Set SPM · September 2025 · 193 cards plus the Eternal sheet

Spider-Man
The Draft Web

Five mechanics, five real archetypes and five traps, the alter egos, and the bombs worth building around. Consolidated from three expert guides and verified card by card against the set list.

A note on what this guide is not. Our other set guides carry win rates from hundreds of thousands of recorded games. This one cannot: Spider-Man never had a digital release, so no public game archive exists for it. Everything below is expert judgment rather than measured results, and it is labelled that way rather than dressed up as data.

The Powers

five mechanics

Two of these are new and both change how you sequence a turn. Learn Web-slinging and Mayhem properly and the rest of the set falls into place.

Web-slinging newAn alternative cost: cast the card cheaper if you also return a tapped creature you control to hand. It discounts your best cards and re-triggers their entry effects, and the bounced attacker effectively gains pseudo-vigilance. Easiest enablers: attacking, crewing a vehicle, or tapping a mana creature.

Mayhem newCast a card from your graveyard, usually at a discount, if you discarded it this turn. A mayhem card is effectively a free extra card. Normal timing still applies, and you do not have to cast it immediately: play a land or go through combat first, as long as it happens that turn.

ConniveDraw, then discard; a nonland discard adds a +1/+1 counter. This is the set's bridge: it fuels Mayhem by discarding, feeds Modified with counters, and filters your draws. Do not auto-discard the nonland just for the counter.

ModifiedA creature carrying an Equipment, an Aura, or any counter. The modifications come from every color, but the payoffs are printed in white and blue.

CamouflageA repeatable ability that adds a counter and grants hexproof until end of turn. Hold the mana and there is almost no window to remove the creature.

Castable back facesThe alter-ego cards can be cast directly as their back face for that face's cost, rather than casting the front and transforming. You cannot flip back afterward, and you rarely want to.

The rules interaction worth memorizing: casting a big spell for its cheaper Mayhem or Web-slinging cost still triggers your mana-value-matters payoffs, because the card's mana value never changes. That is the engine of the red-green deck and the reason those discounts are so much better than they look.

Masks Off

the alter egosFront face, then the suit

Five transforming legends, each a civilian identity on the front and the hero or villain on the back. Every guide agrees on the same two rules: run them even when you can only cast the front side, but build so you can flip them at least some of the time.

Miles Morales — The best of the five by consensus. Two mana for a body plus a counter, and the back adds first strike, haste, repeatable hexproof, and counter-doubling on attack.

Ultimate Spider-Man — The best of the five by consensus. Two mana for a body plus a counter, and the back adds first strike, haste, repeatable hexproof, and counter-doubling on attack.

Norman Osborn — Just behind Miles. This is the one where you should genuinely try to be able to cast the back side.

Green Goblin — Just behind Miles. This is the one where you should genuinely try to be able to cast the back side.

Gwen Stacy — Also named just behind Miles among the excellent flip legends.

Ghost-Spider — Also named just behind Miles among the excellent flip legends.

Peter Parker — Playable even if the front is all you ever cast.

Amazing Spider-Man — Playable even if the front is all you ever cast.

Eddie Brock — The symbiote. Same rule: the front alone is a fine card.

Venom, Lethal Protector — The symbiote. Same rule: the front alone is a fine card.

The Heavy Hitters

bomb countdown

The expert top ten, in their order. Black is the deepest color in the set from commons through mythics, and it shows here.

**Behold the Sinister Six!**Mass-reanimates up to six differently named creatures. Even two or three is a game-breaking swing, and it lets you make deliberately bad trades early knowing you will buy them all back.

**Mysterio, Master of Illusion**A 3/3 illusion per nontoken villain, so with a couple out it is a four-mana 9/9 spread over bodies. Also the set's biggest removal magnet, so protect it.

Miles Morales // Ultimate Spider-Man — **Miles Morales**Strong on the front, game-ending on the back.

**Agent Venom**Flash menace that draws whenever another nontoken creature you control dies. A near-guaranteed two-for-one they must answer first.

**Lizard, Connors's Curse**A 5/5 trampler that also turns one of your small creatures into a 4/4, or strips a problem creature's abilities.

**Friendly Neighborhood**Three bodies plus a land that pumps every turn. Almost nobody has enchantment or land removal, so it just snowballs.

**Sandman, Shifting Scoundrel**Recurs itself with a land from the graveyard, surviving everything short of exile. Wants self-mill or discard to keep a land down there.

**Biorganic Carapace**Free-attaching equipment that draws per modified creature on damage. Turns anything into a must-answer threat.

**Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly**Web-slung for two it enters with counters equal to the returned creature's mana value, and re-triggers that creature's entry on the way.

**Doctor Octopus, Master Planner**Pumps your villains and refills you to eight cards at end step, usually drawing four or five at once. Unanswered, the game is over.

Also named as bombs across the guides

**Black Cat, Cunning Thief**Named alongside Agent Venom among black's incredible rares.

**Villainous Wrath**Rounds out black's top tier.

**Kraven's Last Hunt**Called one of the best monocolored rares in the entire set.

**Silk, Web Weaver**A best-of-the-best gold pick, aligned with the green-white plan.

**Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer**Busted if you can cast it, but five white pips means only the heaviest white decks get there.

**Gwenom, Remorseless**Part of black's excellent second tier.

Five Lanes, Five Traps

the archetypesAll five are ALLY pairs

This set was built with only five draftable pairs, and they are all ally-colored. The other five have no gold uncommons and no synergy support at all, which makes an early off-lane rare genuinely dangerous: it will tempt you into a deck that does not exist.

Web-slinging

Bounce and redeploy

The pair with the most web-slinging cards. Pair the discounted heroes with good bounce fodder, so every cast is cheaper and re-triggers an entry effect. Evasive creatures survive combat to be bounced, and non-combat tap outlets let you web-sling even on a clogged board.

Modified

Counters, auras, equipment

Stack modifications on cheap evasive creatures and cash them in with the payoffs. Spread them across several bodies rather than stacking one target, or a single removal spell undoes the deck, and prefer evasive recipients: two power in the air beats three on the ground.

Villains

Connive and grind

Nearly every black creature and many blue ones are Villains, so the typal payoffs are close to free. A grindy control deck of card selection and efficient interaction that filters to the right card each turn. Connive doubles as a discard outlet, so play every mayhem card you open.

Mayhem

Discard, then cash in

Repeatable discard outlets fill the graveyard, then you cast those cards back at a discount the same turn. Line up your outlets with mayhem cards you can actually cast that turn. Both colors are loaded with removal, so pack card advantage or you run dry after trading one-for-one.

Big Spells

Mana value four or greater

Ramp with dorks into oversized threats while payoffs convert every four-plus cast into damage or cards. Early plays and cheap removal are vital, because the failure mode is dying with expensive spells still in hand.

The other five pairs

Not archetypes

White-black, black-green, green-blue, blue-red, and red-white have no multicolor uncommons and no synergy support in this set. You can still build one if that is genuinely where your power is, especially in sealed, but never let a single early rare pull you there. Treat off-lane rares as splash-or-pass.

Colors are not equal here. Black is the deepest from commons through mythics, so lean into it when your pool is close. White is the weakest for bombs, and red's top end is a step down from black's. Every enemy-color gold rare is powerful, though: if you open one, build the ally pair that touches one of its colors and splash the other.

Top Commons

ranked by color

White

**Web Up**Catch-all removal in a set with very little enchantment removal, so it reliably answers whatever matters.

**City Pigeon**A one-mana flier that is trivially easy to tap, making it a web-slinging enabler from turn two, and it leaves a Food behind.

**Daily Bugle Reporters**Counters on two creatures, or graveyard recursion when you need resources instead of board.

Blue

**Whoosh!**Resets your own permanents, dodges removal, and re-triggers entries. The kicker replaces itself, so it is tempo without card loss.

**Beetle, Legacy Criminal**A Villain flier whose graveyard ability pays you even when it is connived, milled, or discarded.

**Mysterio's Phantasm**Vigilant flier that mills on attack to fuel the graveyard payoffs.

Black

**Scorpion's Sting**Efficient instant removal that kills most things above two mana and doubles as a trick.

**Venom's Hunger**Two cheaper with a Villain out, and nearly every black creature IS a Villain.

**Swarm, Being of Bees**A fine flash flier that mayhem returns for a single mana.

Red

**Electro's Bolt**Four damage at a good rate, and mayhem makes it far better with discard outlets.

**Shock**One mana, two damage, any target. Kills two-drops and closes games.

**Angry Rabble**A trampler that pings on every big spell and sinks mana late, so it never goes dead.

Green

**Kapow!**Green's removal: a counter plus a fight, so you KEEP the size boost afterward.

**Kraven's Cats**A pump they must respect, so it often goes unblocked and gets tapped, which is how green enables web-slinging.

Watch the Mana

tricks to play around

White

Thwip!: one mana for +2/+2. The baseline on any open white.
Spectacular Tactics: a counter plus hexproof, OR removal. It beats both your removal spell and your block.

Blue

Secret Identity: hexproof, or a vigilant 3/4 flier out of nowhere
Unstable Experiment: instant-speed connive that leaves a permanent counter
Robotics Mastery: expensive, but a lasting pump plus two fliers. A full blowout.

Black

Scorpion's Sting: nominally removal, but instant speed makes it a trick too
Any black deck is a mayhem deck: assume the card they discarded is coming back this turn

Red

Stegron the Dinosaur Man: a trick hiding in a creature slot, discardable for a pump
Shock and Electro's Bolt: count your life against the burn

Green

Grow Extra Arms: +4/+4 for two, and as little as ONE mana on a Spider
Terrific Team-Up: removal that also buffs, wrecking a multi-creature combat

Any deck

Camouflage: two open mana on a creature that has it means your removal is dead
Web-slinging: a tapped attacker can vanish and come back as something bigger

Getting There

mana and fixing

Five common dual lands, one per supported pair, plus a common fetch. Count them before you commit to a splash.

**Daily Bugle Building**Usable fixing in a pinch, at the cost of tapping an extra source.

**Spider Manifestation**Taps for red or green AND doubles as a web-slinging enabler.

**Subway Train**Loved in green: crewing it taps a creature, which is exactly what web-slinging wants.

**Spider-Mobile**A vehicle you crew with the very creature you intend to bounce.

With Great Power

build and play

Sealed build, in order

Sort by color, commons apart from the rest, then by mana value. The uncommons tell you which lane your pool supports.
Lean black when it is close. It is the deepest color in the set at every rarity; white is the thinnest for bombs.
Two colors beats three unless the fixing is genuinely there. You lose more games to color screw than you gain from power.
Hybrid cards travel. They run in either of their colors, so take them earlier while your lane is still open.
Draft enablers and payoffs together. Discard outlets are worthless without mayhem cards, and mayhem cards are worthless without outlets.

Playing the turn

Find taps that are not attacks. Mana dorks and crewing vehicles let you web-sling on defense without risking your fodder.
Sequence mayhem loosely. Discard, make your land drop, go through combat, then cast it. Same turn is the only requirement.
Point bounce at yourself. Web-slinging and Whoosh both re-trigger your own entry effects and dodge removal.
Spread your modifications across bodies so one removal spell cannot undo the whole plan.
Hold two mana for camouflage and their removal spell simply stops working.