Shelob, Child of Ungoliant, has stirred. The legendary spider demigod - who famously tried to snack on Sam and Frodo as they snuck into Mordor via the back door in the middle of The Lord of the Rings - received her very own Magic: The Gathering card in 2023. In the last month, the secondary market price for copies of Shelob has spiked by 270%. The likely cause? Spider-Man, of course.
Shelob, Child of Ungoliant is one of those cards you see in every MTG set and immediately think "yep, that was made for Commander". Costing four generic, one black, and one green mana, she's an 8/8 spider demon creature with deathtouch and ward 2, who gives same two keywords to all your other spiders. Whenever a creature that was dealt damage by one of your spiders dies, you get to create a copy of that creature that's a food artifact with no other types.
Like I say, made for commander. In fact, Shelob is the #1 spider typal commander, with 4047 Shelob, Child of Ungoliant decks registered on EDHREC. Even so, copies of Shelob were selling for a dollar or less until the start of September, according to MTG Goldfish. Since then she's started to spike, reaching $3.70 on September 23.
No doubt a few people are sleeving up Shelob decks for the first time, as the imminent MTG Spiderman set is providing her with plenty of reinforcements. 'Spider-Ham, Peter Porker' is a spider lord; 'Spiders-Man, Heroic Horde' can give you three arachnid bodies for one card; 'Spider-Man, Miles Morales', provides an overrun effect while gaining the benefit of Shelob's spider synergy.
But Cosmic Spider-Man, the Spider-Man set's five color commander, is the most likely cause for Shelob's rise. Shelob has always been a great inclusion in the 99 for decks that care about spiders and which can run here - there just haven't been many of them before now. According to EDHREC there are already 1751 Cosmic Spider-Man decks pre-emptively registered on the site. He's another lord-like commander, granting five keywords to all your other spiders.
With both Cosmic Spider-Man and Shelob, Child of Ungoliant play, every spider on their side of the board has flying, first-strike, trample, lifelink, haste, deathtouch, and ward 2. An arachnophobe's nightmare, and a heck of a lot of MTG keywords - hope you brought a board wipe.
Are you an avid spider typal deck builder, or an arachnophobe who plans to hide until Spider-Man rotates out of standard? Why not come and chat with us in the Wargamer Discord community.
Wargamer keeps an up to date guide of the upcoming MTG release schedule to help you keep track of sets. There's been very little price movement as a result of Spider-Man so far - the last price spike we reported on was the result of Reanimator strategies dominating Legacy.