While it got a bit lost in the absolute deluge of other big announcements, last Friday actually marked the full release of Magic: The Gathering’s Spider Man set. The cards are now fully available to purchase and play with everywhere. Despite the overall low opinion the set has garnered thus far, it seems that the cards themselves are actually fairly effective. We’ve seen them enable new combos and even slot into established strategies. Aggro decks, in particular, seem to be enjoying what MTG Spider Man has to offer.
In recent events, a number of Aggro lists have incorporated new Spider Man cards, and pretty successfully too. Standard staple Mono-Red is testing a couple of key pieces, while its less popular Boros cousin does the same. Outside of Standard, aggressive decks in both Pioneer and Legacy are also dabbling in some new Spider-Verse additions.
New Tools For Boros Aggro
Recently, in Standard, Boros Aggro hasn’t been the most successful deck. While the addition of white lets it run both Lightning Helix and Sheltered by Ghosts, two very powerful aggressive cards, the Mono-Red version has just always been more consistent. That, however, could well change with the advent of Spider Man.
In yesterday’s MTG Online Standard Challenge, Froddo claimed fourth place with a new take on Boros Aggro, running a couple of Spider Man cards. Araña, Heart of the Spider is the big one here, offering a highly aggressive draw engine for the deck. It fuels itself, since it lets you place counters on your creatures when you attack, but it also works nicely with some established Aggro pieces, too.
Hired Claw can place counters on itself with its ability, for example. With Araña out, it can also ‘draw’ cards, making an already great one-drop even better. Cosmogrand Zenith also makes an appearance here, with its ability to blanket your whole board in counters being more relevant than ever.
This counter sub-theme extends into the other new card in the deck, Origin of Spider Man. For just two mana, you get quite a lot of value here. Just curving this into Araña will let you swing in with a 4/3 on turn three. The counter also gives you more draw power, which is magnified further by the Double Strike on chapter three. This was an early spoiler that many players dismissed at first, but it’s actually a pretty potent Aggro card on reflection.
The synergy in this new take on Boros Aggro is plain to see, and clearly fairly effective in-game, too. Whether the deck will stick around in the weeks to come remains to be seen, but it has a solid foundation to work with in any case.
More Mono-Red Draw Power
Boros Aggro is one thing, but what about Standard’s most popular Aggro list? Mono-Red Aggro still holds that title comfortably, and it also snagged some nice pickups from Spider Man.
In yesterday’s Standard Challenge, Mami took 6th place with a Mono-Red Aggro list running three full copies of Gwen Stacy. This is one of the wildest new pickups we’ve seen in a while. Gwen Stacy’s appeal lies mostly in it being a funky Jeskai flip legend, but Mami is content simply to use the front side.
When you ignore all the extra text, Gwen Stacy is a 2/1 for two that Impulse draws you a card. The crucial thing here is that you can play that card for as long as Gwen Stacy remains in play, as opposed to most other effects like this that only last until end of turn. A lot of the time in Mono-Red, you’ll be able to play the card right away, but the added flexibility really gives this an edge over similar options. It’s ironic that such a complex card could be used in such a simple way, but here we are.
Speaking of Impulse draw, Mono-Red got another great piece of it in Spider Man with Heroes’ Hangout. Darth_Vaner ran three copies of this bad boy in their 21st-place Mono-Red list in yesterday’s Standard Challenge. This card is almost exactly half of an Opera Love Song, a previous Mono-Red staple, for half the price. The option to buff up two of your attackers or essentially draw a card for just one mana is much stronger, however.
This is the first real result we’ve seen for Hangout in Standard, and it’s not exactly stellar. That said, I do expect more players to adopt the card once they’ve had a chance to test it.
Successes Beyond Standard
It’s not just in Standard that Spider Man is flaunting its aggressive edge: we’ve seen cards from the set show up in Aggro decks across a range of MTG formats.
In Pioneer, Takeda Ryotara took a Gruul Legends deck running a full playset of Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly to a top-four finish in a Hareruya Qualifier event this past Monday. This isn’t exactly a deck on many players’ radars in the format right now. That said, Ben Reilly is a fantastic addition nonetheless.
Since Web-slinging is an alternate casting cost, Bard Class discounts Ben Reilly down to nothing when you’re casting it this way. This pairs perfectly with the other GR legends in the deck, like Ruby, Daring Tracker. You can bounce one of these to cast Ben Reilly for free, netting two counters in the process. You can then immediately recast the bounced creature thanks to Bard Class, effectively untapping your creature. While this is a niche deck, Ben Reilly is a significant new addition.
Further back, in the deep, dark waters of Legacy, Arachne, Psionic Weaver is putting in work. Yokoyama Itaru made the top eight of a Hareruya Legacy Cup last week, running Humans with three copies of this spicy new card.
This is a fairly obvious addition, but it’s worth mentioning regardless. Arachne’s disruptive effect is particularly effective in Legacy, where mana is incredibly tight. It also plays really nicely with Karakas and creatures like Thalia’s Lieutenant, for nifty value plays in the late game. This was clearly one of the better cards in the set overall, so it’s great to see it doing well in a serious format.
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