We’re in the midst of a very intense MTG Spider-Man spoiler season. While most MTG spoilers for a set last a couple of weeks, this bizarre spoiler season only lasts for seven days. Making things even more strange, thanks to the parallel MTG Arena set, Through the Omenpaths, we have two different spoiler seasons for the same cards that only partially overlap. It’s certainly messy, and it means that a ton of exciting spoilers are going to hit the MTG scene all at once.
Alongside a famous Spider-Man meme getting brought to life, and a land that can be played from your graveyard, a series of unique cards that offer devastating effects have hit the scene. They all look incredibly powerful, as long as you know where to play them.
Strength of Will
Indomitable Will breaks a card that has been broken many times before. Walking Ballista can now easily go infinite with this and Hardened Scales, offering potentially another combat trick for Hardened Scales decks in Modern.
The combo is pretty straightforward. All you need is Walking Ballista with two +1/+1 counters on it and Hardened Scales. With Scales in play before Ballista, you can pull this off for as little as four mana. Once Indomitable Will has resolved, targeting Walking Ballista, use Ballista’s ability to make the creature damage itself. Indomitable Will places a +1/+1 counter on it, and another gets added with Hardened Scales. Since you gain a counter each time, make an infinitely big Ballista, and shoot your opponent for lethal.
While this is the best place to use Strength of Will, it might be decently powerful in a variety of different Voltron Commander decks. Blasphemous Act is notably very popular in the format. Using Indomitable Will to not only protect your Commander, but turn Blasphemous Act into 13 +1/+1 counters is not only hilarious, but will likely cause someone to die shortly after.
That’s probably where the usability of Strength of Will ends. As a generic constructed spell, this card is just ok. It could excel in decks that care about counters, like Standard Mono-Green Landfall, but cheaper protection effects, like Snakeskin Veil, will likely be better.
Spider-Sense
Spider-Sense offers a very interesting MTG card that has strong Modern potential. Countering an instant, sorcery, or ability for just one mana is incredibly versatile. In Modern, there’s plenty of cheap creatures, like Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student, that can easily pay for the Web-Slinging cost of this card.
Cheap counterspells have never been more important in Modern than now. Between Amulet Titan, Storm, and Neobrand running rampant, it’s incredibly common to die as early as turn two to a flurry of cards that Spider-Sense can stop. Modern already has cheap stopgaps to these effects, like Force of Negation, but it’s not enough. Spider-Sense offers yet another way to stop these cards from running away with the game.
While countering abilities is something that Modern already easily does, Spider-Sense does bring this unique effect to Standard and Modern. Vivi Cauldron uses tons of enters effects that Spider-Sense can turn off in a pinch, but unless Standard adapts, this card probably won’t do much there. In Pioneer, Spider-Sense can play double duty as a counterspell that also Stifles your Lotus Field triggers.
Hydro-Man, Fluid Felon
This creature is a lot better than it looks. Hydro-Man, Fluid Felon is the perfect style of threat for Blue tempo decks. The card scales well, allowing it to consistently get in for damage. Then, on your opponent’s turn, Hydro-Man turns into a land, both granting you mana to counter spells and preventing your opponent from removing Hydro-Man with sorcery-speed removal. Even on turn two, since Hydro-Man becomes a land, he loses summoning sickness. This allows you to tap out, deploy a threat, and hold up interaction at the same time, which is ludicrous.
This could easily see play in Standard and Pioneer. We haven’t had a threat as efficient as this for Blue tempo decks in a really long time. Blue decks in Commander that are interested in holding up lots of interaction can also easily play Hydro-Man. If you primarily want to play at instant speed, the card somewhat functions as mono-blue ramp.
Lady Octopus, Inspired Invader
Lady Octopus offers an interesting tool for Mishra’s Bauble decks in older formats. This card wants to both draw cards and have artifact payoffs to cast. The best artifact decks need to enable Mox Opal, and Mishra’s Bauble functions as a great bridge between the two.
If this card manages to survive, in the right deck, you can cheat a mana value four artifact out on your second turn. This can get Mystic Forge down way ahead of schedule, potentially winning the game outright. Outside of Magical Fairy Christmas land, Lady Octopus just seems ok. It’s another ‘removal check’ creature that slots into Vivi Cauldron, which is a bit worrying to see, but in the case of Vivi, there aren’t a lot of meaningful artifacts to cheat in outside of Agatha’s Soul Cauldron itself.
While a card like this certainly has Modern potential, Lady Octopus will butt heads with Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student for slots in a deck. Tamiyo is a far better creature, so, unless there’s room for more than four copies of one-drop legends, Tamiyo will win out.
Scarlet Spider Ben Reilly
Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly has some constructed potential. Some players are already thinking of playing this card alongside Nova Hellkite in a sort of Standard Gruul Aggro strategy. You could Warp the Hellkite, attack for four, and Web-Sling it out for a 9/8 Ben Reilly with Trample.
This could also be hilariously strong with Scion of Draco in Modern. Dropping a 16/15 for two mana is absolutely hilarious to think about, but outside of this exact scenario, Ben Reilly will be rather underrated in a Modern Zoo deck. In Standard, however, even if cast for just three mana, Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly is strong enough to make an impact. The card certainly has potential, but with the current state of Standard, Ben Reilly probably won’t see the play he deserves.
Unlike most MTG cards, Ben Reilly is all-in on constructed. This card is rather poor in Commander. Big bodies with no real upsides aren’t that impressive unless they’re killing people. While Ben Reilly could be an interesting Voltron Commander, we wouldn’t count on him seeing play outside of some very specific strategies.
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