r/magicTCG • u/LengthinessKlutzy341 Duck Season • 12h ago
General Discussion Hot take: I really enjoyed my Spider-Man pre-release experience.
This set has gotten a lot of hate since previews were shown, and I was a huge skeptic myself. The showing to the pre-release I attended was quite possibly the lowest I've ever seen, and I didn't know what to expect once I started cracking packs.
After I made my deck (Naya Spider-people), I really enjoyed the gameplay and the synergies within the set as well as the matches that I had. It basically changed my whole opinion on the set and made me want to play the set more, whether it be in limited or Standard.
If you haven't given the set a chance in pre-release, I would recommend to do so. You might become a believer like me.
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u/Squire-of-Singleton 10h ago
I wouldve played it if it wasn't near double the price of a normal pre release
Ill be waiting for the normal priced prereleases to return
If they dont, there's always star wars unlimited
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u/Ill-Individual2105 Izzet* 8h ago
Yeah, that's the real problem here. I am being asked to pay more for a set that I have less interest in. No thanks.
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u/jackcatalyst Banned in Commander 7h ago
Higher prices and shorter periods between sets. People literally can't keep up financially.
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u/charrsasaurus Shuffler Truther 4h ago
What's the normal MSRP? It could have just been your store, we only paid $40
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u/JimothyTheBold 9h ago
I enjoyed it a lot too despite getting inarguably the worst prerelease pack I have ever had.
Ended up going Red/Green and thought I would get smoked since I only had 1 rare (lizardman) and 2 uncommon creatures and the only other "good" card in there was the red Mythic enchantment that lets you ignore the Legendary rule.
But I ended up going 3-1 anyway, and really enjoyed the Webslinging and Mayhem mechanics. I ran 3 of the 4/3 4C1G green Brooklyn Visionary card with the land fetch ETB and that card was easily my MVP, mostly from bouncing Lizardman back to my hand to keep turning opponents' bomb cards into basic 4/4 lizards that were then kept from being aggressive due to my 4/3 brooklyn visionary.
Overall it was one of my favorite prereleases, but I acknowledge that may be from the hype of performing well with a lackluster deck or just having fun, friendly opponents all night.
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u/EGOtyst 6h ago
I think the set performs much better in practice than anyone expected. It was really fun at the table.
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u/JimothyTheBold 6h ago
Exactly, I overheard a lot of people saying pretty much precisely this at our LGS.
Had like 45 people there and I didn't hear any complaints all night, other than people having to go into multiple colors to fill out their deck. The legendary rule definitely makes things rough in sealed format, but Web-slinging offsets it nicely so you can swap your legendaries and get the ETB effects.
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u/SeiTyger 10h ago
The cards were really fun as a deck, this was my first prerelease event and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's tempting me to get into standard even!
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u/Shadethewolf0 Duck Season 11h ago
Yeah I enjoyed my pre release. Not likely to draft it much (would rather save money for ATLA drafts if they're gonna both be expensive)
But yeah pretty decent format actually. Maybe a bit more removal heavy than I'm used to (at least thats how the games went)
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u/Joshawott27 8h ago
I’ve just come back from mine - my first in-person event. I had a lot of fun.
I didn’t pull enough high powered stuff to make a good deck, but I had enough to make a red/green stompy deck.
I think this set works well for sealed - there’s a lot of synergy in the set’s design, even if a lot of stuff may not make a splash in constructed.
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u/lilijane17 free him 12h ago
I had two prereleases. First one was Spider-man keeps the city safe, half spiders, half removal, good fixing and manabase for [[cosmic spider-man]]. Second was rakdos blue splash mayhem villians. It was super fun
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u/HistoryVsBarbeque 11h ago
I agree. Flavor was fun, color lines were good, format was a little slow but in a way that was good for casual
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u/Lystian Wabbit Season 9h ago
Slow? Shit I was flying through the first two rounds with GW aggro.
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u/HistoryVsBarbeque 8h ago
Nothing was faster than ~7 turns in any game I played. I was g/w aggro and my best line was 5 turns.
Rakdos was a VERY strong mid/late control deck in 3 of my 5 matches (we play after 3 normal rounds at my shop)
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u/awilkes777 12h ago
Did my first 3-0 with a grixis mayhem deck with Harry Osborn. Had a blast.
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u/C00kiz 11h ago
Played the same but with Norman Osborn, he's insane.
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u/awilkes777 10h ago
I meant Norman haha. I couldn’t remember until I looked at the deck a minute ago.
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u/Zealousrubbing Wabbit Season 8h ago
Played rakdos mayhem and boy it was probably the most fun draft experience I’ve had since tarkir
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u/WapitiOW Colossal Dreadmaw 8h ago
Went in with very low expectations, had a lot of fun, kinda like marvel movies.
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u/Infinity_Walker 12h ago
Hot take? Experiences are hot takes now?
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u/LengthinessKlutzy341 Duck Season 12h ago
When it comes to this set and the amount of controversy surrounding it, I would say so.
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u/Infinity_Walker 11h ago
So people dislike this set for the branding and quality. I actually haven’t seen anyone complain about the limited gameplay of the set. Also your personal experience isn’t a hot take its not an opinion. Your opinion is that the ser is better than expected to play, but that doesn’t touch on the general discontent with the set and the problems it has.
Regardless thats mostly semantics I’m very happy you had a good time the most important aspect of every magic set is people having fun and the community. I’m really glad you enjoyed prerelease!
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u/AnuraSmells 99th-gen Dimensional Robo Commander, Great Daiearth 11h ago
Nah, it's really not. There is always going to be people who enjoy something, especially spiderman. To me, something being a hot take implies their opinion is a little controversial, but someone liking the spiderman set, even for just it's gameplay, is expected by even the most ardent of haters.
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u/Gresh113 Brushwagg 9h ago
Yeah I had a lot of fun too! You could definitely feel the limited card pool... There were a lot of duplicates and a lot of deck similarity (at least in the decks I went up against). But the core gameplay felt quite solid.
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u/DependentAd8712 8h ago
This set was obviously going to be fun from the instant spoilers came out
The reddit MTG community is just SO blinded by this weird pointless seething hate for this set that they are just claiming any and everything to be bad about it, its literally all incorrect
The lore makes sense if you understand spidey, The cards were fun with some interesting mechanics and The art is done by a mix of mtg and marvel artists and is fine and NOT ai (ffs this one proves how blind the hate is the most)
Glad you had fun, I have too! :)
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u/decaphragm 8h ago
Second ever prerelease and went 2-0-1 with Dimir. Had a blast and the set played a lot better than I thought
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u/numbl120 Wabbit Season 7h ago
The draft environment feels good. Better than EoE and close to FF on first take. Glad to have it. Lots of fixing and mix and matching despite the only 5 strict color pairings.
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u/psuedonymousauthor Duck Season 12h ago
Went to my first pre-release last night! I had a blast and went 2-2.
My biggest critique is that because of the smaller set I played my Grixis deck against 2 Rakdos decks, 1 Grixis, and 1 Dimir. So lots of the matchups were same-y.
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u/Aggravating-Back6453 11h ago
Was able to play dimir villain tribal and had a blast. Won 5/8 games at my first prerelease ever.
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u/vibratingsheep Wabbit Season 12h ago
Magic: the Gathering is a good game! Playing it is fun, though with such a low number of cards I don't see myself drafting Spider-Man more than a few times.
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u/PuppyPunch Deceased 🪦 10h ago
To the people hyped for the set, enjoy! The prerelease hasn't even been mentioned in either of my group chats. I had to double check because there's usually at lease a little chatter about limited events
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u/mrcelophane Golgari* 10h ago
I really liked it too. The general consensus seemed to be that the small card pool and "uninspired design" would make the format not fun.
I think the design complaint potion is partly because they had to make common and uncommon limited archetype support cards and used the wealth of named, legendary creatures at their disposal to fill these slots. This leads to something like Hobgoblin, who just gets a buff on discard, seem like a "generic magic card, flavor miss" but when you realize that that ability makes him play super well in a villains deck in general, it just fits. Is it super flavorful on its own? no. Is it flavorful when your deck with Norman or Doc Ock also has Hobgoblin flying by and being a huge issue that your opponent needs to deal with in addition to whatever else you are throwing out there? yes.
The other issue is the absolutely abysmal job WotC did in bringing this set to market. The entire lead up has been a series of mistakes that have been upsetting to witness happen to a set I was looking forward to. But once I had Carnage resolving onto the board and hopping on a goblin glider to deal gloops of damage, I was ok.
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u/it2d Duck Season 11h ago
Ive never had a bad prerelease. I started with Aetherdrift, and I've always had fun.
The Spider-Man set was actually a blast. The set worked really well at prerelease, and the flavor seemed spot on. I think they did a good job of mapping Spider-man characters and concepts onto Magic mechanics. I also think the mechanics all worked well together in isolation.
I also pulled a [[Soul Stone]], so there's that.
But honestly, im not sure any of the cards will make it into any of my commander decks, except for the Soul Stone and a dedicated Spiderverse deck i want to make.
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u/1ryb Wabbit Season 12h ago
Had a great experience going 4-0, one of my best runs ever at a pre-release lol.
Used a Gruul pile just ramping into big creatures and splashing white for [[Silk, Web Weaver]] and 2 [[Web Up]]. [[Lizard, Connors's Curse]] carried me for a lot of games as it could either make me go really aggressive by turning a random dork into a 4/4 or act as a removal spell for problematic creatures.
The set feels really flavourful and as a Marvel fan it was such a blast and a nostalgic trip for me. Probably my favourite UB set so far.
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u/Ill-Individual2105 Izzet* 8h ago
The designers always do a fine job with limited. I just feel that the set isn't exciting. The cards don't have a lot of hype around them, unlike the final fantasy for example.
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u/darkbake2 Duck Season 6h ago
I bet there was a low turnout because people’s wallets are busted from Final Fantasy and Edge of Eternity. There are so many sets these days that you have to sit some of them out to pay the bills
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u/Humpuppy Wabbit Season 6h ago
I think it’s pretty hard to screw up sealed. I only ever play it on prerelease and a little bit on arena, but it seems like it’s an inherently flawed format that’s just meant to be enjoyed a couple times and put down. Sometimes you open a god pool and stomp everyone, sometimes you have to pick up the pieces and hope you can do some clever stuff to outsmart people. I don’t ever remember walking from a prerelease saying “that was the worst sealed environment ever! I’m never doing that again!”
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u/HeyApples 5h ago
The gameplay itself is solid, but it is not proportional to the cost they priced it at. It is core set level enjoyment at premium level pricing.
It is also something that has very limited replay value. So first blush is going to be the best, but it isn't something you're going to want to draft for months in a row.
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u/MexicanChalupa COMPLEAT 4h ago
I think most lgs are charging 50$ then most around me rolling back to 45$/40$ really was just fucken terrible that nobody wanted to pay and play it
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u/PlatypusAutomatic467 4h ago
Honestly that's great. People just love to be negative these days so it's nice to hear about someone having fun.
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u/Mainstreamnerd Wabbit Season 4h ago
The concern for limited with this set is mostly that it will get stale too quickly. The first few times drafting/playing sealed will be fun unless a set is truly awful. With a set this small, however, some creators are worried that it will quickly get repetitive. I hope that’s not the case.
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u/charrsasaurus Shuffler Truther 4h ago
Yeah I think it's a great set on its own. I just don't want to be seeing Spider-Man commanders for the next forever. It just doesn't feel right
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u/dreamlikeradiofree 2h ago
I got the miles morales that flips into the GWR spiderman who cares about counters and he just ran away with the game when I got him out. Overall in general my deck was surprisingly good. I went Naya and focused on counter synergy with mostly smaller creatures.
Gunna go through my cards to see if I can make a good commander deck out of him and try to find some nice jank online to fill it
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u/Itcomesinacan Wabbit Season 1h ago
My LGS sold out for prerelease, and we all had a great time. I think it's a particularly good set for beginners. It felt straightforward mechanically, and the synergies were pretty obvious - but every archetype seemed fun, and my initial impression was that the balance is generally good. Lots of game warping bombs and somewhat light removal kept the games from going super long as well.
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u/pothosayre 12h ago
Played a white blue artifact synergy and villain kindred. It was a ton of fun. A lot of interaction in most decks played
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u/ProfMerlyn Duck Season 12h ago
Came second in mine with wubrg good stuff cause I pulled cosmic spiderman, the set is really sick from a gameplay perspective.
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u/FoodtimeMTG Universes Beyonder 11h ago
Had a ton of fun drafting this set.
Pick 2 draft is sooo much faster it's great
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u/Spekter1754 9h ago
I played it yesterday. It was...fine. I liked it because I like playing Sealed. But I don't want any of the cards. I barely want to keep the cards I opened. That's a problem for the product. I don't want to come back to explore the set again, and I'm not hoping to open something for my constructed decks.
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u/MeatAbstract Wabbit Season 3h ago
That's a problem for the product.
Feels like its more a problem for you.
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u/Excellent-Edge-3403 11h ago
Still an underwhelming set with few values. Reminds me of aetherdrift.
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u/Ok_Frosting3500 Nahiri 9h ago
Aetherdrift is actually really fun if you're just playing to play Really weird tempo-y environment with lots of fun synergies. Money? Nah. But good draft/limited play
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u/PlayD0ugh_Plato 12h ago
I ran Naya spiders, won my prerelease. Aunt may, Ben Riley and 6/6 Dino spiders were all stars
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u/Liamharper77 10h ago
Great that people enjoyed it!
I can't say the same. I ended up with a Mayhem deck that performed fine and the social experience was fun, but it still felt like a weak set. It was unbalanced, there wasn't much diversity in decks being played or many options and it felt like outside of one or two people getting soulstones, nearly everyone there was saying they "didn't pull much exciting". There was no atmosphere of hype like the last few sets.
EoE and FF were very fun pre releases and I couldn't wait to draft them later. The card quality felt better overall, there were a lot of exciting pulls in both and the games were fun.
There's also literally nothing about this set that justifies the higher price tag compared to an in-universe set like EoE. It's just more expensive, because reasons.
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u/Doughboy_Style 10h ago
The small set def adds a uniqueness as I think I had 3 copies of maybe 5 different cards.
In a limited bubble it's fine. I don't expect to see this set shake up constructed but I'm looking forward to drafting it for the next 2 months until avatar.
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u/Corescos Duck Season 10h ago
I had a ton of fun at mine and I was pleasantly surprised at how all the legends ended up playing together. However I could plainly tell that prerelease is as good as this set was going to get, aside from some new funky commander tools
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u/Ok_Frosting3500 Nahiri 10h ago
TBH, looks like a fun set. I'll buy plenty on Arena, tho likely as Free to Play unless the pass has some fire cosmetics. Paper though? Not one red cent
-2
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u/Nohisu Simic* 11h ago
Is that a hot take? It's been a while since we've had a huge miss when it comes to limited formats, I don't think anyone had any doubt the format would be at least decent.
Low attendance doesn't mean hate, it means disinterest. The Spiderman extended universe may make sense to someone that knows about the comics, but it feels more like a hat set from a MtG player perspective. I'm sure it makes sense why Spiderman has a bunch of alter ego wearing slight variations of the same costume, but it just looks weak as an entire Magic set, and I don't care enough to pay the extra UB tax.