I think it would be disingenuous to say that Magic’s newest set, Marvel’s Spider-Man, has the community excited. Between an overall lower power, its troubled development, and the price gouging currently ongoing across the market, the looming sense of unease surrounding this product is palpable. Still, even in a set that appeals to fewer enfranchised players than most other recent releases, there’s cards here purpose-built for dedicated players looking to make great use of niche interactions. Case in point: Today I want to cover a Commander which has flown entirely under the radar compared to its peers, with a total of 2 decks on EDHREC at time of writing: Arachne, Psionic Weaver. While this appears at face value to be a piece for Constructed, with clear synergy alongside Aven Interrupter and the other cast-hate pieces in Standard, I see potential in what Julia here lets us see—namely, our opponent’s hand. White has a plethora of tools from throughout Magic’s competitive history which make devastating use of hand information, and there really hasn’t been a Commander which can employ them in the 99; as I’ve said numerous times in my first year of covering Magic for Goonhammer, options for 60 card can just as easily command a full 99. With that in mind, let’s thwip, swing, and otherwise web-sling our way into a brand-new form of control, with Arachne!
“As Arachne Enters, Look at Target Opponent’s Hand”
Arachne is the third real Commander option which gives you knowledge of an opponent’s hand, and the second one printed at a reasonable mana cost for the modern pace of the game. Yes, we adore Sen Triplets but 5 mana for an upkeep trigger is asking a lot in this day & age. The real comparison here is Valki, God of Lies//Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor, which does a fairly similar thing to Arachne, giving out targeted hand hate on an efficient body; what’s novel for our arachnid is twofold, however, in this level of efficiency appearing on a White card, and her capability to hit card types more broadly as opposed to specific cards. She compares more to your Thalias than Deep-Cavern Bats. That level of information is something I feel we often don’t value highly enough in Commander, and the fact only you get to see means you can use it to your advantage, politicking with the known vs unknown. Of course, it also turns on a variety of cards which in a 60 card constructed context are usually seen as sideboard pieces, but here are all the more potent.
I’m talking of course about the Pithing Needles of the world. Pithing Needle makes you feel smart—it calls upon the ability to assess threats, understand interactions, and critically, be comfortable with hypothetical 1-for-1s. Few cards have as many stories associated with it as the Needle, and one of my favorite Magic video essays of all time is Rhystic Studies’ coverage of the humble 1 mana Artifact. Needle is only the most well-known of its kin, however; lurking in the periphery of playability is a host of options that take advantage of absolute hand knowledge. These are your Disruptor Flutes, your Sanctum Prelates, which pay slight premiums compared to the Needle for far more sweeping effects. Of course, everyone at all times knows at least one card in a given player’s arsenal: The namesake of the format, the Commanders. At their worst, cards like Needle and its ilk likely can find purchase in the skin of cards like Urza, Lord High Artificer or Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow, both Game Changers in their own right shut down by the power of our build-around effect. This is in part why I’ve pushed Arachne up to Bracket 3, as her talents scale with the power level of her contemporaries, in spite of being a Monowhite option from the weakest set in modern memory.
Stax-Arachnia
I want to start this section by asking one question: Why aren’t more decks playing Curse of Silence? Against powerful, Commander-reliant strategies, this at the very worst is a mana positive cantrip that adds an extra faux-Commander Tax to something like a Vivi Ornitier, to use a relevant example. At best, it can delay a combo turn, or prevent loops, and coupled with our Commander’s ability to provide us with knowledge it gets more value than anyone would expect from a single-target Curse. If Curse of Silence is good, why not be on something like Gideon’s Intervention, which laughs in the face of Voltron? As one might expect, there’s a number of cards often played in Sideboards which only get better the more information gathering you’ve done with Arachne. Nevermore. Anointed Peacekeeper. Hell, even Runed Halo or Null Chamber are reasonable inclusions given the appropriate game knowledge. What our Commander helps manage, stopping things like Spellslinger or Enchantress that get jumped in a New York alley by tax effects, this hard denial for single pieces we know would otherwise hit the table helps to cover all our bases.
I would be lying if I said every stax tool in this deck of hate pieces was deliberately targeted, though. While being in Bracket 3 means we need forgo the mana denial that comes with ‘traditional’ stax, there’s a ton of great tools to slow the game down which tax, rather than outright deny. Aura of Silence approaches a must-play for Monowhite in my eyes, given the impact it can have on the pace of play, and at worst it’s a 3 mana Disenchant, which is far from the worst thing we could be playing. Not only do Aven Interrupter and Lightstall Inquisitor play phenomenally with our ability to bounce Creatures with our Commander (though the Vigilance on Lightstall is, comically, a downside here), but they also have wider implications when combined with the first of our Game Changers, Drannith Magistrate. If you saw Nevermore in the decklist, it should come as no shock that we’re not afraid to make a few enemies, and Magistrate approaches the likes of Rhystic Study in terms of being a card which incentivizes player removal as much as it does card removal. We can graciously turn it off with a bounce, if brokering peace, but you’re playing a tax effect with hand knowledge in the Command Zone, you should be used to the chorus of groans. Jokes aside, we do draw the line at cards like Uba Mask and similar hardlock pieces, as I feel locks like that belong more to Bracket 4, but a Magistrate played ‘fairly’ is still an inspiration of ire.
World Wide Web
We’ve covered in detail every way we’re making use of Arachne’s hand knowledge & tax effect, but this deck aims to use every part of the buffalo—let’s talk about Web-Slinging. This is a new alternate casting cost debuting in Marvel’s Spider-Man that allows you to return a tapped Creature to the hand to pay less in terms of sheer mana, and given how good Enters abilities have gotten you may see both halves of that cost as upside. There’s a total of three Creatures in White with Web-Slinging, being Arachne herself, the Skeleton Archer-esque Spider-Man, Web-Slinger, and contestant for worst art in the set, Spider-UK. Not the finest crop of cards, but the effect itself, even on something otherwise entirely vanilla is what we’re after. There are two sides to optimizing around Web-Slinging, with White as the recipient of the only 2 1-cost Web-Slingers, and all of them being Legendary Creatures. Let’s start by talking about the latter half, as Monowhite is poised to extract maximum value from the named characters of this superheroic set.
There’s no shortage of ways to tutor for Legendary Creatures in White, from Thalia’s Lancers (repeatable by being bounced with Web-Slinging), to War of the Last Alliance, to Search for Glory, which incentivizes us to do as much with Legends as possible. Ambrosia Whiteheart is just a Legendary Sunpearl Kirin, which we are also on, which reinforces our bounce subtheme. We can use these to bounce non-Creatures too, letting us reset Pithing Needles and similar if the active threat has changed. Tataru Taru not only draws a card on entry, but makes a Treasure if an opponent accepts our gift…once per turn. If the little gremlin goes back to hand and re-enters though, that cap is removed, meaning it’s closer to once-per-instance here. Loran, Disciple of History recurs an innumerable amount of Artifacts from the yard, many of which are combo pieces for later on. Then, there’s both Honor-Worn Shaku and Relic of Legends, which don’t just tap Legendary Creatures (Making them legal targets for Web-Slinging), but also produce mana doing so. Tapping a Legend for White mana should be setting off alarm bells, because as stated above, White has two 1-cost Web-Slingers, and one is in our Command Zone. You need not worry, dear readers, it gets better.
Convoke or Go Broke
It’s time for my favorite part of any Commander Focus: Delving into the Comprehensive Rules. Do not mistake my dryness for sarcasm, though—niche interactions tickle my Johnny brain to no end, and this time we’ve got a pair of juicy snippets serving as our ‘abstract entities’, myself the In-Betweener (read Marvel’s G.O.D.S.). 601.2g & 601.2h both cover aspects of casting spells, specifically regarding the order of processes involved. 601.2g concerns the activation of mana abilities: They “must be activated before costs are paid.” This is fairly banal, but does confirm we can tap Creatures for mana before paying costs, meaning the Creature would be tapped before we look at our board for one to return to hand for Web-Slinging. Where it gets delicious is 601.2h, “First, they pay all costs that don’t involve random elements…Then they pay all remaining costs in any order.” Let’s quickly touch on two cards that care deeply about that last part of the phrasing, We Ride at Dawn and Dazzling Theater//Prop Room. These give our Web-Slingers (all being Legendary) Convoke. “In any order” does in fact mean in any order, so by tapping Arachne to convoke Spider-Man, Web-Slinger, we can return her in the same instance as part of the cost, paying 0 actual mana for Spider-Man. Then, vice versa, et cetera, ad nauseum. Infinite casts of Legendary White Creatures.
This alone does not win us the game, even if it is shockingly potent and involves pieces we’re already very happy to include. After all, being able to vomit forth a hand of hatebears by tapping our other Creatures is a great way for a proactive control deck like this to operate. Rather, we need some form of outlet or additional trigger to get over the hump and turn this mess of web fluid into an endgame, pun very much intended. There are a few ways to do this, though the simplest is naturally Altar of the Brood. If your opponents aren’t packing a shuffler, this loses them the game, and outside of Eldrazi or Turns (Via Nexus of Fate, the latter of which functionally doesn’t exist in Bracket 3, you’ve got a done deal. If you have a means of making Creature Tokens on cast, at least 2, you can also perform this loop with Spider-UK, and along the way in either case, you get an infinitely numerous board of tokens. Oketra’s Monument and Genesis Chamber are the big players here, but both Defiler of Faith and Cemetery Protector serve much the same purpose. Critically, of these Genesis Chamber (and its brother Oltec Matter-Weaver) makes Colorless tokens, meaning they cannot convoke for White, which may come up in mana intensive lines.
If you do have mana to spare, however, such as via Phyrexian Altar with errant tokens, why not drain the table out with Blind Obedience‘s Extort? It’s already a great stax piece, so tacking on the extra option to kill the table when far enough ahead is just gravy. Similarly, we’re on Skullclamp to make use of all these spare 1/1s. This isn’t an Equipment deck, nor is it especially interested in tutoring Equipment specifically, but it’s hard to say no to the occasional search for the clamp from Urza’s Saga or Tezzeret, Cruel Captain. Ultimately, the fact that White just so happens to have both of the cards in this small set with Web-Slinging for 1, that both are Legendary, and Arachne herself is a reasonable Commander makes for a list that asks great questions of opponents, and has a reasonable must-answer combo.
The question has loomed over me though, “How deep do we go on win conditions?” There was a point at which I was on Mesmeric Orb to slowly mill myself out through the loop, with the intent to tie together a win with a Flashbacked Sevinne’s Reclamation, but is that overkill? Is having the Extort from Blind Obedience worthwhile vs Thalia, Heretic Cathar being on a Legendary Creature body? Due to the fact that this loop does not independently advance the gamestate, much like ‘Four Horsemen’ of years past, we need something to alter resources somewhere with our pieces, ideally in the form of a Token generator. My answer, at least for now, comes in the form of Aetherflux Reservoir, which makes great use of our otherwise unimpactful infinite loop of Spider-people.
Weaving It Together
Every word on Julia Carpenter’s debut in Magic is accounted for, but what about the oddities beyond the obvious ties to Arachne that make this deck tick? The reason I placed this Commander in Bracket 3 isn’t just for the tutors and scaling, it’s also because I only personally begin to include fetchlands in B3 or higher. This is critical because good lord does Scaretiller put in work here; the gangly scarecrow acts like a repeatable Solemn Simulacrum that just keeps going, and with our ability to untap and bounce it, on a turn dedicated to ramp we can go up 2-3 lands in a single sequence. Beyond our usual tappers, Rent is Due is what I would expect of the modern rate for a Phyrexian Arena-style draw, at one mana, and during your End Step. Here, that trigger might even be upside, but it’s at least not a downside in the majority of cases. It takes a lot for me to consider an extra card each turn, but 1 mana and incidental synergy is difficult to turn down.
Then, there’s Arena of the Ancients, which capitalizes on the fact that people tend to appreciate their Commanders attacking, or at the very least tapping. Not only can this blank Voltron strategies entirely, but we can use it to tap our own Legendary Creatures (It says Legends, but the Oracle text clarifies it’s just Creatures) to Web-Sling away. Flash Thompson alongside Convoke is basically 1 mana, or mana positive, and can tap things down to entrap them under Arena. Not only that, as a Legendary Creature, he even manages to lean into that chunk of the list, being another card from the Spider-Man set that works with a Spider-Man Commander, who’d of thought. Sand Scout gets a lot of value for a similar reason, finding Survivors’ Encampment to tap things down for Web-Slinging, but it’s never a bad thing to have spare repeatable tutoring for gravehate via Scavenger Grounds, or the most flexible land in recent memory, Lazotep Quarry. Ultimately, a lot of this deck is just repeating the best things White does, over and over, on top of just enough hate to prevent proactive combo decks from going over your head, especially if they overcommit to their Commander during deckbuilding.
Example Decklist: In the Amazon Researching Spiders
When people think about Monowhite, this is closer to that expectation than a lot of the lists I regularly grapple with. You have stax components, tons of small Creatures that each come attached with a complimentary headache, and just the right amount of repeatability. Of course we’re on White must-includes like Ephemerate and Sevinne’s Reclamation, but that begs the question with those being an Instant & Sorcery respectively: What card type are we actually naming with Arachne? The deck is built such that it can survive you calling basically anything outside of Artifact, at least early on, but your opponents don’t know that. Your job is to isolate which player cannot be dealt with using the other proactive tools in a given opener, and hurt them more than you yourself will be impacted. Sure, paying an extra mana here or there sucks, but by way of Convoke and the like, we’re honestly fine with a few errant taxes, given how much we cheat on mana elsewhere.
Decklists are kept updated, and may change with set releases.
I feel one understated aspect of building Monowhite is the lands, as while we lack auto-includes that one might find in Black, there’s critical pieces here that help the deck function more seamlessly. Case in point, Winding Canyon & Emergence Zone, which allow for our infinite Web-Slinging to be done on the opponent to our right’s End Step, meaning our theoretical board of infinite 1/1s has Haste by the time we need them. This is also fantastic as a means to Flash out stax pieces or hatebears, especially if we return them to hand as a means of protection. Hilariously, even if there’s a good argument against it, our spider-people are literally Spiders in type, so Swarmyard is a very good means of protection with essentially no opportunity cost. It’s also worthwhile to shoutout Adagia, Windswept Bastion, which means I have to admit I was wrong about the Planet lands—having the ability to pay into them with bodies you’ll get rid of anyway, especially with something like Web-Slinging, is great for the low opportunity cost. In fact, across my last three articles, I’ve used each of the planets once with genuine upside…and Edge Tezzeret in just as many. It’s almost as though they shouldn’t have printed a nigh-universally applicable and potentially repeatable Urza’s Saga on a stick.
Show Me Those Jazz Hands
I am a mechanically-minded Magic player first and foremost, as might be surmised by my previous articles; what brings me joy in this game we all adore is pushing forgotten—even frustrating—cards to their natural extreme to squeeze every ounce of juice from a unique textbox. A lot of the design language of Marvel’s Spider-Man speaks to me, with great riffs on Madness, Ninjitsu, and more, and in spite of the set’s bloated and slipshod nature I believe it’s likely to go down as having some of the biggest sleeper hit Monocolor Commanders of a modern set. In spite of all that, however, I still feel it’s a bad set. Limited is nonfunctional, its Standard impact is laughable, and outside of a few standouts, the fact that I as an emphatic advocate for underplayed Monocolor Commanders am frothing at the mouth is not a good sign for the broader Commander playerbase. And, because it will no doubt sell well, this may teach the wrong lessons to Wizards, especially in comparison to Final Fantasy.
I grew up with Spider-man comics, but even then, why would you add Julia Carpenter…as Arachne? I mean, the red trench coat modern Madame Web is a great look, it’s become iconic for a reason; having buckets of Spider-men shouldn’t stop you from a second Madame Web. I feel that frustration, petty as it might sound, only serves to confuse me even more: If I as a comic fan can still poke fairly large holes in the set’s thematic inclusions, what are we even doing here?
Putting all that aside, mechanically Arachne is analogous like Tersa that I feel is the perfect translation of a 60 card design bringing delicious new tools to Commander. There’s clear potential for this card in Death & Taxes across a few premier formats, but the applications of a sincerely good card with sneaky combo synergy in the Command Zone is precisely what I like bringing to the forefront. I may even build her in paper, especially if we see her Universes Within incarnation slotted into Mystery Booster 3. If you want a control deck that makes you feel like the smartest player at the table, I highly recommend Arachne in some form, even if your friend kindly requests that you stop Evermore-ing their Commander.
Until next time, Excelsior!
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