Aunt May – Marvel’s Spiderman
Date Reviewed: September 15, 2025
Ratings:
Constructed: 3.40
Casual: 4.25
Limited: 3.92
Multiplayer: 3.37
Commander [EDH]: 3.50
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
One of the things that makes Spider-Man an interesting character is that he is basically the inverse of the angsty loner archetype that it’s tempting to associate with superheroes. One of his defining characteristics is his connectedness – to his family like Aunt May, to his girlfriend MJ, to his super-allies like the spider-variants and the Avengers, to his villains in sometimes surprising ways, and to his community in the unique and dynamic New York City. It makes him feel like a real person, even more than well-written fictional characters usually do. And it helps fill out a Magic set based on him, though I consider that almost a secondary bonus!
Aunt May’s game text will be familiar to many longtime players – if you’ve been playing for long enough, you’ll have played against a deck that leverages the seemingly minor bonuses from cards like Soul Warden. They can be more threatening than you might guess, though they are prone to problems when they draw only one of the enabler (the Soul Warden variant) or the payoff (Ajani’s Pridemate or such). It’s thus useful to have more variants or more things that can fill one role or the other, though you always have to be careful about overloading. In Aunt May’s specific case, she obviously does even more as a support card in a Spider-Man set, with lots of Spiders in various colors, but you might find that you get an incidental +1/+1 counter here and there even beyond that, and it may make a difference when you need it. She’s a seemingly simple card that supports whatever your deck needs to do, and is unlikely to be the most powerful card in your deck but will sometimes be one of the most important. Which is exactly what you’d expect of a card based on Aunt May; I really hope Wizards of the Coast did that on purpose!
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 4 (the Soul Sisters application is one thing, but did you ever actually look up how many Spider kindred effects there really are (or are not)?)
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 3.5
The angsty loner superhero is kind of a stereotype, based on a couple of famous examples that stuck in people’s minds – Batman as portrayed in the Tim Burton movies, Marvel’s Punisher, Rorschach from Watchmen. If you consider the broader sweep of the superhero genre, you’ll find that one of its quiet lessons is that everyone needs connection and that a lot of things require a team, which I think are much more relevant lessons for our real lives.
If nothing else, Spider-Man’s beloved Aunt May is a legendary “Soul Sister”, a reference to the popular archetype of one-mana creatures that gain you life when creatures enter. That, alone, is reason enough for her to draw some interest from people who love that particular deck, and she even has two other things going for her: one more toughness than the standard for the archetype, and a buff to any Spiders that come in. That’s actually a surprisingly nice boon for just sitting on board, but I should mention that there are five mono-white Spiders, all of whom are Spider-Man variants (though Changelings are also fair game).
The counter-stacking does seem like more of a flavor bonus that can occasionally pay dividends, but Aunt May honestly will have a pretty solid place in that sort of passive life gain deck. She’s able to do the job both in Commander (where she can make for a passable, if not fairly underwhelming, commander), and costing 1 mana is perfect for all of the support white has for both cheap and legendary creatures. She won’t dominate formats, and she is limited, but when it comes to what she does, she does it quite well.
Constructed: 3 (Soul Sisters may be a fan-favorite deck, but it’s just not very good, and Aunt May won’t change that)
Casual: 4.75
Limited: 3.75 (with all of the spiders running around, she can help thumb the scales)
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 3.5 (not for every deck, but there are decks where her talents can really shine)
Thijs
This week we’re spending time celebrating all the powerful women in Magic. As we all know, there are tons of great women in our lives and in our game, and here’s to them.
Aunt May is the first to enter and I love this card. It’s small, it’s an uncommon, but it’s also really powerful at the same time. In weenie decks you’re constantly pumping out creatures, whether it be hard casts or tokens, and Auntie May will make sure you get some life out of it. Are you playing Spiders? No problemo, Auntie May will give you some counters as well. Basically, this card is saying: do you need some help? I got you. And that’s exactly who Aunt May is. She is a safe haven, where you can recharge and regroup, before you have to go out and fight evil again (in this case, the evil is your friend at the other side of the table).
I think our favorite fictional aunt will definitely make an impact, even if it is small and out of the limelight. Because that’s where she really shines.
Constructed: 3,7 (good for weenies!
Casual: 4
Limited: 4 (turn 1 Aunt May, good choice)
Multiplayer: 3,5
Commander [EDH]: 3,5
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