by Johnny Cycles, October 25th, 2025

Hello and welcome to another edition of Dragons in Pioneer! Of all the cards from Magic’s recent set, Marvel’s Spider-Man, one of the few that intrigued me was Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly, otherwise known as Borys, the Spider Rider. A trampling 4/3 for is decent in today’s world, but a trampling 5/4 for ? Now we’re talking! But we can do better than casting this off of an Elvish Mystic on turn 2, right?

What about using the new warp mechanic to cast big threats, then bounce them back to our hand with Scarlet Spider? Sure, this scenario will require us having five mana, but it will also give us the opportunity to recast Nova Hellkite for again.

So these two cards are the core of what I then built the following deck around:

Decklist – Scarlet Spider and Friends

by Johnny Cycles
Format: Pioneer

Creatures (31)

3 Elvish Mystic
3 Llanowar Elves
4 Frenzied Baloth
4 Shivan Devastator
3 Borys, the Spider Rider
3 Screaming Nemesis
3 Tersa Lightshatter
4 Glorybringer
4 Nova Hellkite

Planeswalkers (3)

3 Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner

Spells (4)

4 Torch the Tower

Lands (22)

2 Commercial District
4 Field of Ruin
6 Forest
1 Lair of the Hydra
5 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground

Sideboard (15)

3 Chandra’s Defeat
2 Pick Your Poison
3 Pyroclasm
2 Agatha’s Soul Cauldron
2 Unlicensed Hearse
3 Bloomvine Regent

Deck Tech

Primary Game Plan

Despite building around Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly, our deck is, at its heart, a Gruul Stompy deck filled with hasty threats. It’s these hasty threats that allow us to take advantage of Scarlet Spider’s web-slinging (aka enweb on MTGO) cost without losing too much of our tempo. In the early game, we attack the turn we resolve our hasty threats, pass, untap, attack, then cast Scarlet Spider. In the late game, we do the same thing, only we don’t have to pass the turn in between.

Value Creatures

Other than haste, we play a few creatures that offer us more value than simply attacking the turn they come into play. Tersa Lightshatter gives us some card advantage that we can abuse with Scarlet Spider’s enweb mechanic. Shivan Devastator is a flexible hasty threat with evasion that we can cast early with X = 2 or 3, then bounce it later with Scarlet Spider in order to recast it as a much larger threat.

And, of course, Nova Hellkite. Returning this to our hand after casting it for its warp cost is the dream. However, it’s also fine if we pay full value for it, then return it to our hand at a later point, then cast it for its warp cost again. Finally, Glorybringer gives us a great target for enweb if we’ve exerted it and don’t want to wait a whole turn to untap it.

Sideboard

Nothing too crazy here. We have some spot removal and sweepers for aggressive decks; some graveyard hate; and a catch-all in Pick Your Poison. The main spice is Bloomvine Regent, which we hope can help us against Mono Red by gaining us some life. Its flexibility in ramping us is nice, while we can bounce it with Scarlet Spider to recast for an additional 3 life if we aren’t finding any other Dragons.

And that’s the first draft of the deck! The free zone in Pioneer is a ghost town, so we’re going to jump right into a league. I fully expect that I’ll want to make a few changes, as I usually quickly find some oversights on my part. We don’t get the luxury of practice matches, but it is what it is.

Match 1 vs. U/W Control

Match 2 vs. Mono Red

Match 3 vs. U/W Control, the Second

Note: we played two more matches, both against Reanimator. Unfortunately, the sound wasn’t working, despite having double checked that it was. We split those matches.

Overall Record: 1-4

These were some pretty brutal matches. Our deck never really did what we wanted it to do. This was equal parts because of our opponent’s disruption and because of mana screw/flood. We found ourselves mulliganing again and again thanks to no lands, one land, or a whole bunch of Field of Ruins. There were several games where we couldn’t get past three lands. Then there were games where we drew half of our lands.

Most of this is simple variance, but I do think there are some changes we can make to help avoid some of these issues.

As to the nonland cards… Well, we weren’t able to see the deck come together the way I’d envisioned, but I saw enough to know that first, the strategy is fine. And second, we can still improve our chances with a few changes. What are those?

Here’s the revised decklist:

Decklist – Scarlet Spider and Friends 2.0

by Johnny Cycles
Format: Pioneer

Creatures (34)

3 Elvish Mystic
3 Llanowar Elves
4 Frenzied Baloth
3 Questing Druid
3 Shivan Devastator
3 Borys, the Spider Rider
4 Screaming Nemesis
3 Tersa Lightshatter
4 Nova Hellkite
4 Stormbreath Dragon

Spells (4)

4 Torch the Tower

Lands (22)

2 Cavern of Souls
2 Commercial District
2 Field of Ruin
5 Forest
1 Lair of the Hydra
2 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
4 Thornspire Verge

Sideboard (15)

3 Chandra’s Defeat
2 Snakeskin Veil
3 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Bloomvine Regent

We’ve made two big changes in our non-land cards. First, we swapped in Questing Druid for Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner. Kiora is one of my all-time favorite Planeswalkers, but she felt a little slow in this deck. With so many cheap, hasty threats, we’re more interested in sticking one of those than setting up for a big turn 3 or 4.

Seek the Beast gives us card advantage at instant speed for 1 mana less, while we also get an additional target for Scarlet Spider. And while the scenario of attacking with Questing Druid, having it live, then returning it to our hand to gain extra value from it is probably unlikely to happen often, we’re happy with playing it fairly, to be honest. Our deck really needs more ways to NOT live off the top of the deck. Seek the Beast is good for this both early and late, while it can force a counter spell out of our opponent on their turn, clearing the way for us to stick one of our threats.

Second, we put in Stormbreath Dragon in place of Glorybringer. This pains me greatly, but with all the Control we played, having protection from White is too good to pass up. I have a feeling, however, that I’ll be taking out Shivan Devastator for Glorybringer soon.

In the mana base, we added Thornspire Verge and Cavern of Souls.

In the sideboard more big changes happened. Instead of the slower graveyard hate, I’ve brought in Leyline of the Void. A bit awkward when drawn, we really need a more effective way to shut down the graveyard decks, so it’s a necessary evil.

Having a card we don’t want to draw led me to make room for Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. We also get more card advantage and a must-answer threat to fight against Control.

Snakeskin Veil comes in over Pick Your Poison as a way to protect against spot removal. Spoiler alert! Having made this change, we’ve since played Rakdos Midrange twice, which is THE match-up I had in mind when including Pick Your Poison. Sigh.

Will our changes lead us to more victories? Let’s find out!

Match 1 vs. Rakdos Midrange

Match 2 vs. Reanimator

Match 3 vs. Dimir Control

Overall Record: 2-1

I’m definitely happy with our changes…minus taking out Pick Your Poison. However, this is all part of testing. We have to play the games in order to find out what needs tweaking or balancing. Questing Druid did what it’s supposed to, while we didn’t see the advantage of Stormbreath Dragon over Glorybringer. I do think making room for Glorybringer by cutting Shivan Devastator is the right call.

Conclusion

That’s all for Scarlet Spider and Friends for now! I hope you enjoyed the game play. What do you think the best shell is for Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly? What hasty threats or creatures with ETBs have I overlooked? Let me know in the comments! Thanks for reading and watching!