MTG’s Spider-Man Survey: Wizards of the Coast Addresses Backlash with a Controversial Catch

The highly anticipated release of Magic: The Gathering’s Universes Beyond: Marvel’s Spider-Man set was met with significant community backlash, centered on issues ranging from mechanical design to a perceived lack of flavorful integration. In what appeared to be a direct response to this widespread criticism, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) released an official player survey to gather feedback on the set—but a specific, highly controversial question has now ignited a new firestorm.

The survey is now being scrutinized for a peculiar line of questioning that has been interpreted by many players and content creators as an attempt by WotC to deflect blame for the set’s poor reception onto the community’s leading voices.

The Catch: A Question About Influencer Impact

The core of the controversy lies in a multi-part question posed to participants who indicated that content creators were a source of their news on the Spider-Man set. The survey then asked:

“To what degree did negative influencer commentary impact your perceptions of Magic: The Gathering | Marvel’s Spider-Man before the set released?”

The available responses ranged from “1 = Greatly worsened my perception” to “5 = Greatly improved my perception.”

This question, coupled with another prompt asking participants to name the streamers and content creators they watch, has been widely criticized as an attempt to create a “negative influencer hit-list.”

• Community Reaction: Leading MTG personalities and professional players, including Hall of Fame inductees, publicly expressed their dismay, calling the question “insane” and a “witch hunt.” Many voiced concerns that the intent was to find a scapegoat and potentially retaliate against creators whose negative, yet honest, reviews may have hurt the set’s sales.
• The Core Backlash: Players felt the set’s issues were inherent—citing lackluster card design, repetitive themes, and poor draft environments—and not merely a result of online negativity. The survey seemed to sidestep accountability for these internal design decisions.

Wizards’ Official Response: An Apology for Semantics

Following the immediate and intense social media fallout, a WotC representative, Blake Rasmussen, publicly addressed the issue. He admitted the question was poorly worded and acknowledged the backlash it caused within the MTG creator community.

In short, WotC admitted the question “sucks,” but denied any malicious intent or any plan to punish content creators. Rasmussen stated that the company was merely attempting to get a “holistic” view of what drove player perception—a necessary metric in an environment where influencer coverage is a major vector for news. He assured the community that the results would not be used to “attack” creators and that the company values honest feedback, both positive and negative.

The Broader Context: Universes Beyond and Creator Relations

This incident highlights the delicate and increasingly high-stakes relationship between Wizards of the Coast and its content creator ecosystem, especially as the Universes Beyond product line (which includes crossovers with IPs like Marvel, Final Fantasy, and Star Trek) becomes a critical pillar of their business. The commercial success of these crossovers is immense, driving massive revenue and interest from external audiences, but they also bring intense scrutiny from the established Magic: The Gathering fanbase.

The controversy is a valuable reminder that in the digital marketing landscape, a brand’s efforts to gather data must be transparent. When a product—especially a high-profile one—receives widespread criticism, attempts to investigate the role of third-party commentary can easily be viewed as a deflection of corporate responsibility, only fueling the very negative discourse the company is trying to understand.