Spider-Man Draft Guide

Hello, friend! Do you want to get ready for the new draft format? If so, you’ve come to the right place. In this Spider-Man Draft Guide (or Through the Omenpaths Draft Guide for Arena players), you’re going to learn all you need to know about this format. This way, you’ll go into the drafts prepared, which will hopefully increase your win rate.

If you’re familiar with our draft guides, you’ll notice this one is a bit different. For our first time readers (Welcome!) here’s a quick overview of what you can expect.

First, we’ll take a look at what’s different about Spider-Man draft, compared to regular draft formats. Second, we take a look at the mechanics, and afterwards move to the best commons. Then, it’s time to examine the archetypes — these will dicitate which decks are the most successful. Finally, we wrap up with some tips as well as a full Tier List.

As you can see, there’s a lot to talk about, so we better get to it.

UPDATE: (October 3nd, 2025) This article got a major update after the format has been out for a couple of weeks or so. It now reflects everything we’ve learnt about the format, so it should provide you fairly accurate tips.

Spider-Man Draft: Major Changes

While a lot of things will be similar to a regular draft format, there are some major distinctions with this set. For starters, the actual drafting process works a bit differently.

Pick-Two Draft

The default drafting process for Spider-Man should be the newly introduced Pick-Two Draft. There are two main changes compared to the regular draft:

1. Only 4-players are needed for a draft. (Regular draft pods use 8 players.)
2. You select two cards with each pick. (Instead of just one.)

This format will be used on both digital clients (MTGA and MTGO). It’s also recommended that stores use this format, but that depends on the store. Of course, if you’re organizing a draft for your play group, you can do it in any way you’d like.

Picking two cards at once makes the drafts faster, and gives you a way to lean into a specific archetype faster. If you want more details, check for Pick-Two Draft information here.

Small Set

Most regular draft sets feature slightly under 300 cards, without counting any bonus sheet cards. (Edge of Eternities: 276 cards, Final Fantasy: 310 cards, Tarkir Dragonstorm: 287 cards, Aetherdrift: 291 cards.)

Marvel’s Spider-Man is a small set, with only 193 cards. This is one of the reasons for the Pick-Two draft format, as you can expect a lot of similar cards going around during the draft. With two cards per pick, you aren’t seeing the same cards time and time again.

With a whole hundred cards fewer, the archetype diversity also takes a hit. There are only five supported archetypes. (Built around allied-color pairs.) But more about that in the Archetypes section.

Finally, there’s one more major change.

Through the Omenpaths

So, if you’re playing on MTG Arena or Magic Online. Wizards didn’t acquire a license to use Spider-Man cards on digital clients. So, instead of the Spider-Man, we’re getting a so-called Through the Omenpaths set.

Both sets feature the same mechanical cards. However, they use different names and artwork. For example, Venomized Cat becomes Bane-Marked Leonin.

This makes things quite a bit messy — both for learning the format and for writing draft guides. This one uses the names from the paper Spider-Man set, and includes Through the Omenpaths images where applicable.

This isn’t ideal, but feel like the best solution, given the circumstances.

Now you know all quirks about this format, so it’s time to start exploring the specifics — starting with the mechanics.

Spider-Man Mechanics

There are four draft-affecting mechanics with this set:

• Web-Slinging (new)
• Mayhem (new)
• Connive (returning)
• Modified (returning)

All of these are also tied to a specific archetype. Let’s find out how they work, along with some examples.

Web-Slinging (Enweb on Arena)

You can cast a card for its web-slinging cost if you also return a tapped creature to its owner’s hand.

Typically, a web-slinging is cheaper than the card’s regular cost. So, you’re saving on mana by returning a tapped creature to your hand.

You’ve got two options with Spider-Man, Web Slinger. You can cast it for three mana or for a single white mana, if you also return a tapped creature to your hand.

The best way to enable this mechanic is with cheap evasive creatures. You simply attack with them, and return them with web-slinging in your second main phase. Since they’re cheap, it’s not a problem to return them. You can also get additional value by returning creatures with enters effects.

There are 5 non-rare creatures with web-slinging, all of which are in white and green. This color pair focuses on this mechanic, so we will discuss more about it in the Archetypes section.

For more details, check web-slinging rules. But now, let’s check another mechanic that alters the way you cast cards.

Mayhem

You can cast a card for its mayhem cost from your graveyard, if you’ve discarded it this turn. (Timing restrictions still apply.)

If you want to maximize the potential of mayhem cards, you’ll want to include discard “costs” in your deck. This way, you’re not actually down on cards, but you’re also saving on mana — as mayhem costs are mostly cheaper than the regular costs.

So, with Spider-Islanders you’re getting a 4/3 for four mana. In 2025, that’s simply a horrible rate. However, if you discard this card, you can play it for just two mana. You paid a discard cost, and you’re getting a 4/3 for two. Now that is an amazing deal!

Out of eight non-rare mayhem cards, seven are in black and red. (With a single blue mayhem card.)

Details about Mayhem rules can be found here. The next mechanic will help you enable mayhem quite nicely.

Connive

A card can instruct your creature to connive. This means you draw a card and discard a card. If the discarded card wasn’t a land, you put a +1/+1 counter on the creature that connived.

You’re getting some card selection, which is always useful in draft, and you’re potentially growing a creature. What’s not to like?

Mob Lookout is a straightforward defensive common. You play it, and it connives. So, you draw a card, and discard a card. Did you discard a nonland card? Put a +1/+1 counter on Lookout.

There are five non-rare cards in blue and black that connive. (Plus a single colorless card.) They trigger in a variety of ways, but all provide card selection.

Want to know more about this mechanic? Check detailed connive rules. Oh, and if you do end up putting a +1/+1 counters on one of your creatures, that will work with the last mechanic.

Modified

Some cards provide bonuses for your modified creatures. Your creature is modified, if it:

• has counters, or:
• is equipped, or:
• is enchanted by an Aura you control.

For example, Skyward Spider is a two mana 2/2 with some protection, thanks to ward. That’s mediocre, but if you can enchant, equip, or put a counter on it, Skyward Spider get flying. Now that’s a useful two drop.

Among the four mechanics, this one is the least represented with only four non rare cards, all of which are white or blue. However, there are a few cards that kinda work with +1/+1 counters, such as Selfless Police Captain.

Thus, you probably don’t need to build heavily around this mechanic. For more info, read our article about modified.

And that wraps our mechanic overview.

Best Commons for Spider-Man Draft

Commons might not be the strongest cards in your deck, but they do represent a large portion of your deck. Plus, with Spider-Man being a small set, you’ll see a lot of them. Thus, it’s important to know which are the key ones.

Note that, we’ve also included commons with hybrid costs, such as Gallant Citizen. Each of these cards is listed under one of its colors, but it can also be used in deck of the other color. As expected, they work best in decks that use both colors, though that isn’t required.

With that said, let’s take a look at the cards.

White

1. City Pigeon

First up, it’s an unassuming 1/1 flyer for a single mana. In most draft formats, such cards are a bit lacking. To be fair, Pigeon will eventually gain you three life, which bumps it up a bit.

But the presence of the web-slinging mechanic is what really makes it shine. It will be easy to end up with a tapped creature early in the game — you simply attack with the bird. Once you return it, you aren’t just enabling web-slinging, you also get a Food token. Plus, it takes only a single mana to replay City Pigeon.

All of this makes in into an excellent card, and given its cheap cost, you’ll happily play multiples of it. (Particularly when you have lots of web-slinging cards in your deck.)

2. Spectacular Tactics

This is certainly one of the most overperforming commons in Spider-Man draft. While we’ve seen these effects before, they typically don’t appear on the same card.

With this version, you get a lot of versatility, as you can:

• protect your creature from a removal spell;
• use it as a combat trick;
• remove a high-powered creature.

A single option can be powerful in the right scenario, but when you’ve got access to all three, you can easily find a strong play in every single game. Thus, this is another common that you’ll play multiple copies of in all your white decks.

3. Web Up

Oblivion Ring variants are usually quite useful, and that doesn’t change in Spider-Man draft format. It’s simply a strong, versatile removal that deals with pretty much anything.

Blue

1. Mysterio’s Phantasm

This unassuming two drop flew completely under our radar in the first version of our Spider-Man Draft Guide. However, as it turns out it does a lot of work.

First, its stats are serviceable. It can safely attack for one, while blocking various 2-powered creatures. (There are plenty of those in the format, so keeping things like aforementioned Ciry Pigeon at bay is neat.)

Next, self-mill is pretty relevant in blue decks, as you can generate extra value from cards in your graveyard. (For example with Beetle, Legacy Criminal or to power-up Doc Ock, Sinister Scientist.)

Finally, it’s a cheap Villain. There are cards that reward you for controlling this creature type.

As you can see, Phantasm does a lot of small things well, making it a desirable common.

2. Unstable Reproters

Two mana draw two at instant speed would be an amazing card. This card isn’t quite that, but it also isn’t that far off.

You are drawing two cards, but you need to discard one. However, that can result in a +1/+1 counter, which means you can also use Unstable Experiment as a combat trick.

Keep in mind to keep your creature count relatively high (at least 14 creatures). If you don’t control any, you’re only drawing a single card, which is a bad rate at two mana.

3. Amazing Acrobatics

Nowadays, Cancel variants need something extra to be playable in Limited. Thankfully, Acrobatics comes with a very relevant upside by tapping a couple of creatures.

If your opponent plays a spell in the first main phase, you can remove two attackers. Or you could get rid of some blockers, if that suits you better. (Or if your opponent casts a spell post combat.)

As usual with counterspells, the card becomes better if you can pair it with other instants or cards with flash. (This way you won’t waste your mana on turns when your opponent doesn’t cast a spell.)

Black

1. Venom’s Hunger

At first sight this card seems kinda clunky. However, there are a ton of Villains running around in this set. (For example, 11 out of 14 mono black creatures in this set are Villains.) It’s extremely easy to control one, without even drafting around this theme.

Thus, Venom’s Hunger often costs just three mana, at which point it becomes excellent. It’s an unconditional removal spell that gains you a couple of life. What’s not to like?

2. Scorpion’s Sting

This removal spell isn’t unconditional, but it is a cheap instant. For two mana you can deal with any creature with 3 or less toughness. That’s 83 out of 113 creatures in the format. (That’s 76.1%, which is still quite a lot.)

On top of that, you can use this mid combat to take out an even larger creature. The attack reduction can make it so your creature survives. That’s a lot of versatility for a fairly low cost.

3. Merciless Enforcers

Two mana creatures with lifelink often end up being a bit better than they seem, and that’s also the case with Enforcers. The card is a serviceable play on turn 2, with a relevant late game mana sink.

Note that activating its ability will also result in you gaining a life due to lifelink.

Red

1. Spider Manifestation

As we’ll discuss in the Power Rankings section, red ended up the weakest color in Spider-Man draft, that’s why a hybrid card can be considered the best red common.

So, why is the 2/2 mana dork that good in this format? Well, there aren’t that many ways to efficiently ramp, so this effect comes at a premium. Plus, this is an easy way to enable web-slinging. Finally, you’ll occasionally get a bonus of untapping it, which can be relevant..

2. Electro’s Bolt

Four damage for three mana is perfectly fine, although sorcery speed makes it a bit clunky. Still, it deals with 87.6% of creatures — that’s more than enough to make this into a desirable removal spell.

But what makes it really stand out is the two mana mayhem cost. As mentioned before, you’re saving on mana and paying for a discard cost.

So, you are getting a good removal with an additional benefit if you can pair it with cards like this next common.

3. Pumpkin Bombardment

If you need to pay a full cost for Bombardment, you’re essentially getting worse Electro’s Bolt. However, you can discard a card to reduce its cost to a single mana. That’s extremely efficient.

This is also one of the best ways to discard various mayhem cards, and get double the benefits. It’s just a shame that it’s quite hard to put a good red-black deck together consistently.

Green

1. Professional Wrestler

If you can find a use for a Treasure token (and you usually can), Wrestler kinda costs just three mana. At that point it’s well above the curve, and the “can’t be blocked my more than one creature” clause is surprisingly relevant.

It often ends up being a very potent threat that opponent must deal with eventually.

2. Gallant Citizen

Creatures that draw cards when they come into play are always good. You’re never unhappy with them, as you’re immediately getting your card back, while you add a body to the board.

Gallant Citizen is fairly small, but it costs just a two mana, which makes it a useful card at all stages of the game. It’s also a great target for web-slinging, as it’ll draw you another card when you replay it.

Given that it’s unlikely it attacks without dying, you might want to include additional ways to tap it, if you rely heavily on the web-slinging plan. But you can easily include it in your deck, even without those synergies.

3. Spider-Man, Brooklyn Visionary

This five-mana creature really wants to be cast with web-slinging on turn 3. If your deck is built in a way that it can do so consistently, you’re really getting ahead when you cast it by getting an additional land into play.

On the other hand, if you’re just casting it for five most of the time, it becomes much less exciting. In that case, you might want to value other strong green commons, such as Kapow! over it.

That was it for the commons. Now, let’s check the…

Spider-Man Draft Archetypes

As mentioned, there are just five supported archetypes in Spider-Man draft. All of them are based around allied color pairs, which means there’s:

• Blue-White
• Green-White
• Blue-Black
• Black-Red
• Red-Green

While you might occasionally draft something else successfully, it’s best to stick to these colors. All of the 2-colored cards belong to these five color combinations. Since they are pretty powerful overall, you don’t want to miss on them by drafting, blue-green for example.

Let’s explore each one of these five archetypes in more detail.

Blue-White: Modified

The official theme for blue-white is the modified mechanic. However, there aren’t that many reasons to heavily build around it. Most of the modify cards are actually self contained.

For example, Costume Closet, Silver Sable, Mercenary Leader, and SP//dr, Piloted by Peni all grant +1/+1 counters. This means you can a modified creature is already included with the payoff.

Now, a few cards do require support, such as Wraith, Vicious Vigilante and Skyward Spider. The latter is a particularly strong common for this archetype, and you’ll want to draft cards to boost it. After all, a single counter makes it into a 3/3 flyer with protection. (That’s also easy to cast.)

Modifying Creatures

For the most part, +1/+1 counters are the way to go, as there’s no shortage of them. Besides the cards mentioned above, you’ve also got stuff like Beetle, Legacy Criminal, Daily Bugle Reporters, and Selfless Police Captain just to name a few. Of course, Spectacular Tactics also excels here.

Now as for the Aura and Equipment cards, there are just three non-rare ones. You’ve got Robotics Mastery, Spider-Suit, and Web-Shooters. Among these, only the aura is really strong, with the other two being fairly mediocre. You’ll really want to pick up that enchantment, though — especially if you can pair it with Sun-Spider, Nimble Webber.

As you can see, it’s fairly trivial to get a modified creature. Thus you should focus on simply building a deck of strong white and blue cards. You’ll pick up modified synergies almost incidentally by doing so.

Green-White: Web-Slinging

Outside of rares, there are just five cards with web-slinging, all of which appear in the green-white color pair. So, when you’re drafting these archetype, you usually want to include a mix of the following cards:

• Spider-Man, Brooklyn Visionary provides relevant ramp
• Spider-Man India is an undercosted must-deal-with threat.
• Spider-Man, Web-Slinger can be used in a pinch, when low on web-slinging cards.
• Spiders-Man, Heroic Horde works a bit-differently but grants you a ton of value.
• Spider-UK can provide card advantage with the right setup.

Of course, powerful rares, such as Silk, Web Weaver would also be a welcome additions.

How to Enable Web-Slinging?

You don’t want to return an expensive creature with your web-slinging effects. At least in most scenarios, as that would be a massive tempo loss. Instead, you should opt for cheap creatures, that you can easily replay.

City Pigeon and Spider-Girl, Legacy Hero are the two perfect cards to use. They fly, so you can usually attack safely, thus tapping them. Also, you get the leave-triggers, plus they are cheap to recast. That’s everything you’re looking for in a web-slinging enablers.

There’s also a great way to tap your creatures without actually attacking — Supportive Parents will help you do that. An even cheaper way to do so is with Spider Manifestation, and the card plays perfectly in this shell.

With that in mind, your deck should be fairly aggressive. You’ll want a low curve with a bunch of cheap creatures, so you can capitalize on curving out with web-slinging creatures. Sure, you can include a couple of strong expensive cards, such as Spider-Rex, Daring Dino, but for the most part, try to stick to cheaper ones.

Blue-Black: Villains Connive

Blue-black is once again a more controlling archetype. That means that it wants the game to go long — the goal is to win through card advantage and by removing opponent’s key threats.

As far specifics, this archetype provides a mishmash of themes: villain creature type, connive mechanic, and graveyard synergies. Let’s check some cards that can support multiple of these:

• Prowler, Clawed Thief connives whenever your Villain enters. A great way to filter through your draws. (If you want more conniving Villains, you can include Scorpion, Seething Striker, Doc Ock’s Henchmen, or Mob Lookout.)
• Morbius the Living Vampire is a Villain that gives you value from your graveyard. (Beetle, Legacy Criminal, Venom, Evil Unleashed, and Spider-Slayer, Hatred Honed work similarly.)
• Doc Ock, Sinister Scientist benefits if you can fill up your graveyard. Plus, controlling other Villains protects him.
• Mysterio’s Phantasm is a cheap Villain, which can help you fuel the graveyard synergires.

As, you can see, there’s no shortage of various Villains you can use. (In fact, there are 22 common and uncommon Villains that you can play without splashing in blue-black.) Thus, it shouldn’t be hard to acquire enough of them.

What was said about blue-white also applies here. You don’t really need to work that hard to enable synergies with this archetype. Most of the good creatures in this color pair are Villains, so you’ll end up with enough of them to enable cards that care about them.

So make sure that you also pick up strong interaction spells, and you should be good to go.

Black-Red: Mayhem

The mechanic for black-red is mayhem, and for this one you need to put some work in. You need a mix of discard outlets and mayhem cards to optimize this archetype.

In theory, the deck should do pretty well, but in practice that’s not the case. It’s pretty hard to get all the pieces you need. Even when you do, you might need some powerful rares like Villainous Wrath or Carnage, Crimson Chaos to pull ahead.

That doesn’t mean that the deck is unplayable. You might still make it work, particularly if no one else is drafting it. So, let’see which specific cards you need for this deck. (Besides strong rares and mythics.)

Discard Outlets

There are some repeatable discard effects. However, most of them are weak Magic cards, like Spider-Gwen, Free Spirit and Inner Demons Gangsters. Slightly better options would be Green Goblin, Revenant and Shriek, Treblemaker.

As for the one-time effects, your best option is by far Pumpkin Bombardment by far. Still, Romantic Rendezvous and to lesser extent Masked Meower can be used in a pinch.

Mayhem Cards

What about mayhem cards? The best non-rare option is certainly Raging Goblinoids, followed by Electro’s Bolt. The rest aren’t quite on that level, but you could still play a few other mayhem cards if you’re running a lot of good discard effect.

Naturally, you get the best options at higher rarities, namely with Carnage, Crimson Chaos and Ultimate Green Goblin.

Red-Green: Expensive Spells (4+)

The fifth and final archetype is red-green, which rewards you for casting spells that cost 4 or more mana. The three best rewards for doing so are all pretty good on their own:

• Rhino, Barreling Brute, a massive creature that draws cards.
• Terrific Team-Up becomes a really efficient removal spell.
• Damage Control Crew makes sure that you can keep triggering these effects.

One pitfall when trying to build this deck is that you jam a ton of spells that cost 4 or more into your deck. That can lead into some disastrous decks.

Don’t Build Clunky Decks

Perhaps you remember a similar archetype (red-blue) in the Final Fantasy draft. It was successful thanks to modal cards that you were able to cast for two or four mana (such as Ice Magic). These type of cards aren’t present in Spider-Man draft.

So, you want to play a lot of expensive spells to trigger your cards, but this will make your deck really clunky. What’s the solution, though?

Well, the good old ramp cards. Stuff like Spider Manifestation, Guy in the Chair, Supportive Parents, and Molten Man, Inferno Incarnate to cast your expensive spells ahead of schedule.

However, even with them you can’t jam a ton of expensive spells in your deck. Make sure that your mana curve is serviceable with more cheap than expensive cards.

Finally, the biggest problem with this deck is that it plays weak red cards. Thus, you’re better off by drafting mostly green cards with a few red cards sprinkled in there.

Spider-Man Draft Guide: Power Rankings

Now that you know what to expect from each archetype, it’s time to rank the colors and archetypes.

Best Colors

1. Blue
2. White
3. Green
4. Black
5. Red

Among the five colors, red is clearly the weakest one, which is also reflected in the archetype power rankings.

Best Archetypes in Spider-Man Draft

1. Green-White: Web-Slinging
2. Blue-White: Modified
3. Blue-Black: Villains Connive
4. Red-Green: Expensive Spells
5. Black-Red: Mayhem

Currently, green-white seems like the clear leader, with blue-white and blue-black both near it. Afterwards are the two red archetypes, which are both significantly weaker than the other three options.

That’s not to say that red decks are completely unplayable, but if you want to win more, you should probably avoid them in general.

Additional Tips for Spider-Man Draft

Before we wrap up, here are some additional tips that might come in handy.

Wraths

Wraths are cards that destroy all creatures. It’s useful to know how many of them are in the format, so you can play around them. In Spider-Man draft, there’s just one such card in aptly-named Villainous Wrath.

So, if your opponent is playing black and stops adding creatures to the board, or makes weird blocks, keep this card in mind. Perhaps you don’t need to add more creatures to the board, so you’re still in game post-wrath.

Small note — there’s also Sandman’s Quicksand, which can deal with smaller creatures.

Various Tips

In this section you’ll find various useful tidbits that didn’t quite fit in other sections. Nevertheless, they can still be helpful.

• An unbelievable 70% of creatures in the format are legendary. (That’s 79 out of 113) Some don’t even really look like legends, so make sure to double check before you play a second creature with the same name.
• If your opponent is playing white and/or green, keep web-slinging in mind. You should block and make trades more often than usual. That doesn’t mean that you should make blocks that are straight up bad for you, though.
• Silver Sable, Mercenary Leader is worded differently than similar cards in recent years. If you play it without any creatures in play, you’ll need to put a +1/+1 counter on your opponent’s creature. This is not a “may ability”.
• Similarly, Shocker, Unshakable will deal damage to your creature (and you!) if your opponent doesn’t control any.
• While you should mostly stick to the five aforementioned archetypes, you can also splash a third color if needed. A great reason for this would be the transform modal cards — there’s one for each color. You can cast them even if you’re missing the third color and perhaps transform them later.

Tier List

Now you should have a good big picture view of the format. However, we didn’t talk about every card, as there’s just so many information you can jam in an article, and still make it coherent.

But worry not, our Spider-Man Draft Tier List is here to help with that. In it, you’ll find grades for each card in the set, based on its power level. If you have a hard time evaluating cards, this is a great tool — you’ll know which cards to prioritize.

Keep on Swinging!

So, that’s it for our Spider-Man Draft Guide. (Or Through the Omenpaths Draft Guide for online players). If you have any questions about the format, leave a comment below, and we’ll get back to you.

Want to play a draft with your friends? If so, you’re going to need a Spider-Man Play booster box, which you can order on Amazon.

Until next time, keep on swinging and good luck in your drafts!