Magic: The Gathering® | Marvel's Spider-Man Mechanics
Do you feel that? A sort of tingling sensation? It's not danger approaching; it's Magic's latest collaboration with Marvel, this time celebrating everyone's favorite web-slinger with Magic: The Gathering® | Marvel's Spider-Man. For over 60 years, this iconic Super Hero has taught the world that with great power comes great responsibility. Magic players might notice he also has great toughness. Whether you're looking to swing alongside Spidey and be a Super Hero or you're embracing your villainous side and want to see him squashed like a bug, this set has something for you. Let's take a look at the new and returning mechanics that await you in this superpowered set.
Web-slinging
With a flick of the wrist and a well-timed thwip, Spider-Man shoots webs to yank others out of danger and propel himself into the fray. The new web-slinging ability puts that action into the palm of your hands … or rather, wrists.
Web-slinging is an alternative cost to cast a spell. If you choose to cast a spell for its web-slinging cost, you pay the listed cost rather than its mana cost and return a tapped creature you control to its owner's hand. Returning a tapped creature is part of the cost, so if you don't control one, you can't use web-slinging to cast the spell.
Using web-slinging to cast a spell doesn't change when you can cast that spell. Creatures like Spider-Man, Web-Slinger can normally be cast only during your main phase, for example. Web-slinging also appears on an instant, so your dreams of last-minute heroics might just come true.
On most cards, using web-slinging will save you some mana and (depending on which creature you return to hand) may give you another crack at some advantageous "enters" abilities. Some cards will have bonuses if they were cast using web-slinging. Get swinging!
Mayhem
Look, I get it. You're a villain. You've had to endure like 300 words of heroic "rah-rah, everything is awesome" garbage. You just want to watch the city crumble. I feel you. How about some mayhem?
Now we're talking. Mayhem is a new ability that allows you to cast a card from your graveyard for an alternative cost if you discarded it that turn. If you cast it this way, you pay the mayhem cost rather than the mana cost. As the reminder text reminds us, mayhem doesn't change when you can cast a spell, so if you discard Electro's Bolt on an opponent's turn, you can't take advantage of mayhem because Electro's Bolt is a sorcery. Curses!
To get the mayhem started, you're going to need a way to discard cards. Maybe your opponents will play along and force you to discard a card. If that happens, you can turn the tables, discard a card with mayhem, and cast that card. It's kind of like you never had to discard at all. Those fools!
Perhaps your foes are too clever to play into that trap. There are plenty of reasons why you'd want to discard cards yourself. You might be able to reap the reward of something that requires you to discard a card while still getting to cast the card you discarded. I'm sure a conniving villain such as yourself can think of something.
Connive
Hey, you thought of something! Brilliant! Connive is a returning keyword action.
If a creature you control connives, you draw a card, then discard a card. If you discard a nonland card this way, put a +1/+1 counter on the creature that connived. If you discard a land card, the creature doesn't get a +1/+1 counter, but your hand is probably better, so that's something.
Modal Double-Faced Cards (that transform!)
Peter Parker, Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, heck, even Norman Osborn and Eddie Brock. Secret identities are a part of several Marvel characters' lives. They allow them to live a normal life, at least some of the time. They can keep loved ones safe. And fortunately for us, they can enable some awesome new modal double-faced cards.
We've seen modal double-faced cards before—well, I've seen them before, but maybe you haven't, so here's an overview. Each of these cards has two faces, and if you're casting one, you choose which face you're casting. If you put one of them onto the battlefield without casting it, you get the front face (the secret identity face in this set). The release notes for this set will have information on more complex modal double-faced card interactions.
But wait! There's a twist! Unlike previous modal double-faced cards, these ones have a built-in way to transform. After all, if you can't change costume, your secret identity is just your identity. If the card's front face is up, there's an activated ability that allows you to transform it to the other face. Previously, a modal double-faced card couldn't transform, but that rule is going away. In fact, any modal double-faced permanent that is instructed to transform now can, although only the new ones in this set come with built-in ways to make that happen.
The back faces of these cards don't include transform abilities, so transforming into them is a one-way journey. If you cast them with their back face up to begin with, they'll enter with that face up, and that's that.
Modified
Not everyone is lucky enough to be bitten by a radioactive spider. Sometimes you need a little assistance in the combat department, be it glorious gadgets or magical manipulation. Abilities that care about modified creatures you control reward you for outfitting your squad.
Importantly, Auras controlled by other players don't cause creatures you control to become modified. For counters, it doesn't matter what kind of counter it is, nor does it matter who put the counter on the creature. A +1/+1 counter is just as effective at making a creature modified as a -1/-1 counter.
The Soul Stone
Oh, by the way, an Infinity Stone has been sighted! An immensely powerful artifact, The Soul Stone merits its own section. We're talking life and death here, people.
If you are fortunate enough to control one, its mana ability is available to you right away. That's nice, but you probably have loftier ambitions than ramping your mana, right? The next ability allows you to harness The Soul Stone. If you activate that ability, The Soul Stone's ∞ ability will become active. Once The Soul Stone is harnessed, harnessing it again has no additional benefit. You can activate that again if you want to exile one of your creatures. Maybe you're feeling particularly vengeful. You wield The Soul Stone. Who are we to argue?
Once The Soul Stone is harnessed, its ∞ ability is active and will trigger at the beginning of each of your upkeeps. The Soul Stone will remain harnessed as long as it remains on the battlefield, even if it changes controllers. If The Soul Stone leaves the battlefield and then returns, it will no longer be harnessed and you must begin the process anew.
Follow your favorite web-slinger with all the latest previews. Preorder Magic: The Gathering | Marvel's Spider-Man at your local game store, online retailers like Amazon, and elsewhere Magic products are sold.
