The new MTG Spider-Man set contains some unusual cards, from Imposter Syndrome, a delightful reference to the Spider-Man Pointing meme, to the absurdly powerful Spider-Punk. Maybe the strangest card we've seen so far, though, is Morbius the Living Vampire: a vampiric villain revealed this week in a set otherwise swarming with arachnids.
Morbius is a Spider-Man villain who's been vamping around since the seventies, but this bloodsucking bad guy is most famous (or perhaps infamous), for being the eponymous star of the 2022 Morbius movie. The film was received poorly by critics, but quickly became beloved online. Previewed by Wizards of the Coast on Thursday, he's now (irrevocably) a real life card in the MTG Spiderman set, too.
So how does old Morbs perform as a Legendary Creature? Is he fit for our list of the best MTG commanders? Well, maybe - but it's complicated. For four mana, Morbius the Living Vampire comes with a powerful collection of keywords: flying, vigilance, and lifelink. His 3/1 statline, however, is less than impressive; a toughness of one renders him incredibly vulnerable.
The card has the ability to exile itself from the graveyard in order to filter through the top three cards of its controller's deck and put one of them into their hand. This synergizes with the intended blue/black strategy for MTG Spiderman limited, which is built around discarding cards to take advantage of the 'connive' mechanic. By discarding Morbius using a connive card, you can get him into the graveyard easily, enabling his ability.
That said, if you're looking to make Morbius your commander and joyfully inform opponents when it's Morbin' time, you're going to find capitalizing on Morbius's exile effect difficult without the right support. While Morbius will be able to return to the Command Zone, rather than going into exile, repeatedly casting him will quickly become expensive.
Still, Morbius's strong suite of keywords gives him the potential to work as a Voltron commander. With the right combination of auras and equipment, Moribus could at the very least perform far better at the tabletop than he did at the box office.
If you have Opinions about Morbius (as a card, as a villain, or as a movie meme), morb right on into the Wargamer Discord and join the discussion! We'd love to see your experimental Morbin' decklists.
And, to catch up on everything else going on in Magic, check out our regularly updated guides to the full MTG release schedule, and the full list of all MTG sets ever released.