Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly!

Scarlet Spider is a three mana 4/3 with Web-slinging, which let’s you cast him for two mana if you also return a tapped creature you control to it’s owner’s hand, trample, and if Scarlet Spider was cast using Web-slinging then he enters with X +1/+1 counters where X is the mana value of the returned creature.

For all the issues that the Spider-Man Clone Saga had (they are extensive), Ben Reilly’s inclusion and development had a massive impact and has made the character a fan favorite among many Spider-Man fans. This version of Scarlet Spider is interesting because it requires us to have high mana value creatures that are tapped to give Scarlet Spider a ton of counters.

The plan is to get some big creatures into play as efficiently as possible (i.e. cheating them out), find ways to efficiently tap them so we can give Scarlet Spider as many counters we possibly can.

The first thing we need are ways we can get big creatures out onto the battlefield as quick as possible.

Sneak Attack is the ideal card we’re looking for since for a red mana we can put a creature card from our hand onto the battlefield, giving it haste to boot, with the “downside” that we have to sacrifice the creature at the beginning of the next end step, which won’t happen since we attack with it to tap it, the cast Scarlet Spider.

While it is a bit slower, Elvish Piper also works great in this regard because we can pay a green and tap it in order put a creature from our hand onto the battlefield, without a sacrifice clause attached to it but at the risk of being destroyed since creature removal is much more prevalent.

Kona, Rescue Beastie has a Survival ability in which if it is tapped at the beginning of our second main phase then we can put a permanent card from our hand onto the battlefield, which is pretty flexible in letting us not only get creatures onto the battlefield, but also things like the previously mentioned Sneak Attack or Rhythm of the Wild, which makes our creature spells uncounterable and gives nontoken creature we control Riot, which either add a +1/+1 counter or gives it haste.

If you don’t mind playing a Game Changer, there is also Natural Order, which as an additional cost to cast we need to sacrifice a green creature, and that let’s us search our library for a green creature and put it onto the battlefield, shuffling our library afterwards.

The next thing we need are ways to tap our things, and while attacking would be the easiest way to do so, we should have a few other ways just in case.

Sledge-Class Seedship takes advantage of the Station mechanic letting us tap creatures even if they had just entered the battlefield and have summoning sickness to give it charge counters. What’s more, when the Seedship has seven or more charge counters, whenever it attacks we can put a creature from our hand onto the battlefield, which again helps us in the long run.

If we want an early way to Station something, Exploration Broodship is a one mana Spacecraft that at three charge counters let’s us play an additional land on each of our turns and at eight charge counters let’s us cast a permanent spell from our graveyard by sacrificing a land in addition to paying its other cost once on each of our turns, which is a solid ramp and recursion piece in one.

Of course we can also take advantage of Vehicles, one that I would recommmend being Bessie, the Doctor’s Roadster, which whenever it attacks another target legendary creature we control can’t be blocked, which helps us get damage through with Scarlet Spider.

Convoke is a great way to also tap our creatures to help pay the mana cost of the spell, with something like Sprouting Renewal which either let’s us make a 2/2 Elf Knight creature token with vigilance or lets us destroy an artifact or enchantment.

Harmonize let’s us utilize the power of creatures to help cast the card from the graveyard by tapping the creature and applying that creature’s power to discount the Harmonize cost, with Zenith Festival being one of the better Harmonize cards for us to use because it let’s us exile the top X cards of our library and let’s us play them until the end of our next turn, and it’s great because the Harmonize cost is the same as the regular cost, with us getting much more value from paying the Harmonize cost with a massive creature to pay X.

The last thing we need are the creatures that we are returning to our hand, which means big mana values, with a way to provide value from an enters ability or some other utility.

Lumbering Megasloth is a twelve mana creature that costs one mana less for each counter among players and permanents, which in Commander can make this cost two mana fairly quickly, and while it doesn’t have an enters the battlefield ability, it does enter the battlefield tapped, meaning we can get Scarlet Spider out quickly with an additional twelve +1/+1 counters.

Kogla and Yidaro, while only being six mana, does enter either with trample and haste or fights a creature we don’t control, while also having an ability to let us discard it from our hand in order to destroy one artifact or enchantment and then shuffle Kogla and Yidaro into our library from our graveyard then draw a card.

Terastodon destroys three noncreature permanents and replaces them with a 3/3 Elephant token and is eight mana, Trumpeting Carnosaur to Discover 5 when it enters while also letting us discard it to deal 3 damage to a creature or Planeswalker at six mana, and Pyrewood Gearhulk which when it enters it gives other creatures we control +2/+2 and gain vigilance and menace while also making it so that damage can’t be prevented at six mana as well.

We can also help give more counters to Scarlet Spider while making it able to attack immediately by using The Earth Crystal and The Fire Crystal, each of which makes green spells and red spells we cast cost one less to cast respectively, with The Earth Crystal doubling the number of +1/+1 counters a creature we control would get while The Fire Crystal gives creatures we control haste.

In addition we can use other counter doublers like Branching Evolution or Loading Zone and combine that with a card like Warstorm Surge which has it so when a creature enters the battlefield under our control, it deals damage equal to its power to any other target to get Scarlet Spider massive and then have it deal damage to an opponent to take them out of the game and then swing with Scarlet Spider to win.

Scarlet Spider is a not a Commander type I talk about often in that he is the win condition of the deck, in that we build the deck up in order to have Scarlet Spider come in and deal a massive amount of damage when he enters and put ourselves in a dominant position to potentially win on the spot.

The trouble that this deck can have is that it requires a ton of set up, and while we do have a decent amount of redundancies, we will be in a vulnerable position for a bit. If an opponent is faster at setting things up then we can potentially lose if we can’t match pace.

If we are able to set up relatively undeterred, then Scarlet Spider can come in and do a surprise sweep to win us the game.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual