The resilience of MTG Spider Man cards keeps surprising us. Despite the set’s poor reception, individual cards are successfully making a mark across formats. From new Pioneer infinite combos to random uncommons impacting a wide range of different decks, Spider Man is providing enough power to, at least, have fans experimenting with new cards.
These experiments have led to a wide range of different rogue decks making reappearances. Adding to the long lists of recurring archetypes is a 5-0 League result for Selesnya Gearhulk, sporting four different cards from MTG Spider Man. Some of these are certainly an experiment, but others have a bit more staying power in the deck’s evolution.
Gearhulks and Spiders
Selesnya Gearhulk is a strategy that revolves around the titular Brightglass Gearhulk. Offering a sturdy body with an incredible tutoring-based refill ability, this is the type of card that easily carries an archetype. The catch comes in its strict mana value, making Brightglass Gearhulk a build-around instead of something you can just add to any Standard deck.
Of the four Spider Man cards to make an appearance, three are far more important than the fourth. Both Spectacular Spider-Man and Peter Parker play surprisingly important roles in Selesnya Gearhulk that weren’t previously available for the strategy. Multiversal Passage, meanwhile, increases the consistency of your manabase while opening up strategies with Amazing Spider-Man.
Peter Parker might not make much sense on the surface, but what he brings to the deck is surprisingly powerful. The card is, notably, the perfect partner in crime for the tutorable Nurturing Pixie. On its front side, Nurturing Pixie can bounce Peter Parker to make additional Spider tokens. This power is easily scalable in the strategy thanks to cards like Cosmogrand Zenith. Flipping Peter Parker over, Amazing Spider-Man’s Web-Slinging ability can create recursion loops with the little Flier. Getting Pixie tapped thanks to its Flying keyword is rather easy, and cheating in cards like Elspeth, Storm Slayer for just three mana creates absurd tempo swings.
All of that said, there is one awkward point of contention. This is a Selesnya deck, and you need Bant mana to Web-Sling with Amazing Spider-Man. Bizarrely enough, the manabase for this Gearhulk list is actually equipped with this in mind. A full playset of Starting Town is accompanied by the new Spider Man land Multiversal Passage. A final singular copy of Valgavoth’s Lair allows you to make blue when necessary, without compromising the integrity of your Selesnya colors. Because of Brightglass Gearhulk’s mana value, this is an absolute necessity for the deck to play properly.
Board Wipe Protection and Legend Synergies
This card plays multiple roles in this Gearhulk list. At its core, this is an aggressively slanted midrange list, and Spectacular Spider-Man is just a great creature for two mana. Granting Temporary Flying is surprisingly valuable, allowing Spectacular Spider-Man to chump block large fliers in Vivi Cauldron and contest with Spyglass Siren, which is rising in popularity.
The biggest reason to run Spectacular Spider Man in Selesnya Gearhulk, however, is to contest board wipes. Fire Magic is appearing in Vivi Cauldron, and control is on the rise after its sudden breakout at the recent Standard Super Qualifier event. Having a creature that can insulate your board to a wipe is becoming increasingly valuable, and Spectacular Spider-Man is the best tool in Standard for that role. Cosmogrand Zenith allows this deck to go wide quickly, and Spectacular Spider-Man makes those boards difficult to deal with.
Lastly, Amazing Spider-Man allows you to Web-Sling creatures back to your hand with Amazing Spider-Man in the late game. This can occasionally be a necessary way to recur valuable enters triggers with cards like Brightglass Gearhulk, or find your second spell to trigger Cosmogrand Zenith.
Miles Morales appears as a one-of in this list, and it appears to be more of an experiment. The card has some obvious synergies, repetitively growing creatures in combination with various bounce effects on its front side, and getting a massive discount with Amazing Spider-Man’s Web-Slinging ability on its back side. Ultimate Spider-Man is extremely difficult to remove in the control matchup. Board wiping this creature is the only surefire way to deal with it, and Spectacular Spider-Man helps make that even more difficult.
An Interesting New Direction
The rest of this Selesnya Gearhulk list is rather Standard. The deck runs a bunch of efficient one-drops to synergize with the various top-end power plays that the deck offers. The Spider-Man additions help smooth this deck’s consistency from the early to the late game and plugs up some of the larger weaknesses that the deck offers.
As far as its position in the metagames goes, Selesnya Gearhulk, seems like a deck that wants to play against fair strategies. This deck starts quick enough to keep up with Mono Red, and can grind deep enough into the game to contest opposing midrange strategies. Control might be a bit harder, but the deck’s aggressive starts combined with board wipe insulation should give it a fighting chance.
Combo matchups are where Selesnya Gearhulk may struggle. Strategies that invalidate its grindy board-related value, like Vivi Cauldron and Bringer of the Last Gift combo, may give Selesnya Gearhulk a difficult time. The deck has sideboard options to contest these strategies, like Soul-Guide Lantern, Ghost Vacuum, and Heritage Reclamation, but the deck is likely unable to close the game quickly enough to capitalize on the disruption.
Like many Standard MTG decks, this might be in the Vivi ban waiting room for now, but once that deck is put into check, this could be a strong contender for a new metagame. Brightglass Gearhulk is an incredibly powerful enabler, and the new Spider Man additions give this deck tools to fight against its biggest weaknesses.
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