At PAX West 2025, Wizards of the Coast and Magic: The Gathering Spider-Man Universes Beyond revealed new cards and mechanics coming to MTG.
On the weekend of PAX West 2025, Wizards of the Coast and Magic: The Gathering combined forces to host a sinister panel filled with new information—and villains—on the highly anticipated Spider-Man Universes Beyond set. The previous official reveal, during a panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2025, gave fans a look behind the curtain at some of the card artwork, including pieces from legendary Marvel comic book artists such as John Romita Sr., Steve Ditko and Todd McFarlane.
The reveal showcased a supergroup of villains: a team-up of six determined to exterminate Spider-Man once and for all. While there have been several versions of the Sinister Six throughout Marvel’s history, the iteration featured in Magic: The Gathering highlights the original lineup led by Dr. Octopus, first introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual No. 1 in 1964. While Octavius was already revealed at San Diego Comic-Con 2025, PAX West unmasked the rest of the group.
Before the Magic: The Gathering Spider-Man cards, artwork and mechanics were revealed, the lead design panel introduced themselves. The four-person team behind the set made it clear they are fans of both comics and Magic: The Gathering, judging by card designs that bring New York’s resident hero to the galleries of MTG.
The group consists of Corey Bowen, senior game designer; Jadine Klomparens, principal game designer; and Sarah Wassell, senior art director. The team is led by Mark Rosewater, Magic: The Gathering’s head designer for more than 30 years. Together, this mash-up of creative talent built a set that not only honours Spider-Man’s legacy but also introduces mechanics that fit naturally into the game.
Magic: The Gathering Spider-Man Universes Beyond Mechanics
One of the most important aspects for the design team is that they emphasized cards’ designs and functionality are directly inspired by how these elements would play out in Spider-Man comic panels, and that translation has made its way seamlessly to the MTG tabletop. Both new and returning features will be prominent throughout the set, and the newly revealed mechanics are listed below.
- Mayhem – This new keyword allows players to cast a card from their graveyard (and this cost is almost always going to be lower than the original mana value) if the card was discarded this turn. While the newly revealed Green Goblin gives everything in the graveyard Mayhem, it notably doesn’t discount the initial cost.
- Web-slinging – Another new keyword that functions very similarly to Ninjutsu, but has less of a requirement. Like Mayhem, the Web-slinging cost will almost certainly be lower than the initial casting cost due to an extra condition for casting. Players can cast a spell for its web-slinging cost if they return a tapped creature controlled to their hand.
- Villain archetype – While this designation was already found on cards like the Sonic the Hedgehog Secret Lair’s Dr. Eggman, it is widely expanded with bonuses in MTG Spider-Man Universes Beyond.
- Enchantment Saga – Enchantment Sagas make a return in Spider-Man, but this time around the design team emphasized making them look like genuine comic panels, and as lore counters stack up, the comic continues.
MTG Spider-Man Introduces A New Way To Play, The Pick-Two Draft
On top of the Spider-Man card mechanics, Wizards of the Coast is introducing a new way to play Magic: The Gathering: the Pick Two Draft format. Similar to a traditional booster draft, each player begins with three booster packs. The difference is that in Pick Two, players always select two cards from each booster pack instead of one before passing the pack to the next player.
In the first round, players open their first booster and, after drafting two cards, pass the pack to their left. Once all cards from the first pack are chosen, players open their second booster, again drafting two at a time, but this time passing to the right. For the third and final pack, cards are once more passed to the left. At the end of the draft, each player has the cards needed to build a 40-card deck, supplemented with basic lands.
Magic: The Gathering Spider-Man Bonus Sheet Unmasked!
Specialized treatments have reigned supreme with each MTG launch, and the “Bonus Sheet” (which is a group of reprints from MTG, printed with new artwork) from MTG Final Fantasy featured artwork pulled from the years of drawings, sketches and concept art from the franchise’s history. The bonus sheet is denoted by an expansion symbol separate from the main set (the main set has SPM, the bonus sheet has MAR), and it excavates Spider-Man’s history. Some of the most iconic moments in Spider-Man have been captured on Magic: The Gathering reprints, and all of the revealed cards at PAX West 2025 can be seen below.
For collectors, Spider-Man will also feature a special set of cards inspired by the many costumes worn by Spidey. Like the rest of the set, these special variants have detailed flavour text that reveals the name of the suit. These special treatments appear to resemble the previous MTG Final Fantasy coloured chocobo variants, with Spider-Man in the same pose for each card, allowing the suit variant to take centre stage. These suits range in popularity, from the iconic original suit to the outlandish Fantastic Four’s “Bombastic Bag-Man suit.” These Borderless Costume Change variants are shown below.
Introduced in Innistrad Remastered from January 2025, a headliner card also makes an appearance in MTG Spider-Man. Unlike Innistrad Remastered, which featured Edgar Markov on a movie poster with the text description of the card, Spider-Man follows the Final Fantasy‘s Golden Chocobo set and removes the entire text box, allowing the card’s artwork to shine brighter. The headliner for Spider-Man is The Soul Stone, and all three special treatments for the card can be seen below (unlike other headliners, The Soul Stone has not been confirmed as serialized).
The PAX West 2025 panel unleashed many villainous teasers for the incoming MTG Spider-Man Universe’s Beyond set, and showcased some of the heroic (and not so heroic) abilities that make the set unique from others in MTG. The panel showcased powerful new abilities and returning mechanics that merge the universes of Spider-Man and Magic: The Gathering, without having the Sinister Six’s communal hatred for Spider-Man. The rest of the cards and artwork revealed by the design team at PAX West 2025 can be seen below.
Magic: The Gathering Spider-Man Universes Beyond will officially launch on September 26, 2025. More information on the entire set is posted on the Wizards of the Coast website.
