Transcript
Hobbes: Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast. We are here tonight to talk Spider-Man. So there's a another big Universe is Beyond set going on. And unfortunately, Hobbs, well, maybe not unfortunately. Hobbs is not here. He is taking a break very intentionally and specifically.
Hobbes: um He is working on getting ready for a marathon He's sharing some information about that in social media. that's There's stuff in our Discord, too. I know if you if you follow him on Blue Sky or anything, he's got info there.
Hobbes: He's raising money for Suicide Awareness Month. but September is Suicide Awareness Month, and so we just want to make sure we recognize that. um So he is not joining us, but the...
Hobbes: Sorry. Already off the rails. I'll introduce myself. I've told you who isn't here.
Taya: Bye.
Hobbes: I'll who is here other than me. um I'm Alex. My pronouns are Ian. I am only at this point really found on the Goblin Lord Discord. I've mostly gotten off of social media.
Hobbes: um And we have an opening question, which I'll circle back to once our other host introduces himself.
Taya: Hi, I'm Taya. You can find me, uh, Taya Transcends on Blue Sky or on the Discord and, pronouns are she, her, they, them. And, um, yeah, should be an interesting set to discuss. I do, I am sad Hobbs is going to miss it because he's a true Spider-Man fan. So it would have been good to get his take on some of these,
Hobbes: yeah yeah i think you and i are i think we're gonna still have a good conversation about some mechanics and some fun things but we're gonna miss a lot of the like spider-man lore if that makes sense because and i'm not a big comic person and
Taya: No, and it's not my favorite Marvel property, but I do like what they've done here.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: Yep. There's, there's a lot of cool stuff.
Taya: yeah
Hobbes: And have, I have i've found a bunch of stuff. I honestly, i found, I have a larger list than I was expecting when I started pulling stuff together. I was, I was a little worried it would, it would not, it would be kind of short, but I found a bunch of stuff that I think will be interesting to talk about, but it'll be a little less on this.
Hobbes: Obviously it's all Spider-Man centric, but it'll be a little bit less of, it'll be just more, these are some interesting things and what I, what little I know sort of of Spider-Man being pulled into the ah card game.
Taya: Yeah, if it hasn't been in one of the movies, I probably don't know the reference. um
Hobbes: Yeah, I'm...
Taya: But I have seen, I've seen most of the movies, at least.
Hobbes: i'm
Hobbes: Yeah, I'm i'm in ah in a similar way, and I have a decent pop... you Just through pop culture osmosis, I have a decent idea of who Spider-Man is in general as a character, and there's a few...
Taya: Mm-hmm.
Hobbes: good nods to that in a few places. And we we'll we'll get into that. So we have an opening question first. And so we wanted to um sort of on theme for the Spider-Man, we have you know the full sp set reveal. But we also have, as we do with modern sets these days, have kind of other little subset ancillary things. And so we have this one um Marvel Universe something or another that is a bunch of cards that have like comic panels.
Hobbes: Most of, well, these are all existing magic cards. A handful of them are re-flavored where they give it a new name, but it's actually the other card, which is a thing they've been doing for a few years now.
Hobbes: Going back to, wasn't Godzilla the first one to do that?
Taya: Yeah, Godzilla was when they first did that.
Hobbes: and Kind of a weird place for that to start, but cool. um so But a lot of these, honestly, a surprising number of these did not use that sort of handheld handhold to help pull the pull the theme together a surprising number of these are just like really appropriate names for things that happen to fit spider-man comics
Taya: Yeah, it's just like they did with the Final Fantasy bonus sheet. It's the same exact treatment. It's that white text over the background that makes it almost impossible to read. ah
Hobbes: yep yeah fair but oh
Taya: um But some of the art is really sweet on these cards. And they're all there they're all reprints, like you said. And then the the legendaries have been re-skinned or renamed to it.
Hobbes: That's a... Yeah, I hadn't caught that it was just the Legendaries that were re-skinned. Yep.
Taya: you know
Hobbes: But yeah, a lot of lot of cool things. So I will go with um one one that I thought was really... It's just funny. It made me laugh. It was Unexpected Windfall. Because that this is the, like, memed, sort of, I think you i could you could say this was a meme, the whole ah line, face a tiger, you just hit the jackpot thing.
Taya: Yeah, they do quite they did quite a few memes in this set overall.
Hobbes: And... But I just, I think that the unexpected windfall is just like really funny that that was a pre-existing card that that happens to fit that perfectly.
Hobbes: And so I just, I was scrolling down these kind of looking, I mean, A, the art on all these is really cool.
Taya: the art is sweet yeah savage beating is just it is fantastic uh
Hobbes: But I, but that, or
Hobbes: Yeah, but that that is the only one that like made me laugh out loud when I saw it.
Taya: yeah um yeah it's uh
Hobbes: So that was one I wanted to call out.
Taya: I think I want to get a copy of the Savage Beating for my Rada deck that I'm working on, because I have Savage Beating in the deck list. And it would be, ah i like this art a lot.
Hobbes: Oh, yeah. That's good. And I just i just realized there's a Goblin Bombardman in there, too. i actually That's a card I have in my Zada deck.
Taya: Yep.
Taya: Yeah. ah
Hobbes: Yep.
Taya: And in this case, it's the Green Goblin shooting at Spidey.
Hobbes: yep Yeah. liter Literally bombarding him.
Taya: yeah Yeah, the Thrill of Possibilities is really cool, too, showing the Spider-Verse.
Hobbes: Yeah. So yeah, that's that's a fun ah fun thing.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: I just wish these were easier to read. They need they just need some background behind the text. It was the same problem with the Final Fantasy bonus sheet.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: You know, these vary widely on the readability depending on what colors are in the background since there's no ah there's no box behind the text at all.
Hobbes: Yeah, that.
Hobbes: Yep. Yeah, it's that that part definitely sucks. But the the overall like the art to the cards like is is it's super cool as someone who isn't like really deep into these comics. It's still really fun to see.
Taya: yeah Yeah, it's some really sweet art.
Hobbes: Yeah. and And through all the ages, I guess I don't know for sure, but there is definitely art you can tell ours is much, much older and more on modern art.
Taya: Oh, yeah, there's a a wide variety of art styles represented here. And I guess these are all well-known comic artists.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: Yeah, like I see Todd McFarlane and Steve Ditko in here. So these are all... actual comic artists, um, yeah,
Hobbes: That makes sense.
Hobbes: Yeah, that's cool. All right. Well, do we want to start on the main set here? right.
Taya: yeah, let's do that, ah
Hobbes: So I guess I'll just throw out the, the we are mostly, or like we're going to, at least for myself, I want to mostly talk about things from flavor and mechanical standpoint. So kind of the Malthos thing, um which we we have talked about in more depth in other episodes, but just the idea of just like, Vorthos is kind of appreciating the flavor of magic, not even the mechanic the game itself sometimes, but the art, the the flavor text of the cards, or even, you know, story novels, cosplaying.
Hobbes: And then Mel is is really appreciating cards from the mechanics, not necessarily because it's good, but maybe because it's interesting. And so at least that's where I have some things. So I'm not going to be like, here's what's going to be big and standard, or even here's what I'm going to play in my commander deck, to be honest.
Taya: Oh, I mean, yeah. I mean, we never really talk about what's going to be big and standard.
Hobbes: No.
Taya: We're usually talking about commons and uncommons a lot of the time.
Hobbes: No. Yes, which is of a lot of fun and one of the reasons that I love doing this too, because we just we get to talk about those cards that don't get looked at. so um I have one if you don't mind me starting.
Taya: go ahead.
Hobbes: This one is weird and unnerves me slightly. City Pigeon.
Taya: Oh, yeah. I've seen people at pre-releases. I've seen pictures from pre-releases of people collecting this card.
Hobbes: Yeah, and and not like, oh, i actually, now that i think about it, not from the I'm i'm afraid of pigeons, sink because I have a friend who who is, as he has an issue with pigeons. Fair enough. But no, the the mechanics of this. So it's a 1-1 bird for white with flying and has, when this creature leaves the battlefield, create a food token. And there's flavor text about, know, ah, that was my lunch, like the pigeon stealing a hot dog or something.
Hobbes: But like, there's some suggestion of the bird leaving and becoming a food token.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: And that's the mechanic that kind of unnerves me a little bit.
Taya: but but
Hobbes: So...
Taya: Fresh pigeon.
Hobbes: Yes, that's that's my ah that's what I have to say about City Pinch, and I guess I don't know. but Maybe that sets a good tenor for the type of cards we talk about on these like, quote unquote, set reviews.
Taya: Um, yeah. ah I guess the, you know, since I'm, I'm here on the page, I'll talk about friendly neighborhood, which is a card type. We don't get very often. It's an enchant land. We don't see a lot of those,
Hobbes: Yeah. yeah
Taya: ah yeah when it comes into play, you get three citizen creature tokens, and then the land gets ah one in tap, target creature gets plus one, plus one, until end of turn for each creature you control, active all is a sorcery.
Taya: But this is just one of those, oh, they took they took ah they took part of the name and made a card for it. ah But yeah, it makes a little neighborhood out of one of your lands, which I just love the idea of throwing this on one of the really dark red-black tools or something.
Hobbes: Yeah, making some citizens and
Taya: you know friendly neighborhood Sulphurous Falls or
Hobbes: friendly making.
Hobbes: Yeah. yeah they Oh, its i say I think it's Sulphur Springs. mike That seems like a friendly neighborhood.
Taya: or Springs. That's what I would, yeah.
Hobbes: Yeah, yeah there's there's a friendly little guy in there.
Taya: ah Yeah.
Hobbes: Yeah, that's that's a one. I didn't even catch it. This was in Enchantland. You're right. that's That's not one we see often anymore.
Taya: No.
Hobbes: right, cool. Well, I guess um one that another mechanical thing that I always pay a lot of attention to, maybe ah too much attention to, is is names.
Taya: Amen.
Hobbes: Names are really interesting to me because of how they can't repeat a name. In Magic, once a card exists with a given name, that is that card always and always, always. So if they want to use that name, they got to reprint that card.
Hobbes: And so we've got rent is due in white, which is just, I'd love that. So.
Taya: This is the only place a card with that like title could get printed. i
Hobbes: it Exactly, exactly.
Taya: i mean, it could be a Ravnikan card, I guess, because Ravnikan is a capitalistic hellscape, uh, as well.
Hobbes: yeah
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: Uh,
Hobbes: Yeah, that's true. Like there's there's maybe a few little places, but this is like the most appropriate place. And also, that's one of those things where the universe is beyond is a little weird with the greater game where it in a sense, it's sort of it uses up names that don't necessarily fit with the.
Hobbes: base game and so finding places where they can come up with a name like this that fits really well here and doesn't really fit anywhere else that you'll see there's so many cards that have people's names in it over proper nouns from the property.
Taya: he ah Yeah, I mean, that that's a general thing with universes beyond sets in general, is there's so many proper nouns. but that
Hobbes: Yeah, and and I wonder if some of that, A, there's there's some just recognition recognition recognizability about it too. So people who are coming to Magic having never played before or having not played for a long time are coming to it for the this property.
Taya: Mm-hmm.
Hobbes: Having those proper nouns would be good for them.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: Like that would be cool. But also it it does this thing where it allows them to create a whole lot of names that don't have to... conflict with the normal magic universe.
Taya: No. ah It does make them harder to reprint, though, which is also concern.
Hobbes: This is true.
Taya: Going back to Rent His Dude, though, I like the mechanics of this card as well.
Hobbes: honestly hadn't even read it.
Taya: Yeah, at the beginning of your end step, you may tap two untapped creatures and or treasures you control if you do draw a card, otherwise sacrifice this enchantment. So you either pay you pay your your rent or you you get evicted.
Hobbes: oh
Hobbes: Yeah, and it's either in labor or treasure, so very capitalism.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: Yeah, okay, that's really cool.
Taya: Um...
Taya: um All right, I guess right next to it on the list is Peter Parker, but I'm more interested in talking about the cycle of cards rather than this card in particular.
Hobbes: Mm-hmm.
Taya: um We talked about this when they first previewed the cards, but they introduced for the first time MDFC's ah that are um they're transforming MDFC. So on the front, they're always a cheaper, less powerful version of the creature um that has a transform ability, in this case, one in Bant. Or you could just play the other side for one in Bant and skip the front side completely.
Taya: ah
Hobbes: Uh huh.
Taya: So like there's a whole cycle of these creatures.
Hobbes: That's right.
Taya: um I think these are some of the more interesting cards as new commanders, just because we haven't had this before.
Hobbes: Uh huh.
Taya: um you know I really like the Green Goblin one, but of course now you know there's the online-only printing has everybody's new favorite creature Phlegm on it, or Fleam.
Taya: Which, yeah, since you're not on Blue Sky, you missed all the memes, I'm sure. But Fleam is the new... he's thought He's on the in-universe version of the card, and he's the new Fibble Thip now.
Taya: Everybody loves Fleam.
Hobbes: Okay.
Taya: So it's just just cute little monster creature on the back of the in universe version of Norman Oswald.
Hobbes: okay
Hobbes: Yeah, that's fun.
Taya: but yeah, so I just, I liked the design space that these cards used, um, or Norman Osborn. Yeah. So it's green goblin in the set and then it's fleam in the you know the universe is within version, the, through the Elman path.
Taya: Uh, Which that, I mean, we could talk on that set on all on its own because that, you know, just in cards and art and stuff, there's a lot of in-universe flavor you can see on the the ah arena cards that um you just pick up. You can like, oh, this is on that plane. This looks really cool. Or um You know, there's there's a whole bunch of planes represented. There's there's at least one card that represents Kylum.
Taya: ah So, yeah, there is there is some cool stuff to pick through in the Universes Within version, even if you don't play on Arena.
Hobbes: Yeah, that's cool.
Hobbes: Yeah, and that that is an interesting design space. I had forgotten about that, um that they worked that way. You're right. When I was looking through this set, I totally, it didn't even occur to me, you can cast the second, the the back face oh oh directly instead of having to cast the front and then transform it.
Hobbes: Or, yeah, you could go either way with these, which is cool.
Hobbes: And that also gives you like an easier mono color on the front and then put a three color on the back, which makes it a three color commander for commander if you wanted to do that.
Taya: And I would love to hear Hobbes' opinion on Green Goblin because they made another... um classic villain Grixis colors. and And we know how much Hal talks about villains always being Grixis colors.
Hobbes: Yeah. Yeah, maybe Grixis characters being mischaracterized as villains, like, you know,
Taya: Yeah. Like a certain dragon that...
Hobbes: oh like a certain dragon.
Taya: and trying
Hobbes: Exactly, exactly. Okay, well, um in something new or or maybe something rare for both Magic and, I believe, comic books, just from a flavor standpoint, I want to talk about supportive parents.
Taya: Oh, yeah.
Hobbes: again I guess you know the the card is is kind of interesting two and a green for three three tap two untapped creatures you control add one man of any color might be nice. i This is a weird mechanical thing that I find interesting.
Hobbes: There's some stuff that requires like untapping to trigger things. And of course, every just about every creature can attack to untap, but that also risks them being killed. So having ways like this to tap your own creatures as a cost, but then get a benefit out of it. i always It's the same reason like I love the mechanic Madness, where you can cast something if you discard it.
Taya: Yeah. Well, this also plays, i you know, like I said, we don't talk about standard, but in standard right now, there's also the survivor mechanic back from Dustmourne, which cares if a creature is tapped in near second your your second main phase.
Hobbes: like i love...
Hobbes: Yeah.
Hobbes: OK, yeah.
Taya: um So this is another way to tap creatures for stuff like that. Right.
Hobbes: Yeah, and so, like, mechanically, a it's interesting in standard for that, or just in general in the greater, larger game for for some older sets as well. But then I also just think it's kind of funny that there's a card called Supportive Parents.
Hobbes: Because ah you don't, in a lot of these types of properties, they you know, characters don't have parents often.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: theyre They die from this or that, or
Taya: Yeah, i mean the main Spider-Man character doesn't, but Miles Morales has a a nice family.
Hobbes: Yes. And so it's it's nice, A, that they are ah wreck represented in the card game. um But also we we just now have a card in Magic called Supportive Parents.
Taya: All right. Well, I want to talk about imposter syndrome because this is another one of the meme cards we were talking about. It has the Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man meme.
Hobbes: Uh-huh.
Taya: But I don't care about that. I like it because I like things that make copies of creatures. And this is a six-man enchantment that says whenever a non-token creature you control deals common damage to a player, create a token that's a copy of it, except it isn't legendary.
Taya: Uh, so, I haven't updated my Riku deck in a while, but I definitely want to get this into Riku. Um,
Hobbes: yeah that's that's great for riku yeah and i love that because then again because it because they it allows you to copy legendary things too which of course you'd have to because the meme is spider-man ah who who is a legendary creature
Taya: yeah. Yep.
Taya: Or 37 of
Taya: or
Hobbes: yeah
Taya: thirty-seven of them ah
Hobbes: or yeah 37 different legendary creatures yeah that's that's fun um
Taya: just
Taya: and just uh i i've kind of uh a bum they used imposter syndrome for the internal name because they had to give it a different name or the uh the spider-man name because they had to give it different name for the universe within uh set um what is the
Hobbes: Oh.
Taya: um Through the Omen Pass version. Oh, they just called it Imposter Syndrome. So they didn't rename this one for the Through the Omen Pass. the Some of the generic names they did get to keep the same.
Hobbes: Okay, that's cool.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: um
Hobbes: I want to talk about something that made me roll my eyes. In a mostly good way, but I just like really got a little on the nose with the mechanic and...
Hobbes: sort of the flavor so this is all the all the way down in the lands this is the daily bugle building it's a land that taps for colorless or you can ah it also has one tap add a man of any color and it has a smear campaign one tap target legendary creature gains a menace until end of turn activate only as a sorcery
Taya: Oh yeah.
Hobbes: the The joke here being that the person who owns this newspaper calls Spider-Man a menace regularly. And so they decided to take that sort of tag that he's using to to try to you know besmirch Spider-Man.
Taya: Yep.
Hobbes: And it happens to be a mechanic in magic. So then they just give the mechanic. So it's like you can...
Taya: Yeah, I was expecting that to be on J. Jonah Jamison's card that gives something menace, but when they put it on the land, I thought that was cute.
Hobbes: Mm-hmm.
Hobbes: Yeah, yeah i like I like that.
Taya: ah
Hobbes: And it's like you have to tap it. So it's like that you have to, the the newspaper has to like work and put out a new issue in order to give someone menace.
Taya: Yeah.
Taya: Yeah. And the character card does give, um it gives a form of menace. It gives ah it suspects a creature with does give it menace ah and can't block.
Hobbes: Yep.
Taya: And then it cares about creatures with menace attacking. So that they did they did flavor it to work well with J. Jonah Jamison as well.
Hobbes: Yeah, and I guess but but that was one I was going to talk about at some point too. I think mechanically he's really interesting. We'll both to suspect, give a creature menace, plays with the giving creature tokens.
Hobbes: But from a flavor standpoint, like the whole point, is one of the few like things that I know and in the Spider-Man is that he, he, well, Peter Parker works for J. Jonah Jameson.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: And so the, whenever your creature you control with menace attacks, so J. Jonah Jameson is giving Spider-Man menace. Spider-Man then when he's attacking, when he's in combat, he's getting, Peter Parker's getting pictures that he then gives to J. Jonah Jameson to put in the newspaper.
Hobbes: And so it it kind of, it really flavorfully hits that sort of relationship
Taya: mean
Taya: Yeah, then you get the treasure for, okay.
Hobbes: Yep, you get the treasure, which is him giving him a paycheck for getting pictures of Spider-Man.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: It's, I don't know, it's a fun little reference there.
Taya: Yeah, and the the art even has menace in the art.
Hobbes: Oh, yeah, it does.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: Oh, that's awesome.
Taya: um
Taya: So, ah you know what? I just realized we are ah ways into this episode. We totally skipped over our question for the week.
Hobbes: but we We talked about the... Wasn't that the question?
Taya: No, we were going to do which was our favorite Spider-Verse character.
Hobbes: Oh, okay. I misunderstood what we were doing. I thought we were going to talk about the comic book cards. Okay, sorry.
Taya: Oh,
Hobbes: You go ahead and then I'll...
Taya: oh so, you know, like I said, i've mostly I mostly know the Spider-Verse characters from the movies, not the comics, but, ah you know, i I'm a really big fan of Spider-Punk, just to look. The the two card arts are both fantastic. um I need one for my Imidane deck ah for the ability to make damage unpreventable and uncounterable, but
Hobbes: pep
Taya: ah I just like the design the character design a lot, even though I don't really know much else about that version of Spidey. ah so He was in the last movie, but he wasn't really featured.
Hobbes: Yeah. No, that's a really cool one. I guess for me, a for from a card standpoint, it's it's probably the dual face Gwen Stacy Ghost Spider card.
Hobbes: Because that's that's one that I think we talked, as you mentioned, ah some number of episodes ago. And when these were revealed before the whole set was revealed, um I talked about this card because it's one that just mechanically is interesting to me to build like a deck around.
Hobbes: So this has so when the the front face, the the cheaper um one in a red Gwen Stacy has.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: When Gwen Stacy enters exile the top card of your library, you can play that card for as long as you control this creature. The back face has flying vigilance and haste. And also whenever you play a land from exile or cast a spell from exile, put a plus one plus one counter on ghost spider.
Hobbes: um Also has the interesting, like remove two counters from ghost spider, exile the top card of your library and you can play that card. So it really kind of feeds on itself. And that's the thing that red impulse draw sort of that exile cards and then you can cast them has never really interested me, but this is a card that,
Taya: Mm-hmm.
Taya: Yeah. It also plays really well with Cascade.
Hobbes: builds off of it oh yes yes
Taya: And not that there's a lot... there There is some in red, but not the other two colors, but it also plays good with Madness.
Hobbes: yeah you're not wrong that's awesome so yeah those this is a card that would i think It could get me to play more of that mechanic.
Hobbes: i this And so that that would definitely be my pick for a card from one of the Spider-Verse characters.
Taya: Yeah. Yeah.
Taya: Yeah. Yeah. Ghost Spider's just really cool, too.
Hobbes: Yeah, there's some really good design for different archiver as well. I don't see all of them. There's some really cool Miles cards too.
Taya: Yeah. um that They had good source art to work off of for the Spider-Verse characters.
Hobbes: Yeah, like um Spider-Man Brooklyn Visionary is one I noted.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: Just the art style there is is much richer color. Like it's a little less realistic than most of the art in these. it's It's because is at least what I know of spiderman of of Miles from the Spider-Verse movies, he's a you know an artist. He likes to do...
Hobbes: And so this looks like sort of this looks closer to his art in the art, like the city behind him, as opposed to, again, the slightly more realistic-looking cityscapes we see in most of the other cards in this set.
Hobbes: So i really like that like that one card having a very different art style from the rest of the set.
Taya: All right. um
Taya: Let's see here. I don't remember whose turn it was, but um I guess I'll talk about the, they're just, well, one's a common. What's the other one?
Taya: um
Taya: ah Two comments. the The two cat ones. Venomized Cat and Masked Me Hour are just...
Hobbes: Yes.
Taya: ah I wasn't aware that they had a spider cat and a venom cat in the comics. Maybe I should have been because they have a venom everything.
Hobbes: Mm-hmm.
Taya: But I love these two cards.
Hobbes: Yes.
Taya: Uh...
Taya: you know The venomized cat is just this adorable little monster-looking thing that's got a um mouse trapped in its tendrils. And the flavor text is, New York City's rat problem disappeared overnight.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: Okay.
Hobbes: so That's fun.
Taya: Yeah, I don't know if this is, you know, I'm not really a popper player, but something that, you know, ETBs, Mills 2, and has Death Touch, I could see that being played in proper graveyard strategies.
Taya: um
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: Popper Commander, at least. Yeah, I don't think it's good enough for regular popper, but it it's like something that wouldd be pretty cool in Popper Commander.
Hobbes: Yeah. and the the the The other one I mentioned too, Mask Meowr, also has some fun flavor text.
Taya: Yep.
Hobbes: for you have ah You have a cat in a spider outfit and like web too. So apparently like full on spider cat. um And the flavor text is neither criminals nor veterinarians had much luck to pinning down the uncatchable spider cat.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: there There was like one of the other only other sources of Spider-Man that I have understanding of is the recent Insomniac games. um They've done well Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2 and then they did a Miles Morales in between them.
Hobbes: So I played all of those and I think in Miles and maybe Spider-Man 2? Definitely Miles. There's an outfit you can wear that has a spider cat.
Hobbes: So like one of the side quests is there's a cat that just is what a bodega cat that the the owner like named Spider-Man after a Spider-Man.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: But then the cat keeps like getting lost and you have to keep finding him. And then if you do that, you unlock this costume where you have a backpack with the cat in the backpack with a Spider-Man hat on. And he'll just like poke out his head and like bat at people every so often.
Hobbes: And it's awesome.
Taya: yeah
Hobbes: So.
Taya: That's cool. All right.
Hobbes: All right.
Taya: The next card I want to talk about is Spider-Verse, which is a a three red red enchantment.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: a Legend rule doesn't apply to spiders you control. um That's interesting. Whenever you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand, you may copy it. If you do, you may choose new targets for the copy.
Taya: If the copy is a permanent spell, it gains haste. Do this only one each turn. And I really like this mechanical flavor that it's like calling in help from across the the multiverse. So not from your hand, it's got to be coming from somewhere else.
Hobbes: oh Yeah, that's cool.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: That's a lot of fun. um So just real real random, I want to want to talk about the basic lens from this set and not the full art ones.
Taya: Oh, the regular lands.
Hobbes: the regular lands um so this i find fascinating i love this idea a they're just they're cool cityscapes but i love this idea and and i think ravnica is one of the really first places where they really really worked at this maybe mirrored in a little bit too but like trying to find landscapes or places that fit sort of the vibes in essence, the spirit, the ideals of these land types without being literally those land types.
Taya: Yeah.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: see So you have like the plains is just little bit of like maybe the suburbs, some houses and and some some trees in front of them, and just like a little neighborhood street.
Hobbes: Then the island is like the river and the bridge. You have the swamp being like the alleys and you know the dumpsters and the trash cans. The mountain being, i think this is more of ah like this financial district.
Hobbes: These are a lot of skyscrapers in the morning with some mist coming
Taya: yeah
Hobbes: And then the forest being just a part of the city that has some greenery. And so you see a bunch of trees, even though there's a couple of cars and some houses or buildings on the side. But I just, I love that.
Hobbes: And then there's a spider person swinging or climbing a building in all five arts, which is also cool.
Taya: Mm-hmm.
Hobbes: But I love that flavor of trying to capture what is in this particular environment, like New York City, what is the s equivalent of a swamp? What is the equivalent of a forest?
Hobbes: and capturing that. That's, for me, whenever we go to a set that isn't a conventional, like, entire planet where you have a little more biodiversity, it's always interesting to me to, like, where do they capture this? So, they I mean, we had this recent thing in the sci-fi set where we're in outer space. Like, what's a plane in outer space?
Taya: who
Hobbes: So that that always interests me. And I thought I did some cool stuff with this one, with this set.
Taya: Yeah. um All right, the next card I'm going to talk about is a Multiversal Passage. I guess I'm on a multiverse kick with the cards I've been discussing, but ah this is, I just talked about this one purely because of the mechanics. It is a shock land that enters as a chosen basic land type. So you only get one color out of it, but it has the pay to life where it enters tapped clause on it.
Taya: um
Hobbes: yeah
Taya: So we you now have a a basically a modal shock land,
Hobbes: That can be any type you want, but then it's set there.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: Yeah, that that is interesting.
Taya: Yeah. I just thought that was a pretty cool design on that.
Hobbes: ah
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: Yeah, that that is a cool a cool design to to do fixing in ah in a different way. um sort of along that lines and not necessarily fixing it a different way. But I thought vibrant cityscape was interesting because this is up there for one of my favorite pieces of art in this set. That vibrant is a good word for it. I think that's gorgeous. But um this is kind of, not even kind of, this is basically our third evolving wilds now.
Taya: Yeah, Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse, this is the exact same thing.
Hobbes: It's just...
Hobbes: Yep, the exact same mechanic, but now there is three if you ever wanted to run a third of those, which is...
Taya: Yeah, if you like building budget um Commander decks, you have ah another option for a Fetchland.
Hobbes: Mm-hmm.
Hobbes: Yep.
Hobbes: It's also nice for for newer players to have access to this type of effect. I wonder if they tried, ah looked at the other two and just decided that they couldn't flavorfully make those names fit in Spider-Man, so they just made a new one.
Taya: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Taya: All right. Um, let's see here. There's, uh,
Taya: I guess I'll talk about the cycle of, uh, or I, I guess it's not really a cycle, but there's just, um, several cards that have hybrid mana in this set.
Hobbes: Oh yeah.
Taya: And I guess they've just made hybrid mana evergreen at this point, or maybe do justice where they it can show up in any set. Um, Because it's been showing up somewhat regularly over the last couple of years. It used to be ah pretty rare thing to see on cards.
Hobbes: It was kind of like a specific set would use it a bunch or it wouldn't show up at all.
Taya: Mm-hmm.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: Uh... And i'll I'll talk about the first one ah that that's just I have in front of me, which is Ultimate Green Goblin. It's one in a Rakdos Rakdos either choice ah for a 5-4. So three mana, pretty nice.
Taya: um At the beginning your upkeep, you have to discard a card, then create a treasure token. ah So it does have ah has a drawback of... ah you know, you have to discard a card, but you do get a treasure token from it.
Taya: um But it also has Mayhem ah for two and Aractus, which we haven't talked about yet.
Hobbes: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Taya: um Mayhem is a new version of Madness.
Hobbes: yeah
Taya: ah except it you have to follow the timing rules. So Madness, when you you use Madness on a card, you could, um but if you discarded it, you could cast it for its Madness cost, and it let you cast it at any time. So if it was a creature, you still could cast it at instant speed if you discard it.
Taya: um Mayhem gives the ability to the card in the graveyard, essentially, which lets you cast it for its Mayhem card that turn if you discarded it.
Taya: um But the timing rules still apply. So in this case, it's a creature. So if I discarded it on an opponent's turn, I would never get a chance to play it from the graveyard.
Hobbes: yeah
Taya: um I'd have to do it during my main phase. Yeah,
Hobbes: yeah and unless you had some would would would that would let you okay that yeah because this doesn't rule it out it just says timing rules apply and that would change the timing rules okay that's that's interesting though i i had a badness deck a very long time ago and that's interesting i might have to think about
Taya: yeah unless you have a Vidal Conorri or Leyland of Anticipation or...
Taya: Yeah.
Taya: Yeah. I liked the Madness pre-con from the 2019 Commander decks, I think. um
Hobbes: I think I missed that that was a thing.
Taya: Yeah, it was Raktos. Anjay Falconrath, Raktos Madness pre-con. Yeah.
Hobbes: OK, cool.
Hobbes: right Yeah, that's cool. yeah and And you're right. like At first, when I see like a couple of hybrid cards, i just assume, oh, maybe there's one of each color. But there isn't. There's a bunch of color pairs that are missing, I think. There's multiples of some.
Hobbes: This is definitely not. The hybrid isn't balanced. I wonder if they're just
Taya: No, there's a lot of Azorius ones in the set. There's three Azorius ones.
Hobbes: Yeah. and And three Selesnya as well.
Taya: Yeah. Yeah.
Hobbes: So yeah, it's it's it's like spider hero focused for the most part. There isn't too many on the villain side.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: It's interesting.
Hobbes: OK, cool. So want to introduce a ah vocab word today. I mentioned before we started recording that I might have a vocab word. So we have three cards. and At first, I thought this was going to be a cycle, but there it isn't. There's there's three cards in the set, as far as I could tell, um across three colors.
Hobbes: um that are onomatopoeia names and so that means like a word that is representing a sound where it's supposed to be the name or that word is the sound itself so it's like the word meow is an onomatopoeia for this sound that a cat makes
Taya: Mm hmm. Yeah.
Taya: yeah
Hobbes: And so we have Thwip in white. We have Woosh in blue and Kapow in green. And A, this is another one of those like interesting name things because you could never have a have a name a card named Thwip in any other set.
Taya: yeah
Hobbes: um But it also fits like the comic book feel of it. I don't know how much the old comic books put those words on the page. I think they did. I know that was a...
Taya: oh yeah they use those a lot in old comic books and um
Hobbes: And so, yeah, it's just.
Taya: they still do a lot of it in manga ah
Hobbes: oh True. So, yeah, it it just I think that's a cool thing. And I just wanted to call out those and also take the opportunity to to use the word onomatopoeia, a word that I have.
Taya: it's a good word yeah um all right uh
Hobbes: yeah I very rarely get a chance to use in conversation.
Taya: So I'm going to talk about another common because I like doing that in these episodes, which is, uh, spider Rex daring dino, which is for a green green for a six, six reach trample ward to legendary. So this thing just made, um, uh, you know, our old friend, uh, no, no, it's the, I'm blanking the mind, the, the din is a six, six dinosaur,
Hobbes: Man, I know what you're talking about. at The meme, and I can't remember what it's called.
Taya: Yeah, it's totally slipping my mind.
Hobbes: It's the one that showed up in so many sets.
Taya: Yep. But yeah, now it has Reach and Ward 2 for the same price.
Taya: ah
Hobbes: that That's really for me.
Taya: But ah yeah, so it's just a ah ah yeah strictly better ah common dinosaur. This is what you get for six mana nowadays on a limited card.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Hobbes: That's just incredible. six Three keywords, one of which is ward. It just kind of annoys me. that That particular keyword.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: maybe Spider-Punk's
Taya: Hey, another thing Spider-Punk shuts off.
Hobbes: got point. maybe spiderpruks got a point
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: All right. um so I want to talk about secret secret identity. This is one I think we we got to talk about. from a weird flavor standpoint.
Hobbes: So A, I just think the card is interesting. Again, it's it's a good name. Like, it fits the set. um I always love modal spells, so this is blue for an instant with choose one, ah conceal until the end of next, until end of turn, target creature you control becomes a citizen with base power and toughness 1-1 and gains hexproof or reveal until end of turn, target creature you control becomes a hero with base power, toughness 3-4 and gains flying and vigilance.
Hobbes: So it's an interesting...
Taya: That dinosaur's name was Colossal Dreadmaw, by the way. i don't know why I was blinking on it so hard.
Hobbes: Of course! Oh, yes, Colossal Dreadmaw. Thank you for looking that up. I tried looking it up and I couldn't find it.
Taya: No, I thought that was it, and I just, like oh yeah, that's it. I just, it totally slipped my mind.
Hobbes: Yep. But yeah, so...
Taya: ah Sorry for interrupting you.
Hobbes: No, no, you're good. Thank you for for for filling that in because it was going to bug me what that card was. um But yeah, so Secret Identity, I think A is just interesting mechanically. I think that that is you've you've got it protects your creature by giving them hexproof or it's a combat trick that kind of makes them bigger and better with flying and vigilance potentially.
Hobbes: There's a lot of ah lot of play you can kind of have with this card defensively and offensively. um But i what I really want to talk about is the art.
Taya: Yeah, that's what I figured you bringing this one up for.
Hobbes: Because the the art is by RK Post. And it's I think it's a cool art piece, but I don't know that it's going to click for most people who have not played Magic for a long, long time.
Taya: who
Hobbes: Because RK Post did a card called Unmask. And God, when was that? Tempest? Tempest?
Taya: Yeah, that's really old card.
Hobbes: i a long time ago. Markadian Mask, so not quite as long, but still 99. Yeah,
Taya: Yeah, still ah still in last century.
Hobbes: yeah last, so yeah, Archeapos did the art for a card last century um that was this very same sort of setup with the character centered with this mask sort of on half of the mask on either side of the the character's face um for other events there where the main villain was masquerading as, as one of the, as a friend of the, the main characters at the story at the time.
Hobbes: um Also just as a random aside mask probably would have been a name of a card in this set. If it did fit this set, like that feels super flavorful for a superhero set, but just happened to be for something else.
Taya: Yeah. who
Hobbes: Again, those one word names kind of just get used up and then you're stuck with whatever they got used for, which is why we don't get a lot of them anymore, unless they're weird things like whoosh.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: But yeah, so Secret Identity is ah is a fun, of there's a fun nod back to a piece of Magic's history that has nothing to do with Spider-Man or or this set.
Taya: Yeah, when I saw that art previewed, I immediately, I didn't even have to look down at the artist credit to know that that was RK Post.
Hobbes: yeah Yeah.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: ah and just I just love that. it's That's so cool.
Taya: Unmask is just such a iconic card art from that era.
Hobbes: Oh, my god.
Taya: It was just amazing.
Hobbes: Yes, it it it is. And does he, does RK Post do a lot of art these days? I know he's at a lot of events.
Taya: No, he does he doesn't have a lot of cards recently.
Hobbes: But
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: that's what I was thinking. So it's pretty cool that they they got him to do this.
Taya: yeah
Hobbes: made made sure to have him to this art as a fun little nod to, you know, magic nerds who've been playing the game for the long term.
Taya: ah
Taya: He had, yeah, he had one in Aether Drift, um one for the 2023 North America Legacy Championship, and then some for Commander Master.
Taya: So, yeah, he hasn't done a lot of art recently.
Hobbes: Wow.
Taya: um
Hobbes: Yeah, he used to do a lot more.
Taya: He's done 10 arts in, like, the last five years.
Hobbes: um Okay. Yeah, I mean, and just a quick rifle search.
Taya: I guess it's nine because one of those is a, one of those is an art card. So yeah, nine arts in the last five years.
Hobbes: Okay.
Taya: um
Hobbes: Yeah, that's that's cool that they made sure to get him for that then.
Taya: Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was really cool that he got it.
Taya: All right. Well, I think I've got one more, if I can bring it back up since I had went looked at RK post art all of a sudden. ah And that would be I am lost.
Taya: I am sorry. The Soul Stone.
Hobbes: No, that's fine.
Taya: Yes, obviously. We talked about this again. This was one of the first cards previewed for the set. ah It's a one and a black for an indestructible mana rock that taps for black. So already better than most two mana mana rocks since it's indestructible.
Hobbes: OK. Mm-hmm.
Taya: And then you can also play six and a black and exile creature you control to harness the soul stone, which is ah just kind of a cute, you know, a memory ability. And if you've harnessed it at the beginning of your upkeep returning creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Taya: So you just have to activate that ability once and then it turns on the last ability of the card.
Hobbes: Yep.
Taya: But the main thing I'm bringing up is this is going to be a cycle over however many marble sets they're doing in the future. um
Hobbes: Yep.
Taya: So I'm assuming we get one for each color and then one that probably taps for colorless or, um, or you have to pay an additional cost and get one of any color, depending on how they do the last one.
Hobbes: Mm-hmm.
Taya: Um, But yeah, I just think this is a really powerful card. And um I think it shows based on the the pre-order prices are kind of obscene for this card, but it's like I would play this in every black commander deck.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: um But I'm not paying 70, you know, oh it's even worse now. Lowest price on TCG player right now is $94.00.
Hobbes: ah
Taya: Yeah. ah After a bunch sold earlier today the 70 to 80 range, now the cheapest listing is $94. Nope, just the one.
Hobbes: yeah Yikes.
Hobbes: Yeah, that's but that's a thing. i Honestly, I had seen that preview, did not realize there weren't other stones in this set. of course
Taya: nope
Hobbes: Of course, it's just one.
Taya: just the one
Hobbes: yeah
Taya: It's got some amazing Vulcan Baga art as well.
Hobbes: well.
Taya: ah
Hobbes: It does. That is...
Taya: The alternate arts for this card are also very sweet, but the I really like the the base art for it.
Hobbes: Oh, yeah, you're right. That's probably probably my favorite. The other ones are cool, but I think the base art is probably my favorite.
Taya: Yeah. Yeah.
Taya: Yeah, the the gold textless one is like the chase card for this set. That's the you know the gold Chocobo of the set.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: um That'll be multi-thousand dollars for anyone who opens one. Probably.
Hobbes: Yeah. Okay. Well, to continue from that, I'll i'll get i'll do yourself a thousand.
Taya: Geez, the Thanos one is even $1,000.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: There's no price on the Gold Border one. But yeah, the Thanos one is $1,000 now.
Hobbes: Yeah. yeahs Yeah. So that that gold one probably likes a multi-thousand. That's a lot. But... um
Hobbes: my My last card, I think it like fits well from that. um I want to talk about another comment. This kind of just what, I don't know, what ah what it interests me for these. um ah Taxi Driver.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: i I love this card. It's just one and a red for a three one for a human pilot. It has one and a one and tap target creature gains hasten to lend him turn.
Hobbes: i just and then it's just the art of Spider-Man on the top of a taxi and then the taxi driver yelling out the window. And then the flavor text is I got two speeds buddy fast and off duty.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: I just, I love that. Just again, the mechanics of, you know, what type of person gives another creature haste?
Taya: yeah
Hobbes: Well, a taxi driver certainly does that.
Taya: Yeah. ah Yeah, that's ah that was a pretty that's another card you're only going to get in a set like this.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: So, like I said, Spider-Man isn't my favorite Marvel property. I'm interested to see what Marvel stuff comes out in the future. i would love for some X-Men stuff. I mean, I named my kid Xavier, if that shows how much I like the X-Men.
Taya: ah So, I'm really hoping for some in that. Yeah. that part of the story, but there's there's a lot of potential.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: We've only got one Soul Stone, which means that there are so many more Marvel sets coming in the future.
Hobbes: Mm-hmm.
Taya: ah One of the ah Infinity Stones, we've got five more to go.
Hobbes: Yeah. so And they have announced specifically that they're doing more Marvel sets, right? like
Taya: or four more to go, I guess. There's five on the gauntlet. Yeah, I'm not, okay.
Hobbes: Five?
Taya: um What was that you said?
Hobbes: It's perfect. that's um i They did specifically say they're doing another Marvel set, right?
Taya: Oh, they are doing a theyve they have not announced what the next one is yet, but they have said they are doing a series of Marvel sets.
Hobbes: like Okay, well, there we go.
Taya: That was part of the initial announcement. Yeah.
Hobbes: Likely five then, at least five.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: Okay, yeah, i am I am struggling to remember some of this. as It's cool. I really am really glad for some of this. like the You and I were both really excited about the Final Fantasy sets recently, and we did some fun episodes talking about that.
Taya: Yeah, and I do want to address something related to that.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: There's been a lot of negativity about this set.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: and um And just like to the point of outright, you know a lot of people are just like, oh, I hate it. It's the worst set ever. like First, you've never seen Homelands, if you can even say that.
Hobbes: Yeah.
Taya: But um you know it does look like they cut some corners. And I've heard stories that the this was originally another small set like um assassin's creed and then when they announced that they were all going to be in standard they bumped it up to it's still a small set it's only 180 something cards um which is like 70 cards less than your average set size uh yeah 189 cards not counting basic lands
Hobbes: Mm-hmm.
Taya: um or 88 cards so yeah this is a this is still a small set but you know what what the story is is that it was going to be one of the really small sets like uh assassin's creed was and they kind of uh they had to change everything up once it became a standard set um So there are a lot of cards here that just aren't super interesting or just kind of like reskins of, you know, functional reprint reskins and stuff.
Taya: I get it. I get some of the complaints, but the amount of negativity that people have had for the set and really anybody who even says they like the set, you know, it is kind of getting trashed.
Hobbes: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Taya: it's It's not cool, you know. i I have posted on Blue Sky that I'm very meh about this set. I personally don't really care one way or the other. There's a few cards I'm going to pick up for Commander, but, you know, I don't... ah The set itself is not a big deal to me, but the amount of hate that it's getting and, you know, just let people enjoy things.
Hobbes: Yeah, yeah, exactly. just just Just let people enjoy stuff. And like that's part why we want to talk about it. There's some cool stuff in there, even even if this isn't a big set for you. and ugly we've On the show, we've we've hit universes beyond.
Hobbes: We've kind of just decided that we can't cover all of them because there's things that we really, like the Assassin's Creed set was one that we just wouldn't have had anything to say about.
Taya: Yeah.
Hobbes: And this set, you know, we had less to say about the property itself, but there we knew enough and there were still other things that we could talk about that it felt like we could have a good episode. And this was this was a fun conversation.
Hobbes: um But even for the ones, you know, that we're not covering, like, just let people enjoy stuff. If it's something that they enjoy, and don't know.
Taya: Yeah. It's like, would I have liked SpongeBob cards to be in Magic?
Hobbes: That just frustrates me.
Taya: No. Are there SpongeBob cards? Yes. It's like, does it make the game any worse? No.
Hobbes: yeah
Taya: You know, it makes me feel worse if somebody's SpongeBob counterspells me, but, you know.
Hobbes: yeah
Hobbes: yeah fair but yeah so all right well i think we're gonna end it there um Yeah, well'll see we'll see where we go from here. We'll probably go back to some old sets at some point.
Hobbes: think there's probably a little more Spider-Man conversation. We'll see what Hobbs wants to do because he is much more Spider-Man-y, so we may revisit this in a little bit when um when he decides he wants to ah come back and do some recording again.
Hobbes: um But yeah.
Taya: Yeah, yeah. oh
