For better or worse, 2025 is a monumental year for Magic: The Gathering. Throughout this year, we’re seeing not just one, but three brand-new major Universes Beyond crossovers which are all Standard legal. Out of these, the Magic: The Gathering | Marvel’s Spider-Man set is arguably both the most exciting and controversial.
Scheduled to be released in September of this year, the MTG Spider-Man set is the second Universes Beyond set being released in 2025. Notably, however, this set is the first in a multi-year and multi-set deal with Marvel. Spider-Man may feel like a strange place to start, with that in mind, however, there’s no denying Spidey’s popularity.
Despite the MTG Spider-Man set still being a ways away from release, Wizards of the Coast has already started showing it off. This has created an incredibly busy, and confusing, time within the MTG content calendar. Thankfully, we’re here to help cut through this confusion with all the important information.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Magic: The Gathering | Marvel’s Spider-Man set.
MTG Spider-Man Release Date
For the longest time, Wizards of the Coast was keeping their cards very close to their chest when it came to the Spider-Man MTG set. Recently, however, we’ve been bombarded with many details including cards, dates, and other reveals. Thankfully, we now know exactly when the Magic: The Gathering | Marvel’s Spider-Man will launch. Using this information, we can also presume a few other details about the set.
Release Dates:
- Prerelease Events: September 19th – 25th
- MTG Arena Release Date: September 23rd
- Magic: The Gathering | Marvel’s Spider-Man Release Date: September 26th
Technically, only the set’s official release date has been confirmed so far, however, prerelease dates and the MTG Arena release are a given. Slightly less concrete are the preview dates for this set. Typically previews will begin roughly three weeks before a set’s official release, however, that isn’t always guaranteed. As such, we’ll be calling the below date unconfirmed for now.
Unconfirmed Dates:
- MTG Spider-Man Spoiler Season Start: September 2nd
MTG Spider-Man Spoilers
Initially, six cards were spoiled from the Magic: The Gathering | Marvel’s Spider-Man set. While this isn’t entirely unusual, these didn’t come from a regular First Look event that we’ve gotten used to seeing. Instead, Wizards revealed the contents of the set’s Scene Box, Spidey’s Spectacular Showdown.
Fast forward to the 2025 San-Diego Comic-Con event, and a ton of Spider-Man spoilers suddenly hit the scene. This was the official First Look for the set, and alongside a bunch of main set chase cards, all five Welcome decks were also revealed.
While a majority of the Welcome Deck cards aren’t too powerful, there were a few that were interesting. The chase cards in these decks are, notably, not Standard legal, something shared by the original six spoilers pictured above. If you look in the bottom left corner of the card, SPE cards will not be Standard, but SPD cards will. The Standard-legal highlights for MTG Spider-Man revealed so far can be found here.
MTG Spider-Man Mechanics
While we haven’t seen a ton of Spider-Man cards yet, there are some new and returning mechanics to keep an eye on. While we haven’t seen many impressive cards with new mechanics, the mechanics themselves do look impressive.
Web-slinging is a new mechanic that functions similarly to Ninjutsu. That said, you don’t need to attack with any creatures to fulfill the condition of Web-Slinging. You just need a tapped creature in addition to the Web-slinging cost of the card. Notably, because the tapped creature is a cost, if your Web-slinging spell gets countered, there is a chance of getting completely blown out.
The other new spell we’ve seen so far is Mayhem. This mechanic is similar to Madness, but simply allows you to cast cards you discarded with Mayhem for a different mana cost. The effect lasts until the end of the turn.
There are some upsides to Mayhem compared to Madness but, for the most part, this mechanic is worse than Madness. Mayhem doesn’t force you to play the card immediately, which allows for some better sequencing, but because of this, you cannot ignore timing rules with Mayhem. Madness can let you cast Sorceries at Instant Speed. Mayhem cannot do that.
Finally, a majority of the transforming Spider-Man chase cards function like MDFCs; you can cast either side of the card for their mana values. This makes the cards function a lot better than their first impressions since they can do different things as the game progresses.
MTG Spider-Man News
As alluded to earlier, new cards and dates aren’t the only important details about Magic: The Gathering | Marvel’s Spider-Man that we’ve been told. While showing off the set, Wizards of the Coast revealed that this set will bring about a major change to MTG. For better or worse, the unique identifiers of Universes Beyond cards are being removed.
When the MTG Spider-Man set is spoiled and released, cards will not feature the unique Universes Beyond border or inverted triangle security stamp. These features have been easy identifiers of Universes Beyond cards since they first debuted in 2020. Unsurprisingly, given that Universes Beyond is still somewhat controversial, many MTG players haven’t been too happy about this change.
Should one major change not be enough for you, the MTG Spider-Man set will also continue a worrying trend. As you can see below, the MSRP of Spider-Man products is higher than we usually see. Rather than being priced in line with a Standard set, like Aetherdrift, Universes Beyond sets are considered premium products and priced as such. Sadly, this may mean that Standard is going to get more expensive in the near future.
MTG Marvel Cards
While details are scarce at the moment, it appears the Magic: The Gathering | Marvel’s Spider-Man will also give us our first taste of Marvel cards. According to the recently released Collecting article from Wizards of the Coast, the set will contain cards with the MAR expansion code. The expansion symbol for these cards is the literal Marvel logo, so they appear to be distinctly separate from Spider-Man.
In the article, Wizards explains that these cards are not Standard legal, but they can be found in Play Boosters. While there’s only a chance you’ll find one of these cards in MTG Spider-Man Play Boosters, they’re guaranteed in Collector Boosters. Currently, there’s no information on why Wizards has created this separate mini-set, or which characters it’ll contain.
If we’re to hazard a guess, the extra Marvel/MAR cards will likely be used on cards that don’t fit the set’s Spider-Man theme. If this is the case, we’ll likely see this expansion symbol return for future Marvel crossovers. Given the immense number of fan-favorite characters Marvel has created, it makes sense to give them all so some love.
Ultimately, this feature of the Spider-Man set is still shrouded in mystery, so we’ll have to wait for more information.
MTG Spider-Man Products
To conclude what we know, Wizards of the Coast has handily revealed, what appears to be, the full product lineup for Magic: The Gathering | Marvel’s Spider-Man. Unless there are secretly more Scene Boxes waiting in the wings, these products are all we’re getting once September rolls around. Thankfully, there’s still a lot to enjoy for MTG players and Spider-Man fans alike.
As we’ve come to expect, the Spider-Man set will feature the usual assortment of Play Boosters, Collector Boosters, Prerelease Packs, and a Bundle. After this point, however, things start to get a little unorthodox. For starters, Magic: The Gathering | Marvel’s Spider-Man doesn’t contain any Commander decks.
To mitigate this unusual exclusion, the MTG Spider-Man set does have a Commander-focused Scene Box, as we mentioned earlier. Dubbed the Spidey’s Spectacular Showdown Scene Box this product contains three Play Boosters, six predetermined cards, and an easel to show them off with.
Last, but by no means least, Magic: The Gathering | Marvel’s Spider-Man will also feature five Welcome Decks. These decks are offered to new players from local game stores as a gift and can be used to teach newer players how to play Magic: The Gathering. They will be available at local game stores while supplies last. The contents of these Welcome decks have been revealed in their entirety, and contain cards that are both Standard and Eternal legal.
Finally, there’s also a rumor going around about a Gift Bundle for Spider-Man, but the authenticity of these claims have yet to be confirmed.
Unlike past Magic: The Gathering welcome decks, each of these packets will contain two 30-card monocolored decks. One of the decks will be the one featured on the packaging, while the other will be a randomly inserted option from among the other four decks.
As mentioned earlier, Wizards of the Coast has also unveiled the MSRP for the MTG Spider-Man set. Sadly, these prices are higher than MTG players have come to expect to pay for a Standard-legal set. In comparison, a Play Booster from Aetherdrift had an MSRP of $5.49.
- MTG X Spider-Man Play Booster: $6.99
- MTG X Spider-Man Collector Booster: $37.99
- MTG X Spider-Man Bundle: $69.99
- MTG X Spider-Man Scene Box: $41.99
That’s All For Now
While we know a fair deal about Magic: The Gathering | Marvel’s Spider-Man there’s still a lot we don’t know. While the MTG Spider-Man set is a long way from release, it’s only a matter of time before we learn more. Looking ahead, as mentioned, MagicCon: Las Vegas appears to be the most likely place we’ll see some more cards. For now, however, we’ll just have to wait and see what the future holds.
Thankfully, in the meantime, there’s no end of MTG content that you can look forward to. Currently, the next set to be released is Tarkir: Dragonstorm, which finally brings Magic back to the titular plane. Following this, we’ll be getting the MTG Final Fantasy crossover set, which is equally immensely exciting.