Jank Rank - Marvel's Spider-Man

Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer

Pariah alert! Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer is as eager to suck up punishment as I am to finish this sentence with some sort of low-hanging, kink-related punchline. The strategy’s simple; all you gotta do is redirect damage to this guy and watch as an ounce of prevention becomes a pound of cure.

Notably, Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer is immune to all forms of combat damage, and that means you can get some serious power out of both Lure effects and blocking buffers like Brave the Sands. Bonus points if you can somehow manipulate the damage step so that no matter how many of your creatures block the same attacker, Anti-Venom takes all the punishment; my favorite way to do this would be to make a mono-white legendary deck, and then tutor the hell out of Cathedral of Serra.

I’m also a big fan of that cast trigger. Ever since I built my Shorikai noncreature reanimator list, I’ve had a soft spot for non-black recursion strategies. This might be the most fascinating way to realize that dream since Teshar, and the card I first thought of when I came up with that strategy was Meticulous Excavation, of all things. With it (and its frankly much better variants), you can bounce your commander to your hand again and again, reanimating all manner of terrifying creatures along the way. Is this efficient? Nope! Five white is still a lot of mana. Is it fun? Hell yeah!

Arachne, Psionic Weaver

Taxing only one kind of noncreature spell rather misses the point, doesn’t it? No, Arachne doesn’t hold a candle to Thalia, but there’s something I find charming about casting her and shouting “fuck sorceries in particular.”

Aunt May

While the Soul Sisters archetype has vastly more impactful options in the command zone slot (see: Darien, Minwu, Heliod), I have to award points to Aunt May for actually understanding the assignment and qualifying as an honest-to-goodness Soul Sister herself.

Don’t get me wrong, failing to trigger when enemy creatures enter is a huge omission, but hey! She makes up for it with Spider-typal synergy, which is stupid jank for those of you willing to try and make it work.

Flash Thompson, Spider-Fan

Flash Thompson would be a very inspired design—if there weren’t only two cards in white with the mechanic. If there were more, then tapping and untapping the same creature with one card would be hilarious. Maybe he’s a good main-deck roleplayer in the inspired deck I’m mentally cooking up right now.

Peter Parker // Amazing Spider-Man

Marvel’s Spider-Man contains the game’s very first cycle of transforming modal double-faced cards, which exist solely to trick people. Unlike every other transforming card in the game, you can actually cast either side of these cards straight from your hand. In other words, although Peter Parker can transform into Spider-Man, you’re not required to go through him first.

And honestly, I dig it. It’s unintuitive as all hell, but the design makes sense. Each of the set’s TMDFCs has a front face that’s an early game tempo play with some incremental advantage (in Peter’s case, making a Spider token). You’re supposed to play the front face early to round out your turn two or three, and then transform those creatures into their relevant sides later. Should you draw one late, you can simply cast their back side and get right to it.

While I like this play pattern for limited, it’s sketchier for commander, depending on the specific front faces. If I’m spending my turn two making a 2/1 with reach instead of casting, say, any mana rock, removal spell, or too-specific two-mana value engine, then call an ambulance, because I am dead inside.

Worse yet, this particular configuration of card faces reveals a bunch of idiosyncrasies that, while jank, all suck. Wanna use a blink spell to protect Ghost-Spider? Fuck you, you’ve just detransitioned your commander (and now everyone’s deadnaming her). Better hope your pod doesn’t have a Roon player who is aware that his ability can target enemy creatures—and God help you if someone decides to remove your commander in response to its transformation.

Wait, I actually have to talk about the Amazing Spider-Man, the card, don’t I? He feels like an unholy cross between Chulane and Satoru, and he’s gonna end up the king of the Llanowar Elves as a result. It’s the most obvious solution: play bargain-bin mana dorks, tap them to make mana, then return them to your hand so you can cheat out Avacyn. Someone threw in that “one or more colors” rider because they realized Eldrazi exist, and if they didn’t, here comes Emrakul with her cast trigger thrown in, thank you very much. Anyway, dorks, big legendaries, add in a copy of The Great Henge and Beast Whisperer to keep your hand stocked, and you’re good to go.

If you want a jank Amazing Spider-Man deck, you must absolutely resist the temptation to trend toward the optimal design. Focus on creatures that trigger when they leave the battlefield, or legendary creatures with activated abilities. Hell, make all your spells white so you can cheat out Eldrazi. Just don’t build another big-dudes-for-free deck, I’m begging you.

Silver Sable, Mercenary Leader

The one thing I’ll never get tired of with these Universes Beyond sets is the palpable sense of relief I get when, after a long, intricate review of a fascinating commander that ends up totaling hundreds of words, I get to simply type “this is shit” under an uncommon nobody cares about and I can move on with my life.

Spectacular Spider-Man

As far as I’m concerned, Spectacular Spider-Man is a Heroic Intervention which costs three mana instead of two. Nothing too interesting, but he’d be a real problem underneath an Agatha’s Soul Cauldron.

Spider-Man, Web-Slinger

I wasn’t prepared to learn that Marvel’s Spider-Man contains ten new common legendary creatures, which means Pauper Commander players no longer have any excuse helming their decks with uncommons. Get to updating, peons!

Spider-UK

The most terrifying plane, Great Britain, makes an appearance in Marvel’s Spider-Man? I thought this was a family-friendly set, Wizards.

Wait a tick, guv’na; on second glance, this commander might actually be worth real analysis. Okay, all you’ve gotta do is ensure two or more creatures enter the battlefield under your control on each of your turns, and you get to draw cards.

They don’t have to be different creatures; blinking a dude twice totally counts as two or more entering the battlefield. Myriad and encore also immediately fill your quota, and combined with token-draw cards such as Caretaker’s Talent and Bennie Bracks, I could envision a tokens deck that makes only temporary creatures for triggers and wins without actually going wide. Neat!

Starling, Aerial Ally

Anyone want to start an over-under bet on how many of these common commanders (commonanders?) are playable, let alone playable in the command zone? No, you can’t pick “under zero,” try again.

Beetle, Legacy Criminal

I feel like any deck that would want Beetle would be better served by Fae Flight, which is a flying combat trick that also doubles as instant-speed protection. And the flying sticks around at the end of the turn. And it gives you a Constellation trigger.

Wizards, sorcery speed activations on combat tricks suck. I know keeping an eye on the enemy graveyard is tough and leads to feel-bads when you get blown out, but that didn’t stop you from designing flashback. You don’t have to go this overboard to reduce the complexity of the game.

Chameleon, Master of Disguise

He’s completely outclassed by Sakashima of a Thousand Faces, but I understand if you don’t have thirty bucks to drop on the Bentley of Clones. Best I can say about Chameleon is that if you have a legendary creature that you really want more of, well, here ya go.

Doc Ock, Sinister Scientist

Pound for pound, I’d rather go for THE 🅱️ANCIENT ONE than Doc Ock. Not only do you get access to a second color, you get a pretty sweet activated ability as a secondary win condition. Plus, the lower initial casting cost means you can absorb a few kill spells without expending too many resources to recast it, which goes about even with hexproof in my mind.

On the other hand, Doc Ock is common and relatively playable, so if you’re going for all commons, you could do way worse.

Hydro-Man, Fluid Felon

You can either play Hydro-Man as cheap cantrip typal, where you buff him up as much as possible before swinging for a kill, or you can play him as what is effectively a draw-go Sky Diamond in the command zone.

Unfortunately, he makes for a terrible Voltron commander. He lacks built-in evasion, and all of your Auras and Equipment are destined to fall off him when he landifies himself against your will at the beginning of your end step. That means you’re pretty much limited to option B, though I can see a world where you play nothing but evasion-granting combat tricks like You Come to a River and hope for the best.

Lady Octopus, Inspired Inventor

I was really high on Lady Octopus for a time, but I later learned that Jhoira, Ageless Innovator exists and is basically the exact same design—down to the names of the counters, even. Is this a callback, or mere laziness? I suppose the one meaningful difference is you still get cast triggers with this variant.

Madame Web, Clairvoyant

Wow! Madame Web sure lets you cast all eight spiders available in blue from the top of your deck. Not to mention all these useful changlings like Mistwalker and Three Tree Mascot. And you get to mill a card when you attack? Be still, my beating heart! Surely this is worth an extra mana and giving up two colors, flash, and prowess.

For the jank strategy, you obviously wanna tutor out Maskwood Nexus or Arcane Adaptation, which turns all creature cards in your deck into arachnids. That would let you cast anything from the top of your deck, since “any noncreature spell” plus “any creature spell” is the totality of Magic spells. I discovered this strategy as I was in the Amazon with her mom, when she was researching spiders right before she died.

Mysterio, Master of Illusion

I might be a bit slow on the uptake, but reading this commander was the exact moment I realized that this set is absurdly parasitic. Way too many of these commanders care about Villains or Spiders, and there just… aren’t enough in the game to overcome my apathy.

I suppose you could go all-in on legend rule-ignoring Clones like Chameleon for the Mysterio deck. Each new copy creates more and more tokens, which is… fine. Just make sure you’ve mapped each group of tokens to the correct Mysterio, or it’ll get confusing the moment someone casts Swords to Plowshares.

Norman Osborn // Green Goblin

Norman Osborn’s front side is, believe it or not, good. With over 22,000 includes, Looter il-Kor is a staple of many a combat-focused deck, and Norman Osborn is still better, with true evasion and additional +1/+1 counter synergy. You could realistically throw this into any given Grixis deck and be no worse for wear.

But you’re not here for some asshole white guy. You’re here for FLEEEEEEEEEEEEM!

Yes, Reddit’s new favorite darling is represented here in Magic as basically just Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer, except the timing restrictions hack has been replaced with a two-mana cost reduction. That definitely limits its cast-a-second-board-wipe-in-response-to-a-Heroic-Interventionitude, which is disappointing for weird stack plays. Still, a two mana discount is quite spectacular. Slaps Goblin: “you can fit so many free 2-drop artifacts in this baby!”

Of course, granting every nonland card in your graveyard mayhem is a massive buff to looters, as you no longer actually lose access to the cards you discard. Plus, unlike Oskar, you aren’t obligated to cast your spells immediately; you can wait until all the cards have been dealt, and then plan out your turn. Unfortunately, this will lead to twenty minute “I swear, I’m almost done sequencing” slogfests, so only consider this deck if you’re actually good at Magic.

For jank purposes, though, Green Goblin’s got the same problem as Peter Parker: there’s an obvious good strategy you must avoid building if you want to make something truly unique. In Peter’s case, it was mana dorks; here, it’s looters (and to a lesser extent, wheels). Maybe I need to coin a new term to describe this phenomenon, like how Do-the-Thing Syndrome exists for commanders that ask and answer their own questions. Let’s call this one “Obvious Deck Disease,” shall we?

Spider-Byte, Web Warden

Even if you wanted Man-o’-War.dek, I can’t imagine why you’d pick Spider-Byte over the vastly superior mono-blue Venser.

Agent Venom

Ever wanted Midnight Reaper in the command zone? Boy, do I have the card for you!

Sadly, Agent V is too valuey and goodstuffy to be meaningfully jank. Can you believe this is only the second commander in black that turns deaths into cards? The other one is Theros Beyond Death Erebos, who is just this same commander on crack.

Black Cat, Cunning Thief

Black Cat’s most daring heist was apparently Gonti’s entire textbox. I can’t condone theft as a jank strategy, since you’re ultimately not in control of the cards you play, but I can appreciate the ballsiness of outright upgrading a previously well-known commander to attempt to make their strategy relevant again.

Eddie Brock // Venom, Lethal Protector

Unlike the other two TMDFCs I’ve covered, I have little to say about Eddie Brock. His front side is ass; I doubt anyone in the world can consistently bin 1-drops by turn three. Besides, it feels like you don’t even wanna build towards that anyway, because Venom scales with the mana value of his sac fodder.

I will give the duo this, though: they don’t quite suffer from Obvious Deck Disease the way the other two members of the cycle did. I could see reanimator as a clear winner, since you can cheat out creatures with high mana values, but there’s also token copies and big ramp in the mix. Maybe the jank here is more applicable at the individual card level—just find weird stuff to throw into that hungry maw, like Gruff Triplets or Nine-Lives Familiar.

Gwenom, Remorseless

Okay, we did not need a game changer in the command zone. Even if Gwenom has to attack to trigger it, this is just a disgusting value engine, and as a master of jank, I disapprove.

Morlun, Devourer of Spiders

Devourer of Spiders sounds so badass, until you picture it with all the gravitas of this meme:

Still, we have here an infinite mana outlet in the command zone. Once you’ve assembled your combo, you’re gonna kill a dude and gain an infinite amount of life, which means you really should have no problem winning the entire goddamn game afterwards.

Scorpion, Seething Striker

Only play Scorpion if you’ve got some sort of self-discard synergy. If you don’t, Agent Venom is much better.

Spider-Man Noir

Hilarious with the newly-released Spacecraft. I can’t wait to cast Spider-Man Noir, and then attack with Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought to surveil twenty cards.

Swarm, Being of Bees

Tombstone, Career Criminal

Tombstone’s most daring heist was apparently Honest Rutstein’s entire textbox. I can’t condone the fact that he tripped and broke it as he was escaping from Thunder Junction, and so it lost a color and only works for Villains, but I can appreciate the ballsiness of outright downgrading a previously lesser-known commander for no reason at all. Bravo, Wizards.

Venom, Evil Unleashed

Venom’s activated ability is closer to scavenge than unleash. Wizards, see me after class.

Electro, Assaulting Battery

Here’s another infinite mana outlet in the command zone, but this time, you’ve got the option to slow-roll it and actually play fairly. Compared to Birgi, you only gain red mana when you cast instants and sorceries, there’s no alternate face, and you lose the oh-so-important ability to boast twice each turn. That doesn’t really matter, though, because I suspect most Birgi players were storming off with instants and sorceries anyway, and in that regard, Electro is a strict upgrade.

Gwen Stacy // Ghost-Spider

Another decent front side! We’re two for four here, because Gwen Stacy’s trigger is half a Reckless Impulse that lets you play that card for as long as you control her. No blink shenanigans, unfortunately; you lose control of her when she’s exiled, so you can’t build up card advantage using something like a Teleportation Circle.

The back side’s got Do-the-Thing Syndrome. It gets counters by playing cards from exile, then spends counters to play cards from exile. It’s not exactly one to one, so it’s a mild case, but a case nonetheless. Regardless, flying, vigilance, and haste is a great set of keywords for a commander damage kill; it only takes a few more points of power before you win most combats, and it’s not like playing three cards from exile is all that hard in Jeskai.

Hobgoblin, Mantled Marauder

Have you ever cast a Pyretic Charge with a full grip of cards? It’s bonkers, and Hobgoblin, Mantled Marauder gains twice that power per discard. With flying, haste, and a cheaper cost, he’s a more all-in version of Captain Howler, Sea Scourge, with the focus entirely on wheels-as-pump-spell. Just find a way to give him double strike, and your opponents are as good as dead.

J. Jonah Jameson

J. Jonah Jameson is a pretty decent Aggravated Assault commander, given you only need five creatures with menace to go infinite. He can also suspect himself, which is funny. No John; you are the Spiders.

Molten Man, Inferno Incarnate

It’d be fun to find a way to stymie that leaves trigger. Maybe Conjurer’s Closet plus Sundial of the Infinite? Actually that gives me a really good idea for a Nightmare-focused Obeka deck…

Shocker, Unshakable

More like Shocker, Unplayable. This isn’t even one of the common commanders! Who was clamoring for a worse Flametongue Kavu as a legendary? This would be like if they decided to put Colossal Dreadmaw in the command zone.

Spider-Gwen, Free Spirit

I don’t… hate this design, but this is a rough color identity to play around in. You don’t have many easy ways to untap Spider-Gwen in mono-red, and the ones that do exist are basically infinite combat wins anyway, so what’s the point?

Spider-Punk

It’s fitting that Spider-Punk’s design is basically “fuck Azorius in particular.” Fun fact: there’s more Spiders in red than there are in blue. Not enough to be worth building a deck around, but Taurean Mauler is pretty good.

Spinneret and Spiderling

You’re obviously not gonna put any counters on Spinneret and Spiderling by attacking, but you might be able to set up a damage loop in some other way.

Stegron the Dinosaur Man

A 5/4 with menace does not a commander make, but Stegron the Dinosaur Man slots fairly well into my Bloodrush deck.

Ezekiel Sims, Spider-Totem

I’m sorry that most of these reviews have basically been “worse than [insert previously existing commander here],” but honestly, you deserve to play better decks than Ezekiel Sims—not to mention that running him over the Gruul lesbians is homophobic.

Lizard, Connors's Curse

I was prepared to write off the Lizard, but then I realized that the effect from his enters trigger does not go away under any circumstances. Showing ability removal throughout the entire game will chill your enemies’ willingness to play out their commanders, especially if their deck is extremely commander-focused like Prosper. I’d do whatever I can to get the Lizard to enter the battlefield as many times as possible.

Miles Morales // Ultimate Spider-Man

And here we have the last of the transforming modal double faced cards, Miles Morales. We have yet another good front face on our hands, leaving us three for five in terms of winners. Now, don’t get me wrong, two +1/+1 counters isn’t game changing, but it’s a nice little bonus that I could see myself actively using.

Now let’s talk Ultimate Spider-Man. First off: built-in protection is always a nice-to-have. It’s not quite Chromium, the Mutable levels of easy to activate, but two mana is a reasonable amount to hold up. Take advantage of that cost by including plenty of cheap instants in your list, so that you don’t end up wasting the mana. Red’s pretty well-known for having fast draw at two mana, and white’s forte is in removal.

Now, the attack trigger is where things get interesting. I could take or leave the Spider synergy, but legendary creatures? There’s plenty of those, and better yet, it doubles all counters, not just +1/+1 counters. You know who has a type of counter really, really worth doubling?

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. Gideon is back, and unlike Arna, you don’t even have to attack with him to boost his loyalty anymore. There’s plenty of other weird counters you can work with, too: double the indestructible counters on the Myojin, or the oil counters on Migloz, or even the time counters on The War Doctor. I’ll always have a soft spot for weird counters, and this looks like the next commander to scratch that itch.

Sandman, Shifting Scoundrel

Sandman is a Multani, Yavimaya’s Avatar that makes sense in the year of our Lord 2025. Sure, losing trample is a bitch, but you’re in green; that’s not that tough a keyword to get back. No, the power to revive not only himself but also a land card for just two more than his base casting cost means he’s basically exempt from commander tax in the same way that Derevi is.

Now, you do actually need a land in the graveyard to activate the ability. The land is a required target (it doesn’t say “up to one”), so make sure you run enough fetch lands or lands you can sacrifice to meet that criteria. In fact, I believe you can activate that ability multiple times in response to itself, getting back more than one land at a time. This is useless, given the fact that each activation costs five whole mana, but it’s pretty neat!

Spider-Ham, Peter Porker

I’d be on board if Spider-Pig buffed every animal, but unfortunately he forgot Antelope, Ape, Armadillo, Aurochs, Badger, Beast, Beaver, Camel, Capybara, Caribou, Coyote, Crab, Crocodile, Echidna, Elephant, Elk, Ferret, Fish, Fox, Hamster, Hedgehog, Hippo, Horse, Hyena, Insect, Jellyfish, Llama, Lobster, Mole, Mongoose, Monkey, Octopus, Ox, Oyster, Pangolin, Porcupine, Possum, Rhino, Sable, Salamander, Scorpion, Seal, Serpent, Shark, Sheep, Skunk, Sloth, Slug, Snail, Snake, Sponge, Squid, Starfish, Trilobite, Varmint, Walrus, Weasel, Whale, Wolverine, Wombat, Worm, and Gamer. So close, yet so far.

Spider-Man, Brooklyn Visionary

One of the things you learn pretty quickly is that, unless they’re really high, base stats don’t matter much in Commander. That means Spider-Man, Brooklyn Visionary has no real niche given that Farhaven Elf exists.

Spider-Rex, Daring Dino

Oh son of a bitch, I was kidding when I said they’d make a Colossal Dreadmaw commander!

Spiders-Man, Heroic Horde

I wonder if there’s a way to realistically cast a web-slinging commander by returning itself to your hand. Probably not, but I’d be impressed if someone could figure it out.

SP//dr, Piloted by Peni

SP//dr wins “Card Most Likely to Fuck Up a SQL Query,” because I was having problems pasting her link into my text editor of choice. She rewards you for attacking with modified creatures, in a color combination that makes sense for the strategy. Yup, there’s no jank here; this one just seems straightforward to me.

Spider-Woman, Stunning Savior

I’m still miffed that effects like Spider-Woman’s don’t trigger Hylda of the Icy Crown.

Sun-Spider, Nimble Webber

I’m gonna make a prediction before I click on the EDHREC page for this guy and assume that Sun-Spider’s top Equipment is Sword of Hearth and Home. Let’s see how I did!

The fuck is Adaptive Omnitool? I mean, I guess. Hearth and Home was the number three slot, and there’s only twenty decks here anyway, so it’s not like I was wrong, if you ignore the actual definition of the word wrong.

Wraith, Vicious Vigilante

Wraith is straightforward and to the point. If I wanted to do this deck jank, though, I’d go for Detective typal. A parasitic set leveraging the design of another parasitic set; that’s evidence to my mysteries.

Doctor Octopus, Master Planner

Doctor Octagonapus, Master Planner is the Dimir version of Damia, Sage of Stone, who is already Sultai. If you give up access to green, you get an extra card and (more importantly) the trigger is moved to the end step so you’re much more likely to actually draw your cards.

This is the first “go-down-a-color” variant of a preexisting commander in this set where I actually find the juice worth the squeeze. It’s a generic value engine; the Obvious Deck Disease diagnosis here is to simply play a bunch of ramp spells to get your commander out early, and then let the end step trigger refill your hand. Even if you go the Villains route, unlike most of the other typal commanders in this set, Dimir actually has enough of them to create a playable deck. Not jank.

Morbius the Living Vampire

Who knew that Morbin’ was just casting Anticipate from your graveyard? I suppose those keywords make for a decent Voltron commander, with the added benefit of some card advantage if he ever dies, but I expected more from such an iconic character.

Prowler, Clawed Thief

This set is such a slog to review, because I have to write at least one sentence acknowledging that this trash-tier waste of cardstock exists and is something you can theoretically build a Commander deck around.

Superior Spider-Man

I’m not convinced that Superior Spider-Man isn’t just another Lazav in disguise. Mechanically, he’s closest to Lazav, Familiar Stranger, with the difference being that it’s a permanent clone effect and you keep the 4/4 base power and toughness. Creatures that enter with additional counters make the most sense to me here, since he’ll give ‘em a decent buff.

Symbiote Spider-Man

Now here’s something interesting. The phrase “it gains this card’s other abilities” is way more open-ended than it needed to be, and my first thought is to sticker up Symbiote Spider-Man so you can transfer those abilities to other creatures you control. You can also copy the Find New Host ability to get multiple instances of his saboteur trigger onto another creature.

And… that’s it, it turns out it’s pretty hard to affect the abilities of cards in the graveyard. Oh well, stickers are definitely a weird enough strategy for me to consider him jank.

Vulture, Scheming Scavenger

Or, you could just give everyone horsemanship. Jeez, give me something interesting to look at, Wizards!

Carnage, Crimson Chaos

Mayhem, like madness, doesn’t work from the command zone, and the discount isn’t worth the amount of effort you’d have to go through to get Carnage into your hand. It’s a shame he’s not Grixis, because I really would have liked to come up with a loop involving three-cost clones.

Green Goblin, Revenant

Compared to Rielle, Green Goblin, Revenant gives you the power to choose when you wanna lock in your discards for that sweet, sweet card advantage. Just don’t go too crazy with your One with Nothings, because if he’s removed at instant speed before you attack, you’re super boned.

Scarlet Spider, Kaine

You basically have to discard a madness or mayhem card when you cast Kaine for him to be playable, right? Because a single +1/+1 counter on its own is nowhere even remotely close to worth an entire card.

Shriek, Treblemaker

Shriek is more of a payoff for board wipes than anything else. Imagine him into Massacre Wurm against that one annoying Selesnya tokens player that stole your boyfriend by being an all-around better person than you. Ahhh, the epicaricacy!

Ultimate Green Goblin

I’m sure there’s a graveyard payoff for Ultimate Green Goblin, but he doesn’t enable it in an interesting enough way for me to care. He might be fun to donate, though.

Kraven, Proud Predator

Honestly? Kraven makes a fairly decent Room commander. Since Rooms have the combined mana value of both halves (assuming both doors are open), they can get to some crazy high mana values without requiring a huge upfront investment.

Or, you can just go with high mana value creatures that discount themselves in some way. I’m not your Spider-Dad.

Rhino, Barreling Brute

Ladies and gentlemen, the Platonic ideal of a Gruul commander.

Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly

Scarlet is basically Kraven, except you actually need to go with high mana value creatures that discount themselves in some way, since he only cares about creatures.

Mary Jane Watson

Green actually does have an abundance of Spiders. I mean, it’s no Golgari, but Mary Jane Watson can realistically draw you tons of cards with the right deck construction. Shame that it only triggers once per turn, though, because I was aching for some place to put my fifteenth copy of Another Round.

Silk, Web Weaver

I was certain they printed a card exactly like Silk before, as in, exactly the same. Turns out I was thinking of Selvala, Eager Trailblazer, who, to be fair, is comparable on the face of it. They both make small creatures, they both buff power in some way, etc. If you’re looking for a good medium-power commander (i.e. not Chulane) that wants to cast lots of creatures, then this is fine.

Spider-Girl, Legacy Hero

For a set based around Spiders, there’s a shitload more flying and a shitload less reach than I would have guessed.

Spider-Man India

Silk is to go-wide as Spider-Man India is to go-tall. You’re pretty much always gonna want to grant him your counters so you can try for the commander damage kill, weird synergy pieces like Evolution Witness aside.

Mister Negative

Holy shit! Imagine the upset you can pull off if you throw out a Stunning Reversal and then survive to cast Mister Negative.

I’m a big fan of the double-blink strategy here. Blink once to exchange life totals with the most hurt of your opponents to draw cards, then blink again to reset your life total to the highest amongst your opponents. That should win you the game in short order, and if you’re really feeling spicy, you can add Selenia tech like Phyrexian Unlife to outright kill your enemies with this tactic.

The Spot, Living Portal

Seems like since Aetherdrift, Wizards has been going nuts with Orzhov blink stuff. As long as The Spot leaves the battlefield without dying, your exile targets stay exiled forever. It doesn’t matter if it’s via Ephemerate or Rest in Peace; just make sure he never touches the graveyard, and you’re good to go.

As for using him as a recursive tool, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news, boys. The Spot has to go to the bottom of your library to get the cards back; there’s no chicanery allowed with the command zone, so some sort of scam spell recursion combo isn’t in the cards here.

Spider-Man 2099

Hilariously, Spider-Man 2099 can deal his damage to himself, which might be a plan if you stack him up with stuff like Blazing Sunsteel.

Kraven the Hunter

Kraven reads to me as Szat’s Will typal, where you play cards that force your opponents to sacrifice the creature with the greatest power they control. That means you draw three cards per spell, and of course, the same goes for board wipes, too, as by definition they kill the creature with the greatest power.

I also think it’d be fun to manipulate enemy boards such that their creatures all have the same power, probably with a spell like Sudden Spoiling; then, you’d get to draw a card for every creature they control that died. Realistically, you’d have to make miracles with -1/-1 counters to pull this off, but if it worked, it’d be a hell of a dopamine hit.

Araña, Heart of the Spider

Araña is just Boros Peni. I don’t know why the set needed two legends that do basically the same thing, but here we are.

Jackal, Genius Geneticist

The only reasonable way to make Jackal trigger consistently is to only include creatures with X in their mana costs, which would let you determine their mana values on the stack. Otherwise, you have to do inane counter shenanigans or simply curve perfectly. Heart of the cards!

Cosmic Spider-Man

Rukarumel naming Spiders is eating this set.

Iron Spider, Stark Upgrade

Ever wanted your commander to be Steel Overseer? Boy, do I have the card for you!

In terms of jank though, this is classic Do-the-Thing Syndrome. It adds counters, then removes counters to draw cards. All you gotta do is play as many artifact creatures as possible, and the deck builds itself.

Living Brain, Mechanical Marvel

Why non-Equipment? I mean, I suppose I understand why (if you target an Equipment that’s attached to a creature, it falls off, which is not intuitive). It’s just a very specific callout.

Anyway, I like this more in the ninety-nine as an artifact animator for jank strats like cloning and Mutate as opposed to as a commander. If you wanted a commander that animates artifacts, just go with original Karn, whose creatures scale with their mana value.

Spider-Slayer, Hatred Honed

I always keep a copy of Spider-Slayer around in case I have to deal with this set’s insanely overpowered commanders. It’ll serve me well, alongside my copy of Apocalypse Chime, my copy of City in a Bottle, and the gun with which I shoot anyone who plays anything printed in Dragon’s Maze.

I guess the activated ability is good in Dynaheir? I got nothin’.

MJ, Rising Star

And just when I thought I was done, I learned there was another Spider-Man set full of legendary creatures! This one’s Marvel’s Spider-Man Eternal, and I am not about to care what the difference is because Commander is the only format.

For our first guest, we have… Ajani’s Pridemate. And instantly the worst mono-white Pridemate commander, too. Next.

Spider-Man, Peter Parker

Boy, this card is going to confuse the shit out of some people. No, I want to buy Peter Parker, not Spider-Man! Yes, I know Spider-Man is on the backside of Peter Parker!

This version is at least fun with board wipes, though you’ll have to find ways to trigger him multiple times beforehand. Sure, there’s a lot of ways to shit out life gain triggers, but to time them right and have mana left over to make this commander work with a board wipe is not the easiest thing in the world. It’s a fun problem to solve for sure, though, so this one gets a passing grade.

Lyla, Holographic Assistant

I’m sure there’s an evasive go-wide theme here that draws lots of cards with combat triggers and all that, but all I can think of is how unbelievably perfect an include Lyla is in Danny Pink decks.

Spider-Man 2099, Miguel O'Hara

I initially read Miguel O’Hara as another Coastal Piracy with a bounce trigger tacked on, and I was about to dismiss it as a generic value engine. Then, I reread him and realized it’s actually much worse than Coastal Piracy, since it’s limited to a mere one card per player. Snore.

Grendel, Spawn of Knull

It’s a shame there’s no combination of keywords as catchy as flying and trample’s flample. Grendel’s got fleathtouch! C’mon guys, let’s make it a thing!

Venom, Eddie Brock

I’m not holding out hope for these mono-colored Villain decks. God, parasitic sets suck. If you’re interested in the actual gameplay mechanic of gaining counters when creatures die, though, may I suggest Vogar instead?

Ghost-Spider, Gwen Stacy

Parlaying a shitload of attacking 1/1s into a huge smack to the face seems like a good time, but there’s a part of me that thinks anyone who’s interested in Ghost-Spider would have a much better time with Márton Stromgald.

The Mary Janes

Well, if you attack with an infinite amount of creatures, The Mary Janes go infinite with Phyrexian Altar. Actually, now I kinda want to attack with thirty or so creatures, cast her from the command zone ten times, and then Fury Storm a Lightning Bolt to win. That is assuming that, somehow, thirty attacking creatures didn’t already do the job.

Prowler, Misguided Mentor

Missed opportunity to give Prowler, Misguided Mentor actual mentor.

Spider-Man, Miles Morales

Miles is a pretty decent game finisher. The +1/+1 counter sticks around after your turn, so if you can’t kill the entire table at once, then at least you’re not wasting the buff. Plus, it triggers whenever Miles attacks, too. I like this one, but in a general sense of “this card made me feel something.”

Sensational Spider-Man

There are four actual commanders here at the tail end of this eternal set, and they’re mostly inoffensive. Sensational Spider-Man puts stun counters on creatures, and also removes stun counters from permanents to draw cards.

While this is Do-the-Thing Syndrome by definition, I think the stun counters you want to remove from permanents and the stun counters you put on enemy creatures are two different things. This is the deck that actually wants Ambling Stormshell, Kitnap, and Sleep-Cursed Faerie, and I love that. There’s not that many cards that use stun counters as a drawback mechanic, but the number can only go up from here, so be on the lookout.

Doc Ock, Evil Inventor

Doc Ock, Evil Inventor’s animation trigger is permanent, so if you have designs on, say, using Clones to make more and more copies of The One Ring to stay invincible forever, then this is your deck.

Green Goblin, Nemesis

Ever wanted Surly Badgersaur in the command zone? Boy, do I have the card for you!

I’ll say this: flying is putting in a lot of work towards make Green Goblin, Nemesis playable. As a type, Goblins aren’t particularly well known for going tall, instead preferring to overwhelm the battlefield with an exponentially increasing army of twerps. Getting a single +1/+1 counter per card doesn’t mesh with that strategy, so putting flying on the card lets you buff the Green Goblin himself. That can lead to a cheesy commander damage kill, since he’s much easier to connect with than most Gobbos.

Venom, Deadly Devourer

Venom is comparable to Varolz, but he can only put the counters on himself and has no regeneration capabilities. In return, he pins the quote-unquote “scavenge” cost at three mana.

This isn’t the win you think it is; Varolz already plays cheap, high-power creatures like Death’s Shadow, Daemogoth Titan, and Force of Savagery, which scavenge for a cost equivalent to or even cheaper than a Venom activation. The downside on these cards so severe that they justify their high-ass powers, to the point that those high-ass powers are even higher than most cards at the top end of the mana value spectrum. You’re not realistically saving mana by pinning the cost at three, and so Venom’s entire value proposition evaporates. I suppose menace is built-in evasion, at least.