet deck, Naya Legends, repeatedly at a mid-high win rate and bring it to an RCQ and lose round one of Top 8 if I want to. On a serious note, this does fill a huge archetype gap that’s been missing in Standard for a long time: “2-drop that sacrifices itself to protect the entire board.” Spectacular Spider-Man is important again for Selesnya Cage and vital in Naya Legends as a replacement for Jirina or Hajar.
Hide on the Ceiling provides so much utility and versatility for an instant. If you can imagine a scenario, you can likely do it with this card. Need to blink your board in response to removal? You can do it. Need to clear some attackers or blockers? Cast it on an end step and they’re gone for a whole turn. Need to blink a bunch of cloaked/manifested creatures? Probably not at a meta-competitive level, but maybe! Especially in a Dimir Midrange shell built around this, you could run Quantum Riddler and blink it after casting it for its warp cost. Hide on the Ceiling, if not the most powerful card, is going to be one of the more interesting ones to keep in mind as I brew for this Standard season.
Yet another Pixie card—but what I’m really wondering is whether this will be pigeonholed into just that archetype or whether it can break into something like Dimir Midrange. My initial read on the current meta is no, simply because so much of the meta revolves around enchantment and creature spells. You also don’t get as much value from web-slinging compared to Pixie, since it’s almost impossible to line up a Floodpits Drowner tap blowout. Mainboard as a 2-of in Pixie potentially, sideboard elsewhere (but very strong).
You may be noticing a pattern with The Death of Gwen Stacy, which is that they just keep printing cards for Esper Pixie. Being able to cast this twice is incredibly strong since you get chapters I and II both times. That said, three mana is also a heavy cost for a Pixie card, and it’s more than likely going to be relegated to a 1- or 2-of, with Cosmogrand Zenith and our next card taking priority.
Look, it’s not on purpose—I promise they just printed a million Pixie cards. Eddie, though, unlike the others, has a sizable chance to see some play in a lot of black-based midrange decks. He plays incredibly well with Cecil, though you’ll want ~10+ hits for this to be a reasonable card. Lightstall Inquisitor, Nurturing Pixie, Spyglass Siren, Llanowar Elves, Hinterland Sanctifier, Aunt May, Hired Claw, Pawpatch Recruit, and Zack Fair are all potent reanimation targets, and with Starting Town—even in two-color decks—you could reasonably cast the backside or flip him in some desperate endgames. My main worry is that casting him will be too awkward on-curve, so you’ll need to play answer-demanding 1-drops. It’s also possible that Eddie’s ETB effect serves more of a latent function than a manifest one.
Heroes’ Hangout is amazing, even if the current meta isn’t necessarily conducive to prowess/burn decks. It’s a red Sleight of Hand that, in most scenarios, just feels better to cast. It even has an alternate mode if you just need to push through 2 more damage! I would be shocked if this doesn’t become this set’s expensive uncommon.
I’m here to rain on everyone’s parade and say: I don’t get it. I don’t understand the hype around Spider-Punk for Standard even remotely. If you’re a red aggro deck, your opponent probably isn’t keeping many counterspells post-board anyway, and are we really banking on spider synergy? Just… no. The hype for this card is so unwarranted.
I am so on board with Sandman, Shifting Scoundrel. While I don’t think we have a shell for him yet, I can tell you that this card is already an unexpectedly annoying on-curve threat that feels impossible to hinder in many board states. Think Unstoppable Slasher on release. Again, not meta-breaking (yet), but for those random tier-2 green beater decks that pop up every now and then, this may be the best creature in your deck.
Now Carnage, Crimson Chaos is a powerful card. Once Rakdos has a better mana base, I fully expect Carnage decks to rip through the meta. Imagine this in tandem with Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate and discard or sacrifice synergies. Personally, I’ve been trying to make this work in a Grixis shell with Rot-Curse Rakshasa. This is my personal most-anticipated card.
In heavily removal-based Golgari Midrange decks, Kraven the Hunter serves as an incredible yin to the increasingly-prevalent Surrak, Elusive Hunter’s yang. They serve the same purpose against two polarized deck plans—a 4/3 trample must-kill threat that replaces itself (or potentially more). Obviously, Kraven is better against creature-based midrange or aggro decks, whereas Surrak fits better against control or other interaction-heavy midrange decks with his ability to ignore counterspells.
Spider-Man 2099 fits perfectly within a Carnage shell or a Proft’s Eidetic Memory shell, utilizing Winternight Stories. I’m worried about the casting restriction being too high for a deck that isn’t reanimating this Spider-Man, but hopefully you’ll be able to cast him and something from exile or the graveyard on turn 4.
If you made it to the end of this article, I appreciate you. I’m always creating and posting about my standard brews on my Twitter, so please give me a follow! I’m also starting up a podcast about the standard meta, where a friend of mine and I do a fantasy-style draft and do follow-ups throughout a standard season, and track how well cards are doing compared to our expectations. I’m going to be grinding hard this limited season, as I want to end in the top 250 mythic again. But we’ll see how that pans out with the pick-2 draft. If that interests you, follow as well!