Kergy’s Korner #14: Kergy’s Definitive Guide to the Spider-Man Starter - Volume One

I know, I know, it was SUPPOSED to be part II of the DC Origins article. But I figured with the new starter freshly squeezed onto hobby shop shelves, that I would put that off and look at what we have to play with NOW rather than what we may have at some point in the future…

So here it is! A couple of notes before I get into individual cards:

-The Spidey team is already nasty. I played against a solid Spidey deck built from 2 starters and some MOR tweaking, and it performed brilliantly. The Syndicate is harder to play, and will doubtless be stronger when the set comes out, but it also has some solid power behind it. Still, the Spidey characters work seamlessly with one another, whereas the Syndicate are more individual…I guess that makes sense when one thinks about it…

Anyhow, ON WITH THE CARDS!

Black Cat – Felicia Hardy [common]
Cost: 4; ATK: 7; DEF: 6
Whenever Black Cat attacks or is attacked, target player puts the top card of his deck into his KO’d pile. If the card has an odd cost, that player discards a card from his hand.

Black Cat is a solid 4-drop. Her stats are pretty much average, and her power is certainly useful. Since there are only 2 Spider-Friends 4-drops, she’ll share equal time with Punisher in most Spidey decks. She’s also a nice draft card, where one has fewer cards in their deck, and losing a couple of cards per turn will be vicious.

The key to Spidey’s deck is working the Friends as a TEAM. This is true even more so than with the MOR teams (except maybe Doom, but with ‘Him’, it’s all about DOOM, not the ‘team’…) So from what we have so far, it will be possible to splash a lil something into Spidey, or splash a lil Spidey into something else, but I don’t see much of a hybrid happening without CAREFUL playtesting and construction.

HOWEVER – Black Cat will make a nice splash into an X-Men discard deck. I think that discard will truly start to become an option when DC comes out, and she’s a solid enough 4-drop to splash into any discard deck.


Daredevil – The Man without Fear [uncommon]
Cost: 5; ATK: 9; DEF: 8
While attacking a character with a cost of 5 or more, Daredevil cannot be stunned.

DD is definitely a solid character. It seems as though the Spidey team has taken a smattering of strong abilities from MOR and put them together to equal a force to be reckoned with. DD and the 3-drop Spidey make a good excuse to take the odd-drop initiative. He also makes a great case for an X-Friends hybrid deck. We already have some discard, and now we have two more characters to add to Kurt Wagner and Scott Summers. Add some cycling – Madame Web, Cerebro, Longshot – and you have the formula for the backbone of an interesting deck.


Madame Web – Cassandra Webb [common]
Cost: 3; ATK: 3; DEF: 1
Whenever a Spider-Friends character you control uses an activated power, gain 2 endurance.
Activate ‡ look at the top two cards of target player’s deck. You may put those cards into that player’s KO’d pile or return them to the top of his deck in any order.

Speaking of the Madame, here she is in all of her glory. Remember when I said the last two cards were solid? Well Madame Web is beyond solid – she’s definitely one of the best characters in the starter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, her defense is low. Her 3 ATK is nice, however, as it means that she can hold her own, to a degree. And with a Spider Senses or two, she becomes a pest to remove.

Her big strength, however, lies in her abilities. The first, +2 endurance per Spidey-activate (I wonder if there will be a Wonder-Twins card like this…?), is vicious! While Spidey cards don’t have too much activation yet, if you DO hybrid Spidey and another team, there are tons of possibilities…

AND her second power will give the boost as well…which is, well, a boost! It also adds power to the discard possibility (X-Friends looks better and better…) and gives you at least a couple of turns dumping an opponent’s cards. Combining Xavier’s School and Madame Web would give you 4 endurance and dump 4 of your opponent’s cards per turn. She’ll also make a sweet addition to Doom control decks, as Doom-Bot is currently the only solid 3-drop Doom has for control.

Also, remember what I said about Black Cat and draft? Madame Web and limited go hand in hand – add those few Spider Senses and she can easily dump 20% of your opponent’s deck before she’s disposed of.


Prowler – Hobie Brown [common]
Cost: 1; ATK: 1; DEF: 1
Whenever Prowler causes breakthrough, draw a card, then discard a card from your hand.

One of the least impressive Spider-Friends. Frankly, one may as well skip the one-drop, or splash another 1-drop like Ant-Man or Random Punks into the deck, rather than play Prowler. He’s too weak, and his power will not come into effect often enough, to make him useful. Granted, the early turns are when one would most likely need his power, but you’ll likely have to waste a pump to use it, so you’re essentially using two cards to gain one. AND that one may not even be worth it…


Punisher – Vigilante [uncommon]
Cost: 4; ATK: 7; DEF: 5
Ranged Combat
Activate, discard a Spider-Friends character card from your hand -> KO target stunned character.

Another VERY solid character. Punisher does not make Finishing Move obsolete, but he certainly makes it unnecessary in Spider-Friends. While Finishing move only requires a single exhaust and no discard, you can’t reuse it every turn! If you play Spidey right, you should be able to use Punisher every turn.


Solo – James Bourne [common]
Cost: 2; ATK: 4; DEF: 1
Ranged Combat
As an additional cost to recruit Solo, reveal another Spider-Friends character card from your hand.

I’d hesitate to call Solo a mini-Logan, as Logan’s DEF is also boosted. Still, getting that early BEL is always a good thing, and he’ll be nice to team attack with Spider-Man: FNSM. He’s not a killer card, though, and I don’t think he’ll see much play except in solid Spidey decks.


Spider-Man – Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man [common]
Cost: 3; ATK: 4; DEF: 5
While Spider-Man is team attacking, attackers you control cannot be stunned.

A very nice card, FNSM shows the central aspect of the Spider-Friends more than just about any card in the starter – that being TEAMWORK. Spidey’s always been a teamwork sorta guy – heck, Marvel Team-Up is named after a comic that was, essentially, a Spider-Man book!

Because this is the 3-drop Spidey, and he’s right on the heels of Solo (the 2-drop), we now have the potential to stomp on most opponents up until turn 5 – and even then, they’re just a point or two away. Add the ‘Ha! You missed!!’ ability, and you can use your weenies to take out the big threat, and then use your bigger guys (Punisher, DD, Nova) to take out the rest.


Spider-Man – The Amazing Spider-Man [rare]
Cost: 7; ATK 14; DEF 16
Discard a Spider-Friends character card from your hand -> Exhaust target character if it has a cost less than or equal to the cost of the card you discarded.

I initially scoffed at this card when I first saw it. Then I played against it. The simple fact that Spidey doesn’t need to exhaust makes this card BRUTAL! Using a team-up in any deck that has cycling or searching – Doom, FF and X-Men would work best – makes this card even more vicious, as you can find the higher drop cards quickly and use them to eliminate every character you need to. Think about it: Spidey doesn’t need to exhaust, and the victims are targeted!

Now imagine a Spidey/Brotherhood deck with Avalon Space Station, where you can just grab the cards you’ve already discarded to re-use them.

I’m *really* glad that this Spidey is a 7-drop; any smaller and you’d basically have to sacrifice your Savage Beatdowns to Lucifer to win against the deck. This is easily one of the top 3 cards in the starter.


Nova - Richard Ryder [uncommon]
Cost: 6; ATK 11; DEF 12
Flight
Whenever Nova attacks, you may discard a Spider-Friends character card from your hand. If you do, Nova gets +X ATK for this attack where X is equal to the cost of the discarded card.

While we’re on the subject of Avalon Space Station…

That aside, Nova is pretty evil. Play Nova AND Team Tactics, and you don’t NEED those Beatdowns any more. Teamwork comes in many different shapes and sizes, and many of the Spidey cards reflect teamwork by more than team attacking and protection – there is a high number of ‘discard a SF character card to…’ effects. I wonder if we’ll see any card replenishment in the set…


Daily Bugle [uncommon]
Location; Cost: 2
When you flip Daily Bugle, name a character.
Whenever a character with that name becomes stunned by a Spider-Friends character you control, you may turn a face-up resource you control face-down.

A VERY useful card, as has been written by multiple people. This is another card that would be useful in a Doom control deck; or any deck that is all about the Plot Twist. I can see this as a solid card in a B-Hood/Spidey deck as well, to re-use those Beatdowns and Flying Kicks. Even in a solid Spidey deck, those Spider-Senses are nice to have back. And in Spidey-Syndicate, with mass-character exhaustion, Crushing Blows could be used multiple times each turn.


ESU Science Lab [uncommon]
Location; Cost: 2
Whenever a defender you control becomes powered-up, it has reinforcement this attack.
Exhaust two Spider-Friends characters you control -> Draw a card.

This is my new favourite location. This card is brilliant, because it gives a MAJOR boost to weenie decks – and they don’t have to be Spidey decks!! The first part of the card works for ANY defender. I’ve already popped a couple of these into my decks to test, and I’m shuddering to think of the effect that this would have in a Wild Vomit or Candy Corn deck, where one has Longshot and 20++ Wild Sentinels…or in a B-Hood swarm deck, where one major weakness is dealing with BIG characters who nail for a lot of Breakthrough.

And I won’t even get started on non-affiliation decks whose one real impediment is the need for reinforcement. Now, if only Spiral’s power worked when she entered the KO’d pile from your HAND…


Spider Senses [uncommon]
MSM-012
Plot Twist
Cost: 2
Target defending Spider-Friends character gets +3 DEF for this attack.

Another card I shrugged off until I played against it. Acro Dodge is nice, but the –3 ATK was always an irritation. Not in Spidey decks – we now get the DEF boost but can still whale back with full ATK force. Hard to find anything to complain about there!


Twist of Fate [uncommon]
Plot Twist; Cost: 1
As an additional cost to play Twist of Fate, discard a Spider-Friends character card from your hand.
Reveal the top four cards of your deck. Choose one character card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the remaining cards on the bottom of your deck in any order.


VERY nice to combo with Spider-Man – you only have a Prowler in your hand on turn 7? Chuck it, Twist of Fate, and voila! – a Nova to exhaust that Hulk! Also great for trading the wrong drops for the right ones, if you miss the curve. I have a hunch that this will be a VERY popular card in limited, where the curve is ESSENTIAL, and where smaller deck sizes will make cycling VERY useful.

-> The Spider-Man side of the starter is very tight and well-designed. Two starters, and it’s easy to make a fairly solid deck, and I think we just may see Spider-Man and/or Spider-Man hybrid teams entering the metagame by the July PCQs, if not at Origins in two weeks...

NEXT WEEK: A look at the Sinister Syndicate half of the starter. And the week after, back to DC.

You miserable spine-sucking arthropod! How dare you deny me of the speculation I so avidly crave!

The Wonder Twins were introduced (sorta) into the comic DCU in the Justice League spin-off Extreme Justice, so it's possible.

Well if you're going to be THAT way about it, you don't get a symbiote of your own =(

Quote

The Wonder Twins were introduced (sorta) into the comic DCU in the Justice League spin-off Extreme Justice, so it's possible.

They were in the Super Powers cartoon, as well as the comic IIRC.

They were in neither, and if you're thinking of the SuperFriends cartoon/comic, heaven help you.

I think the 3 drop Spidey is 3/4 not 3/1 ...heh

yea... about that

Yah, my bad - on both counts. Was indeed thinking of Super Friends, not Super Powers - which was Darkseid-related, IIRC (at least the issues I have are..) WONDER TWIN POWERS --> ACTIVATE!!!

and DEF: 1 is a typo; should be 4. Will fix it asap.

i think you guys are mistaken cause im looking at the spidey card that is posted in the cardlist portion of this site. and

spiderman
3 drop
4 att
5 def

the NFF spidey is a 3/ but the one in the starter is a 4/5

just tring to clear things up

Lieter

3/4, 4/5 - what's the diff?? ;p

Thanks for pointing it out - dug out my binder and checked and indeed he is 4/5. I fixed it good;p

Cheers!
-Ben =)

nice analysis... now i'm tempted to buy another starter... :P

Twist of Fate is poo!

Beyond that pretty good write up.

That's wwhat people said about Longshot at first as well - and now he's a dominant character!

I've played against Spidey decks where Twist Of Fate was put to VERY good use. Combining it with Night Vision or BOO will help as well.

Again, I think it will be a VERY nice limited card, where smaller decks make cycling VERY attractive...

Again my shop is way behind, still no starters and wont be any until next week MAYBE :( And I was going to put a X-Friends deck together and test before the PCQ in Indy this week. Guess not huh....

and BTW, if the Wonder Twins are in the DC origins set, I will be royally peeved :) At least leave out the monkey:p

Gleek has never been introduced to the DCU, so there's not much need to worry about that.

"look at the monkey!! LOOK AT THE MONKEY!!"

-POP-