Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer – Marvel’s Spiderman
Date Reviewed: October 8, 2025
Ratings:
Constructed: 3.57
Casual: 4.25
Limited: 3.50
Multiplayer: 3.83
Commander [EDH]: 3.83
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Anti-Venom is an interesting card to assess. He’s a straight-up unrestricted reanimation spell in mono-white, which you don’t see too often, but he puts a lot of emphasis on mono-white. You’ll have some trouble manipulating your graveyard in the first place if he’s your reanimation plan. Yet if you’re going to start reanimating him and ignoring the cast trigger, you start to wonder if it wouldn’t be worth just reaching for a more conventional target (hi, Elesh Norn). But on the third hand, both of his abilities are very powerful and ask to be built around, so it would not surprise me at all to find that he does in fact have a deck somewhere. If there’s a mono-white aggro deck that doesn’t mind giving up creature lands and the like, he could be a curve-topper that returns your most annoying cheaper creature in the process. After all, there are now things like Ranger-Captain of Eos for even more value and card advantage (I never though I’d say that in mono-white aggro!).
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 4
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
Quintuple white is quite the casting cost, isn’t it? For such a color-heavy cost, you hope you’d get something worthwhile…and Anti-Venom is, kinda?
Don’t get me wrong, Anti-Venom is not easy to cast, and you have a very valid reason to consider casting it for that reanimation trigger. It’s not the alpha and omega of the card, but five mana for a souped-up Dawn Elemental and the best creature from your graveyard is quite a steal. Still, though, Dawn Elemental was a bit of a force during its time in the spotlight (as was Phyrexian Vindicator years later), and while Anti-Venom lacks flying, it dissuades blockers by getting bigger.
Anti-Venom is going to be interesting; lacking any combat keywords does make it harder to use as a blunt weapon to end games, but it can make it very hard for red decks to get things going against you, and the reanimation can come in clutch. I do think the preference will be to cheat this out; Anti-Venom is mired in one of the worst colors for mana acceleration, so this will likely be a late-game play if anything for its proper casting. Still, it can do a lot, and blanking red in most board states might give this impressive upside.
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 4.75
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 3.75
Thijs
In recent years we’ve seen a lot of firsts when it comes to mana pips. Anti-Venom is the first card ever that costs 5 white, and now we’re here to see if it’s worthwhile.
So right off the bat: I think it is. Upon entering, Anti-Venom immediately reanimates any creature you want from the graveyard. That opens up a whole range of possibilities. It’s especially interesting because this is a white card; white doesn’t reanimate a lot.
What you’re left with on the battlefield is a 5/5 with quite the growing ability. Any damage dealt to this creature leads to not only that damage being prevented, but also making +1/+1 counters from said damage. Before you know it, you’re in control of a 20/20 beast! The downside is that there’s no extra abilities, so no trample or menace. It is, however, something to be dealt with, and that makes Anti-Venom interesting in any deck that plays a little bit of white.
Constructed: 3,7
Casual: 4
Limited: 3 (i’m afraid five white is a bit undoable in Limited settings…)
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 3,7
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