Marvel's Spider-Man (SPM) Limited Review: Blue

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Marvel’s Spider-Man (SPM) will hold its prerelease events on September 19, 2025, and officially launch a week later on September 26, 2025. Want to learn more about how each card rates in Limited, with recommendations? Then check out this series of SPM Limited reviews!

Also, because of licensing issues, the physical cards in paper and the digital cards online (MTGA, MO) will be presented with different card names and different card art, but the same rules text (with a small number of proper nouns on a few cards still differing). Therefore, this Limited review shows both versions of the card art together so readers can compare.

• For an introduction to the mechanics, see this article: Marvel’s Spider-Man Mechanics Explained
• The paper set is named Marvel’s Spider-Man (Marvel’s Spider-Man, SPM)
• The online set is named Through the Omenpaths (tentative translation; the English set name is Through the Omenpaths, OM1)

Rating Scale

5.0: An unconditional first pick that brings you close to winning on its own.
4.5: An unconditional first pick if you are in the right colors; brings a huge advantage.
4.0: Worth first-picking. Great synergy with the color pair’s theme, and can be the deciding card for splashing / switching colors or moving into the color pair.
3.5: The set’s top uncommons and commons, plus other cards of sufficient power. Good synergy with the color pair’s theme, and a key card for moving into the color pair.
3.0: An important card for the color pair’s theme, or another above-average card that you want in your final deck.
2.5: Average. Usually a decent curve filler.
2.0 to 1.0: Below average. You generally lean toward leaving it out, and can use it as filler when necessary, but not too many.
0.5 to 0.0: Unplayable. Basically don’t play it; putting it in only helps you lose.

Ratings

Score: 2.5
Comment: Looking at the two modes on their own as three-mana spells, both fall in the 2.5-or-lower range, and with the flexibility of choosing between them it barely earns a passing grade.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Having played a lot of TDM lately, I almost read this as a Renew that can put a flying counter. If it only grants flying for a turn, the contribution is limited, but it can still serve as a supporting piece for Modified.

Score: 2.5
Comment: You can cover up its own body, since most of the time it’s a Clone copying someone else anyway. A four-mana Clone isn’t strong on its own, but with Mayhem added, it has a ceiling where it can gain card advantage.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Because chapter two copies a creature spell once, this Saga can also be viewed as occupying a creature slot, and chapter three has a chance to net you two cards.

Score: 3.0
Comment: This set has lots of Villains, so it’s not hard to make it a hexproof creature, and the 8/8 ceiling is just a bonus.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Although the snowball ceiling is very high, it easily goes out on the first swing and never comes back. It runs more smoothly when used with Mayhem.

Score: 3.0
Comment: This set never lacks Villains, and growing it into a 3/3 flier isn’t hard, and after you put +1/+1 counters on it it also benefits from Modified synergy.

Score: 3.0
Comment: It has many uses: besides simply re-triggering your own ETBs, it can also act as a protection spell, or force a way through or intercept an attack in a creature war.

Score: 2.5
Comment: When you have enough instants, it better shows the advantage of providing extra mana on your opponent’s turn; otherwise most of the time it’s close to a Grizzly Bears.

(PS: While it’s a land, it isn’t affected by summoning sickness.)

Score: 4.0
Comment: As soon as it starts connecting, the snowball strength is high enough to win the game outright.

Score: 1.5
Comment: This set doesn’t have many artifacts and most of them aren’t strong, and this guy also needs a bit of a growth period, so most of the time it’s close to having no ability. If I had to name its value, it’s probably that it’s a Villain creature, and might provide a little help to Modified.

Score: 3.5
Comment: The Spider & noncreature spell requirement isn’t strict, the expected card advantage is pretty good, and it comes with a controllable mill that helps stabilize the odds of gaining cards.

Score: 4.5
Comment: At minimum it’s four mana for two 3/3s, which is already strong enough, and considering the density of Villains in this set, making multiple tokens off the ETB is the norm.

Score: 2.5
Comment: A two-mana flying vigilance creature is a very nice curve play, and the creature type is about right, but in this set the forced mill may count as a drawback, since this set’s blue theme mechanics aren’t about the graveyard, and playing Mayhem relies on discarding rather than milling.

Score: 4.0
Comment: A front face that can’t be blocked and connives every turn already applies enough pressure, and the back face is actually not that important, so just treat it as a bonus.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Both the casting cost and the ability activation cost are on the high side, but it has a high survival rate, and once you successfully drag the game into the late game you can drown the opponent in card advantage.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Being able to spread out horizontally makes up for the flaw of this kind of buff Aura.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Holding up five mana is profitable whatever you do. If the opponent casts a spell, hit them with a Dismiss; this timing easily counters a key bomb. If the opponent passes or casts some unimportant spell, drawing 3 at instant speed is also profitable.

Score: 2.0
Comment: As a combat trick its ceiling is limited, and as a protection spell its body shrinks, which restricts the choice of use cases quite a bit.

PS: The paper version’s card art is a tribute to Unmask.

Score: 3.5
Comment: Man-o’-War performs well in Limited, and this one even gets the Spider type bonus.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Besides turning the creature into a 1/1 with no abilities, this time it also gives a defender, which from the defensive side is a more complete answer. What you always feared most was the opponent using some pumping method to force a small creature into a threatening attacker, especially since this set has Modified, so such combos will be more common.

Score: 1.5
Comment: This is not a trick for Limited; it’s basically a sideboard card, to bring in when the opponent really does have a bomb of that kind.

Score: 2.5
Comment: A plain and simple cantrip that can support the blue theme mechanics.

Score: 2.5
Comment: It can bounce any nonland permanent, so it has high flexibility in how you answer things, and with kicker it doesn’t lose you a card, but the problem is it doesn’t clean things up fully. Using it well depends heavily on timing.

Into the Roil & Blink of an Eye: Doesn’t this guy look a bit familiar?

Conclusion

The themes officially assigned to blue in this Limited format are White-Blue Modified and Blue-Black Connive, a complete throwback to the New Capenna-era Standard pairings, and these two mechanics also have quite good synergy with each other.

However, the mechanic most worth noting this time is Mayhem from the Red-Black color pair. Mayhem is intuitively very strong in Limited, and its effect on card advantage in Limited is very significant; even just gaining a 4/3 vanilla creature has a major impact on the board. However, Mayhem needs a discard source to work. Red-Black does provide quite a few discard sources, but not necessarily in abundance, so it may seek outside help from Blue-Black Connive. From another angle, besides Blue-Black, Red-Blue or Grixis Connive + Mayhem is actually also a hidden blue color-pair theme.