In a move pretty much no one expected, Wizards of the Coast decided to release the first spoilers for Magic: The Gathering’s Spider-Man expansion on Saturday. Given that the full set isn’t coming until September 26th this feels early, to say the least. That said, it’s always great to have new cards to check out, and this batch has some doozies. Sensational Spider-Man, in particular, looks like an MTG card with a ton of potential in Commander.
Since this first batch is from the ‘Spider-Man Eternal’ sub-set, none of them are Standard-legal. This makes Commander their natural port of call. In that format, Spider-Man enables an interesting tempo-driven deck that taps, quite literally, into underused synergies from the past. If you’re looking to stray from the Control norms of the colors, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man has you covered.
Sensational Spider-Man MTG
- Mana Value: 1WU
- Rarity: Rare
- Type: Legendary Creature – Spider Human Hero
- Stats: 3/3
- Card Text: Whenever Sensational Spider-Man attacks, tap target creature defending player controls and put a stun counter on it. Then you may remove up to three stun counters from among all permanents. Draw cards equal to the number of stun counters removed this way.
At first glance, Sensational Spider-Man doesn’t look like the kind of MTG card you’d want heading up your Commander deck. Splashier effects tend to do more work than three-mana beaters, after all. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find a very solid card with real potential to lead aggressive strategies to victory.
The biggest downside of the card is that it literally does nothing until it attacks. Blue and white aren’t exactly known for granting Haste, so in most cases, you’ll need to have your 3/3 survive a full turn cycle to have any impact. You can get around this with Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots, of course, or by holding up countermagic to protect Spider-Man.
Once he gets to swing in, things really get cooking. Tapping down and stunning an opposing blocker is a big deal, especially in an Azorius Tempo deck. Such decks typically enjoy benefits from creatures dealing combat damage, so removing blockers is excellent.
After this comes the really interesting part. You can remove up to three stun counters, including the one you just placed, to draw that many cards. Even by 2025 Standards, drawing three cards when attacking with a three-mana 3/3 feels pretty great. You can remove the Stun counters from anywhere, too, so you don’t have to solely rely on Spider-Man to set himself up.
The ceiling here, drawing three cards a turn cycle, is clearly fantastic. The floor isn’t half bad either. Even if all you do is tap down one blocker and draw one card, you’re probably feeling good about that. While most of the first batch of Spider-Man spoilers are clunky at best, I can see why Wizards didn’t want this one in Standard.
Stunning Synergies
You can absolutely just run Sensational Spider-Man at the head of a traditional Azorius Tempo deck in MTG Commander and have a great time. Where he’ll really shine, however, is in a deck that leans hard into the Stun Counter theme. There are a lot of cards that use this mechanic, many of which have been overlooked until now due to their generally low power level. With Spider-Man in the mix, they get a lot more attractive.
Take Mjölnir, Storm Hammer, for instance. While it got some hype early on after Assassin’s Creed was released, it has largely faded into obscurity now. It’s a perfect fit for a Spider-Man deck, coming down the turn after him and equipping for free. Once on, it lets you tap and stun an extra creature per swing, which raises your minimum card draw to two per turn. It also deals some nice table-wide damage, which could be pretty significant in a Stun Counter-focused deck.
Spider-Man can also remove stun counters from your own creatures that have them as a downside. The Watcher in the Water is the big one here, giving Spidey nine counters to work through, translating to nine cards drawn over time. It even places more Stun Counter later, so it does work once you’ve fully freed it up, too. There are other great examples in this category as well. Kitnap becomes a much better Control Magic, for example, and Sleep-Cursed Faerie becomes a truly insane tempo play.
On top of all this, Spider-Man also works well with the many ‘trigger on tap’ synergies in Magic: The Gathering. We saw a big batch of these in Wilds of Eldraine, with Sharae of Numbing Depths and Hylda of the Icy Crown being incredibly powerful and just the right colors.
Counter Club
As a Commander that cares a lot about counters, Sensational Spider-Man also benefits from the long list of counter synergy cards in MTG. Proliferate, in particular, gets very scary when you’re throwing Stun Counters around constantly. Once you get an engine going you’ll be able to lock an opponent’s creatures out of combat entirely, while drawing as many cards as you need to.
There are a ton of great Proliferate cards out there, in blue especially. Inexorable Tide will start to feel like a Grave Pact real fast in a deck like this, for example. Norn’s Choirmaster is another highlight, giving Spidey value on entry as well as a lot more value on attack. You’ll want big engine pieces like these alongside repeatable Proliferation like Grateful Apparition, and powerful one-shot proliferation like Experimental Augury.
With enough of this and enough stun counter generation, you can keep the whole pod frozen down. You can also get a bit creative by blending synergies across themes. Run Nesting Grounds, for example, and those creatures who come with Stun Counters as a downside now have another use. Once you’ve stunned the board with something like Monstrosity of the Lake, follow up with a Deepglow Skate to buy yourself a ton of time and cards. There are plenty of unexpected synergies with a Commander like this, which is what makes it so interesting to brew around.
As of right now, it’s also looking like a great budget Commander option. None of the cards I’ve mentioned here are particularly pricey, and you’d likely be able to fill out the list with mostly bulk cards. This may not be the case forever, mind. We’ve all seen popular Commander decks push prices up in the past, after all.
