Historic: Through the Omenpaths (Spider-Man) Review

Through the Omenpaths is the digital version of Marvel's Spider-Man, the latest Universes Beyond set. It will bring new cards and mechanics to Historic.

In Historic, Izzet Prowess and Boros Energy remain at the top of the format. Black Midrange lists, some ramp and Eldrazi versions, and several combos are popular picks in the tiers below.

The new set includes a few cards we should keep an eye on, as they have a lot of potential in certain archetypes and could shake up the meta.

Best Cards from Through the Omenpaths for Historic

Spectacular Spider-Man (Ademi of the Silkchutes) is a 3/2 with Flash and some very interesting abilities. In particular, you can pay and give it flying until the end of the turn or sacrifice it and and give hexproof and indestructible to your creatures until the end of the turn.

Both abilities are often incredibly useful in white aggro lists. Ademi also has a decent body, so it can put pressure on the opponent with its evasion and also protect your other creatures whenever necessary.

Spider Sense (Detect Intrusion) is an instant that, for two mana, counters another instant, sorcery, or triggered ability, so it's incredibly versatile. You can easily play it in any blue list.

The closest thing to this effect in Historic is Disallow, which costs a bit more mana but also can counter more cards than Detect Intrusion. What makes the new counter special is its Enweb ability, which lets you cast it for an alternative cost. You can return a tapped creature to your hand, pay for its Enweb (), and get the same effect.

Detect Intrusion will be strong in Izzet Prowess, for instance, as this list can use it to protect your creatures during the opponent's turn or after you declare attackers in more extreme situations. With Cori-Steel Cutter, it will be even better, as you will be able to bounce a token instead of one of your nontoken creatures and activate their Prowess at the same time.

Another card that could become an important tool in Prowess is Heroes Hangout (Fire-Brained Scheme), a versatile sorcery that we could play as a one-off in this archetype. Its first mode lets us exile two cards from the top of our deck and pick one to play until the end of the next turn. Its second mode grants +1/+0 and First Strike to up to two target creatures.

I believe Izzet Prowess could look like this with these new cards:

Behold the Sinister Six! (Hex of Undeath) is a very expensive sorcery that lets you reanimate up to six creatures with different names from your graveyard. Reanimator strategies aren't very popular in Historic, but being able to reanimate several creatures at once could inspire a few interesting combos.

We should definitely test out Doc Ock’s Tentacles (Giantcraft Helm) in Affinity and similar, as it interacts really well with Affinity creatures like Thought Monitor and also enables Affinity itself. I believe we'll end up playing a single copy of it in these lists.

Peter Parker’s Camera (Phenomena Recorder) will be an interesting artifact with planeswalkers like Tezzeret, Cruel Captain and Karn, the Great Creator. They can both get this card for us and are both viable in many types of Historic artifact decks.

The first thing I thought when I saw this card is that we can copy A-The One Ring's ability with it and get a lot from this effect, or even copy the planeswalkers' abilities themselves. In the right deck, you can tutor two combo pieces with Karn or copy Tezzeret's ultimate.

I believe this card might find space in Paradox Combo and even inspire us to build new decks around its abilities. There are endless possibilities, and it definitely has a lot of potential.

Through the Omenpaths will be available in Arena on September 23rd. If you'd like to know more about the mechanics in this set, click here!

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Thank you for reading, and see you next time!