It’s no secret that MTG Spider Man has received a much less enthusiastic welcome compared to past tentpole Universes Beyond crossovers. While The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth and Final Fantasy were record-breaking successes, Spider Man has proven to be rather forgettable.
The finance market, among many other things, is a big indicator of this. Final Fantasy and Lord of the Rings created all kinds of price spikes, while Spider Man has, more or less, done little to nothing on the secondary market. That said, there are some movements still being caused by the set, making a forgotten enchantment from 25 years ago rise in price.
MTG Entangler
Entangler is, typically, a very weak MTG card, but it has a unique effect. Generally, blocking all of your opponent’s creatures isn’t too exciting. It buys you a turn, and on a creature with Deathtouch, you can take down a good amount of your opponent’s board to make it occasionally worthwhile.
When attached to Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer, Entangler becomes a lot scarier. Thanks to Anti-Venom turning damage into +1/+1 counters, Entangler allows Anti-Venom to block all of your opponent’s incoming creatures without a downside. This combination is akin to a one-sided Moat, preventing your opponents from attacking you with any creatures that Anti-Venom can block. According to EDHREC, Entangler is included in the majority of Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer Commander decks.
Notably, this doesn’t come without its downsides. Putting a massive four-mana Aura onto your Commander is essentially begging for it to get removed. Damage won’t do anything to Anti-Venom, but destruction and exiling effects are still fair game. You’ll need your fair share of protection to make pulling this combo off worthwhile, but if Anti-Venom is your Commander, chances are you’ve packed enough tricks to keep Entangler active.
As you may expect, Entangler does not see much play outside of Anti-Venom decks. The card appears in Light-Paws, Emperor’s Voice cEDH decks very rarely, but otherwise is nonexistent in competitive circles. The card grants a mediocre buff for a massive cost in most cases, so this is to be expected. Thanks to its printing, Entangler isn’t legal in a vast majority of competitive formats, but even if it were, it probably wouldn’t see any play.
The Spike
A factor in this card’s price point is certainly its scarcity. Entangler only has one printing from Prophecy as an uncommon. Since the only printing of Entangler is 25 years old, a majority of the copies changing hands are no longer in Near Mint condition. Lightly Played copies, as a result, seem to highlight the current spike the best.
Over the past month, the market average of Lightly Played copies of Entangler has risen from $0.92 to $2.57. While this represents a 179% increase, copies of Entangler are now routinely selling for more. $3.63, a 295% increase, is the high end of sales for Entanglement, and there are quite a few sales at this number. At the time of writing, the card is selling for anywhere between $1.92 and $3.63. Lower outliers are being bought in bulk, and otherwise seem to have big shipping costs attached. Lightly played copies of Entaglement, with Shipping included, cannot be found for less than $5.
While the majority of sales are for Lightly Played copies, other conditions have their prices all over the map. If you want to save some money, Moderately Played copies are generally selling for between $1 and $2. Heavily played copies can be sold for even less, but they also appear to have significant shipping costs attached.
Prophecy foils have always had big price multipliers, and Entanglement is no different. While these are very rare, there have been recent sales for foil Entanglements selling for as high as $18.70. Unless you’re a collector, this price is unlikely to be worthwhile.
A Smaller Commander Trend
Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer is hardly the most popular Commander from MTG Spider Man, but the card demands such a bizarre arsenal of cards that it is causing more than one price spike. Rarer copies of Pariah are starting to rise in price thanks to Anti-Venom, as well as Phyrexian Vindicator from Phyrexia: All Will Be One. Phyrexian Vindicator is almost a second Commander for Anti-Venom decks, making it a particularly important pick-up.
Once the hype for Anti-Venom leaves, however, all of these cards will likely plummet. While these cards are all extremely powerful when played together, they are all very difficult to use in a vacuum. Entanglement is particularly bad for this.
There is a very good chance that this spike will be rather short-lived. Once players acquire the copies of Entanglement they want for Anti-Venom, there’s no reason to acquire Entanglement, especially for a couple of dollars. Unless yet another Stuffy Doll-esque Commander appears in the future, Entaglement is worse than useless.
If you want to grab Entanglement for cheap, I’d recommend either waiting or settling for a beat-up copy. The only reason to grab this card now is if you want to play Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer yourself. Otherwise, it’s likely best to wait. As per usual, we can never truly tell the future, so there’s always a chance that Entanglement unlocks some other powerful Commander combos, but it seems far too specific to us.
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