What to do with Tarantula

Anton Miguel Rodriguez has been both on-and-off Spider-Man villain and edgy hero alongside Daredevil. Will the new Snap card be a hero or a villain? Watch out, the latest Series 5 card in Snap is one that may look small, but can quickly snowball out of control! Here's everything I want to try with Tarantula!

Tarantula Math

For a 2-Cost card, Tarantula does have the potential scaling to make an impact. I'd say if you get three instances of this ability you are more than happy with his contribution as an effective 2/11. However, there are some tricky aspects to this card. First, you have to dodge Shadow King on your face-up Tarantula. You also have to actually play out the cards in your hand with extra Power. And of course, you have to fulfill the condition of having the highest Power card in play...

Powerful Friends

Tarantula has low Power himself, so he's going to have to rely on friends to maintain your highest-Power card lead. Here are some high-tempo cards that can help you get 3-4 instances of Tarantula's ability in a game.

Because we want to play Tarantula out on Turn 2, we're most interested in high tempo 1-drops that we can follow up with even higher-Power 3-drops, but of course there will be games when we need to play him on Turn 3 or 4.

Synergistic Partners and Targets

Of course, we don't just need to win the highest-Power card battle, we need to do something with that Power. Here are some cards that have solid shared synergy with Tarantula or make ideal targets.

Scosco’s Day one Tarantula Decks

Tarantula Virus

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Tarantula Sugi

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The most logical landing spot for Tarantula is these high-tempo Fisk decks, with or without Virus.

ZG Tarantula

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Tarantula can help us waste no Power buffs since they'll be passed on to Galacti via Maverick and Stick eventually.

End of Turn before End of Game

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This is an End of Turn deck that isn't trying to leverage Invisible Woman for a ridiculous Turn 6, but instead wants to use her earlier in the game to charge up our hand with Tarantula, get a lead with Banner, or crush something with the Thing in anticipation of a game-sealing Red Hulk.

Is He Worth It?

He's a card that can enhance existing archetypes, but there is definite flop potential with any card that is basically dead when you draw it late. Still, other draw-dependent cards like Moondragon have seen success recently and the decks he fits into aren't entirely dependent on him and are able to win games when they don't draw him as well. In isolation, Tarantula isn't the strongest card of the season, but contextually he fits into solid decks and the main question is if he's good enough to warrant a spot among these lists of 12 cards or if he's the 13th or 14th card out. Personally, I believe his extra Power is good enough that he'll sneak into some powerful meta-relevant lists, but I wouldn't call him a 'must buy.'

Below the paywall, supporters will find just a couple more Tarantula concepts as a little treat!