Commander Deck-in-a-Box: Cosmic Spider-Man

Posted on October 13, 2025

Last week I had been expecting to be all set with Spider-Man, but as it turns out, I've got one last superhero column in me.

I hadn't planned on buying anything from this set. I'm generally anti-UB with an exception for when the set really feels like medieval fantasy. I'm well aware that everyone has their own vision for what makes sense as a Magic set. Some players might love science fiction, hate Mario Kart, and have corresponding feelings about Edge of Eternities and Aetherdrift (both of which were not even UB sets). A player might love westerns, but have no use for Outlaws of Thunder Junction.

People, and especially Magic players, are weird.

We're full of contradictions and are ready to surprise you with decisions that make little sense and even stink of hypocrisy. I'm no exception. After casting shade at UB for years, and at Spider-Man for a few weeks, I just bought a box of the set.

In the past I've written columns that were themed about building an EDH deck around just the cards opened out of a single box of booster packs. This "deck-in-a-box" idea has never resulted in a particularly strong commander deck, but it's always been fun.

What I realized is that it may also solve my core problem with Spider-Man as a Magic set.

I hate the idea of having those characters living alongside the cards that come out of Magic lore, but building a deck out of a single set means I'll have a deck full of cards that actually fit together thematically. They'll all be from Spider-Man so they'll make perfect sense when they share the battlefield with each other.

A deck full of Spider-Man cards isn't going to be super strong, but I've been playing a lot more lower-powered EDH in recent years, so I think the end result might be playable for me. Most of you probably play at a higher power level and might not get anything usable out of an experiment like this, but I'm here for you. I'm happy to do this experiment so you don't have to!

Before I go off on any tangents, I'll tell you that I got lucky. Building a deck out of a single box requires a playable commander that will let you pull a lot of colors together. I also decided early on that I would either build a heroes deck or a villains deck, and that I would not mix the two creature subtypes together.

Fortunately, I opened this bad boy in one of my booster packs.

Cosmic Spider-Man cares about Spiders and gives me access to all of my colors. I opened at least one of each of the new tap lands, along with a Daily Bugle Building, and a Vibrant Cityscape. Building a heroes deck in this set means I'm running nearly every Spider-Man legend I opened, with the exception of Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer, which has a casting cost of five White mana.

I was optimistic about how the deck would come together, though I expect I will have games where I won't be able to make WUBRG mana to cast my commander.

Rules are made to be broken, so I decided to add a few cards from outside of the booster box to deal with color fixing.

I couldn't find a Chromatic Lantern or Chromatic Orrery in my loose cards, but I did throw in an Arcane Signet, along with six lands to help me actually cast spells in a 5/c deck that was going to run 25 basics. Command Tower, Cavern of Souls, Exotic Orchard, Path of Ancestry, Unclaimed Territory, and Three Tree City made the cut. Sure, I'm cheating, but I didn't want to have an objectively bad deck that never got its commander into play. This gives me a better chance to cast my commander and doesn't catapult the brew up out of low powered territory. I think this is still a bracket 1 or 2 deck at best.

How We Got Here

My usual Saturday afternoon of EDH had changed a few years back from being at Nex-Gen Comics in Pelham, New Hampshire, to being at Queen's Gambit in Haverhill, MA. The former store's meta had moved too far towards cEDH for my tastes, but when Queen's Gambit went out of business last December, I followed my new playgroup to Tabletop Nexus in Plaistow, New Hampshire.

I have been enjoying playing with that crew, but every now and then, they decide to do a draft. I'm just not that into limited formats, preferring to play EDH if I've got a choice in the matter.

A friend from my online Thursday night playgroup said he was going to be playing at the old QG location Thursday night, as the store had overbought the Spider-Man set and he wanted to give them a little more business to help them out. I ended up joining him both on Thursday night and again on Saturday since my usual gang would be drafting. That's how I found myself heading over to Creatorpult Games in downtown Havernhill, Massachusetts for the second time in three days.

I played a few games Thursday night and had a really good time, though my buddy and I didn't end up sharing a pod. When I showed up again on Saturday I arrived to hear a discussion between Ben Palmer, who manages the store, and a few players who had just arrived about how the store had indeed overbought Spider-Man and was offering boxes for only a bit over the price they had bought them at from their distributor.

For nearly a year Creatorpult had shared space with Queen's Gambit, but when QG closed up, Creatorpult's owner, Chris White, decided to just take over the full space and keep the gaming tables open for players. They have had a full schedule with Dungeons and Dragons, board game nights, Warhammer 40k, Magic prereleases, and a lot of Commander. EDH is probably the most played format at the store.

Ben and Chris were both behind the counter when I had finished playing and started chatting with them about the store. I got the impression that they'd be very happy to expand beyond casual EDH and have a Standard night, a Pauper night, or whatever local players wanted to see on the schedule. The store sells mostly Magic supplies, boardgames, and Warhammer 40k supplies, and they have well-attended boardgame nights and paint nights on their schedule.

I know the margins for a local game store are very narrow, and I generally assume that nearly every LGS is probably closer to operating at a loss than most of us realize. To help support the store, and also to give me a convenient topic for this week's column, I decided to buy a box and do another "deck-in-a-box" experiment.

I don't necessarily recommend buying a box and building an EDH deck out of it unless you're prepared to risk being disappointed. It's not a recipe for a super strong deck.

That said, I very much DO recommend that you do what you can to support any of the local game stores you play at. You'll miss them when they're gone, and you may not know how close they are to closing up shop until it's too late.

Back To Web-Slinging

Spider-Man is not a huge set. The main set (SPM) has 188 unique cards. A commander deck is going to want 60-65 non-lands. My booster box isn't going to have every card, and there will be lots of duplicates, so I'm guessing I'll be using a lot of the cards I open. I had committed to building either a heroes or a villains deck, and Cosmic Spider-Man was enough to convince me to build around heroes.

Cosmic Spider-Man is a 5/5 for 5 mana. He has flying, first strike, trample, lifelink, and haste, and at the beginning of combat on my turn other Spiders I control will gain all of those keywords. That's fantastic, and plays perfectly with this project. I opened a lot of Spider-Man legends and nearly all of the heroes have the Spider subtype.

I ended up with 40 creatures, not including Cosmic Spider-Man, and 39 lands. That's more than I usually run, but I have none of my regular staples. Normally I'd run Rampant Growth, Farseek, Cultivate, and Kodama's Reach, along with Chromatic Lantern to help with color fixing. I'd also run 2-color lands that don't enter tapped, so I'm definitely expecting some slow starts to my games. That's fine in low powered pods, but would probably result in me getting crushed in mid and high-powered games.

You can look over my list below to see that I'm running an awful lot of Spider-Man legends. The real question is what spider adjacent cards am I really excited about? This deck actually has a fair amount of the stuff we often neglect when brewing decks. Not much in the way of ramp or sweepers, but there's draw / card advantage and removal that I didn't really expect to see in this experiment.

While I'm not expecting to flood the board with tokens, I do have 40 creatures, not including my commander. Aunt May isn't just a soul sister (soul auntie?). She'll gain me a life when another creature I control enters, and I'll put a +1/+1 counter on it if it's a Spider.

Mary Jane Watson represents one of the few card draw spells in today's list. Whenever a Spider I control enters, I'll draw a card, but only once per turn. Gallant Citizen is also in the list, and will draw a card when it enters play. I've got a few impulse draw triggers in the list, but it's safe to say that card draw will be a challenge without including cards outside of the Spider-Man set.

Web of Life and Destiny is probably the card I'm most intrigued by. This 8 mana enchantment has convoke, so I can tap creatures to help pay for its costs. When Web is in play, at the beginning of combat on my turn I'll look at the top 5 cards of my library and I may put one of them onto the battlefield. In a deck that's 40% creatures, I should have a lot of hits. The timing of this enchantment's trigger couldn't be more helpful, as I can gamble on cheating in a blocker and tap all of my creatures in my first main phase to offset this card's casting cost. Two fifths of the time I'll put a creature into play at the beginning of combat with its trigger.

I was expecting to end up with counterspells that were the equivalent of Cancel for this deck, and was pleasantly surprised to get a couple of playable Blue instants. Amazing Acrobatics will counter a spell and/or tap one or two creatures. It's going to be dicey in a 5/c deck, as I won't always have two Blue mana available, but I like its versatility. Spider-Sense can counter target instant spell, sorcery spell, or triggered ability. It cost one and a Blue, but can be cast for one Blue mana for its web-slinging cost. That alternate casting cost requires me to return a tapped creature I control to its owner's hand.

Removal is something I've got a lot of, though again it isn't at the quality I'm used to from running EDH staples for so long. Web Up is a three-mana White enchantment that is basically a Spider-Man themed Oblivion Ring that can only target nonland permanents controlled by an opponent. Spectacular Tactics, Sudden Strike, Terrific Team-Up, Whoosh!, and Wisecrack can remove problem permanents at instant speed, and I'm also running the sorcery speed Kapow!, and Scout the City.

With over two dozen creatures with the subtype of Spider, Spider-Mobile is a vehicle that could easily end up being very helpful. If I'm struggling to get my commander into play, but I've got lots of Spider-folk around, Spider-Mobile gives me a potential attacker with base stats of 3/3, Trample, and +1/+1 until end of turn for each Spider I control. Maybe I'm being an optimist, but I could see it attacking as an 8/8 or 10/10 and pushing some damage over available blockers every now and then.

While I'm not keen on adding non-SPM legends like Shelob (from The Lord of the Rings), Ishkanah, Grafwidow (from Eldritch Moon) or Arasta of the Endless Web (from Theros Beyond Death), I do think there are cards outside of this set that I'd love to run in this list. Arachnophobia, Spider Spawning, Spider Umbra, Spidersilk Armor, and Spidery Grasp would all fit in nicely, and I'm sure a handful of other cards could represent less heavy-handed additions. Keen Sense would be perfect, and other cards such as Heightened Reflexes could also fit in and feel right for the theme of the deck.

What's In The Box???

Apologies to the movie Se7en, but any reference to something in a box always brings me back to that scene. There may not be any key combo to explain, or any overwhelming synergy to lay out for you, beyond Cosmic Spider-Man caring about Spiders. Still, it's worth taking a good look at the kind of deck you can end up with if you do an experiment like this.

You'll see where I cheated and brought in extra cards. Arcane Signet and six lands that clearly aren't from Spider-Man, but the alternative would have been a deck that would likely never cast its commander. I do run basic lands in my five color decks, but I don't normally run five of each. I love Battlebond lands, and have been known to throw in fetches, shocks, and even the very, very occasional OG dual land if the deck is one of my favorites. I tend to avoid lands that enter tapped, but if it's a lower powered deck or a landfall deck, I do make exceptions to that rule.

Cosmic Spider-Man | Commander | Stephen Johnson

Commander (1)
1 Cosmic Spider-Man

Buy This Deck Export text

I'd normally tell you how I'd lower a list in power, but aside from being strict about only running cards from this set, I don't see this getting much tamer. There is no way to seriously amplify your damage output, no combos, and the most synergy is simply with the creature type of Spider. I still think this was a fun experiment and will be a fun deck at the right table, but it's also just a big pile of Spider-Man cards and a lot of hope and prayers.

To power this list up, you would probably want to run some cards that work with the synergy I've already got by adding permanents like Banner of Kinship or Beastmaster Ascension if you don't mind the flavor fail of a reference to Beasts. Akroma's Will, or Coat in Arms might be worth a look, along with more ways to reduce the casting costs of Spiders.

Adding a combo might work, but I don't see myself bothering to do that with a Spider-Man deck. Improving your draw and removal, and adding a sweeper or two, is all pretty standard for upgrading a deck. I might add in Guardian Project but pass on Beast Whisperer, but if I didn't care about my theme I'd consider running both. I wouldn't bother trying to push this up past bracket 3, but if you wanted a 5/c Spider-Man deck where the commander was just there for the colors, you could get up to all kinds of nonsense.

Early Results

I was able to get this deck into one match over at Creatorpult Games. I felt like it was a bracket 1 or 2 deck so I asked if we could have a lower powered game. It ended up being a four-player pod with me on Cosmic Spider-Man, my buddy on Marchesa, the Black Rose, a player on Helga, Skittish Seer, and a fourth player whose deck I can't recall.

The Marchesa player had a very strong game, and was predictably swinging at whoever had the highest life total. They had been getting a lot of use out of a Mind Flayer to steal our best creatures. The Helga player was also doing their best to be a problem, getting out a Koma, World Eater and a Chulane, Teller of Tales. I was doing my best to keep up, and did see a bunch of the non-SPM lands along with my Arcane Signet.

Luck was with me, in that I was able to play out my commander and assemble a pretty decent board. I also had the bad fortune of losing my creatures fairly regularly, but that helped me get through the mid game and not be a problem that had to be dealt with. That might be the one real bonus of having one of the weaker decks at the table. You can fly under the radar a bit.

The single most important card in the game for me was probably Three Tree City, in that my pivotal turns in the late game were made possible by the extra mana I got from that amazing land. In retrospect it wasn't really going to help me get the colors to cast my commander, but it would help turn a big board of spiders into a lot of mana.

Towards the end of the game my friend on the Marchesa deck was down to 23 life, but had been dominating play and was drawing an alarming number of cards with various Marchesa shenanigans. They had dealt with Koma, Chulane, a few of my better creatures, and the deck was having one of its best games. I had a decent board of creatures and on the previous turn I had just cast my commander for the third time. I did a little math and realized that I might be able to knock him out on my next turn.

Ever one to mix a little politics into my game, I asked the other two players if they'd give me a turn of not attacking me if I were able to kill the Marchesa player. They agreed, as they had both gotten a little tired of the Mind Flayer shenanigans and were eager to no longer think about which creature would get stolen next.

With the ability to swing out and not have to leave up blockers, I played out my Web-Shooters and a few more creatures. Web-Shooters would let me tap target creature an opponent controls when equipped creature attacks. I had just played Miles Morales but didn't flip him yet. I had enough to swing 23 damage with my biggest creature getting blocked, so I swung lethal on Marchesa and passed the turn.

The fourth player, who had been gaining life and drawing much of Marchesa's aggro, stuck to the deal and swung some damage over at the Helga player. They had asked how big my commander was, and I suggested that if they leave it alone I'd swing it at the Helga player instead of at them. That worked, and they didn't ask me to make any other promises so I didn't end up losing any creatures. On their turn, the Helga player returned the favor, swinging back at the fourth player, who was still at an alarmingly high life total for that late in the game.

On my turn, I was able to seal the deal. I drew into Iron Spider, Stark Upgrade. I played it, tapped it to put a +1/+1 counter on each of my creatures, and then paid six mana to transform Miles Morales into Ultimate Spider-Man. My remaining tablemates knew I'd have a bunch of damage to swing, but they didn't realize when Ultimate Spider-Man attacked I'd be doubling all of the counters on each of my Spiders. Cosmic Spider-Man gave my Spiders flying, first strike, trample, lifelink, and haste, so I was able to swing unblocked to kill the Helga player and knock the fourth player all the way down to a much more reasonable life total.

The lifelink on Cosmic Spider-Man ended up pushing my life total way up to where I was easily able to close out the game on the next turn. My only major concern was commander damage and boardwipes, and my last opponent didn't draw into a way to pump their commander or wipe the board.

It was the only game I'd win on the day, and I was as surprised to see the deck's game plan come together as anyone. All of the decks in the game got to do stuff, and be impactful in their own ways. I was able to get cards into my hand with Symbiote Spider-Man's combat damage trigger and Spider-UK's end step trigger. I did a bit of web slinging, including eventually casting Spiders-Man, Heroic Horde to gain 3 life and create two 2/1 Green Spider creature tokens that proved to be pivotal in the end when I needed lots of bodies to send into battle.

I didn't end up seeing Web of Life and Destiny or the Arachnogenesis that I bought the day before because I couldn't bear to not add the Spider-Man variant of that card into the list even if it wasn't in the original box I opened.

At this point I'm thinking that it's very likely I'll keep this list together for lower bracket games. It doesn't run anything that powerful, but if it regularly cleans up at bracket 1 and 2 tables I may have to reassess my estimation of the deck's power level. I'm happy it had a great game on its first day out, but I'm not expecting every game to go that well.

Final Thoughts

I was joking earlier that I was going to do this experiment so you don't have to. The truth is that it was fun, and I did end up with an EDH deck at the end. It's a low powered deck I could upgrade and probably make into something quite playable. I didn't get into the various Maskwood Nexus shenanigans one might get up to with a deck like this, but I'm sure there's something degenerate I could do with the right inspiration.

I bought my box to help out Creatorpult Games. You can find them in downtown Haverhill, Massachusetts or online at http://www.creatorpultgames.com/. They're a great shop and if you're in the area, you should check them out. Chances are good that you aren't nearby, but my larger point is that you should check out and support your local game stores. Many of them operate on razor thin margins and you never know when rent or utilities might spike and make them have to think about closing their doors.

I should note that it is enormously to the credit of CoolStuffInc.com and my fearless editors that they have allowed me to occasionally shout out game stores by name, CoolStuff runs six brick and mortar locations down in Florida. From up in New England, Creatorpult, NexGen, Tabletop Nexus, or any other regional Magic shop doesn't present a meaningful amount of direct competition to CoolStuffInc, but it wouldn't be all that surprising for a Magic retailer to ask its writers to not call for people to support other retailers. They haven't, and I think they appreciate that we're all in this together.

Support your LGS - it helps us keep the Gathering in Magic the Gathering.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!

TAGS articles, magic, list, casual, edh, commander, best, mtg, coolstuffinc, stephen johnson, cedh, csi, spider-man, low power, high power, 10132025

Commander Deck-in-a-Box: Cosmic Spider-Man

How We Got Here

Back To Web-Slinging

What's In The Box???

Cosmic Spider-Man | Commander | Stephen Johnson

Early Results

Final Thoughts

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