Sink your teeth into one of Spider-Man’s toughest villains.
There are a great many new Commander options in Magic: The Gathering | Marvel’s Spider-Man — while a lot of those are multiple colors, this set also brings us some of the most interesting mono-colored options we’ve had in a while. Black seems to have benefited from this side of things the most, and Morlun, Devourer of Spiders is just another great example of this sentiment.
In this Commander Bestiary, we’re going to cover everything you need to know about Morlun, Devourer of Spiders. We’re first going to dive a little into the lore of the character before diving into the best cards to play alongside him in Commander, and this always gets a little wild for the Spider-Man cards, so let’s sink our teeth into this powerful Commander.
Who is Morlun, Devourer of Spiders in Magic: The Gathering?
Morlun, Devourer of Spiders
Marvel’s Spider-Man, Rare
Morlun is a supervillain who serves as one of the most powerful Spider-Man villains, as he can cross universes to find all of them. He’s a powerful vampire who has set out to find and kill all of the Spider-Totems (Spider-Men) across the various universes with his estranged family, because he prophesied it. He’s a remarkably powerful villain, and one who gets brought back to life a lot, because why not?
Morlun, Devourer of Spiders’ Strengths
Morlun, Devourer of Spiders comes with a scalable mana cost and comes with lifelink. He enters with X +1/+1 counters and then deals X damage to an opponent when he enters. This is where this card begins to show off, as the lifelink means you actually gain that life when the damage is dealt by Morlun as well, which can be a very large life-point swing when it comes to the balance in any given Commander game.
After all of that, you’re left with a large lifelink creature in mono-black, which is undoubtedly one of the best colors to be in, and if it dies, you just get to re-cast the card and deal even more damage. This is a Commander that players have to figure out if they want to kill it and potentially suffer when it gets recast, or just deal with it being a big, life-linking body.
Morlun, Devourer of Spiders’ Weaknesses
The biggest weakness of Morlun is that the enter-the-battlefield trigger that needs to resolve to deal damage, which means it can be prevented pretty comfortably with both counter magic and anything that nullifies enter-the-battlefield triggers (such as Torpor Orb). Other than that, it also has no built-in protection — but Morlun can enter play with huge stats, so damage is often not going to be enough to actually answer him when he hits the battlefield.
The Best MTG Commander Archetypes for Morlun, Devourer of Spiders
The best archetype for Morlun, Devourer of Spiders is committing to generating a lot of mana and using that mana to cast Morlun with a massive X mana value. That means plenty of ramp spells, a good way to re-cast Morlun consistently, and then you want to rinse and repeat as often as you like. While the lack of green for the ramp element for this archetype could hurt, the reality is we’ve got a lot of great options these days in every color. Morlun is also a Vampire, meaning you could build him as a mono-color Kindred Vampire strategy if you want to play something that leverages in you using cards with the same creature type.
The Best MTG Cards You Should Play With Morlun, Devourer of Spiders
If you want to build your own Morlun Commander deck and want a decent starting point, then we recommend going with these cards:
- Nirkana Revenant
- Bubbling Muck
- Solemn Simulacrum
- Magus of the Coffers
- Enduring Tenacity
- Lithoform Engine
- Erratic Portal
How to Play Morlun, Devourer of Spiders in Commander
The aim here is to just cast Morlun plenty of times throughout a game and then close things out from there. In the deck list below, we’ll have a couple of ways to make him unblockable so you can win with Commander damage, but the primary strategy is generating a lot of mana and making the most of the triggers he offers. To that end, Nirkana Revenant is one of the few ways to generate an additional black mana whenever you tap a Swamp, and Bubbling Muck is a one-mana sorcery that does the same thing, but only does this for a turn.
Then there’s Solemn Simulacrum, letting you grab a Basic Land from your library and put it onto the battlefield tapped when it enters play, and can draw you a card whenever the Simulacrum dies. It isn’t fancy, but it’ll help you ramp and cast a bigger Morlun, Devourer of Spiders as the game progresses. Magus of the Coffers is the creature version of Cabal Coffers — letting you pay two mana and tap it to gain a black mana for each Swamp you control, which should be plenty with the amount of Swamps you’ll be playing.
Lithoform Engine
Zendikar Rising, Mythic
Finally, Erratic Portal lets you pay one mana and tap it to return a creature to its owner’s hand unless they pay one mana. You can just target Morlun, Devourer of Spiders with this and not pay the extra mana, and you can recast it as often as you’d like without paying any extra Commander tax. With all of this, you’re ready to drain the life from your friends and foes at the table.