Magic: The Gathering’s Spider-Man Cards Are Missing Something Big

Unless you’re a super villain spending time behind bars, you’ve no doubt seen that MTG: Marvel’s Spider-Man has been somewhat controversial, and with good reason, however before we web-sling towards the issue, let’s just set the context.

MTG: Marvel’s Spider-Man was originally conceived as a small set of 100 cards or so, as we saw with Magic: The Gathering – Assassin’s Creed and its much maligned 7 card ‘beyond’ boosters. However, with Assassin’s Creed not selling as well as expected, Wizards were pushed to make MTG: Marvel’s Spider-Man suddenly twice the size. This means that while there still are some gems within the set, some of the designs perhaps needed a little more time, and limited players in particular aren’t fans of the ‘pick two’ format necessitated by the set’s size.

As you’d expect with franchises as big as Marvel and Spider-Man, there was huge excitement ahead of the set’s release, which unfortunately not all the cards have delivered upon. That leads us to this particular issue… and what’s missing?

What’s missing from the new Spider-Man set?

A trend noticed among players who have been playing for some time is that cards have been getting much wordier. Rather than just simplifying things, the game’s designers have been cutting corners in rules text to rectify the issue. For example, ‘enters the battlefield’ now reads ‘enters.’ Ironically, cutting words like this actually adds to the complexity, making what’s happening feel far less intuitive.

This set has some particularly egregious examples in not fully naming cards that they are referring to. For example, the card ‘Spider-Man, Miles Morales’ has an enter the battlefield effect which reads ‘When Spider-Man enters’, cutting the second part of the card's name. This is hugely confusing within a set with many, many versions of Spider-Man in it… does it mean just when this card enters, or is Spider-Man, Miles Morales granting that ability to all future Spider-Man creatures? To make matters worse, this card is from a Welcome Deck for new players, who are the most likely to be caught out.

Stranger still, if they really had to cut words by not having the full card name, why couldn’t it say ‘when this creature enters’?

Other frustrations

Unfortunately this isn't the players' only issue. Limited players don’t like ‘pick two’, leading to Limited Resources, the premier limited-focused podcast, to just skip the set altogether.

For deeper fans of Spider-Man, the set just misses the mark when it comes to flavour, with the cards not feeling like something from a dedicated Spider-Man set. Considering there are more than 30 ‘Spider Heros’ in the set, it’s quite amazing the set feels so little like Spidey.

Comparing to past Universes Beyond releases

Universes Beyond products, generally, have a phenomenal success rate. The Warhammer 40K Commander Decks were a work of art, providing us with four distinct Commander decks with not only new cards, but Warhammer 40K art and flavour on the reprints too. Fallout offered the same, again to great success, but it’s not just the Commander decks that work. The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth was our first full Universes Beyond set, and was a huge hit for both Limited players but also had an impact across casual and constructed formats. Then there’s Final Fantasy – the best selling Magic set of all time based on pre-orders alone!

So what happened here? Well, before Spiderman we had Assassin’s Creed, the first UB set to experiment with a smaller set and 7 card boosters. It didn’t work. Whether it was the size of the set, or the design, or even the franchise, it’s hard to say, but it sent shockwaves through Wizards meaning that Spiderman was expanded in a rush, and it shows.

What this means for MTG crossovers going forward

From other Universes Beyond, we know the successful formula. They either need to be collections of just a few cards released via Secret Lair (as we saw with Stranger Things, Street Fighter and The Walking Dead), Commander Decks, or Full Sets. The mini sets just don’t work, most likely because players don’t know what to do with them – it’s too big to buy as a one-off for the collection, yet not much of a viable play experience like the Commander Decks or full set, or for Limited play.

Small sets are done for.

I don’t foresee this impacting other Marvel schedule sets, however. From what we know, the other sets have been designed to be large, and Wizards has had more design time, and learning experiences from Spider-Man, to ensure lessons were learnt. The Marvel name is too valuable for them to waste.

Whatever the future holds for Spiderman, Marvel, Universes Beyond and Magic: The Gathering in general, follow Magic Madhouse to be kept up to date, including future news, alters and product releases.