Spoiler Highlight: Spider-Sense on Standard & Pioneer

Spider-Man previews are in full swing, and honestly, they're a bit too fast. Unlike other Magic sets, this season has been shortened to one week instead of two, meaning more cards are being revealed per day, making it difficult to evaluate and discuss individual cards in a meaningful timeframe.

Cards like Spider-Woman, Stunning Savior, Peter Parker's Camera, Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly, and Electro, Assaulting Battery have potential for competitive Magic formats, and there may still be time to cover a few more of them before we start our full reviews. However, editorial choices are needed, and among the new additions to the first collaboration between Magic and Marvel, one card definitely fits the bill as a "potential staple for Standard and Pioneer": Spider-Sense.

Spider-Sense combines Envelop with Dispel as part of Consign to Memory, a Modern and Legacy staple, in the same slot. Web-Slinging's alternative cost also makes it interactive with ETB effects, or even saving one of your creatures from an unfavorable trade during an attack and/or protecting up to two creatures from spot removal in the same turn.

In formats like Modern and Legacy, Consign to Memory has become a staple and has even justified splashes in some lists. While part of this is due to the breadth of Eldrazi decks in Modern and archetypes with colorless cards in Legacy, the ability to counter triggers is a valuable asset in many matchups and can get players out of troublesome situations, from hindering a Thassa's Oracle and preventing a Storm trigger to dealing with potential micro-interactions with Ocelot Pride and Guide of Souls.

Unlike other formats, Standard and Pioneer don't have many Stifle effects, with the most popular being Tishana's Tidebinder, which sees a significant amount of play in these formats. Although more restricted in countering abilities, Spider-Sense's flexibility in also working against Instants and Sorceries, and at a lower cost, makes a difference in these scenarios and even in the eternal formats where Stifle and Consign to Memory also apply.

In the current Standard Metagame, the main question we must answer for any new card is "how does this card interact and/or work against Izzet Cauldron?", and most of the new previews don't offer much promise in this category or in the potential to bolster other archetypes to the point of changing the format's status quo.

Against Cauldron, Spider-Sense offers a dozen functions, such as countering cards like Winternight Stories or some cheap interaction with the bonus of using, in the same slot, a card that handles the triggers of Proft's Eidetic Memory or Fear of Missing Out. Since it's an activated ability, we can't directly counter Agatha's Soul Cauldron with this card.

Besides this matchup, there are other circumstances where Spider-Sense also matters: in addition to traditional removal from decks like Dimir Midrange or Azorius Control, it also addresses sources of card advantage like Consult the Star Charts and Stock Up with the same slot where we take care of the trigger from Beza, the Bounding Spring or any of the cards in the Overlords cycle. It also protects against sweepers, including those with ETB effects like Pinnacle Starcage.

For , the cost of the new spell is quite decent on its own, but we can consider Web-Slinging as well: the new ability functions as an alternative cost we can pay when returning a tapped creature to its owner's hand. Generally, this will involve creatures we attack with that turn cycle but also works with effects like Station or Crew/Saddle, which allow us to tap creatures regardless of whether they attacked.

The best options in the format today are, obviously, creatures that have ETB and LTB triggers that we can reuse. Quantum Riddler, Tishana’s Tidebinder and Spyglass Siren are good examples, but there are also frequent situations where Beza, the Bounding Spring becomes the clock in Control decks, and returning it to counter a pump or a Stock Up / Consult the Star Charts and then generate more value in subsequent turns is worth trying.

Another option that might occur, but perhaps less likely, is using Floodpits Drowner's ability to put a creature back into the opponent's deck in response to a spell or trigger, and before resolution, using Web-Slinging to return the Drowner to its owner's hand. Since its ability only targets creatures with a stun counter, it still resolves even if the Drowner is no longer in play.

Pawpatch Recruit and the possibility of reusing its *Offspring can also be considered an important target for Spider-Sense.

With Pioneer's expanded card pool, Spider-Sense grows in both potential and usability.

This new spell counters Treasure Cruise and the triggers of Arclight Phoenix or Cori-Steel Cutter in the same slot. It protects your creature from a Fatal Push while also preventing Greasefang, Okiba Boss from winning the game. It responds to both Collected Company and the trigger of Righteous Valkyrie or Skyclave Apparition and prevents lethal damage from both Monstrous Rage and Sunspine Lynx.

This kind of flexibility tends to make a card stand out in Pioneer, and Spider-Sense's biggest problem in the format today, however, is that it's not proactive enough.

Today, the Metagame is dictated by two distinct fronts, both partially driven by the rise of Mono Red Aggro: one tries to ignore the opponent and play faster—Mono Red, Greasefang, Selesnya Angels, Hammer Time, Lotus Combo, Creativity, Golgari Food—and the other tries to fit the right answers into each matchup—Rakdos Demons, Mono Black, Azorius Control, Spirits, Ninjas—and Spider-Sense fits better into archetypes in the second category.

Obvious options for the new card include Spirits, where we can reuse ETBs from Rattlechains or Skyclave Apparition and even leverage this interaction with a Mausoleum Wanderer and a creature with Flash to increase its power during an attack, or Dimir Ninjas, which already has a central theme of reusing cheap ETBs like Faerie Miscreant and Mockingbird to generate value.

Despite the card's potential interactions, I don't envision Spider-Sense as an immediate four-of in Pioneer, but rather competing for flexible slots in these archetypes. While it has some advantages, it also suffers from a heavier mana cost to cast than Spell Pierce under normal circumstances, which also has a wider range of targets when it comes to archetypes like Azorius Control, Golgari Food, or even Rakdos Midrange.

In sideboards, the spell also competes with Spell Pierce or Tishana's Tidebinder for slots. Each has individual strengths in specific matchups, but neither excels in every game, requiring each player to choose their responses carefully—and in this case, one or two copies of Spider-Sense seem guaranteed in the sideboards of these archetypes, and perhaps even in decks like Izzet Phoenix, which don't benefit as much from Web-Slinging but can definitely find something worth answering with the card on different matchups.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!