General [SPM] Marvel's Spider-Man

[Seeker]

I am wearing a tinfoil hat right now, but I suspect that this is because fewer people are drafting, and also so that they can point to this and say "See, I told you that it's not worth investing in Limited! Let's just make Commander cards instead."

I will say that you have to separate out two distinct groups of "they" here!

R&D is comprised of - even the very old guard that didn't get hired after a stint in competitive play, and the Great Designer Search winners, and so on - chronic, inveterate, unrepentant, lifelong drafters. I'd be amazed if there was even a single vote there to kill Limited. Probably actively scrambling to find compromises like "uhhhhh can we call them Play Boosters" just to keep draft alive in any meeting where anyone even hints at causing minor damage to it.

People who look at spreadsheets for dollar bills on the other hand, well, It's A Product. Product Make Money.

 

[Seeker]

You know, I go and leap to WotC's defense - atypical for me - and within the day I see MaRo say something else that makes me think you're less tinfoily than I had thought:

heavenlyevan asked: Wait will Spider Man only have five draft archetypes?

Five main ones.

They've been doing ten signpost uncommons for all non-faction/guild/whatever sets, are we gonna get Spider-Factions? Or just Spider-Sized Set?

 

[IanGitax]

I think the more likely answer here is that these small sets are going to be more common going forwards, since they want to hit six sets a year. Drafting small sets alone is normally pretty abysmal, and the one time they tried designing around it was Coldsnap and it was terrible. Smaller sets mean more repetition in the cards seen which leads to a lot less variety in gameplay.

Four-player pick 2 means each player is seeing about half the cards they would in an 8-man pod, which will reduce the number of repeats seen. That can balance out the smaller set size, at the cost of having less space for unique archetypes.

 

[Seeker]

Drafting small sets alone is normally pretty abysmal, and the one time they tried designing around it was Coldsnap and it was terrible.

this opinion is shared by so few people around me and I agree with you

 

[Humpty_Dumpty]

I think Coldsnap suffered coming between Ravnica and Time Spiral blocks which were both pretty fun to draft, but I agree that Coldnsnap was a pretty un-fun environment.

 

[Velrun]

I think Coldsnap suffered coming between Ravnica and Time Spiral blocks which were both pretty fun to draft, but I agree that Coldnsnap was a pretty un-fun environment.

for both the drafters and the citizens of the ice-covered continent of Terisiare.

 

[Seeker]

Heidar, Rimewind Master seems pretty stoked about it

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It’s really the ripple cards at common that ruined the draft experience, iirc.

 

[LadyMapi]

As someone who doesn't have draft experience with them... I'd love to know who OK'd Surging Aether.

(I do find it funny that they specified "Ripple 4", like this is a mechanic that they were going to expand on and fiddle with.)

 

[Seeker]

(I do find it funny that they specified "Ripple 4", like this is a mechanic that they were going to expand on and fiddle with.)

You say that, but it took twenty years after Shelldock Isle for WotC to be like "we could put a number on this" and print Rabble Rousing. It's just sensible futureproofing!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

As someone who doesn't have draft experience with them... I'd love to know who OK'd Surging Aether.

Surging Dementia was the real culprit. It looks so innocuous, until you have to discard your whole hand on turn two…

 

[LadyMapi]

Surging Dementia was the real culprit. It looks so innocuous, until you have to discard your whole hand on turn two…

Oh, I'm sure - I was just flashing back to brewing with Surging Aether and man, "I'm going to put you back a completely random number of lands" is complete nonsense, especially if you have ways of shuffling used Ripple cards back into your library.

 

[Seeker]

if you haven't put like five Surging Might on a Bull Aurochs, you have probably lived a better life than I did but you are missing out

 

[StrionicAdventurer]

I wanted some Spider kindred synergies for my Peasant cube, but not like this.

Not like this...

*dies*

 

[Seeker]

If this cycle is tight enough that they all cost two, I guess at least they don't actually fix your mana. Whatever. I don't like it.

 

[Velrun]

Alt arts are pretty cool if you’re a Marvel fan. This is an epic part of the story. I bet even most people who haven’t even seen Marvel Cinematic Universe and The Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame have heard of Thanos and these stones.

 

[Seeker]

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/where-to-find-spider-man-previews

The relevant part:

Magic: The Gathering | Marvel's Spider-Man will debut on August 29, 2025
...
The complete card image gallery will be available on September 5, 2025
...
Magic: The Gathering | Marvel's Spider-Man releases on September 26

While I already knew EoE wasn't gonna get any time to breathe, previews start next week and we're getting the entire set spoiled by the end of the week after. Breakneck pace.

 

[MilesOfficial]

I want to say "good" because I love spoiler season and EOE is such a far cry from the wonder of FIN, but this pace is rough even for me.

 

[Zoss]

Yeah this is grueling even for the Joey Chestnuts and Takeru Kobayashis of spoilers. I wonder why they decided to compress the seasons like that? Three weeks between complete image gallery and release seems longer than normal, but maybe I just haven't been paying attention.

 

[shamizy]

I'm pretty much checked out of spoiler season if it's this hectic a release schedule. Way too much at once. I'll give the set a once-over before prerelease, but I think this and Avatar will have very few inclusions for my cube unless the card is flavor/art agnostic (ex. Multiversal Passage).

 

[Seeker]

Yeah this is grueling even for the Joey Chestnuts and Takeru Kobayashis of spoilers. I wonder why they decided to compress the seasons like that? Three weeks between complete image gallery and release seems longer than normal, but maybe I just haven't been paying attention.

It is longer than normal - usually "spoiler season" is 2-3 weeks and then there's a week before release (typically 2 weeks these days I don't recall the last one that was 3 but I'm covering my butt here) - but, well, who can say? All I know is they are even willing to admit this may have been too many sets per year.

 

[ravnic]

I was ready to skip this set entirely anyway, but then they announced UW versions (digital, but easy to proxy) and brought back madness almost.

 

[Seeker]

as someone who knows exactly enough about Spider-Man to get this joke: okay, yeah, I begrudgingly admit they nailed this one too

 

[LadyMapi]

0/10, the card doesn't demand pictures of Spiderman.

 

[Seeker]

it makes money off the pictures, to be fair - at least I think that's why you get Treasure when you see a menace attack, because you're selling copies of the Daily Bugle