The RPG Duelling League
Social Forums => Discussion => Topic started by: Tide on August 23, 2023, 04:28:21 PM
-
I like talking about things that interest me (don't we all?). I've been meaning to write down my thoughts regarding the game for a long time now but wasn't sure where to go with it. Certainly didn't want to hijack MC's thread again. Since the only other space I use that could talk about it is reddit, I'm creating a thread here. I've been playing for a good 10 months now. Game is good, you should try it, etc. I'd go into a bit more details but the point of this thread isn't to advertise the game. Instead, I want to talk about cards, types of plays, analyze/document games that I've had and so on. And hey, if you get into Snap or are already playing it, feel free to use this thread to.
SNAP'S GAMEPLAY -
So before I start into any real card/play analysis, I think it's important to talk about how Snap plays since that will then open up certain concepts without them just appearing with no context. Marvel Snap is in some ways, quite rigid. In every game, there are 3 lanes. Each lane has an effect (a famous Marvel location) and 4 playable spots. Normally, each player has a deck comprised of exactly 12 cards and each game goes on for 6 rounds. Every round, you gain +1 Energy which is basically your Mana/Casting ability and can play cards up to whatever max Energy you have. The goal is to win 2 of the 3 lanes by the end of round 6. To win a lane, you simply have to have more Power in that spot than your opponent. It is important to note that cards will flip over based on PRIORITY (more on this later) and that location effects happen AFTER card effects themselves. These little nuisances give Snap some complexity and the constantly changing lane locations and deck types are what keeps the game fresh.
SNAP CARDS -
Every card has a casting cost (Energy) and a Power value. These two numbers combine together to give it its stat-line. Most cards will also have an ability effect, which can interact with itself, other cards, the play board, and so on. These effects are divided into three major categories:
- On Reveal: The effect happens immediately as soon as the card is flipped
- Ongoing: The effect stays in play as long the card isn't disabled in some way
- Passive: This card has this effect and cannot be interacted with except in rare circumstances.
Abilities then also have sub-categories, which then put them into their own archetype. For example, certain cards when played will Discard a card from your hand. Other cards when played will Destroy a card on the board, etc. An archetype is usually the basis for how a deck is built. Most decks will have a core crux of cards that make up the game plan or primary condition and other cards will be in there to either give a sub-archetype or just function as support.
As of today, here are all the major archetypes that I am aware of:
- Lockjaw Lotto - A deck that specializes in playing cards from the deck instead of in hand.
- Zoo - A deck that focuses on going wide by flooding space with low-cost cards (typically 1 cost) and then buffing them in late rounds.
- Spectrum Destroyer - An deck that primarily uses Ongoing cards, then buffs them with Spectrum if wide, or plays Destroyer if going tall.
- Apoc Discard - Focuses on Discarding the namesake card (Apocalypse) and uses Dracula/Morbius as Anchors.
- Hela Discard - Focuses on Discarding many cards in hand, then plays them all at the end of the game with Hela
- Dino Handsize - Focuses on holding as many cards as possible in hand to buff up the titular card, Devil Dinosaur
- Ronan - Focuses on denying an opponent the ability to play their cards from hand to increase their hand size and thus buffing Ronan the Accuser.
- Darkhawk - Focuses on increasing your opponent's deck, to buff the titular card, Darkhawk
- Movement - Shuffles cards in your lane area after play. Normally, this is prohibited
- Shenault - Named after two key cards: She-Hulk and Infinaut. This deck focuses and utilizes float to create explosive Turn 6-7s
- Generic Destroy - A deck that focuses on destroying cards played to get bigger and bigger values
- Nimrod Destroy - Focuses on buffing the titular card (Nimrod), which you then dupe by destroying it
- Shuri - Uses the titular card to create a giant powered card, which you then clone afterwards.
- Wong Combo - Uses the titular card to basically combo one or two On Reveal effects by having them activate multiple times.
- Negative - Uses Mr. Negative to invert the cost and power values of cards remaining in the deck
- Negative Jane - Same as above, but runs Jane Foster to then fetch all 0-cost cards remaining in deck.
- Control - Reactive deck that focuses on countering your opponent's plays
- Lane Control / Lockdown - Similar to above, but does so by shutting lanes down (effects both players).
- Bounce - A deck that pumps up its cards by replaying them over and over from hand.
- Ramp - A deck that aims to play cards of higher cost earlier then they are intended
- Junk - Similar to lane control but instead of completing shutting a lane down, you slowly deny an opponent play space in their lanes.
- Patriot - A deck that buffs up cards played that are ability-less
- Cerebro - A deck that buffs up cards with all the same power value
- Surfer - A deck that is focused primarily on 3 cost cards
- Agatha - Named after its titular card. Lets the AI play the game for you.
- High Evo (HE) - Named after its titular card. Alters the way certain abilityless cards function
- Thanos - Named after its titular card. Adds 6 Infinity Stone cards into your deck.
- Galactus - Named after its titular card. This card focuses on building tall in one lane and one lane only.
SNAP CONCEPTS AND TERMS -
Some of this should be common terminology in other card games. Others are specific to Snap:
Float - Unused Energy at the end of any turn
Mill - To get rid of an opponent's card, either in hand or deck. Note that Mill isn't particularly strong in Snap right now because of the limited number of ways to do so.
Tech - A card that is used primarily to counter another card or type of card
Anchor/Establisher - A card that is meant to win a lane for you when played.
Enabler - A card whose main purpose is to create plays that are otherwise impossible or to expand a given play window.
Support - A card whose primary worth is its synergy with another card, aimed to aid with the primary win con in the deck.
Curve - Describes your general lines of play and play combinations for a given turn, given the cards available in deck. Cards that cut cost alter your standard curve since it effectively gives you more energy to spend.
Tempo - To play cards close to the "par" stat-line for a given turn in a game. So if you play something smaller, you'll be playing under Tempo. Generally speaking, playing under Tempo is bad because you are effectively being energy inefficient and will lose if you just then play cards that match up to what par should be.
Token - Cards that spawn or create other cards (usually abilityless) when played. These cards can be interacted with.
Play Window - Describes which particular turn is the most effective to play a card. Not all Play Windows are equal. Specifically Turns 3 and 4 are usually the most important. Turns 1 and 5 are usually the least important.
Real Estate Agent - A card that alters a lane's location effect
Series - Describes when in the game the card is introduced. Marvel Snap's cards are not all introduced at once. To prevent a newbie from being trounced by a veteran player, players are slowly introduced to more and more cards through different release Series. So Series 1 describes a card available from the get-go. Series 5 describes an "Ultra-Rare" card, usually those released just recently.
Snap - The game's namesake mechanic. Every game, you "bet" cubes. If you win, you get double your ante. Lose and you lose double your ante. Snapping is to raise essentially. You can only do this once, but it doubles your base Ante of 1 to 2 and hence winnings from 2 to 4. If both players snap, the you can win up to 8 cubes in a single game.
Cube-Equity - The number of cubes the deck wins compared to it's losses. A deck with good cube equity means it will regularly gain you cubes. Note that gaining cubes isn't the same as winning. Due to Snaps, you can have some games where you win way more cubes then you lose.
Retreat - Forfeit, Conceding, Surrendering a game. You lose cubes equal to your ante basically.
Priority - Determines who reveals their cards first. This is particular important because cards that are unflipped are not considered to be "In Play". Since On Reveal effects happen only once, if you have a particular effect that you absolutely need to hit, you need to make sure you have the right priority, otherwise your play basically whiffs. A good example of this is with Shang Chi. Shang is normally used to counter cards over 9 power since he destroys them. However, his effect only happens when revealed and then is considered to have expired. So if you reveal SECOND in this case, Shang will miss your 9+ power card completely. Priority is determined by who is currently winning the game, so it can be manipulated every round. Experienced players are aware of this and will fight to win OR lose priority depending on the deck.
Reach - Describes a card being able to access lanes that have otherwise been restricted or locked, which would normally prevent further play
Restricted Location - A location that forbids you from being able to directly play cards into it. Sometimes, these are very obvious such as Sanctum Sanatorium which just states "You can't play cards here". Sometimes, they are more nuanced such as Death's Domain, which destroys cards played into the lane. In the latter case for example, you can get around the location effect in several ways.
DEFINING RANKS AND TIERS -
Probably should've outlined this earlier, but I should probably explain how I'm also ranking the cards. Outside of personal experience, a card's "rank" is basically how versatile or useful it is in the grand scheme of the game. Metas will come and go, but the really good cards will maintain relevancy across multiple seasons. It goes without saying, but I also don't look at Cards in a vaccuum. Like Mystique is a great card, but without any other good Ongoing synergies for example, she'd be useless. Ideally, you'd probably be evaluating based on the deck archetype, but there are sites that actively track win rates for that. So, for me, ranking and tiering a card is more about "how useful is this card overall?". Here's how I'd go about reading it:
S Tier - This card is a game defining card in that it alters the way one should go about thinking about the game. They enable many other combos/decks or change up the way one can go about playing a particular deck. These are very rare.
A Tier - A card that is often very relevant for the meta game. Essentially, you play the game and think, "Does my opponent have this?". Often very versatile and can be slot in easily.
B Tier - A strong card that has a few drawbacks, but still played pretty frequently and is quite strong on its own. Most cards are around the B-C tier.
C Tier - Cards that are a bit more niche and weaker individually. Needs the support of other cards to really do well.
D Tier - These are cards that are almost always combo reliant. They are very narrow and are either often dead on draw or just don't do anything most of the time.
F Tier - Pretty much unusable card or cards that have always been bad. Lots of issues and generally, no one plays them as a result.
-
Okay, after all that, let's get into the meat and potatoes of the game: the Cards! How this analysis will work is as follows: I will go over the card, listing its stats, abilities, archetype and uses. Next I'll go over some common plays or combos with the card, then finally, the most subjective part - how good I personally think the card is and tier it. Creating individual posts also lets me update the posting if the card changes at some point and my experience with it develops. So that's the format.
Let's start with one of my favorite cards (100% Tide approved): Scarlet Witch
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/ScarletWitch_05-5c5eaed24f402f5cfb5f72abf6ae7d934568e20d42a1509433c5964ea3d0a096.webp)
Cost: 2
Power: 3 (Par)
Ability: On Reveal - Replace this location with a random new one.
Ideal Turn to Play: Varies. Turn 6 if you can create some surprise rug pulls. Otherwise, Turn 2-3 ideally to change a bad location to something more favourable. Good play window overall
Archetype: Tech / Real Estate Agent. No real way to work SWitch as an actual combo card since the location she creates is random.
Uses: Location control is a big deal in Snap as you can probably tell since they will effect every card you are putting into play. However, it is also something that can be easily over valued because even in the situation of a bad location perse, one has to remember that the effect goes both ways. Meaning, if the effect is bad for you, it is quite possible that the effect may also be bad (or even worse) for your opponent. As such Scarlet Witch is often best used on Turn 6 for a surprise play or rug pull to turn a location on its head and win that way. That's not to say you can't play Wanda earlier but generally, those plays aren't winning or as decisive barring something really detrimental for your deck. If you are playing a Destroy shell for example, and Wakanda rolls as one of the lane spots, SWitch can turn that around Turn 2 and you don't have to worry about one of the lanes basically denying your cards' abilities.
A very common use of SWitch in today's landscape is to play her into a vulnerable Limbo location. This effectively cuts the game back to 6 turns instead of 7, so if an opponent needs that turn to float or set up their combo, you effectively get to catch them with their pants down. SWitch can also be used on certain Restrictive locations, last minute to turn it around and win it for you if an opponent lacks the necessary reach and tools. For example, dropping Wanda into Death's Domain lets you chump that location for 3 power if the opponent lacks reach since effects on cards take place BEFORE the location effect.
Compared to other real estate agents, Scarlet Witch is the most cost efficient. The other real estate agents are either 3 cost, cannot change the locations only their positions, or take place on Turn 5. This cost efficiency means she's also the only real realistic real estate agent that can be used on Turn 6. In return though, SWitch has no Surfer synergy and because her effect is random, you can just as easily screw yourself over when played versus directly benefiting you - hence also why Turn 6 is ideal. If you are playing SWitch earlier, you are gambling somewhat that whatever location she does change the lane is at least neutral to the deck you are playing. As such, I wouldn't recommend actually playing her on tempo. Due to her random effect though, she CAN also be used as a last ditch hail mary - a tactic most cards in the game lack - to the cheers of Tides everywhere.
Common Combos: Unlike other cards, because SWitch's effect deals with locations, her best combos actually interact with the lanes versus interacting with other cards. Playing her on a restricted location last minute has been mentioned, but you can also play SWitch on +/- locations on power to normalize it if you are playing a Cerebro deck. She can also work on overcentralizing locations such as the Nexus by making your opponent over invest into a lane that you can then ditch for a measly 2 energy. A final 100% meme use for SWitch is to drop her in a Wong combo so you can roll for Worldship to get the Galactus effect and basically destroy the other locations played. The last one really isn't a common combo, but you can see why I approve of this card.
Rank/Tier: C tier. SWitch is a card that doesn't have real combos into it, but being a 2 energy potential match winning surprise counts for something. Her effect is fairly niche since you also cannot control what Wanda changes the lane to, but decks that run her don't really care about that inconsistency. Still, this means it restricts her primarily to control type decks to deny an opponent a beneficial or potential match winning lane.
Most Used Decks:
- Sera Control
- Cerebro 3
-
Time for a card which I've already mentioned by name a few times:
Shang-Chi
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/ShangChi_04-c0e90abe8ed715e4c8909583a7c0230ac8180ebf2f87370a46ae0619707bddc8.webp)
Cost: 4
Power: 3 (Below Par by 3)
Ability: On Reveal - Destroy all of the opponent's cards in this lane whose power is 9 or greater
Ideal Turn to Play: Almost always turn 6. Theoretically, Shang is actually a 4-12+ IF his effect triggers. As the higher cost cards often have larger values, you are most likely to get to this value if you save Shang for the last turn. The issue if of course, he's bad for tempo. So if you whiff with Shang, you're almost certainly going to lose since playing 4 Energy for close to 0 benefit is terrible for your board state. There are some instances where playing Shang early is worthwhile, but those are much rarer. In addition of making it easier for Shang to trigger, saving him for Turn 6 also gives you the greatest surprise factor against an opponent - they have to guess on Turn 5s and 6s whether or not you HAVE Shang, which can lead to sub-optimal plays if they guess incorrectly.
Archetype: Tech. 100% Pure tech. Again, playing Shang for Tempo is a bad idea.
Uses: Where to even begin? Shang is like the premier example of an always relevant meta tech card because he checks you for playing too greedy. Cards that self-buff or combo cards that buff themselves to a million points and over all basically eat it to him. If you're in a position where you have 9+ power card that's unprotected going into Turn 6, the very first question you should ask yourself is: Does my opponent have Shang? The only two things holding him back are his awkward cost and bad power ratio on whiff.
4 costs in Snap have a very awkward relation on Round 6. On one hand, sometimes they can be immensely powerful like Shang because their effect can just completely shut someone down. On the other hand, without any discounts, only one 4 cost can be played on Turn 6. And if an opponent is playing a 6 cost while you are playing a 4 cost, chances are, you are getting out stated. You have to make sure you're single 4 cost play makes up for that Turn 6 tempo loss and then some because you're effectively losing 2 Energy over your opponent. To Shang's credit (and all other 4 costs), there is a card that can be used to reduce 4 costs down to 3 - Zabu. If you run any other 4 cost that may be important to play on 6 or is much more effective having an expanded turn window, Zabu almost becomes a staple as well for a deck slot. A common example is running Shang + Enchantress. Both tech cards that are 4 cost, but if their effect is relevant for the match, are basically tide turners and will win you the game.
To get the best use of Shang, you are best off revealing 2nd. Not only does this give you extra targets to hit, but it also means Shang's check doesn't happen until after an opponent's abilities have resolved for the most part. So if a card was sitting at 7 Power for example, and then an opponent plays something that gives it a +2 buff, playing first means Shang whiffs while playing second means you will hit and destroy it. The net power difference from a whiffed Shang and a Shang that hits is massive as you can see. If an opponent is playing a primarily reactive deck like a Control deck, they will basically be trying to lose priority the entire game. Certain other decks will carry Shang just as a check - mostly those that have a power ceiling, to ensure that you can't out-stat them. The greater the power creep, the more relevant Shang becomes.
Counter plays exist against Shang but can be quite awkward since he checks power and not an effect. You could Cosmo/Armor a lane to stop Shang 100% but that also comes with the caveat those effects apply to you too and can definitely backfire if you aren't careful. The easier way to get around Shang is to throw priority so your opponent has to reveal 1st. Ghost exists if you are bad at it but costs a card slot. Another cheeky example is using Invisible Woman and hiding your 9+ power cards behind her. Since Invisible Woman makes cards played after her in her lane "Not in Play", Shang will reveal first, then the game checks all the cards after Invisible Woman afterwards when the game ends. Of course, an opponent who has their own Invisible Woman or Ghost can offset this but both cards aren't cards you can just stuff into every deck. Staying behind 9 Power is also another way to skip the Shang check. Cards like Devil Dinosaur, where the power can fluctuate turn to turn can be manipulated in this way to dodge Shang.
Common Combos: Shang into Absorbing Man lets you basically play him in 2 lanes. While difficult to set up as it is a 3 card combo requiring Zabu, it's often game winning when you get it since kneecapping your opponent to 8 Power cards at most can be pretty restrictive. Similarly, Shang into Zola is a triple Shang that is absolutely disgusting but is also a 3-card combo minimum that usually ends up being 4 cards as it requires Mr. Negative to set up. Invisible Woman and then hiding a Shang behind it ensures you throw priority to make your Shang go off after the game ends. If an opponent doesn't have their own Invisible Woman, this basically guarantees your Shang will go 2nd and all the benefits that come with that. If you have Knull played previously, Shang into Knull creates an even bigger power difference because the destroyed card's power then gets added to your Knull.
Rank/Tier: A tier. Unlike SWitch, Shang is a card that will almost always be relevant. You see all those screenshots of people getting up to 1 billion power or whatever? If the losing player had kung-fu Asian Man and played him, those screenshots will never happen. He's bad when his effect doesn't apply but most decks will either try to cheat out more power or play cards that grow to enormous numbers. Shang basically says "lol get rekt" to all of them. Card destruction is generally very powerful - especially of your opponent's board. Maybe if Cerebro and Nimrod were more commonplace for example, we'd start seeing less of him.
Most Used Decks:
- Sera Control
- Cerebro 3
- Generic Destroy
- Negative
- Galactus
-
Let's look at a well known Marvel figure next, who's also pretty damn good:
Professor X
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/ProfessorX-5e2c9f04d315b8eff26cb33f58c84707bbec554b38c0c5ebf235324aa30e3849.webp)
Cost: 5
Power: 3 (Below Par by 6)
Ability: Ongoing - Locks this lane from further play (Cards in this lane cannot no longer be interacted with except for their power).
Ideal Turn to Play: Turn 5. Professor X is the first card I'm covering where his play window is extremely tight. He's strictly a Turn 5 play because his effect on Turn 6 is miniscule, whereas on Turn 5, he pretty much decides a lane. There are ways to interact with the power value thereafter, so it's not open and shut but traditional ways of moving cards or playing into the location no longer becomes possible. He's also the first card that we're looking at where, if ramped out, can become match deciding. Most players might not look for a possible Turn 4 Prof X or earlier if they have not seen that possibility before.
Archetype: Lane Lockdown. Pretty much the textbook definition of a lane control or Lock down card (even says it in his name!)
Uses: Unlike Shang and SWitch, Professor X is a card that can do several things, although his primary use is to lock down play space for you and your opponent. Playing Professor X is tricky. Since his stat line is so far BELOW par, playing him in the wrong lane can easily backfire on you by locking you out of a further chance to win the particular lane you've played him in. Therefore, you need to have a good idea of the possible plays from an opponent to reduce this risk. The other alternative is to make sure you play tall earlier so when Charles parachutes into the lane, the tempo loss doesn't kill you. Of course, dumping so many resources into one lane isn't efficient so it is best to do with just a few cards as you expand plays to a second lane.
Charles' effect is pretty unique because while other cards can stop you from playing at a particular spot, you may still be able to Move cards there. In this case, Professor X completely shuts the lane down, meaning can also no longer move in and out of the lane barring a certain exception. As such, you can also use him to tech against certain opponents who plan to dupe / destroy cards. Playing Professor X essentially shuts down Move decks and Nimrod for example, because they need that play space in order to generate power. At 5 Energy, that's a very steep tech card, but the ffect is so powerful, it is pretty much match ending when it comes out. For this reason, you will want to Snap before playing Charles against these decks.
Once Professor X is played on a lane, the only other ways to interact with it are by changing the power of the cards there. Cards such as Nova exploding or those that have reach effects like Mr. Fantastic, can further add power to the locked lane. Keeping this in mind is important because you *may* be able to steal the lane back on Turn 6 if you have previous plays set up to let you interact with the locked lane.
Common Combos: Because his effect prevents anything else from happening to the lane, Attuma - Prof X lets you put down a good 13 points before locking it. Raw Attuma is pretty risky but Prof X right after stops any chance of an opponent from launching a goblin or other junk at you and destroying your Attuma. Similarly, you can use Charles' lock down effect to save your own cards. This is one of the ways Spectrum Destroyer work as Destroyer's Reveal effect doesn't interact with any of the cards played with Professor X's lane due to his ability. Daredevil is Professor X's best friend as he will let you see your opponent's Turn 5 play, then counter react appropriately with what lane to lock down, if any. In these case, this combo can be match decisive since the game is 1 round away from ending. Ramping out Professor X can be very effective since as noted, a Turn 4 Prof X is not something most players expect. For this reason, Psylocke and Wave can also be good 2 card combos to play with Charles.
Rank/Tier: B tier. There is always some inherent risk to playing Professor X without any tools. A bad guess means you lose the lane and with only 1 turn left normally, there's not enough time to really course correct. However, his effect is just so powerful that even if he's not doing his primary job, you may still end up screwing an opponent over by locking him out of a way to interact with the cards in the lane. Having the option to ramp or mitigate the risk with cards like Psylocke and Daredevil ensures he's a strong addition to the archetypes he plays well in.
Most Used Decks:
- Lane Lockdown / Control
- Spectrum Destroyer
- Thanos
- HighEvo
-
Kitty Pryde
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/KittyPryde_02-d96d7c6dab98130d8caaee466a5ecab155b186c765256a0c4235d84f993dd58b.webp)
Cost: 1
Power: 2 (Par)
Ability: Passive - This card returns to your hand at the start of the next turn. When it returns to your hand, +1 power.
Ideal Turn to Play: Always Turn 1. Kitty is a "pump" or self-buffing card. She starts at par value but for everyturn you can float energy for her, she'll grow by 1. Assuming you keep doing this every turn in a 6 Round game, she becomes 1-7, which is pretty good. Of course, in truth, you are spending 6 Energy to get her there and a 6-7 isn't that impressive, but Kitty has other uses that make this "stat-line" worthwhile.
Archetype: Bounce. Should be pretty obvious.
Uses: Good low energy cost cards in Snap are immensely valuable. Most of them are locked behind particular archetypes or are in actuality, not that good. Kitty falls into the first category, but her ability is still good enough to let her play some utility roles making her a premier 1-cost card. She used to be even better before patches - +2 power per play but she loses her 2-base power. This in turn meant it was possible for her to grow to be a 1-12 (or 6-12 if you count the energy to get her there), which gave her a much higher ceiling.
What makes Kitty good is that she dodges some of the common trappings of a 1-cost card. Unlike Nebula or Sunspot, she pretty elusive for Killmonger to destroy her. Since she bounces back and forth into your hand, the opponent has to predict that Kitty is coming that particular turn and play Killmonger to counter. Another factor is that since she jumps back into your hand, you end up losing whatever power she gave you until Round 6 - meaning you are possibly losing priority and thus avoiding Killmonger and Shadow King that way. Her repeated "pay-for-play and buff" means you can also use her to trigger Round effects constantly - which can let you get around certain disruption cards or locations. Other 1-costs cannot do this. Sure, you ARE paying 1 energy a turn for it, but you're also self-buffing so it's not a complete waste. And presumably, that 1 energy might be unused float otherwise. Because her ability is passive, Kitty also can't be stopped by common tech cards such as Cosmo, Enchantress and she'll usually flutter below Shang's check. This means stopping Kitty usually requires more unorthodox cards or abilities.
Kitty's obvious synergy is in bounce decks, where she can then be played to not only rapidly buff herself, but also be used to continuously buff cards like Angela, Collector and Bishop. However, she also has some hidden synergies with cards like Silk, letting you make her jump around constantly or with Moon Girl to double the number of Kittys you have in hand. Beast is her best friend since he can reduce her cost to 0, and let you buff her for free. And in the older versions, she used to work better with Shuri to bypass Shuri's limitation of needing to be played in the same lane. You can still do it nowadays, but her pump value is cut in half, so this is less effective and you will need some other support cards if you're intending to use her this way..
Her primary weakness is also one of her strengths. Because she will always return to your hand if possible, she's bad if you intend to use her in lock out type locations before Turn 6. Certain locations which close off after a certain round effectively means Kitty cannot anchor that lane for you since she'll jump back into your hand unless you are at the hand limit. Storm in particular basically shuts you down because not only do you now have less play space, but you can't use Kitty to hold that lane. Also, any card or effect that increases your cost by even 1 is a death sentence. No one is going to repeatedly bounce Kitty if she was even 2-cost, so Ice Man is one of your biggest fears.
In today's landscape, Kitty isn't as prevalent as she was when she was introduced, but that's also because Bounce has taken a big nerf stick after it enjoyed roughly 3 months of dominance. Still, if you are looking at a 1 cost to round out your deck, Kitty's a pretty great option alongside Nebula or Sunspot.
Common Combos: Kitty's best friends are Angela and Beast. Beast turns Kitty into a 0-X, where X is the final pump value. 0 Cost cards are even more valuable for their flexibility, let alone one that can still pump itself thereafter. Angela loves Kitty because she doesn't take up any playspace at the end of a turn as she'll bounce back to hand. This lets Angela get up to at least 8+ Power assuming you are always playing Kitty in her lane, which makes her quite good for a 2-cost. Armor also works to cover Kitty if you are afraid of an Elektra snipe or predicted Killmonger. Bishop gets a lot of value from any deck that has repeated cards to play so Kitty works very well with him too. Lastly, Collector's passive triggers every-time Kitty returns to hand. Having a combination of these cards lets you grow your board status pretty effectively for just 1 Energy a turn.
Rank/Tier: A tier. Kitty is pretty much an archetype defining card. Before she existed, Bounce was basically missing a couple of tools to really explode. Sure, you had like Falcon - Iron Fist - Human Torch but those were usually way more memey and required more set up and luck. Once Kitty was introduced, she basically became the face of Bounce decks. She's not so niche to be restricted to just Bounce, but that's certainly what most people think of when they see her being played, which should tell you something. Overall, just a good and versatile 1-cost card.
Most Used Decks:
- Bounce
- Zoo
- Shenault
- Sera Control
-
We've had mostly good to decent cards so far, let's look at one that is not so good:
Black Cat
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/BlackCat_02-33546dee37cba5e3f1ac2f9121b08b18ee6251bed42f2d8e014d35abfce6cc22.webp)
Cost: 3
Power: 7 (Above Par by 3)
Ability: Passive - If this card is still in your hand at the end of the round, discard it
Ideal Turn to Play: Good question! Black Cat's ability makes her all but unplayable except for Turn 3 onward...and that's assuming you play her immediately. Otherwise, discarding herself means that unless you top deck, you're probably not playing her in the traditional way. The issue is of course, on later turns, are you really just going to play a 3-7 that doesn't have any other thing going for it other than the stat line?
Archetype: Discard and only Discard
Uses: It's really hard to actually talk about Black Cat's uses because her range is so limited and her ability basically makes her near unplayable under normal circumstances, unless you are playing her the turn you draw her. So if you draw her on your opening hand or Turns 1-2, she's basically dead. The only real ways you get use out of her is through the use of a combo card. Due to the way she functions, you can't even pair her up with Zero to get rid of her effect. The only way to remove her passive is to get hit by an opponent's Leech. That should tell you almost everything in terms of her play use.
The only real thing worth mentioning is her role in Discard decks. The way those normally work is you need to play another card to discard one from your hand. Black Cat saves you the trouble of playing one of these since she discards herself. This gives your discarders other targets - which is important, especially when there is a key card you want them to hit.
Common Combos: Black Cat - Ghost Rider is a simple two card combo that comes out on Curve for 10 points, essentially turning him into a 4-10. But if you were going to do that, you might as well play a normal 4-10 that can be easier to set up and build around. It does technically mean you play Black Cat "for free" though, since you can then play another 3 Cost, and on 4, play Ghost Rider to get an extra card played. The other way of making use of Felicia is through Hela. Hela's ability lets you summon EVERYTHING in your discard pile. So here's the case where Black Cat discarding herself is now a plus. Now you can get an extra card to be played alongside Black Cat and basically means Hela is actually a 6-13+ when paired with Felicia. That's pretty good. The self discarding also helps gives Morbius +2 and if you are playing a deck with like Dracula and Apocalypse, then she removes herself from being a target, which helps but it isn't really a way to get her played.
Rank/Tier: D tier. Black Cat is what I considered to be a textbook case of a D tier card. Very narrow niche and even in its own archetype, is a questionable inclusion due to its borderline unplayability unless paired with card to combo play it. The inability to play her when you want to actually play her is a big negative, which is why her stat line is so strong. There are other cards in SNAP with good stat lines but bad effects that can usually be mitigated. Felicia is a special case where you just have to deal with it, which hurts her use a lot.
Most Used Decks:
- Hela Discard
-
Gambit
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Gambit-e66364f63abeb86e392a3e18232d500f29e1e3dbad174965802f03cdd025fd44.webp)
Cost: 3
Power: 3 (Below Par by 1)
Ability: On Reveal - Discard a card from your hand to Destroy a card from your opponent's board. Ignore this ability if your hand is empty.
Ideal Turn to Play: Varies. Gambit typically wants to be played later because it increases the chances he hits a high cost card, meaning he wipes more potential points or cards with stronger effects. However, sometimes you want to play him as early as Turn 3. Especially if your opponent hasn't played much else since it can let you get rid of a pressure tool like Nebula or an support card like Zabu.
Archetype: Primarily Discard
Uses: Gambit's a real interesting card that has a lot of potential, but also a lot of drawbacks. Previously, he used to just be able to destroy your opponent's board even without any cards in hand. This current limitation hurts him because it limits more of what he can build around with. He did get +2 Power from his previous iteration, but no one was playing Gambit because of his power. His effect is actually really powerful because destroying cards on the field is really powerful. To make up for this, he had a paltry stat-line as a 3-1 previously; now he has this hand size limitation.
That doesn't mean the old Exodia combo is dead though, although it does typically mean Gambit gets combined into two mixed archetypes instead. Because Gambit needs a steady supply of cards to be able to blow up your opponents field, he needs cards that won't ever truly disappear from your hand. Two of these exist - one is Swarm, who will generate multiple copies of himself every time he is discarded. The other is Apocalypse, who will gain +4 Power and regenerate back into your hand every time he is discarded. Since you need one of the two, most of Gambit's usage becomes mixed into this Wong/Apoc Discard mold.
Outside of this Exodia combo, Gambit's usually better off played as a sniper. Because which card he destroys is random, the earlier he is played, the more likely he is to hit a definitive target. Problem: Most of the earlier played cards are just not important enough for Gambit to destroy. If on Turn 3, your opponent has only played something like Wave, sure, Gambit gets rid of her and nets you 6 points...but that's not going to stop something bigger and nastier coming the next turn. And if you play Gambit on 4 after that Wave, now you have a 50/50 on whether or not you catch the second card or just hit Wave. Newsflash: Hitting Wave if your opponent then drops say Magneto is a bad trade for you. The later he is played, the more likely Gambit hits something valuable, but also the chances of what he actually hits starts to decrease. This entire fluctuation between relevance and accuracy makes Gambit a real awkward card to actually use without comboing him, which is why the Exodia set up is so much more popular. That doesn't mean there aren't cards where early Gambit isn't worth it. If your opponent only has Lockjaw on 3 and you have priority? Gambit will snipe Lockjaw out of existence and probably win you the game on the spot.
Gambit has other issues other than his weird imbalance in terms of where he actually fits on the curve. Certain cards are either immune to him (Colossus, Armor) OR they directly benefit off of him from being destroyed (Wolverine, Nimrod, Deadpool). You could also just utilize him as a normal discard play but that's much less common due to his noted issues. He is a weird card where you can combo him to completely flip a match around, but he's also held back where he could also just be a dud play and brick. Much like his name, he ends up being kind of this "high risk, high reward" type card.
Common Combos: The mentioned Exodia Combo is the most common line of play. As noted, it wipes the opponent's board clean unless they have cards that stop him. This combo consists of Wong, Mystique, Gambit, Odin. Setting it up isn't easy at all and now with his hand size limitation, you need to add Apoc or Swarm into the mix too. Otherwise, Gambit into Ghost Rider is similar as with Black Cat, in that it allows you to freely play what Gambit discarded. Invisible Woman is a common pairing with discarders because you can limit what they discard until the end of the game and get more control. Gambit just has an added benefit where he's more likely to cause damage on Turn 6 but probably wants to be played out earlier. Hela deserves a mention for similar reasons since it lets you destroy a card late game with the added benefit of possibly not even needing to play Gambit at all. Finally, because of his cost, you can also run Gambit in Surfer shells, but that's much less common in general.
Rank/Tier: C tier. Gambit has the potential to create an amazing turn around, but it requires a lot of set up. He is too chancy usually to be played on his own, which drags him down and restricts him to fewer decks. In that way, he is a little like SWitch - kind of niche but can definitely swing you the game with some luck. Probably a little worse though since he costs 1 Energy more.
Most Used Decks:
- Apoc Discard
- Wong Combos
-
Invisible Woman
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/InvisibleWoman_05-0dfdc4412e6122cd29795c92f4bc094379d3166637401283f7446fb2cf4659e4.webp)
Cost: 2
Power:3 (Par)
Ability: Ongoing - Cards you play in the lane after Invisible Woman do not reveal until the end of the game.
Ideal Turn to Play: Turn 2-3. After that, if you are playing Sue as your first card, you're going to be really behind on Tempo, so at that point, you might as well tech up to whatever 4 cost play you have available. That's not to say you can't play her later, but her value diminishes the later she comes onto the field.
Archetype: Support
Uses: Sue is a really powerful card that on the surface seems like she doesn't do much. Your immediate thought is probably, "oh, she hides what I play from the opponent, so I can confuse or divert what they are thinking my deck is". And yes, that is ONE way you can use her. It's also not a great way of doing it because any other cards you play outside of her lane will be reveal as normal and those can be information indicators anyway. Your opponent could also be playing a deck with cards that will give them information about you like Cable or Emma Frost. Or, even worse, you are playing in Conquest where the surprise element basically disappears after Game 1. Maybe Game 2, if you don't draw your win cons in the first game. If she isn't good for that obvious purpose, then what makes Sue actually powerful?
There are 4 ways of utilizing Invisible Woman, which gives her incredible versatility. These are as follows:
1) She can delay the actual play and reveal of the card later, which is extremely useful if you have something you want to play, but their effect isn't useful right now or could otherwise be detrimental. Discard is a big archetype for this, especially the Hela variant. These decks always run the risk of Hela being discarded by accident. If you play the random discarders such as Blade and Moon Knight BEHIND Sue, their effect doesn't go off until after the Round 6 has ended. This means you can safely play them behind her, then Hela as the last spot and get 2 extra free cards played from Hela with no risk. This is essentially also how the big killer combo of MODOK into Hela works. There are other examples and combos that utilize this feature but this is the obvious one.
2) She can be an awesome control tool for priority. Because cards played behind Invisible Woman do not count as being "In play", it means that the card's power isn't being added. If you want to reveal 2nd, such as when playing Shang, Invisible Woman gives you a way to continue building power while not gaining any points and accidentally getting priority. AND because the cards are not revealed at the end of the game, in the event where you DO gain priority, your cards played behind her still reveal last unless an opponent has Invisible Woman as well. This was especially relevant in the recent Bounce meta, where Kitty's ability meant her power always disappeared at the start of the round so it was very easy for Bounce players to lose priority and ignore your tech cards. Sue basically gets around this problem because it means the tech card now gets played AFTER the bounce player has dropped their load. Bye Kitty!
3) Because cards are not considered "In play" while Sue is hiding them, this means you can play cards with negative and disruptive effects on yourself without them actually hitting your board. Take Ebony Maw for example. Maw is a 1-7 - an extremely crazy statline with an extremely detrimental effect, where he prevents your side of the board from playing any additional cards into that lane. He also has a turn restriction where he can't be played after 3. These effects keep him balanced and you need to find ways to get around this since it is very easy to screw yourself if he is played within his (technical) 3 turn window. Enter Invisible Woman again. If you play Sue first, then Maw behind her on 3, now you've got 10 points in one lane, can still add cards to it (because Maw is technically not in play) and have 2 Energy to spare to play something else.
4) As in the comics, Sue can also act as a Shield for more valuable, potentially game winning Ongoing effects. Since cards after her are not in play, playing your Patriot or Blue Marvel behind her means that if an opponent tries to stuff you with a Rogue or Enchantress, Sue will eat their counter ability without any risk of the cards being hidden also getting effect. So if I play Invisible Woman, then Patriot and you want to silence my Patriot? You now need to commit potentially 2 tech cards to do it. That's a lot of commitment. Using Rogue and Enchantress - that's 7 Energy for 7 Power - a terrible trade on tempo just to shut it down.
Are there counters for Invisible Woman? Of course - it goes without saying. The issue is, you need to identify how she is being used to know if you have a counter existing and available for it. Cosmo shuts down any card that has an On Reveal, so you would play this to block Use 1 and Use 2's effects. For Use 3, you have to use an off-kilter tech card - Polaris. Polaris moves any 1-2 cost to the lane she is played, so once you move Sue, any cards played behind her will basically go off. And if those are the drawback cards, well, your opponent now has to pay the price for them. For Use 4, playing Echo shuts down any other Ongoing effect played there, so it forces the opponent to play those in a separate lane, where you can then try stuffing them. The downside is she's not super common as she is a new release.
Because no deck carries all 3 of the above cards, Sue typically goes unchecked in ladder. Her hide function along with her multitude of uses means by the time you get a whiff of what the deck archetype is, it may be too late to play your counter. The only deck that MAY carry all 3 are Surfer decks. These decks carry around 8-9 Three cost cards and a couple of One and Two costs to fill out the curve. So Echo/Polaris/Cosmo CAN appear as a package in them. However, when you need to devote 3 cards just to shut down ONE and you don't even know which of them would be relevant, it says a lot about how good that one card is.
Common Combos: Lots of choices here so we will just cover the common ones behind each of the 4 main uses for Invisible Woman:
1) Invisible Woman, MODOK, Hela - MODOK delays discarding your hand until the end of the game. At which point, Hela then plays them all for free. Pretty much a game winning combo 90% of the time, although can be stuffed by Cosmo
2) Invisible Woman, Killmonger/Shang Chi/Enchantress - As mentioned, delays your tech card until the end of the game. If your opponent doesn't have their own Invisible Woman, basically ensures cards in this lane reveal last. Enchantress might feel off, but there are ways to play it behind Invisible Woman which then results in a big turnaround.
3) Invisible Woman, Ebony Maw/Attuma/Maximus - More cards where their effects are detrimental but playing them after Invisible Woman erases the drawback. They are all above tempo as well and ignore most tech cards so an opponent playing Cosmo or Echo thinking they got you here is in for a reverse Uno surprise
4) Invisible Woman, Patriot/Blue Marvel/Ultron - Hides away what essentially amounts to a +16 Play in 2 lanes and a +14 in the lane this is set up on. If you draw Perfect curve, you can play Kazar elsewhere to get more points, or toss in Onslaught to go tall.
Rank/Tier: A tier. With that level of flexibility, it goes without saying that Sue is very good card, and she slots into many decks as a result. I imagine the uses for her are actually more likely to expand the longer the game goes on for. Her unique function of hiding and protecting cards means she will almost always have a home somewhere. Before hand, she was a 2-2, which meant at least a -1 to tempo for all the benefit she provides. Nowadays, as a 2-3, she basically doesn't even have that as a weakness. One of my favourite cards to use, if it wasn't obvious before.
Most Used Decks:
- Hela Discard
- Zero Shuri
- Patriot
- Cerebro 3
- Nimrod Destroy
- Surfer
-
Mr. Negative
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/MrNegative_03-4a282a2fd2b5bf063688c959a4ca0f4e5ff7389b7ca250f6ca4ba8d23beea7a0.webp)
Cost: 4
Power: -1 (7 below Par)
Ability: On Reveal - Invert the Cost and Power values of all remaining cards in your deck (So Power becomes Cost and vice versa)
Ideal Turn to Play: Turn 3. You actually want to play Mr. Negative Turn 1 if possible. Often times, that isn't possible, so the best possible time otherwise you can play him is Turn 3. You may notice that he's a 4 cost. This makes Mr. Negative pretty much the only card with a play window that is smaller than his cost and he can't actually be played effectively without another support card. There are other reasons to not play Mr. Negative until at least Turn 3, mostly to do with Cube Equity and Snapping, but for just winning? The earlier the play, the better
Archetype: Negative. He's the name sake card!
Uses: Amongst all the Snap cards available, Mister Negative is one of the few cards where he actually cannot be played on his ideal window naturally. It'd be like if a card costed 7 in the game. This difficulty in getting him played within his window should probably tell you something - if his -7 from tempo value doesn't. Cards in Snap were not designed with Inverted values in mind, so when Mr. Negative hits the board, he is very powerful depending on how many turns are left. The more turns there are, the more inverted cards you draw and the chances you cause complete chaos shoots way up.
So how do we actually get Martin Li out within his window if you can't do so naturally? There are two ways and it is highly suggested you run both to ensure you can land the combo more often since Negative decks should not run Chavez. These are Zabu and Psylocke. Both cards have very neutered effects when inverted (Zabu has basically none) so they are dud draws if they remain in your deck after Negative hits the field. But because Negative's effect, like Professor X, is so powerful investing 2 slots to just getting him out is often worthwhile. Both Zabu and Psylocke can have other advantages in deck, so Negative is often designed with these 3 cards in mind as they are almost always glued together.
Playing Zabu drops Martin down to 3 Cost, and playing Psylocke gives you 4 Energy by Round 3. Both let you play Negative, but in the event that you miss, you should often have cards to support a 4 Energy play on Turn 3. For this reason, Jubilee can be a great support card in this deck as she is both 4 cost, has a low power value and gives you a last chance attempt at drawing Mr. Negative out by Turn 3/4. Magik is also often a choice, now that she also got drastically better. Being able to play 7 rounds versus 6 expands Negative's window by 1, which means you can play him on 4 as well, which does wonders at making him more functional. The rest of the deck then, is comprised largely with cards that have lower power values compared to their cost. Cards such as Ironheart and Zola are particularly notable because they become 0 Cost cards once Negative hits. And 0 Cost cards as I noted, are extremely flexible. So imagine a 0 Cost card but it has a 6 Energy cost effect. And that you can play multiple of them at the same time. That's what Mr. Negative lets you do.
The Negative Archtype comes with a lot weakness for all of its insane endgame potential. You can easily miss the window as noted, which weakens you drastically. Since your cards have very poor power values, the longer the game goes on without Mr. Negative hitting the board, the lower your chances of winning. Often times, it's better to just retreat by 4 if Mr. Negative hasn't hit the field yet because your board state would be just so weak on tempo. This isn't even getting to locations that mess with your curve, so your actual chances of playing a game out fully aren't very high. You can also get screwed over by a card that messes with your window such as Ice Man. Certain decks also just hard counter you really badly. For example, Darkhawk decks capitalize on adding more Rocks into your deck because it powers up their titular card. If you have a lot of rocks in your deck, then even after Negative is played, your chances of getting a dud draw rises. Lane Lockdown is also a big issue because you have almost no board presence before Turn 4. So if they do something like ramp out Professor X on Turn 4, you are in big trouble.
Why would anyone play this deck then? The answer lies in Snap's namesake mechanic. Mr. Negative has a strong cube equity rate because you will often snap with him early. Instead of later game snaps, you're often snapping on 3 if what you have on hand lines up. Your opponent then often has to determine whether or not to match your ante at that point and the only thing they might see is a Zabu or Psylocke - 2 cards that are both below tempo and doesn't reveal too terribly much about what your next play is. Negative coming out on 3 lets you actually compete with a lot of other good decks because inverted cards are just that good. At the same time, you aren't losing a lot of cubes because you are often retreating by 4 if he is still MIA somewhere in your deck. This strong cube equity ratio means you will often gain more than you lose, allowing a deck where you are often retreating to still be viable in today's landscape.
Common Combos:
There are two sets of combos with Negative - ones which get him played and one to play after he comes out. Building a deck around him that can function without him actually being played though is often the goal because you want secondary win conditions in a deck to keep them flexible.
To get Mr. Negative out, there are a few combo paths:
Zabu / Psylocke - Mr. Negative - This is the obvious one as described above
Zabu / Psylocke - Jubilee - Also described above. Jubilee gives you a last chance hail mary to call Mr. Negative about 20% of the time or so.
Raw Jubilee play - Also works as a Turn 4 play. Slightly better chance then the above but weaker end game.
Zabu / Psylocke - Jubilee - Absorbing Man - This 3 card combo basically gives you 2 other chances to bring out Mr. Negative on top of your draws into Turn 4. If he still doesn't come out at this point, he is basically at the bottom of the deck and you should probably retreat. As noted with the Raw Jubilee play, this leads to a weaker end game because you also have less cards to invert.
After Mr. Negative is out, some powerful combos you can set up:
Shang Chi -> Zola - Duplicate your Shang Chi and is pretty much the only way to land a triple Shang Chi.
Knull -> - Zola - If you are playing a Destroy variant of Negative, this lets you duplicate your Knull on the last turn without either of them having been played previously.
Wong -> Mystique -> Forge -> Black Panther -> Taskmaster - Results in 2 Giant cards at the end of the game ala Shuri. The thing that makes this disgusting is you can do it on the very last Turn as long as you've played certain pieces and depending on what is inverted. If you have previously played Wong and get Mystique/Black Panther/Taskmaster inverted, that the remaining 4 cards in the combo (0,2,4,0 respectively) on Round 6 for a massive point drop
Wong -> Mystique -> Ironheart -> Surfer - Similar to above. Often times, you will have played Brood previously in a separate lane. From there, again, depending on what you have inverted, the entire combo and be dropped on Turn 6, giving an opponent no idea what is coming.
Wong -> Mystique -> Ironheart -> Gambit - In the old days, this let you buff your side by +24 from Iron Heart AND destroy 4 of your opponent's cards. All on the last turn. Again. Needless to say, this was very powerful.
Jane Foster -> All 0 Cost cards + whatever - Jane fetches all your 0 Cost cards. Mister Negative creates 0 Cost cards. You can see where this is going. If you see Jane played after Mr. Negative, best just to Retreat.
Rank/Tier: B tier. Mr. Negative's effect is a game changing one and fundamentally broken because inverted card costs were not how cards were originally balanced. He's held back primarily by his inconsistency and existing counter play, but it is one of highest ceiling decks that can come out. The earlier he is played, the more likely the Negative player is going to win.
Most Used Decks:
- Negative (Engine card)
- Negative Jane (Engine card)
-
Elektra
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Elektra_06-1f9ec22b29ff6262cb233d32930885ac83b374f5f4482bfd18677e0745f48cc7.webp)
Cost: 1
Power: 1 (1 below Par)
Ability: On Reveal - Destroy a 1 Cost Card played by the opponent in this lane.
Ideal Turn to Play: 2-6. If there is one positive to Elektra, it's that her cost is low so she's easy to deploy alongside another card if you really want to play her. Often times, she's best played on 6, to then snipe out an opposing Kitty or Demon from Hood, but you could also play her on 2 to destroy an opponent's Nova early to prevent them from getting more than a +1 bonus.
Archetype: Zoo
Uses:
Elektra is an Series Pool 1 card that teaches you about destroying cards on an opponent's board. Early on, Zoo is a very powerful deck that lets you go wide and most often, 1-costs were played to consume as much space as possible. This gave Elektra the ability to be used a decent chunk of time because destroying an opponent's Rocket Racoon or buffed Hawkeye for example gave pretty decent returns. However, as your progress to Pool 2, Elektra immediately stops being useful. Why is that? Killmonger.
Elektra's has lots of issues as a card, but chief among them is just that she's completely obsoleted and made redundant by Killmonger. Sure, Killmonger costs 2 energy more so he's harder to play, but consider that Killmonger just kills all 1-costs on the field indiscriminately, he's much more effective at Elektra's job. You don't have to guess which lane to play her for starters, and even if you guess right, you're still taking chance if there is more than one 1 cost card in that lane. If you opponent has Angela in the lane and plays Kitty + Rock, Elektra has a 50/50 of taking out the rock instead of Kitty. And that is just so awful since not only did you miss destroying Kitty, now you helped the opponent by opening up even more playspace. At least if you played Killmonger, you would get both.
Getting into Pool 3 and beyond doesn't help Elektra because decks start getting more complex and the use of 1 costs start diminishing. One of the key things you learn about Snap over time is that Turn 1 just isn't that important and as a result, 1 cost cards, by and large are also not game stealers. There are a few exceptions (Kitty, Sunspot and Nebula are all potential win cons) but no one really cares about your 1-4 Rocket Raccoon. How much does that matter if someone is setting a Wong combo for thousands of points? Or using Carnage/Venom/Deathlok to destroy enough of their cards to make a Knull that has a 100+ power? Probably not a lot. This means on top of being outclassed by Killmonger, the times when she does become useful are just not very good. Even when Bounce was dominant, Elektra saw very little play, which should say everything.
Common Combos:
Not much unfortunately. She's primarily ran in Zoo decks to quickly flood your lanes, but everything you could do with Elektra, Killmonger just does ten times better. So play her beside Kazar and Blue Marvel I guess. Or better yet, just don't run Elektra after Pool 1.
Rank/Tier: F tier. In a different game, where the 1st turn is key or if there were more prized 1 drops, Elektra could be pretty solid. In the current state of SNAP though, she's always subject to getting left behind Killmonger's dust or just being power crept to oblivion. Oh well, that's dem breaks.
Most Used Decks:
- Zoo
-
America Chavez
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/AmericaChavez-8158da587ff0e619d300870b426e5ce9c8b570c69b5f464a95d24fb8062e234c.webp)
Cost: 6
Power: 9 (3 below Par)
Ability: Passive - This card is always drawn on Turn 6 and not before.
Ideal Turn to Play: 6 or None, depending on what the deck plan is. Chavez is very rarely actually played, but she is often included into many decks due to her ability. More on this below.
Archetype: Support
Uses:
Here is a card that is commonly included in decks but basically almost never actually played out. There are several other cards like Chavez that are only drawn on certain turns but Chavez is by far and away the best of them. Why? Because she only comes in on Turn 6. This gives you five turns where you are actually playing with a 11 card deck instead of a 12 card deck. In a game where deck sizes aren't big, that decrease in possible draws gives you a good boost to consistency. In this case, it's roughly a 4-5% increase in picking up a necessary card before Turn 5. That might not look like a lot, but if you're looking to hit a key combo before the last turn of the game or need a card played beforehand, Chavez's boost can mean the difference between actually getting the combo versus not. AND because she comes before the last turn is played, it means you get the advantage of seeing all your other draws before playing out a game and paying the full cube price on a bad draw.
There are some other interesting uses for Chavez - most commonly with Dracula discard type decks. In these decks, the goal is go down to just one card (either a pumped Apocalypse or Infinaut) and then when Dracula triggers at the game end, he hits only one target. Chavez does a few things here that aid this game plan. Aside from letting you picked up Dracula more often, you also get the benefit of knowing that on Turn 6, you will at least pick up a card with 9 Power. Placing any other card in her slot means you are gambling on that last draw to not be a terrible low powered card that doesn't give you any boost.
Chavez's mechanic is a bit more complex than what is actually stated. Basically, she starts at the bottom of the deck, then when turn 6 comes up, she automatically gets kicked up to the top of the deck and gets drawn then. Due to this function, she also pairs very well with Iron Lad and for some time, actually hard countered Cable. There are decks where Chavez isn't worth a slot because you want all 6 draws to give you a chance to hit something important. Negative decks are a great example of this because a 6-9 Chavez that comes only on Turn 6 MIGHT improve hitting a Psylocke/Zabu -> Negative set up, but then you are also guaranteed to brick one of your draws, which ruins the point of the deck. For any deck that wants to run tight combos or needs certain draws before Turn 6 though, Chavez is always a safe filler addition if you can't think of anything else.
Common Combos:
Because Chavez is commonly used primarily as a deck thinner, she's very rare used for actual card combos. Her best combo line would be somewhere in a SheNaut deck or one with Shuri and Taskmaster so she can be played down with more power behind her. Typically if your best play on Turn 6 is raw Chavez, you're probably going to lose lest your opponent's board state is somehow horrendous. Some cards that work really well with Chavez would be something like Bast, who wants to be played on Turn 1-5 and has no Turn 6 Window, but Chavez only comes in on 6 so is never at risk of getting hit by Bast. Iron Lad is another very strong card that appreciates Chavez since as noted, he will never hit her ensuring you will get one of the other effects remaining in your deck.
Rank/Tier: A tier. Never doubt the power of increasing a deck's consistency. Beyond that, Chavez coming in at Turn 6 also lets her work as a hand fixed in other decks means she'll pretty much always see some sort of relevance, even as the game grows.
Most Used Decks:
- Almost any deck that has more complex combos
- Wong Combos
- Apocalypse Discard
- SheNaut
-
Hawkeye
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Hawkeye_08-e723cfa58599c144279c7e592df1882db26397e499d810bb8cc0b3f75c6ca255.webp)
Cost: 1
Power: 1 (1 below Par)
Ability: On Reveal - If you play a card on the same lane the next turn, this card gets +3 Power.
Ideal Turn to Play: 1. Hawkeye, similar to Kitty, is a card that will self pump. So he wants to be played as early as possible to give him the most time to grow.
Archetype: Bounce
Uses:
Your first thoughts at seeing Hawkeye might be that he's a better Kitty because his power can potentially reach up to 10. A 1-10 is pretty good! However, that is of course, a very naive view of the card that only looks at one's potential. Hawkeye getting up to 10 power is pretty difficult, and he's open a wide variety of tech cards that just flat out counter him. So unless your opponent is playing without any of them, Hawkeye is more realistically a 1-4, maybe a 1-7 if you get a good draw.
It's probably easier to outline all of Hawkeye's issues as a card before talking about his saving graces. First, being 1 cost means he's vulnerable to Killmonger. Unlike Kitty though who can jump back and forth into the hand for free or be repeatedly played into an Armor'd lane, Hawkeye can't do this. He doesn't automatically bounce back like Kitty and if you play him into Armor to bounce him, depending on the card, you could also end up bouncing Armor - which you might not want to do. So he's at a greater risk of being destroyed for starters. Second, he's also vulnerable to Shadow King. Kitty has this weakness as well, but as noted before, since Kitty jumps back to hand, her power isn't added for priority purposes, so she also dodges him much easier than Hawkeye. Third, Hawkeye's ability is an On Reveal, so he can get stuffed by Cosmo and then just end up being at whatever value he's played at. The cards that aid in bouncing him back are On Reveal as well, so if Cosmo comes out, you are likely losing the ability to further pump Hawkeye. But by far the worst weakness of Hawkeye is his ability is telegraphed - meaning your opponent will know which lane you are going to play in - lest you skip out on the notable +3 bonus power. That might make sense in some cases, but more often then not, telling your opponent you are going to play a card there is just asking for trouble. You might be eating something like a Gamora or worse - a Negasonic Teenage Warhead. Heck, even Elektra can eat Hawkeye's face.
To Hawkeye's credit though, he isn't completely useless. Jumping up by 3 Power at a time gives him notable threat value and he's cheap enough to be played out easily, which helps with Cerebro decks that use low power numbers or Zoo decks as at they often require flooding to pose any real chance of winning. But with his many problems, and only 2 other cards to support him jumping back into the hand, he's very unlikely to get to his full potential. To add insult, because his ability requires the NEXT TURN, you can't even dump him plus some other cards on 6 in the same lane to get the boost. He specifically relies on a next turn card play to see it. All this means that while Hawkeye has some merit, he's often just not played in favor of other cards that don't have his plethora of issues. Like, why bounce Hawkeye when I can bounce the Hood for multiple Demons or Iron Fist + Human Touch, which gains equal power but doesn't restrict me to a lane location?
Common Combos:
Being a one cost, Hawkeye obviously works well with Kazar and Blue Marvel since he aids in flooding the board quickly with his low cost. To enable Hawkeye to greater heights though, you'll want to pair him with Falcon and Beast - the two bounce enablers. This lets you get up to a potential +10 Power on Hawkeye, which isn't too shabby. Hawkeye can also work somewhat with the other Guardians of the Galaxy. Because you telegraph that you are playing in that lane, you might as use that to your advantage and if your opponent's disruption relies on being in the same lane, then at least they get their On Reveal Proc too. Other good cards are cards that can Move after playing so you can maneuver somewhat around Hawkeye's lane restriction. Nightcrawler, Iron Fist, Ghost Spider are other 1 cards that can assist or you can play something like Captain Marvel who will automatically move at the end of the game if need be.
Rank/Tier: D tier. Hawkeye just isn't very good. He's not completely useless but having a ton of weaknesses like Wong without Wong's ability to basically be match ending is going to cause some issues. Adding to the fact he's often facing stiff competition in the form of better bounce targets, and Hawkeye loses a lot of relevance once you step out of Pool 2.
Most Used Decks:
- Zoo
- Bounce
- Cerebro 4
-
Aero
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Aero_08-b041945b13ce377727b38207bcb17a35f09ebc1dc631c2f4a39949c691805083.webp)
Cost: 5
Power: 8 (1 below Par)
Ability: On Reveal - Move the last card your opponent played this turn into this lane.
Ideal Turn to Play: 5-6. Despite being a 5 cost, Aero can actually be used as a powerful finisher, since she also has decent enough power. However, her ability is what seals it for her to be used in the last stages of the game to ensure an opponent cannot come back and steal a lane.
Archetype: Ramp / Lockdown / Movement
Uses:
Probably my favourite card in the game next to SWitch. Aero isn't as strong as when I first started playing, but she's still a pretty solid card with a powerful ability that can seal the deal when used. Her old version was a more definite variation on that idea because she would move EVERY card played that turn into the same location, letting you lane ditch pretty effectively. With only 1 card now though, you need a little set up or be aware of what an opponent may be playing to use her.
Let's talk about her ability which is her real selling point. Aero moves an opponent's card into the lane that you chose for them. Typically, you want to play Aero with priority for maximum effectiveness, but there are situations where you can play her without and still make do. These are typically more with Ongoing card vs. On Reveal cards, although messing up an opponent's formation post Reveal can still be detrimental. If an opponent tries to play a Professor X down on their Attuma lane and DOESN'T have priority, playing Aero means you just won a lane. And to add insult to injury, if they were playing something like Spectrum Destroyer and was hoping to use Charles to protect their cards from a Turn 6 Destroyer, well that plan is out the window now completely. You can also use her to move cards away from a stack. Say an opponent has Wong down and going into 5, they are going to play White Tiger to create 2 Tiger tokens, then looking to finish with Odin. If you Aero on 5, you can move White Tiger away from the Wong stack and make White Tiger spawn a Tiger token in a bad location - like say directly on the Wong lane.
However, her ability can also be a game finisher, extending her window to 6. Because she will move a single targeted card, if your opponent isn't aware of Aero in the deck, having Aero on 6 can basically nullify a large single 6 drop like a boosted Apocalypse or Infinaut. What good is 20 power if it is already played in a lane you are winning and there are no tied lanes? You still lose the game - and that's what makes Aero so strong. You can also combo Aero in this fashion by lane ditching after. Using Ghost Spider after Aero means you can force move an opponent's card to a lane you don't care about, then pull her back into a lane you are contesting. Since she also moves cards, she can also be used to boost Kraven or proc Kingpin's rampage on 6. Her 8 power gives her some oomph such that she may still be able to contest a lane by herself. Playing down Aero into an empty lane can still stop an unexpected Galactus for example. This makes her fairly versatile although unlike Invisible Woman, she has defined archetypes where she obviously works better in.
Aero's main weakness is her "last card only" restriction. Most decks by Turn 5 or 6 are often putting down several cards either through cost reduction or setting up a mean combo like Mystique + Forge on Wong. To get around this, Aero wants to be played alongside either Sandman or Wave - 2 cards which lock out both players from playing more than 1 card. If you are in the lead on 5 after a Wave and are winning 2 lanes, Aero is a 100% Win con. On the other hand, cards that have a widespread effect like Dr. Doom or can be played for cheap like Wasp are both good counters to Aero. And as noted above, you will often want to have priority to maximize Aero's effectiveness. Playing Aero in the Mystique + Forge example does nothing if Forge lands on the board first. Your opponent is still going to get a +12 power trigger on their next card.
Even though Aero has been weakened since I started playing, she's still a solid card - just not a "MUST INCLUDE" now, which *does* help her in some way. As her popularity and strength waned down, players nowadays don't think about Aero as much as a tech counter or control tool, which can land her some pretty big surprise wins when she comes out.
Common Combos:
Wave + Aero is a guaranteed way to win the game if you are ahead by Turn 5. Since Wave locks every card to 4 cost, your opponent will be only able to play 1 card, which means Aero is a 100% way to control where it goes. Sandman does something similar. For this reason, both are often played beside Sandman in a deck known as "Sandman Ramp", where the goal is to ramp out quickly and be ahead by 4, so that when Sandman/Wave comes down on 5, your opponent can't make a comeback and therefore lose to the Aero play 100% of the time. Kingpin also appreciates Aero because she can set him up to destroy whatever is played on 6 if they don't respect him. In this way, it puts the opponent in a psychological dilemma and they have to play WIFOM in terms of where and how their Turn 6 play should go. She can also help boost Kraven or be used as lane ditcher with Iron Fist or Ghost Spider when set up.
Rank/Tier: B tier. Gone are the days of Aero dominance, but she's still a strong choice to include in certain decks. The ability to move an opponent's card with choice is a powerful one and Aero can be used to set up game winning tricks. As she isn't played as frequently nowadays, you're more likely to hit these in ladder, where an opponent is less likely to see her coming.
Most Used Decks:
- Ramp
- Lane Lockdown
- Control
- Movement
-
At the suggestion and request of my bestest buddy, Grefter. The man himself,
DR. DOOM
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/DrDoom_02-01d6ce6e81cb0af2fa42df46e6b0064d7cb908152cb3a3c7809bcaecf7f79e46.webp)
Cost: 6
Power: 5 (7 below Par)
Ability: On Reveal - Summon a Doombot token into each other location (if able). Each Doombot has 5 power as well.
Ideal Turn to Play: Anywhere from 1-6, but most likely 6 because you won't have the energy most of the time until then. Don't let Doom's low base power fool you. He's realistically a 6-15 with virtually no downsides because he's adding a 5 powered card in each lane when played. As a result, he's often a safe card to play since he lets you place a moderate amount of power in each spot.
Archetype: Ramp / Lockdown
Uses:
Doom is good. Real good. If you were to isolate every card from each other and just look at them individually, Doom is probably the strongest card in the game as it can beat basically every other card in the game other than Galactus. There aren't that many cards that hit all 3 lanes at the same time, let alone with a decent amount of power. Some of them, such as Living Tribunal basically only "add" 3 power. Others are like Ultron split it such that you get a 8-4-4 split. Doom's 5-all makes him apply an equivalent amount of pressure to each lane, which in turn makes him a threat regardless of which lane he is played in, even if you 'guess' wrong. Of course, this is taking it in a very naive view of the game, but even in the grand scheme of things, Doom is still excellent.
You can't get past Doom's theoretical value. A 6-15 is insane by SNAP's standards. There are only a few other cards in the game that beat or tie this. These include Destroyer (Destroys all other cards on reveal), Infinaut (forces you to skip a turn to play - extremely telegraphed as a result) and Orka (6-16 but requires that only he is in that lane). Doom basically doesn't have any of their drawbacks. He is just a good value 6 cost card to play, or as I like to call it - Safe. Doom is a safe bet because he lets you slam out a decent amount of power in each lane without any real set up. To top if off, he's safe from Shang and Aero - tech cards those other 6 cost cards are vulnerable to, which widens when he can be played considerably.
The absolute wacky thing though is that Doom can actually be worth even more if you've supported him in the right deck or the right set of cards. His tokens are abilityless cards so they can be boosted by Patriot for example. All of sudden, Doom is now a 6-19. If you have Mystique set up? 6-23. If you are playing some weird deck variation like Negative Patriot (because Doom's cost can benefit from inversion), he's now a 5-18 that can be played on the last turn WITH Patriot for a 5-22. His symmetrical power spread also means he's an amazing Cerebro 5 finisher, even if a bit telegraphed. This is a card that isn't just strong on it's own - it is a strong in a variety of archetypes as well, which makes Doom quite flexible on top of being safe.
One other notable thing about his ability is the Reach. Doom is the first card I've covered so far which uses a unique play term. To "Summon" a card is not the same as to "Play". This means it can bypass certain location triggers such as Death's Domain, which destroys any card PLAYED into the lane but not a card that is SUMMONED into it. The reach makes him an excellent companion in Lockdown type decks where you restrict where an opponent is able to play. Sometimes these effects are symmetrical, but thanks to Doom, you can still load it with another 5 power. Not all decks have reach options, so if your opponent doesn't have one, that's it. Doom basically will steal the lane for you. And his 5 power means you can't be easily chumped either. Sure, you'll lose a 50/50 with White Tiger if it jumps to the wrong spot. But you'll stop Nightcrawler, Mister Fantastic, unboosted Ultron and tie Storm + Juggs combo, amongst others if they can't add anything else to it.
Of course, Doom has his share of weaknesses as card. His actual body being only 5 power means that the location you play him in will probably fall behind in terms of tempo. And even though he is a 6-15 on paper, in practice, he's more like a 6-10 because you only need to win 2 lanes to win. If he can consolidate that power into another spot once you know which one needs more would obviously be ideal, but of course, that would make him pretty broken instead of just being 'balanced but very good'. We can't win them all, but Doom is certainly in a good spot if one has to consider overall game winners.
Common Combos:
Sandman -> Doom or Wave -> Doom is an extremely powerful line of play where you lock out an opponent's ability to play more than one card but apply pressure to all 3 lanes yourself. Unless the opponent has their own Doom or another card that can exert pressure in more than 1 spot like Klaw, this is basically match ending since your opponent cannot cover as much ground as you are. To seal the deal of course is to play Odin on top of Doom to call forth another batch of Doombots. Because of Doom's reach, he's able to complement a variety of other lockout cards such as Goose and Storm. If your opponent doesn't carry other cards with reach himself, you can now add power to a restricted spot without worry and sneak away a win that way. Since Doombots function as abilityless cards, they can also be buffed by Patriot if you are playing with a more tall version (versus the Ultron one). So Patriot -> Doom is also a legit ending combo to slam a bunch of power out to each lane.
Rank/Tier: A tier. There is no shortage of decks you can Doom to because other than his flexibility, he's also safe. In other words, he is a "Good Cards" stable choice if you are looking to round a deck for a solid finisher option. Certain decks such as Apocalypse Discard have better archetypal choices and those are often the go-tos instead. But if say you have an option or choice? Doom often makes that list and he will often be the safer and less risky version of a particular deck. Ultron vs. Doom in Patriot is a key highlight of this as Doom can be played with priority whereas Ultron cannot.
Most Used Decks:
- Any deck looking to have a "Safe" option
- Ramp
- Lane Lockdown
- Lockjaw Lotto
- Hela Discard
- Wong Combo
- Patriot
- Cerebro 5
-
And now, for another Tide approved crazy train wreck of a Card,
Agatha Harkness
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/AgathaHarkness-b7d6a6c671ceee0f0c93896bf1270660d362877b274e36dffef6c56b8edf279a.webp)
Cost: 6
Power: 14 (2 above Par)
Ability: Passive - Automatically starts in your hand at the beginning of a game (doesn't count as a draw). As long as Agatha is in your hand, the AI will play the game for you.
Ideal Turn to Play: The earlier the better. Remember when I saw Mr. Negative was a card that had a window lower than it's cost? Agatha is another. She's a 6 cost card that you want to get out of your hand ASAP.
Archetype: Agatha (Namesake Card!)
Uses:
Have you ever wanted to be so lazy but still grind for cheevos in a game? Then you might be interested in a card like Agatha. This card is pretty infamous in SNAP because while there are different levels of AI, the one assigned to Agatha only has one basic rule: Play Agatha whenever possible. This means that your Turn 6 will always be Agatha Harkness under normal circumstances. The other 5 turns? Who the hell knows? The AI makes random decision - might not play on the curve, might drop cards into bad locations, might even play cards that counter each other. It just does anything it wants other than this one rule. In short, playing Agatha is literally telling the game you give fuck all about actually playing. You're just there to farm missions, events and maybe Season Pass XP.
However, with every bad card people comes the "how can we make this work" type of people. People like yours truly who will embrace the awful and then find ways to play around the card's deficiencies and utilize as much of its strengths as possible. Despite Agatha's major set back, she DOES have a couple of notable features. For one, Agatha Harkness never uses up a draw. She will always start in your hand but she doesn't count as one of the 3 opening cards, meaning you actually have an opening hand of 4 and a remaining deck of 8. If we now add America Chavez to this deck, he essentially have only a 10 card deck. This ups your card draw consistency pretty noticeably, but you're still left with Agatha in your hand.
That's where Agatha's draw comes from. How do you take the remaining 10 cards and make it such that you can actually win? Players quickly found out they can advantage of Agatha's AI by cheating her out. Sure, Electro will let you play her on 5, but by then, its pretty late in the game. And having your Turn 5 locked into Agatha and your Turn 3 locked into Electro isn't a great plan. As such everyone used Wave to enable Agatha to quickly play herself out by 4. This gave you 2 turns instead of 1 to then turn things around, which was more doable. Other players found that just getting rid of her would also work, so more lists added Sif and now Loki. Including all 3 of these cards in meant you had a 97% chance of getting rid of Agatha on 3 (or 4 with Wave) - drastically improving your late game turns.
With Chavez, this meant now you get 7 additional spots to fill to make up a win con. The increased draw consistency because of Agatha and Chavez then helps in actually draw it to win. Thus, there is the irony of playing Agatha. You are playing with a card that randomly makes plays for your but in return, you actually get better draw consistency then your opponent. So if you can actually wire out a plan that works on turns 4-6, you're actually in pretty good shape to actually win. Unfortunately for Agatha though, Turn 3 is usually the most important turn in SNAP. And needing to sacrifice that turn to get Agatha out is a significant drawback since all your plays have to be decided with only half the game remaining. But for a card that people generally dunk on, Agatha has more going on than first meets the eye. She'll never be competitive, but you can make her work somewhat and be playable.
Common Combos:
Chavez + Agatha is a super common deck pairing as noted above. If you're playing Agatha, you MIGHT as well take advantage of the one thing she can give you which is increased draw consistency! Otherwise, playing with Agatha is all about getting Agatha out of your hand. So you'd think Ramp would be a good option, but that often leaves you with too little time to course correct or play anything else. So the only ramp card that DOES work is Wave. Wave to Agatha lets you get Agatha out on 4, and her +2 above tempo means that if you are comparing just 6 drops, yours is at least bigger. A second common way of getting Agatha out is with Lady Sif. Using Sif to Discard, then Ghost Rider to recall Agatha means you don't have to sacrifice Agatha's cool 14 Power just to get rid of her. The final way is the newly introduced season's pass card, Loki. Loki will replace your entire hand with your opponent's on 3. So unless the opponent is ALSO playing Agatha (topkek), you'll drop her out of your hand and still have the next 3 turns while being +1 on tempo. Taskmaster can be useful in these decks too. He's a 5 cost, so won't interfere with Sif or Agatha's AI and can be played after Agatha to copy her for another 14 Power for 5 cost - not too shabby.
Rank/Tier: D tier. Agatha is a meme deck, but people have made her work in Conquest and Ladder, so she's not complete garbage. More than anything, she is a fun deck design challenge - how can I make a deck where the AI is playing randomly for me for the first few turns actually playable?
Most Used Decks:
- Agatha
-
Let's look at another dumpster tier card
Angel
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Angel_02-092947177f6f9bff8bcb98743615a47c08b01be54430626ee4bee2c1dc226443.webp)
Cost: 1
Power: 2 (Par)
Ability: Passive - When a card on your field is destroyed, replace it with this card automatically if it is still in the deck.
Ideal Turn to Play: None. You never actually want to play Angel. His whole worth comes from being able to thin out your deck by automatically being played.
Archetype: Generic Destroy
Uses:
My earlier post about Elektra might have seemed harsh when I mentioned that 1 cost cards are often not game stealers. So far, I've only written about Kitty Pryde and Hawkeye so your immediate thought might be that at least 1 costs can grow, they just take varying amounts of effort and draw luck. Not so. Let me introduce you to Angel. Angel is just a 1-2 that doesn't get any stronger on his own. In fact, to even get any use out of him, you have to be playing with a deck that destroys other cards. On its own, this isn't a problem. The Destroy archetype in SNAP is actually pretty strong on its own because it can snowball into a massive Turn 6 power dump and they have some tricks up their sleeves to keep you guessing (Knull, Death and Zola all have some shenanigans they can pull out). No, the issue with Angel is that his ability might as well not be an ability. It just doesn't do anything half the time.
Let's look at it a bit more closely. To get Angel's ability to trigger, you have to destroy another card first. If you are playing on the Curve, this means another 1 cost card, so on average, you are destroying a 1-2 card, then replacing it with another 1-2 card. So on it's own, it doesn't actually do much for your board state. But then you read the second part of his ability which requires him to be still in the deck. And here is where we have a problem. Sure, if you get his ability to trigger, Angel basically thins himself out of the deck for you. But when you don't and you draw him (about 50%) of the time, he is basically a dead draw. Like I guess you CAN play him for as a 1-2 power, but 1-2s without an ability are basically really awful since they act as clutter and jam up your board. There is a reason Quicksilver is often considered a beginner's trap.
Keep in mind, this is also assuming you are playing on the curve and destroy as early as possible on Turn 2 (with Carnage). The later you get your first Destroy to function, the worse it is for Angel. Not only does your chance of drawing him increase, but also now you are likely not just destroying a 1-2, but maybe more of a 2-3 or more. And when you start destroying cards with more power than 2 (which is a lot of them), Angel basically doesn't even replace the power you lost on the board. Some cards such as Shuri, likely don't care if you destroy them because they are also 2 power, sure. But these are often backed by powerful abilities when they are played. Angel doesn't - he is functionally an abilitiless 1-2 if he doesn't fly in from your deck.
There are some fringe cases where Angel can be used creatively. Like if you drop your Deadpool into Death's Domain, it will destroy Deadpool and return him to your hand and Angel will fly in and land in that lane without fear of destruction since Angel is summoned from the deck. But again, this hinges entirely on whether or not he is drawn. And that's just too chancey to really rely on. His effect is wholly underwhelming when it triggers and god awful when it doesn't. You're better off running almost anything else - even in Destroy and Zoo - to replace him.
Common Combos:
Not much really. There isn't a way to guarantee Angel stays in your deck, so you're just gambling and hoping he isn't actually drawn. Including a card like Quicksilver to increase the chances of him staying in the deck isn't a solution since you are replacing one bad card with another bad card just so you can get the first one to trigger. In the decks that you would think he would fit, there are better choices always available so Angel doesn't even show up in those. You could play him in Zoo and Cerebro 2 for example, but both would be inferior versions that just used a better card. About the only combo you can really do him with is to immediately eat him with Venom if you count that as a combo since his free play and +2 power are never bad things for symbiote. I guess he ups Death's cost reduction too, but yeah.
Rank/Tier: F tier. Look out world. Here comes a card that isn't even played in a deck of his own archetype because he literally doesn't do anything. Pretty much any other card would be an improvement over Angel.
Most Used Decks:
- Generic Destroy
-
Goose
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Goose_02-f9616b94fbcafd6127770a658ff5d16625083fc7f5e7240c1551b22b9669e5b1.webp)
Cost: 2
Power: 2 (1 Below Par)
Ability: Ongoing - Neither player can play any cards costing 4, 5 or 6 in this lane.
Ideal Turn to Play: 2-3. The whole point of Goose is to shut down big cards from entering the lane. If you place him out on 5 in the same lane as an opponent's Gamora, you've probably actually just screwed yourself.
Archetype: Lane Lockdown
Uses:
On paper, Goose's effect is pretty strong. Shutting down 4 to 6 cost cards from entering a lane means your opponent can't put down big guns to try and take it. Their 1 to 3 cost cards might not be any sort of anchors, which can then make stealing a Goose'd lane more difficult. If your opponent's hand is badly skewed with top heavy cards, it can basically shut them out from playing much of anything. In practice, it's a little more "somewhere in-between" because Goose's effect isn't on the base cost but rather, the current cost. What this means is that if you have any cost reduction type cards or effects, they can go below 4 cost and sneak themselves into a Goose'd lane that way. Some cards like She-Hulk and Stature have big discounts and have pretty bulky power (9 and 6 respectively). So if they sneak into your Goose lane, it can be pretty unpleasant to try and contest that with just 1 to 3 cost cards. On the other hand, any card that increases cost above 3 can make Goose now a gatekeeper. Playing Wave after Goose basically locks the opponent from being able to play in that lane for a turn. Likewise, Ice Man can be pretty disruptive by bumping up a 3 cost to 4, and now all of a sudden restricting it from play to the Goose lane. Of course, Movement cards also bypass Goose after being played elsewhere. So Vision is not your friend if you are playing with Goose.
Don't get me wrong though. Goose can absolutely restrict play space and stop an opponent from putting their plan into motion. If you play Goose, then Storm on 3, you can pretty much shut down 2 lanes if your opponent is top heavy, giving them only 1 lane to work with. And while the effect of both cards will hit both players, you will likely have a deck tailored to this lock down effect, so you can quickly compromise an opponent's position without hitting yours. Just that you should never catch your chickens before they hatch and Goose is a good example of this. It's too easy to think you've locked a lane down only for an opponent to then play Doom and steal the locked lanes back for example. Or in this case, maybe a discounted She-Hulk.
Goose works best when the majority of your deck is filled with low cost cards so you don't care about its restriction. For this reason, he's often a staple in Surfer decks and Cerebro 2 decks because the common tech cards used against them are either the 4 cost Enchantress (which can now no longer be played) or the 3 cost Rogue (but it can only steal one effect randomly). Goose isn't as good of a guard as Invisible Woman, but his cost restriction effect on the lane can be better in some cases. If an opponent has an Infinaut or HE Hulk, Invisible Woman isn't going to save you unless you've teched Shang Chi into the lane. Goose meanwhile stops either card from even being played unless your opponent can give them a -3 Cost. And if they CAN do that, you probably should just retreat anyway because they likely have even crazier combos waiting.
At the end of the day, Goose has a very specified niche and very specific decks where he works in. It doesn't mean an opponent can't get around its effect, but it can make things very awkward for them since they could essentially lose 1/3 of their play space. As long as you are aware of some of its failings, Goose will carry its own weight in the decks it was designed for.
Common Combos:
As mentioned, Goose can be used to protect your cards. Common pairings include Goose + Patriot, Goose + Luke Cage or Goose + Cerebro. In all cases, the combo shuts down Enchantress as a counter and turns Rogue into a 50/50. Echo can still be used as a counter though if you have priority, they will land first and basically bypass her. Otherwise Goose + Jean Grey can be very infuriating because it forces an opponent to have to drop a 1-3 cost into Jean's lane assuming they have a 1 to 3 cost card in hand, leading to suboptimal plays. Goose + Storm can put a lot of early pressure onto an opponent as it can possibly shut down 2 lanes down if played in separate spots. Iron Fist deserves a mention since he can knock Goose into locations that would otherwise be impossible to play it in. Goose into Crimson Cosmo wins you the lane if an opponent doesn't have any reach. A very powerful 2 card combo is the Goose Lock, where you play Goose first, then play Wave later. It basically locks your opponent from being able to play into that lane, since Wave hardlocks all cards to 4. If you've already secured the Goose lane, it effectively acts as a 1 turn Professor X and can win you the game.
Rank/Tier: C tier. C is for Cat and Goose is a cat. Perfectly logical. In all seriousness - it's effect can be pretty powerful but it's best played with some other tools because there are multiple ways to bypass Goose's effect. 2 Power doesn't give you much to help win a lane after all.
Most Used Decks:
Surfer
Cerebro 2
Lane Lockdown
-
The Infinaut
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Infinaut_02-ce84ee6fea631758663b3ffa51d69026670400e5857a82d6ebb1edcbfa0bb955.webp)
Cost: 6
Power: 20 (8 Above Par)
Ability: Passive - You cannot play this card if you played a card on the previous turn
Ideal Turn to Play: 6. Though realistically, if you are using the Infinaut, you are probably cheating him out, so the play window is pretty much "Never". Turn 6 is still better though because an early Infinaut gives clear indication of what lane an opponent should avoid and marks a clear target on him for Shang.
Archetype: Anchor/Shenaut (Namesake card!)
Uses:
Hey kids, do you like BIG numbers? I hope you do because that's what the Infinaut brings. He's a massive 20 power card, beating basically every other card in the game on raw power, albeit with a very notable drawback that requires giving up your Turn 5 in order to play. However, 20 power is 20 power and Infinaut can often win lanes on his own if you are just competing on raw tempo alone.
Because of his harsh drawback of essentially forcing you to skip a turn, most decks that run Infinaut will actually NOT play him out traditionally. Like sure, you could do the whole "wait on Turn 5, then play him on Turn" 6 as intended, but when you have other ways of getting him on the board, that's probably the last way you are going to actually play him. Why effectively pay 11 Energy, when you can cheat him out with Lockjaw for 3, or Jubilee for 4? Or heck, spend 6 Energy with Hela and possibly get him into a restricted location? Oh but those are randomized! You can't tell if you will pull him out from Lockjaw for sure. And while that IS true, what if I told you, there ARE controlled ways you can summon him back? For example - play Lady Sif into Ghost Rider and you will recall the Highest Cost card you just discarded. If the only card in your hand is Infinaut, well, Ghost Rider is effective a 4-23.
Even if you don't like those methods, you can build a deck around Infinaut. You just need to focus on decks where Float is often a thing that exists. Sunspot is often paired with Infinaut for this reason. Skipping Turn 5 becomes less of an issue when you know that 5 unspent Energy will power up Sunspot to a 1-5+. Similarly, She-Hulk can make use of the extra float and reduce her cost of play by 1 for every Energy unspent. And while you can't play Infinaut AND She-Hulk on the same turn, if you find a way to gain additional Energy or have an added Turn 7, all of a sudden, that becomes possible and you end up with a massive point slam at the end of the game. Added Bonus: Because you skipped a turn, your opponent will likely regain priority, which means a lot of the tech cards that can counter your Infinaut will no longer be effective.
There are other fringe benefits to having Infinaut as well. He's the poster child of being a Spider-Ham or Leech guard. When your opponent plays those cards, they will often disrupt combo decks or engine cards which can be match decisive. Not the Infinaut though. Thanks for the "free" 6-20! Even if you don't end up playing him, losing his turn restrictions opens up your Turn 5, which now means you can actually do something like play another card that can BE effective and turn the game around then.
Does he have weaknesses? Sure. The Infinaut's largest problem is that he's extremely telegraphed because of his restriction. Most players WANT to play cards. And more often than not, there is always something to do, especially that late in the game. So if your opponent skips Turn 5, it becomes a pretty big tell that they are saving up for a huge Turn 6. If they have corresponding pieces on the board like a Sunspot, you should 100% expect an Infinaut or She-Hulk. Being forced to skip Turn 5 also means it is hard to be flexible. You can't play a tech card on 5 and then play Infinaut on 6. So if your opponent is setting up a deadly combo, you almost always have to sacrifice Infinaut as a dead card. This is almost always why he is cheated out instead. Sure, the randomized nature most of the time isn't ideal. But that at least gives you some maneuverability if the opponent does something that can top your big boi.
Truth be told, I think the Infinaut is probably undervalued. He's not for every deck, but at the end of the day, 20 power is a lot. And as the game gets more complex with more cards are being added, there are likely going to be more and more ways where his restriction becomes less and less of an issue. And when that happens, he's just a "free" 6-20, which will overshadow other 6 cost cards where power is their main selling point like Giganto. Time will tell if I'm right. For now though, he's a strong choice to include into certain decks that can either play around his turn restriction.
Common Combos:
Sunspot + Infinaut is a super common pairing that makes use of the 5 Energy float you are forced to give up if you plan on playing raw Infinaut. For that reason, She-Hulk is also a commonly paired card to take advantage of extra float, even though you need Magik to really get a chance to play both at the same time. Evolved cards from High Evolutionary can also be effective choices as they also need float to be effective. Some of other common pairings are as noted below:
Lockjaw + Wasp - Lockjaw lets you play a card from your deck, albeit random. Wasp is a 0 cost card so she enables you to cheat whatever other bad boy is hidden in your deck - hence the deck known as Lockjaw Lotto. Infinaut is a common choice in the deck because he can effectively be a 3-20 if you get lucky. You do draw a target with Shang though if that happens, but it lets you quickly reinforce other lanes.
Raw Jubilee - Similar to Lockjaw, Jubilee effectively replaces her draw for another card still in the deck. Playing Jubilee gives you an effective 1/X where X is the remaining number of cards in the deck to pull what you want. Often times, this will likely be a big powered card because it is hard to set up a combo when the draw she gives isn't exactly known
Colleen Wing + Dracula - Dracula discards a card at the end of the game and gains its power value. If you can tailor a deck to remove cards such that only big bois are left, then your Dracula is going to be massive. Effectively a 4-X, where X is the discarded value. Needless to say, Infinaut is a good choice, since it makes Drac a 4-20. Colleen Wing discards the lowest cost card from your hand, which will often be low power. If you tailor the rest of your deck to fit this mold, you can get a 20+ power discard almost every time.
Lady Sif + Ghost Rider - Similar to the above and already described. Play Sif to discard the highest cost card in hand. If this is the Infinaut, you can then play Ghost Rider to immediately summon him back onto the field, effectively turning Ghost Rider into a 4-23.
Magik + She-Hulk - As with Sunspot and described above. Wait on Turn 6 instead, then with 7 Energy, play Infinaut + your 1 cost She-Hulk for 29 Power. As with the weaknesses described, the main issue is that this easy to see coming.
Rank/Tier: B tier. It's hard to argue with 20 power to the face and that's what Infinaut brings. Sure, you can do some wacky combos with like Wong, Shuri and Odin to get a gazillion points, but Infinaut requires less set up and the best methods of using him often cheat him on to the board anyway.
Most Used Decks:
Lockjaw Lotto
Hela Discard
Shenaut
-
I haven't gotten into playing Snap yet, but I've watched a few matches, and your deep dives into these cards have been super cool.
The thing that impresses me the most about the game is that it's the least Magic the Gathering CCG I've ever seen. No knock on Magic! I enjoy that game a lot. But it casts an immense shadow over the genre it created.
There's some of that lineage here, but it's distantly related indeed. Everything feels far removed, from the structure of competing over lanes, to the ultra-simplified statlines with complexity loaded entirely onto abilities (many of them one offs), to the emphasis on score differential via the Snap mechanic, to even the onboarding model of unlocking increasingly complex sets of cards as you level up.
-
Thanks. I think SNAP is great fun for a quick time waster, but it's also neat that there are layers of depth in the game. And yeah, it doesn't try to be MTG. It's also nice that a lot of the great cards in the game are largely FTP - you don't need the latest and greatest to have a competitive set of cards if that is your wish. My hope when starting this thread was to just share that with more of our user base. If I get you to try the game or otherwise look it up and see what it is like, I consider it a success.
Speaking of great cards that are largely FTP, on to the card of the day: Cosmo
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Cosmo_06-5568f22b3838ee37e25620d0759805e4f98ff7fdc71ed2805ab1ebda063631b3.webp)
Cost: 3
Power: 3 (1 Below Par)
Ability: Ongoing - Cards with On Reveal abilities no longer trigger in this lane
Ideal Turn to Play: 3-6. When to play Cosmo really depends on how badly you need to tech someone. If you see someone plop down Wong, you probably want to plop down Cosmo early to prevent your opponent from being able to take advantage of double reveals. On the other hand, if someone is setting up a combo behind say Invisible Woman, playing Cosmo on 6 creates the biggest surprise and will earn you a higher cube equity. Cosmo has a big play window and being 3 cost means he can be played alongside another 3 cost giving you this flexibility, which is one of the reasons he is so great.
Archetype: Tech
Uses:
Cosmo is the first card you get that can really trip people up. Quite literally too because he is a Series 1 card, so you get it very early in your SNAP journey. A lot of the cards available you then are fairly simple but will have On Reveals that can tilt a match like White Tiger or Jess Jones. Then one gets their hand on Cosmo, plays it in that lane and stuffs an incoming Odin. You never really do forget your first experience. As you play more and your Collection Level rises and get up to Series 3-5, Cosmo's value only increases. The On Reveal abilities might get stronger but Cosmo still stuffs them all the same. Sense an incoming Galactus? Cosmo that lane and instantly watch an opponent's game plan crumble before his eyes.
Cosmo's value is two-fold as you become more experienced. Not only can he counter an opponent's play, but it can also help set up or protect your plays. Pairing Cosmo with Cerebro shuts down an Enchantress or Rogue. Pairing Cosmo with your Maximus means your opponent doesn't get 2 extra draws while putting you +3 on tempo. Pairing it with Magik can mean the difference between keeping your Turn 7 or getting rug pulled by a Storm or SWitch. Like Invisible Woman, Cosmo becomes quite flexible as your collection grows and the ways you can utilize it expands. Its ability to counter an opponent's play is still his primary use but it starts to become easier to find ways where he can set you up instead of being pure tech.
All of that is further aided by Cosmo's great play window. 3 cost is the magic number in Snap because it lets you play 2 cards of that cost on Turn 6, greatly increasing your flexibility. The even better part? A lot of 3 cost cards in the game are excellent tech cards. Killmonger, the previous iteration of Shadow King, Juggernaut - all 3 cost cards that can be played alongside our doggo friend. Compared to Shang, who is a 4 cost and can't be played alongside many other cards, Cosmo then becomes just one option for a tech counter. If you aren't sure if an opponent is going On Reveal or Ongoing as their last play, you can play Cosmo AND Rogue at the same time. With Shang, that option isn't available. He's all or nothing and there aren't many other 2 cost tech cards that you can play alongside him. This large play window means you can alter when Cosmo comes down and he will always be useful as long as you draw him. If your opponent is setting up a play like with Generic Destroy or a big Wong combo, you can stuff it immediately because delaying it will often cost you the game. On the other hand, if an opponent is trying to set up a combo behind Invisible Woman or giving off tells of an obvious Galactus, you also have the option to play it on Turn 6 to goad an opponent into staying and getting better cube equity. Since you can also tailor a deck around him, this means there is literally no time where it is bad to draw Cosmo. However, it IS more powerful for Cosmo to have priority since that means it shuts down the current turn's play instead of the turn after. For that reason, he can lose effectiveness in pure counter decks like Sera Miracle if he is drawn on 6 as they often want to lose priority by then.
Cosmo's only real issue is that unlike Echo, who only hits your opponent's cards, Cosmo provides lane parity meaning his effect hits both YOU and your opponent. Too often do people forget their own Cosmo (yours truly included) and end up placing a card like Mystique into the Cosmo lane. This parity does mean your opponent can also use your own Cosmo against you. So against certain decks, you have to be way more cautious about playing him out. A deck like Spectrum Destroyer uses very few On Reveal effects except for like Goblins and Destroyer. Playing a Cosmo in that matchup gives your opponent a free lane to place a 6-15 down that you can't Shang anymore. It also saves them 3 Energy they can use to play something else. Since it only affects one lane, opponents that play a deck that goes wide for example will also likely be able to play around your Cosmo. A Zoo deck can drop down their 1 cost On Reveals in other lanes and then use your own Cosmo'd Lane to guard their Kazar and Blue Marvel.
Keeping those things in mind though, Cosmo is an extremely powerful card that you are give in Series 1. I remember reading another player's analysis that talked about how a lot of new cards that are released don't even give you that much of a better win rate or cube rate. And amongst the examples cited of really powerful FTP cards, Cosmo was listed as one of them. It's not hard to see why once you delve a little bit more into the game.
Common Combos:
You often play Cosmo to counter an opponent's play but that doesn't mean you can't use Cosmo to set up your own. The "No Reveals" part means he is a bit trickier to use, but there are obviously cards with detrimental effects that love being paired with Cosmo so those effects can be voided. The most obvious 2 card combo of this nature are Cosmo -> Maximus in Surfer decks and Cosmo -> Destroyer in Spectrum Destroyer decks. You can also do heavy duty lane control this way by pairing Cosmo with Echo. These two paired together basically prevent both On Reveals AND Ongoings from kicking in on one lane, which shuts down basically everything but stat sticks like the Infinaut or those with useful passives like Captain Marvel. Finally, Cosmo can be paired up with other Ongoings / Big bodies to help protect them. A lot of other tech cards like Shang, Enchantress and Shadow King are all On Reveals themselves. So putting your Dino together with Cosmo for example will guard it from being destroyed by an opponent's Shang.
Rank/Tier: A tier. Cosmo borders on being S Tier due to its near universal usefulness. The only reason why it doesn't is because he is a tech card so he rises and falls in usage based on the meta. If he altered the way you composed decks and changed the way you think about SNAP, he would be an easy inclusion. As is, he is just a very powerful counter that can be played into your hands if you use the right set of tools. That still means he's an easy A tier card though.
Most Used Decks:
Any deck that is looking for an "On Reveal" counter
Spectrum Destroyer
Surfer
Zero Shuri
Cerebro 3
-
Killmonger
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Killmonger_07-f9baeab250c71ac4426822c072803ec7d2a292d345353360ddb6aa0e1c6feef1.webp)
Cost: 3
Power: 3 (1 Below Par)
Ability: On Reveal - Destroy all 1-cost Cards currently on the board
Ideal Turn to Play: 3-6. Similar to Cosmo, when you play Killmonger really depends on the board state, your opponent's deck and your own plans. If you're just using him as a tech card, Turn 6 probably makes more sense for better cube equity. On the other hand, using him as an enabler or support card means you're probably rolling him out a bit earlier.
Archetype: Tech/Destroy
Uses:
One of the strongest decks you can use in early pools is a Zoo deck archetype. The concept of the deck is simple. You build it around decent 1-cost or flood type cards and go wide, while boosting them with Kazar, Blue Marvel and maybe Onslaught so they are worth much more than their base value. When you first start you SNAP journey, you're likely going to be playing cards as they become available for play and things such as Play Windows are not as evident or important. So here you are, spending turns 1-3 putting down various 1 cost cards and you slam Onslaught out on 6 for a massive field wide boost. Then your opponent plays Killmonger and basically wipes out your entire board except for one lane. And thus, a painful lesson is learned and Zoo's dominance becomes more diminished.
In some ways, Killmonger shares a lot of similar traits as Cosmo. They tech against different cards sure, but they both have the same stat line, both can be used to enable plays for yourself and both have very wide play windows where they can be effective. Killmonger is what some people would call a "pure value" card. Anytime you actually play him out, you are immediately going to get some sort of benefit. Obviously, he can destroy your opponent's 1 cost cards that need to be played early like Quinjet, but you can also just use him to clear junk out. If your board is flooded by rocks from Debrii or a gifted Hood from Viper, Killmonger is going to remove those for you. And even though he can benefit your opponent in the same way, the difference in information and deck construction means that the advantage will often be tilted in your favour.
Killmonger's introduction teaches players about a couple of important concepts. Priority is the obvious one as who reveals first matters determines whether Killmonger whiffs or gets you, but the other important lesson is timing. Just because you CAN play something early doesn't mean that you should. Killmonger being present in early pool 2 means that players still running Zoo decks, learned quickly they can mitigate the risk of getting caught by him by just saving all your 1 cost plays on Turn 6. You still have to play out Kazar and Blue Marvel on 4-5, but your other 1 cost cards can technically be played all on Turn 6 anyway (1+2+3 = 6 Energy). So why risk getting hit by an earlier Killmonger, when the bulk of your deck can be played out late anyway? Not only does doing this reduce the amount of information provided, but you will likely lose priority, which aids in evading getting your board wiped. And from there, players learn the effectiveness of a card's play window. Something like Nightcrawler or Ice Man are best played before Turn 6 so they can utilize their abilities more effectively. However, something like Blade might be best played later to reduce the chance of discarding something important.
Since Killmonger's effect hits your field as well, he's best in decks that can utilize his ability to enable bigger plays versus just being a tech card. Nova is basically paired up with Killmonger at the hip since Killmonger can destroy him from anywhere. That means that, if you played Nova in a restricted location, you can also hold off from blowing him up if it can let you chump win a location since he is still worth at least a point. You can also play him alongside Squirrel Girl to aid Death. Death is an 8 Cost Card but decreases its cost by 1 every time a card is destroyed on the field (regardless of whose side of the board it is on). So playing Squirrel Girl, the using Killmonger not only strips all the clutter Squirrel Girl dumps, but it makes Death -3 in Cost immediately. Similarly, he works with Thanos because all the Stones are 1 cost. You can then quickly play out the Stones for their effects, the use Killmonger to set up Death or even Galactus. Finally, both Deadpool and Hood are common pairings with Killmonger because both can make use of his ability to destroy them from the field.
Still, despite his strengths, I don't think anybody that has played SNAP for awhile would disagree that Killmonger is fundamentally a weaker card than Cosmo. The key issue stems from the cards that they stop. Cosmo stuffs down any On Reveal abilities - which are often the most powerful ones in SNAP because they only occur once when played. This trait will continue to be important in SNAP's future because On Reveal is one of the categories that an ability can belong to. The only way Cosmo loses relevance is if they literally stopped making On Reveal effects. On the other hand, Killmonger doesn't stop flood decks or even Zoo decks completely. If you're using Dazzler, Mysterio and Brood, Killmonger basically does jack all. He specifically just stops decks that rely primarily on 1-cost cards. And while he will always serve as a check to them, the weaker 1 cost cards are, the less important Killmonger is in the meta.
He can also just be a more awkward card to play. If you end up in a situation where you want to save your Sunspot but want to destroy your opponent's Nebula, Killmonger isn't going to discriminate. In this ways, Cosmo's lane restriction can be a blessing in disguise - you just need to make your plays in a different lane. No such option exists with Killmonger. It seems like this might be that one case where Elektra is relevant, but thankfully, there are other more flexible options. Just that at the end of the day, you're going to need another card to support. Then there is also the fact that Cosmo exists the entire time he is played whereas Killmonger is only relevant on the turn he is played...
You have other ways to nullifying Killmonger such as Armor or throwing away priority, but the type of card he checks against means Killmonger always has a hard cap on how useful he is going to be. That doesn't mean he is useless - it just means there are limitations on how useful he is and ultimately the types of decks he will fit in. When Bounce was meta, Killmonger was truly king because he was the one card that they had to respect since it would eliminate their pumped Kitty regardless of which lane she was in. The stronger 1 cost cards become, the more likely one sees a resurgence in his play rate.
Common Combos:
Like with Cosmo, aside from just teching against 1-costs, Killmonger is a tech card that can run several combos or enabler plays to assist the deck:
Nova -> Killmonger - As described above, this is an easy 2 card combo that aims to blow up Nova to give all other cards on the field a boost. You'd usually do this late as possible to get the maximum bonus possible available with Nova, but blowing him up early can make sense if you are running a card like Deadpool, who wants to be pumped up every turn if possible.
Squirrel Girl + Debrii + Killmonger + Death - Debrii is a tough card to fit with Destroy, but here's another interesting play you can do to get more mileage out of the rocks she places in each lane. Squirrel Girl + Debrii's rocks all get hit by Killmonger, so this combination means you reduce Death's cost by 7, pretty much ensuring you can play her for 0 for a big turn 6 point slam.
Hood + Killmonger - Hood is a -3 Power card but summons a 6 power Demon to your hand. Playing Killmonger means you get the benefit of playing him with none of the drawbacks.
Deadpool + Killmonger - Deadpool is an awkward card that doubles in power every time he is destroyed. The real annoying thing with Deadpool is that he really wants a perfect or close to perfect Curve as much as possible. Killmonger helps to smooth that curve because in most other destroy decks, you usually only have 3 actual destroy effects. Here, Killmonger represents an extra destroy card, which can help keep your Deadpool on track.
Time Stone + Killmonger + Galactus - Basically a way to get Galactus out on Turn 5. Depending on the rest of the board, playing Killmonger + Time Stone and clearing a lane means there is now an empty lane that you can try to call Galactus in. You'll need some support cards to finish the deal, but that goes without saying.
Invisible Woman + Killmonger - A delayed Killmonger that goes off at the end of the game and kills any 1-cost not taking cover behind Armor. A super relevant combo during the Bounce meta but still relevant today and can be used to catch late game Zoo or Ultron players.
Rank/Tier: B tier. While not as relevant of a tech card as Shang or Cosmo, Killmonger is still pretty solid. Being 3 cost gives him flexibility and unlike most other cards, he doesn't care which lane he is played into. This means he's pretty unique, so while ultimately, his stock rises and falls depending on 1-cost relevancy, he is at least at the apex of what he checks against. This is in stark contrast to cards that tech against Ongoing effects, where all three are often competing against each other.
Most Used Decks:
Surfer
Control
Generic Destroy
Thanos Destroy
Cerebro 3
-
Punisher
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Punisher_06-a18e790d49a9868bd35d2dafd01263bd04d801ccc6046d1f8ad27f69b7df586d.webp)
Cost: 3
Power: 2 (2 Below Par)
Ability: Ongoing - For every card your opponent has in this lane, gain +1 Power
Ideal Turn to Play: 3-6. Like the previous two cards above him, Punisher is an establisher with a wide play window that lets you parachute him any time after Turn 3. It is one of the few things that keeps him somewhat usable.
Archetype: Anchor / Junk
Uses:
We're looking at another series 1 card for the day, but unlike Cosmo, Punisher is largely outclassed by the time you hit Series 3. That's not to say he doesn't have a place or use, but it is pretty evident that he has been power crept to the point you only really use him now if you like him. Punisher is pretty interesting in a way and he shares a parallel with Cap being a 3 Cost establisher card that focuses on lane flooding...only in the Punisher's case, it is about flooding an opponent's lanes versus yours so he's actually harder to set up. At the same time though, Punisher is probably actually better than Cap and of the Series 1 establisher type cards, he definitely feels relevant longer than the others.
To understand why, let's look at some of Punisher's strengths. He's a 3-2 with a potential to go up to 3-6. So on paper, he is definitely weaker than Cap because Cap starts at 1 base power higher and it is easy to combo him with like Brood, Antman or another card that wants you to fill a lane. In practice however, completely sealing a lane off BEFORE the end of the game is often a mistake. There are two issues at play here. The first is that doing so bars you from making more additional plays to that lane unless you can move a card. So the state of what you have in that lane is largely locked in. This then leads to the second issue which is that it telegraphs to your opponent what they can use to counter your lane. Have a bunch of Ongoing effects like Cap/Antman/Onslaught? Let me play Enchantress and kill it. Have a bunch of pumped up Broods? Here comes Shadow King. And in the even the lock requires an answer that your opponent doesn't have? Guess what? They just retreat for their ante cube rate. So it is bad for cube equity too.
Punisher's ability avoids this issue because he only gains premium rate if YOUR opponent dumps 4 cards into a lane. Sure, this means he usually doesn't become a 3-6, but he also doesn't require you to completely fill a lane in. You can build a deck around his ability such as the junk archetype, where then, Punisher can easily get more value when played. And since he can be played any time after you have the energy for him, he becomes a flexible 3 cost stat stick that can surprise an opponent. There is also something of a weird dichotomy in SNAP where single cards with large power are generally more preferable to lower value flood cards. Yes, I'm aware Brood exists and it's a damn good card, but even then, Brood shares this weakness as well. Partially due to the reasons I explained above, but also because if a card requires all 4 cards in the lane to be relevant, then it is easier to disrupt them. Put another way, it gives your opponent 4 different chances or methods to render that particular lane's combo to be ineffective. So sure, Punisher can get stuffed by Enchantress or Rogue. But if you're playing Punisher plus Polaris for example, none of those cards hit Polaris. And since they function independently of each other, you need 2 different tech cards to counter both. But play Antman, Cap and Onslaught together? Antman can die to Elektra or moved by Polaris, Cap can be moved by Magneto, Onslaught can be redirected by Aero, and so on. There are just more tools available.
There is also the psychological aspect of Punisher that I'm sure influences some players, even though it doesn't have as significant of an impact as one might expect. Since he gains +1 Power for every card in an opponent's lane on the same side, it is easy for an opponent to decide to not reinforce that lane for fear of making Punisher stronger - even though realistically, pretty much any card you play will have 1 power and offset this gain. This in turn, can lead to them putting off playing cards into a lane long enough that it is impossible to come back from. Remember how I mentioned in other posts that SNAP has a timing component for when to best play cards? Punisher's effect can have an impact on that - which does make him better than what one might expect on face value.
Because he is influenced by the opponent's side of the lane, Punisher isn't a card that has a lot of combos...at least not traditional ones. He appreciates other cards that can help him load up an opponent's lane - so cards like Polaris (moving a 1 or 2 cost), Viper (gifting an opponent a card) or Debrii (throwing rocks into the field) all help him out. He's also weirdly effective with Magneto if an opponent is using 3 or 4 cost establishers as Magnetman will move those for him. The goblins are also effective with Punisher, since they will fly into an opponent's lane on their own. He's largely an independent though because while he can benefit from other cards played, they often won't receive a benefit from him. Hence why he's basically a stat stick perse.
Nowadays, Punisher has largely been power crept because 3 costs are starting to get more power or their abilities are becoming stronger and have more complex interactions with other cards. And because Punisher largely doesn't combo with other cards, the moment the average expected power goes up, the less relevant and useful he becomes. He is particularly bad against decks that go tall instead of ones that go wide because they can focus more power per card in each location. Destroy in particular laughs at Punisher forever because they will constantly decrease the number of cards sitting in a particular lane (except for the Nimrod versions). It doesn't help you out at all if your Punisher is going to be a 3-3 while they have a 3-18 Venom or higher sitting in the same lane. The fact that it is your opponent who gets to decide how much Punisher is worth at the end of the day if you aren't tossing junk into their play space is something that will always suck for him.
Common Combos:
Punisher doesn't really help out other cards but he can be the recipient of some of them. Here are some simple combos that work with him:
Polaris -> Punisher - If an opponent plays a 1 or 2 cost card, Polaris can move them into another lane. This means she can set up Punisher to always have at least +1 base power.
Hood -> Viper -> Punisher - This is a 3 card combo on the curve that not only gives you a 1-6 Demon from Hood, but then tosses him into your opponent's board and gives Punisher +1
Debrii -> Punisher - As noted above, the rocks on the field also help boost Punisher. Best way to take advantage of Debrii is to break parity on rocks and Punisher does that, even at only +1
Punisher -> Magneto - Especially effective if you have like Kraven sitting in the same lane. Moves all 3-4 cost into the Magneto lane, giving both Kraven and Punisher a large boost, offsetting Magneto's usual net negative when he is played.
Juggernaut -> Punisher - As with Polaris, Juggernaut will toss a card randomly around if they are played in the same lane is him. This can let you set up a separate spot where Punisher can be a stat-stick.
Rank/Tier: D tier. Realistically, Punisher is probably more of a C- or a D+ card. He has his uses, but outside of Pool 1 and 2, he largely becomes power crept by better establishers or better support cards at 3 that can lead to bigger and better plays.
Most Used Decks:
Junk
Negative
Spectrum Destroyer
Surfer
-
Let's talk about a Marvel favourite, Wolverine
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Wolverine_09-4fa2f5b43abf5870388279e8799e724758b10cc363c4ed072a5bbafebd1cdf13.webp)
Cost: 2
Power: 2 (1 Below Par)
Ability: Passive - Whenever Wolverine is Destroyed or Discarded, he instantly regenerates into a random lane. +2 Power on each occurrence.
Ideal Turn to Play: 2-5. Logan is best played earlier so you have more times to set him up to be greater than his base value. And while you can play him on 6, his random respawning can be a real headache if you are trying to plan around where he is going to jump to.
Archetype: Destroy / Discard
Uses:
Wolverine is truly unique in the world of SNAP because of all the cards that exist in the game, to this day, there are only 2 cards I can think of where once played, they generally cannot be removed from the board. One of them is Nimrod. The other is Wolverine. Sure, Deadpool and Sabretooth both regenerate too, but unlike Logan, they then have to be played again from hand. That can be a real issue if your opponent drops down a Killmonger or Gambit and happens to eliminate your buffed Deadpool on Turn 6. With Logan though, he can never be removed from the field. They can move him around to a random location, but he will always have board presence, meaning it turns destroying him into a gamble that he ends up in the wrong lane. And if they are unlucky, he can totally jump to the correct lane by accident.
Wolverine can only be destroyed in 1 way that I'm aware of once he's played. If Galactus enters the field AND there is no longer any space for Logan to go to, then he can finally die. Otherwise, not even the big bad who removes complete lanes can get rid of him. His permanent presence is very useful because it means once you pay his 2 Energy cost, he will always be on the field for you to play with. Where this is most useful is with Destroy decks since they need cards on the field to destroy to start their game plan. Logan being always around means he will always be a useful assist in this way. And since he will always be there, it's easy to destroy Wolverine more than once. So often in Destroy decks, he is at least a 2-6...sometimes even higher depending on the location, your opponent's decks and other factors. That's a LOT of value out of a 2-cost card.
He can do some work in Discard, but his role there is quite different. While in Destroy, you are looking to sacrifice him repeatedly, in Discard, he really is only played once. To be more precise, you're not actually playing his cost, but rather hoping he gets chosen as the discarded card. This lets you play him out for free, effectively making him a 0-4. When you consider that the two 0 cost cards in the game currently only have 1 or 2 power, the fact that Logan is +4 is pretty good! This does come with the caveat that you cannot choose which lane he goes into, but free card play is a free card play. Colleen Wing is the best tool for the job here as she will discard the lowest card from your hand. Since he can only be discarded once, he's generally the first card dropped from Discard decks as he cannot gain as much power as in Destroy. However, if you are still early in your journey, Logan makes rounds in both archetypes pretty routinely.
The random respawning is a double-edged sword. However, it is often more useful than a hinderance because in situations where Wolverine can jump to a lane you don't want him to jump to, you can also choose to you know, not destroy him. It means he doesn't get stronger anymore, but it is rare for all 3 locations to be disadvantageous to you. This is even more true when considers that a lot of locations in the game favour Destroy. So often times, Wolverine's random respawn CAN win you the game. If you have somewhere like Luke's Bar or Sanctum Santorium, destroying Wolverine can get him to bounce into those lanes for free. If he's more than +4 power, your opponent really needs Reach in order to contest. A 6 power Wolverine can hold down the fort from even Doom.
Where it CAN work against you is on Turn 6. Since you cannot tell where Wolverine will jump to, destroying him on 6 effectively puts yourself into a gamble. If you need Wolverine to anchor a particular lane then it is even worse because it means there is only a 1/3 chance he will land back into the same lane versus the 50/50 if you just need him to move. For this reason, Wolverine is not something that you really want to play on 6. You either play him out for 2 Power, which is bad on tempo, or you play him out and have to deal with him hopping around. Those aren't very good conditions to be playing a game out against. Another big problem for Logan though is that he is very much pidgeon-holed into this archetype. This inflexibility means that unlike some of the A tier cards I mentioned, playing Wolverine is a tell and gives a lot of information to your opponent about what deck you are playing and therefore, what other cards they expect to see. There is a common joke amongst more experienced players that Wolverine on 2 plus Wave on 3 guarantees a Galactus on 4. It is just such an extremely obvious play line that more experienced Galactus players basically stopped playing Wolverine to better mask their intentions. Even if you aren't playing Galactus, playing Wolverine means the Armors and Cosmos come out and that will basically kill your entire Destroy deck if you don't have priority and get ahead in the running.
Wolverine used to be way worse, where he was just a static 2-3 that would jump around. That made him much less useful because at 3 power, he couldn't really threaten much and was just par for course on tempo. His current iteration has made him pretty staple though in Destroy since he is often worth premium plus value. The main thing holding him back now is that he is a flashing red light that tells your opponent that you are looking to Destroy things. And since he should come down as early as Turn 2, that gives an opponent plenty of time to find their possible tech cards to use against you.
Common Combos:
Like Punisher, Wolverine is more the recipient of combos versus being the one to set them up. He does have a few where he CAN be a useful enabler though:
Wolverine -> Carnage /Deathlok - Pretty simple! You even get 1 bonus energy and +2 power with Carnage. Deathlok is less ideal but is at least on curve.
Wolverine -> Venom - Similar to above, but can be played late. Venom absorbs the power of all the cards he destroys. So the more you can pump up Wolverine before Venom eats him, the great the power boost to the symbiote.
Wolverine -> Hulk Buster -> Knull - One of Hulk Buster's significant weaknesses, is that like enchant creatures in Magic, they can be -1 Card advantage if the card you attach it to gets blown up. Logan solves that issue because he cannot be destroyed once in hand. You can even then duplicate the Hulk Buster like in its best use cases by repeatedly destroying Logan and playing Knull.
Wolverine -> Galactus - This is a very common combination that you'll see, although it will be spaced several turns apart. Since Logan cannot be destroyed except in very rare circumstances, playing him in a Galactus deck, he can actually bounce (from left to right) before stopping and gain +4 power in some cases.
Wolverine -> Colleen Wing -> Morbius - Other than Swarm, Wolverine is a good target for Colleen since if that happens, he is essentially played for free - albeit randomly. A 0-4 is pretty good! You also get +2 to THE MORB, so it's another line of play in Discard, albeit less good than Swarm.
Rank/Tier: B tier. Wolverine is another early Series 1 card that has remained relevant to today's landscape. This is largely owing to his rework. With it, he's almost always a 2-6+ in Destroy decks or is a free play in Discard. He works better in the former obviously since he can scale up and is harder to power creep out but he's still see a fair amount of usage in both archetypes.
Most Used Decks:
Apocalypse Discard
Generic Destroy
Nimrod Destroy
Galactus
-
Logan's ability is very flavorful, but I'm disappointed it pigeonholes him into a single deck. He should be able to show up on every team!
... On the other hand, the meme of him being on every team at once may be outdated now; I'm way behind on Marvel lore.
If you get the chance, I'd love to get an examination of some of the Locations. The way their traits symmetrically shape play is one of the things that's most interesting to me about Snap.
-
I don't mind going over locations but I need some input on the format. What would you like me to talk about? Other than Like what decks are good with it or which cards, what else would you want me to note?
-
Hm, the main thing that interests me about them is how they shape play. They're an element that's (almost) completely out of both players' control, but which can dramatically alter the experience. That's not something you normally get in a CCG and I'm curious how impactful you find them in practice.
For one of the few examples I know offhand, if you see a Sanctum Sanctorum and your deck doesn't have a way to move cards to it, how much does that influence your decision to retreat early?
-
Okay. Since Bobbin Cranbud asked and I aim to deliver, let's look at another big part of any Marvel Snap game: The locations! Most of these as I noted are from famous Marvel locales. The flavor of each varies, but in general you can classify them as "Beneficial", " Detrimental", "Restrictive" and "Neutral". These are not official terms the game uses and beneficial / detrimental vary based on the type of deck you are running. Locations also have a rarity factor and not all locations' spawn rates are equal. Specifically, the really rare locations will spawn less than 5% of the time, while the more common ones appear closer to 20-30% if I had to wager a guess. In case it wasn't clear, not all locations reveal themselves at the same time but rather one at a time. So when a location is revealed can have some impact on your play too.
With all that being said, let's look at Marvel landmark from the Phase 3 days - Thanos' Toilet Space Throne
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/location_def_images/SpaceThrone-44d8e12fb77820851745ffd52b468198366e4a4ff8e30b7c3d135df8f0919985.webp)
Classification: Restrictive - As it says on the tin, you can only play one card here! Or...can you?
Rarity: Uncommon
Favored Decks: Lane Lockdown, Junk, Movement
Analysis:
The Space Throne in some ways pretty much is the microcosm of SNAP in a nutshell. It's effect on the game is pretty huge. Instead of having 4 spots to play, you are now restricted to only have one spot available. This means that if your deck requires on creating a combo such as with Wong, Shuri or Invisible Woman for example, Space Throne denies you that possibility. Because you can also only play one card there, you have to be very careful in the type of card you choose. Your kneejerk reaction might be to wait until the latest turn possible so you can drop as large of a card as you can. But at the same time, there are other cards that an opponent can play to shut you down. Wait for Turn 6 and an opponent might counter by playing Professor X on 5. As has been mentioned before, timing is everything in SNAP and the Space Throne defines that.
Whether or not to play into the Space Throne really depends on the type of deck you are running. If you have cards that can move such as Nightcrawler or Captain Marvel, an early play into Space Throne is risk-less. If your opponent wants to put something bigger or chump you out from winning, your Movement Card will guard it for you. Even better if that card has higher base power to begin with such as Vision, because then it can contest the lane on its own. However, if you don't have any cards in your hand that can do that, then you really need to pay attention to what your opponent is running. Junk decks in particular love this location because they can throw something useless into this spot against you or threaten you if you play early into it with Hazmat. This is a location where real estate agents such as Rhino or SWitch are particularly useful against. Both can be played relatively early and can get rid of the "All-or-nothing" mantra it puts on you. Just having 3 extra spaces to play cards is huge, even if you have to sacrifice one spot for just 3 power to start.
Combo Plays
Winning the Space Throne is all about timing. The key decisive turn here is, surprise surprise, Turn 3. This is the turn where an opponent is mostly likely to play a wacky trick or try to cheese the lane out. So it pays to see what else the opponent might have played and where they played previously. Some common cards you are likely to see:
Green Goblin - Basically the asshole move where you fly a Goblin into the opponent's territory and take up their possible spot for them. You can then win the lane without playing anything else more or less because now they cannot play any other cards into the lane to get rid of the Goblin. Countered by Cloak primarily but also by a possible Legion that can re-open the lane by changing it to something else. If an opponent SNAPs on 3 with Space Throne, be wary of Green Gobu
Debrii - Another super common card that cheeses out the lane. Your opponent plays Debrii in one of the other two lanes to launch rocks into the throne. They lock themselves out too, but the difference is, they will have cards that break parity such as Kazar or Blue Marvel, buffing their rock to 3 or 4 power while yours remains at 0. Countered by your own Kazar, Patriot, et al if you are running that type of deck, but you can also use Killmonger to free up the lane.
Polaris - My personal favourite, but this one is conditional. If an opponent plays an early 1 cost or 2 cost, Polaris is a very cheeky way of getting around an opponent trying to cheese you out while applying your own cheese. You will move their 1 cost or 2 cost into the Throne and lock them out by using their own card against them. Polaris having a 5 power body means she can contest against most 1-2 cost cards, while defending you against Debrii rocks and Green Gobu. There are trade-offs of course. For starters, she won't win against every 1-2 cost card. Ebony Maw beats her at 7 power for example. Second, if an opponent has Magneto, they can play him later to move your Polaris out of the lane and then cheese you back out on 6. Just something to watch out for.
Nightcrawler - Kurt is very good against this location. He's a 1-2 with the ability to Move once. You can play him early into the throne, then only Move him last minute for a big 5 or 6 drop, giving you defense against early cheese plays.
Jeff the Baby Land Shark - Jeff don't give a damn about your rules. He's a card that can ignore play restrictions, so here, he can be played on Space Throne for an additional 3 power. Might not seem like a lot, but if you say used Polaris to hold the location, an opponent can easily toss in Jeff and steal it back from you as long as the 1-2 cost they pulled has at least 3 power. And that is surprisingly more common.
Shang Chi - Of course you're likely going to see kung-fu Asian man. If your opponent hasn't played a card here on 3 or 4, the expectation is that they might try to blow you out here with a heavy 5 or 6 drop. Shang of course says, "lol" if that happens. This is definitely a read so it is risky by nature but is obviously very effective when it works. Loses to any play where the card on the Throne is between 4-8 power though, so be careful. For example, Aero or Doom can both be played on 5-6 and will win the throne if you try to be cheeky with Shang.
Galactus - Also obvious. This one is harder to pull off because 7 power on 6 isn't a lot. And if you are trying to shortcut him out with Wave, it becomes a pretty big tell and an opponent can counter easily with a card that is 8 or more (easy to do thanks to Wave). Combo play into Galactus is also possible and while tricky to pull off, also come with the caveat that you win the game when it succeeds. Forge into Galactus gives him 10 power and that is much more likely to win as 10 power is quite a bit of bulk.
Living Tribual - While Tribunal is pretty memey, he's the ultimate counter to lockdown styles of play and this is pretty much a prime example that shows off his strength. Even if you locked this location out early, it doesn't matter if your opponent ends up with a billion points in another lane because Tribunal will then split that power.
-
Back to cards for a bit - Nick Fury
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/NickFury_09-b41296c7a11bcd1c0c52f67dedf9ab338109d0eb608c961f43dc6adda4cef915.webp)
Cost: 4
Power: 5 (1 Below Par)
Ability: On Reveal - Generates three random 6-cost cards into your hand (up to hand size limit of 7).
Ideal Turn to Play: 4-5. Like all 4 cost cards, Nick Fury comes with the advantage of being able to be discounted by Zabu by 1, giving him an early play window of 3 if need be. But really, you probably don't want to call Fury too early on the field since if you reach your hand size limit, you can't draw anything from your deck.
Archetype: Dino Handsize
Uses:
The theme running between all of the Agents of Shield cards is that they all generate cards for you. What pool they generate from though is different. In Fury's case, he only generates 6 cost cards - basically the biggest and baddest, usually finishers, into your hand. So pros and cons to this should be obvious.
Obvious Pros - For starters, you expand the options you have available for the end of the game. Sometimes your deck just doesn't really match up well to an opponents. Fury's random +3 cards here can give you a finisher that rounds out the current game perfectly. 6 cost cards are the creme de la crop, so you are likely getting something good too. There are some fringe benefits here as well such as creating more targets for a possible Spider Ham, but those are not as important.
Obvious Cons - Because they are 6 cost cards, you can't play them on the next turn unless you have Quinjet already onboard. Quinjet is a 1 cost support card that discounts the cost needed to play cards that did not come from your deck by 1. This means, if you don't draw Quinjet or get it destroyed by Killmonger or the rare Elektra, you have gummed up your hand by 3 additional spaces. The hand size limit in SNAP is 7. For most intent and purposes, you probably won't hit the 7 card limit, but since Fury gives you a net +2, hitting the cap is actually a real possibility with him. You also cannot guarantee the quality of the 6 drops and unlike Coulson, who generates 4-5 drops, 6 drops are usually not tech cards either.
Of the SHIELD cards, Fury falls somewhere inbetween being useful and irrelevancy. He's pretty much viewed as a weaker Coulson because at least when you play Coulson, you are guaranteed to have a Turn 4 and Turn 5 play, even without any other supporting cards. And Coulson's pool of draws are generally considered better because the 4 cost pool has some real useful tech options (Sup Shang-Chi). With Fury though, you pretty much NEED Quinjet on board. Otherwise, even if he gives you some great options, you can't play them until the last turn anyway. You might as well play Emma Frost instead who will also shed light on your opponent's hand, while being +1 on power.
You always run the risk with the SHIELD cards to generate cards that are basically dead on draw. That's why including these cards should be used to fuel a more consistent win-con. Hence, Nick Fury is often paired together with Devil Dinosaur. Dino gains +2 Power for each card in hand. And at 5 Cost, it can be often be a surprising power slam that an opponent cannot contest unless they have a tech card on hand. Even there though, Fury competes with Moon Girl who is often better because she duplicates card in your hand. Y'know, the cards you chose that are likely to have more synergy than the random 6 costs Fury calls.
Still, at the end of the day, Fury isn't a bad card because he's at least generating useful finisher options. His previous iteration was actually worse. Being a 5 cost meant that while you didn't have the issue of gumming up your hand, you still only had 1 turn to take advantage of Fury's reinforcements. This ontop of the fact that it narrowed his window down to JUST turn 5 made him often unplayable. Now, he might not be a great card, but he definitely at least has uses. And let's be real here - if you are using any of the SHIELD cards, you are likely using Quinjet because not only is the synergy obvious but the ability to modify a card's play window is hugely powerful. It does mean Fury is more reliant on it than the other agents, but being able to play two 6 cost cards can be very decisive.
Common Combos:
Because the cards generated by Fury are randomized within the 6 cost pool, creating stable combos for him is tough. There are a few cards he works very well with though:
Collector -> Nick Fury - Gives your Collector +3 Power if you get the 3 cards from Fury
Quinjet -> Nick Fury - Another basic combo but lets you play the cards generated by Fury at a -1 Cost. Can be pretty powerful since it means you can use 2 of the 6 drops Fury created.
Nick Fury -> Devil Dino - The name sake base combo and deck archetype. Fury refills your hand, ensuring your Dino gains as close to the +14 Power boost that it can.
Nick Fury -> Colleen Wing -> Lady Sif - A more unorthodox combo but one you may see in Discard decks. The idea is to have Fury generate 3 cards, then Colleen and Sif discard two from you hand, one of which is going to be a card Fury generated. This is then usually topped off with either a Ghost Rider or Hela recall. A little less powerful than MODOK into Hela, but doesn't completely blow you up since you are using controlled discards
Rank/Tier: C tier. And probably on the lower end. You're better off with an actual proper 6 cost that synergizes instead of hoping Fury's hail mary reinforcement call saves you. However, when backed up with a more synergistic deck and proper support, two 6 cost cards in a game is still a powerful mix.
Most Used Decks:
Dinohand Size (Generic + Agents of Shield variation)
Generic Discard
-
It's finally time to talk about a S Tier card since it MAY possibly being seeing an adjustment due to the new release. The strongest Marvel
character SNAP card- Wave
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Wave_05-68a2967426c02de944a695f4b1054424b34c8a1ac985960423cb316723b96024.webp)
Cost: 3
Power: 3 (1 Below Par)
Ability: On Reveal - Sets the Cost of all cards in both player's hands to 4. This effect overrides cost reduction effects
Ideal Turn to Play: 3-5. Wave's effect means she just needs to be played before the final turn. Realistically, she can be played as early Turn 1 if you want to lock down a Turn 2. When you play Wave really depends on what you're trying to do with her.
Archetype: Ramp / Control
Uses:
There are many debates regarding what the strongest card in the game. Personally, I think looking at individual cards can be pretty meaningless because some cards are really good in specific decks but their effects are useless if played outside of their archetype. Wave is an exception though, because she is very powerful both as an individual card and in the decks that use her. We've already seen several cards I consider A Tier. What makes Wave stand above them?
Well, there are a few things, but one of the key ways Wave separates itself is that by design, she is a card that can be played in two ways. The first is as a parity ramp-enabler where you can cheat out a 6 cost card early. Decks like Galactus or Agatha benefit tremendously if they are able to play out their key card ASAP and Wave enables that play possible. Sure, your opponent can also leverage that to their advantage but as long as what you're playing gives you a bigger benefit than your opponent, then Wave's symmetrical effect isn't a big of an issue. Even in decks where she isn't a staple, she can help make them better in some cases. For example, in Zero Shuri, Wave can let you cheat out a big card on 4 to then copy via Taskmaster. Patriot can play down Onslaught early which can just make your power pretty much explode. She gives a lot of decks alternate curves and thus creates combos that otherwise wouldn't be possible.
But the more powerful, more impactful way of using Wave is using her as a control piece. By locking in all your opponent's cards at 4 cost, she effectively makes it impossible for your opponent to play more than 1 card. In essence, this is a 1-turn Sandman except Wave costs 2 less and has the same power value so she's less of a tempo killer. Because SNAP is all about timing, playing Wave at a critical point can basically be GG. Your opponent is playing a bounce deck? Play Wave on 5 and watch them cry tears as they can no longer hand dump on 6. Opponent is playing the Kitty variant on Shuri to dodge Shang/Shadow King? Play Wave on 5 and that stops that cold too. You can even retrigger Wave's effect continuously to keep an opponent basically under perpetual lockdown (see Combos below), so it's not even that she can't do the same things as Sandman - just more complex. What makes this even better is that Wave's effect can also impact what lanes you can play in. Certain locations such as The Big House prevent cards 4-6 from being played there. So if you are leading that location on 4, you can play Wave on 5 plus another card to possibly lock out the opponent from playing there on 6. Goose (see Goose's write up) has the same effect as The Big House, so Goose + Wave can also lockout a lane from being played on, making it a one turn Professor X.
Add on to her a good play window and now Wave also becomes flexible. It would be one thing if she was only effective for one turn like Jessica Jones, Rescue or Sera, but Wave's window is pretty much triple theirs. As long as she isn't played on the last turn, Wave WILL have an impact. And when she IS played, she will do what the player intended for her to do without any diminishing returns like say Zabu, whether that is to create a combo or create a play restriction. As a result, Wave has very few weaknesses other than a) being slightly below tempo and b) being played but getting less out of her than an opponent on the subsequent turn.
Why Wave is so powerful is because she influences play windows. More specifically, she's either widening them by creating another turn which they can be played on (such as for Galactus or Agatha) OR she's makes them more narrow and thereby reducing the turns which would make them effective or otherwise conflict with another card that would want to be played on that turn. Normally, cards that effect play windows such as Iceman, Quinjet or Sera only go in one direction. Wave is different in that she does both things in a single card. Altering a card's play window is one of the most impactful things you can do and this dual effect means Wave doesn't just enable your plays but can also work to disrupt your opponent. You could make a case to add her to every deck and it wouldn't even be the craziest idea because at worst, she can still serve as tech card against decks that want to dump cards on the last turn like Bounce or Zoo.
Common Combos:
Whoo-boy. Are you ready for the list of combos Wave creates? Get ready, cause this is just a small sample:
Goose -> Wave - As described under Goose, this is the "Goose-Lock" and shuts down cards from being played into that lane for that turn as it makes everything 4 cost.
Wave -> Aero - Locks an opponent to playing one card, which you can then redirect where it goes with Aero. Game winning if you are in the lead at the end of Turn 5.
Wave -> Agatha - A very common combo as a means of getting Agatha out early. Also as described under Agatha.
Wave -> Galactus - Forget Surfer, Wave is the true herald of Galactus. If an opponent only plays Wave on 3, you have to assume that it is a possible Galactus, and it turns the game into a 50/50. There are cards that will 100% stop Galactus such as Aero or Debrii, but if you don't have those, you are going to be guessing.
Wave -> Sandman - A pretty common line in Sandman Ramp to get Sandman out early. Wave tends to be weaker than Electro here because even though she is +1 power, the parity she provides gives the opponent a chance to jump far ahead in tempo.
Wave -> Moebius M. Mobius - Yes, Wave combos with the newest card. MMM stops cost increases for you, but your opponent won't unless they have their own Mobious. So you are basically hitting an opponent with a Sandman for 1 turn, while not effecting yourself. The disgusting part about this is that it can be done on Turn 5 and loses virtually no tempo if you do Mobious on 2, then Wave on 3.
Magik -> Psylocke -> Wave - Play Magik on 3 to create a Turn 7 in the game. Then on Turn 6, play Wave and Psylocke together. This effectively locks your opponent down to only play 1 card for the final turn but you get to play two, as Psylocke's +1 Energy on reveal bumps you to 8 Energy on Turn 7
Wave -> Destroyer -> Taskmaster - A simple enough combo that's probably best played with Armor on 2. Let's you cheat out Destroyer earlier. Taskmaster then copies Destroyer for another 15 Power. Then you still have Turn 6 to do whatever else.
Wave -> Zola -> Odin -> Doom - Wave on 3 to lock opponent's down to one card play. Zola your Wave on 4 to repeat, but create two copies in the other two lanes. Then play Odin on Zola again on 5 as Wave gets reactivated by Zola. Since only Zola is in the Odin lane, Zola warps Odin to the other lanes and triggers Wave a 3rd time. Then you play Doom on 6 to add 5 power everywhere. This is the "We have Sandman" at home meme, except much more annoying.
Wave -> Onslaught -> Magik -> Sera -> Iron Man -> Living Tribunal - Play Wave on 3 to cheat Onslaught out on 4. Then play Magik on 5 to create a Turn 7. Sera on 6 where Onslaught is, giving you -2 to all costs, letting you play Iron Man and Tribunal on the last turn on the Onslaught Lane. This gives you a total of 65 Power, meaning Tribunal splits that to 21 to each lane. It's not the craziest score you can do with Tribunal but it was one of the earliest lines of play on "Neutral" locations.
Wave -> Onslaught -> Mystique/Forge -> Brood/Patriot/Wasp - Play Wave on 3 to cheat Onslaught out on 4. Then Mystique and Forge on 5, copying Onslaught and giving the next card you play +3 Power. On Turn 6, play Brood, Patriot and Wasp in that order. The result is Brood is played at +3, becoming a 3 for 15 power, then because Patriot is being boosted by Onslaught and Mystique who also power up each other, Patriot's effect is now 6 times more than what it states, meaning it gives 12 additional power to each broodling. Wasp can then be played for free, gaining the same boost off of Patriot and becoming 13 Power in a lane. This combo illustrates the effect of how devastating Wave can be as an enabler.
Rank/Tier: S tier. I purposely stayed away from talking about the cards I think are S tier for awhile because I think to really do them justice requires quite a bit of detail. Certainly, with everything that I've talked about, you can see why I think Wave sits there. The fact that she can be played in 2 roles, both extremely powerful along with having a wide play window herself means she is one SNAP's strongest cards (if not THE strongest) currently in the game.
Most Used Decks:
Any deck that wants to "cheat" a 6-cost early
Agatha
Galactus
Sandman Ramp
Death-Wave
Zero Shuri
Control
Surfer
Shenault
-
Was talking to VSM and we just both said something along the lines of, "Armor's pretty good". So let's talk about her - Armor
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Armor-290e32b2bdd9265280227332ccbd1c06764aa4e074ad442b03d90d79367de6f9.webp)
Cost: 2
Power: 3 (Par)
Ability: Ongoing - Cards played at this location can no longer be destroyed
Ideal Turn to Play: 2-6. Armor has a huge play window. It's not quite 1-6, but a 2-6 gives her a lot of time to be deployed. She tends to work better early with priority, but you could drop her down as a Turn 6 play too to surprise opponents.
Archetype: Support
Uses:
Armor is just one of those cards that sit in the background, where nobody talks about how good they are, but everyone secretly knows that it is good. It is a card with a simple effect but has a surprising amount of combo play and use that makes it fit into a lot of decks and playstyles. On the surface, Armor basically does one thing, which it says on the tin - that cards being played into its lane can no longer be destroyed. So the immediate thought is obviously, "Oh, this is to tech against Destroy". That's definitely true. If you ever want to see a Destroy player cry unfair, play Armor, Mystique then Cosmo to complete the trifeca. However, Armor is just capable of so much more.
An important factor about Armor is that her effect is symmetrical. Meaning while it shuts down destruction for your opponent, it also means it stops destruction for you. What this means is that Armor can be a way to mitigate risk on high value win-con type cards that may otherwise be fragile. Things like Sunspot, Nebula and Kitty really appreciate having Armor plopped down into a lane because that let's them grow without worry of a sudden Killmonger sniping them out. Other cards that have telegraphed players like Rescue or Shuri also hugely benefit with Armor down since it prevents you from possibly losing a card the next turn to an incoming Shang Chi. When Armor is in effect, it means that an opponent has to go the extra mile if they want to get rid of a card in that lane. You can't even use the 3 Cost Rogue to do it because of the symmetrical effect. Instead, she requires the 4 cost Enchantress to shut down, which means that you can't play her alongside Shang unless you also have either Zabu or Sera. That's huge, since both of those cards need to be played at least 1 turn earlier and gives the Armor player some warning.
The usage of Armor for your own set up play would already be pretty good, but Armor then has another utility function where she can effectively neutralize a location's effect. Lots of locations in SNAP have a destroy modifier added to it. Stuff like Fisk Tower (Destroy cards moved into this lane), the obvious Death's Domain or tricky spots like Warrior Falls (Destroy the lowest power card here at the end of every turn) all basically become neutral once Armor lands. If your deck normally doesn't carry Reach, Armor is a secondary safe way that lets you get cards onto that lane, which is huge since it basically opens up 3 more play spaces for you. Of course, this does come with the caveat that an opponent can also benefit, but no one said you can't drop Armor down on Turn 6 to surprise an opponent. To add onto her function as a psuedo real estate agent, Armor is basically par on tempo - equivalent to Scarlet Witch. So if an opponent tries to do the same, she'll at least tie against them. If an opponent plays Storm, you even win the lane.
Being able to set up "Gotcha" type plays is another point in favor for Armor. No one also said you can't shut off your own Armor, so this can really throw your opponent for a loop. If it looks like you are both heavily invested into a lane and your opponent might win, disabling Armor might be the way to go. For example, on the above mentioned Warrior Falls, if an opponent played some Goblins and it doesn't look like you can win, playing Enchantress effectively nets you 8+ power since the location will get rid of the Goblin for you if Armor is shut down. Another fun one is playing Armor over Collapsed Mine if an opponent didn't skip their turn when it is revealed as this prevents the rocks from ever being destroyed, effectively cheesing the lane out for 2 energy. This type of "Gotcha" play means that Armor has surprisingly good cube equity rate and keeps her theoretical play window of 2-6 completely viable at all points. It really does depend on what is happening in the match and what you want to do.
Armor's only weakness as noted is that she is symmetrical. This parity means your opponent can use the Armor'd lane to also set up their own plays against you or play the same tricks against you as you might to them. Quickly identifying an opponent's deck is important since it stops you from accidentally giving the opponent a free lane to set up. You also pretty much want to have priority all the time against Armor as that diminishes how effective she is. Her impact is lessened if you can get your payload out before she comes to stop further play in that lane, similar to Cosmo.
For a card that looks so simple on the surface, Armor certainly proves true the age-old adage of "Don't just a book by its cover". She's included in many decks, often as a "flex" slot and really is that any surprise? She's a tech card with the added benefit of having some really creative plays available, meaning she has more versatility than just guarding against that one particular archetype your deck might be bad against. Knowing what tricks Armor can do is key because it opens up the doorway to some really neat solutions that your opponent just might not see coming.
Common Combos:
Armor provides set up play for a lot of other cards - way more than you'd expect. Here are some examples:
Armor -> Attuma - The obvious one. Guards your Attuma from it's own negative effect and ensures you can safely plop him down as a 4-10.
Sunspot/Nebula/Kitty -> Armor - All three do the same thing. Basically sets up a lane to be safely used by the 1 cost pump cards to grow in value. No more worries about Killmonger!
Armor -> Shuri - The revised Shuri's effect only happens when the next card is played in her lane. This makes her a huge tell for an incoming Shang Chi or Negasonic to eat your play. Armor shuts that down instantly and gives you a safe place to set up your big boi
Armor -> Destroyer - Yep. Destroyer's "Destroy all cards" effect doesn't hit the Armor lane, so it avoids any potential power loss that you might suffer otherwise.
Galactus -> Armor -> Any other big card - Nowadays, if Galactus triggers, the player who activated him will usually have priority. This means that Shang-Chi and Rogue can come in and deal with Death and Knull - two common finishers to a Galactus play. Armor basically goes "lolno" to Shang and she'll guard whatever big card you are playing. Most likely, this will be Death plus something else for 4 but also maybe not depending on what else was played early. An early Wolverine might have jumped into one of the 4 spots for example.
Green Goblin -> Armor - One of the Junk deck's weakness is that an opponent playing Destroy has many tools to use the cards you feed on to their board as fuel. Green Goblin is no exception to this rule. Armor therefore, can be quite useful in making sure that your the junk you're throwing to your opponent stays there.
Rank/Tier: A tier. Armor basically shuts down Destroy in a lane when played but then has the added benefit of also letting you play some otherwise detrimental cards or into unplayable locations. So when combined together, you have a card that doesn't just serve as tech, but also a semi-real estate agent and a support for larger combo play. This makes Armor hugely flexible and versatile - which sounds like an A tier card to me.
Most Used Decks:
Any deck where you have a big play you want to protect
Any deck where you want to have tech against Destroy
Spectrum Destroyer
Bounce
Zoo
Dinohand Size
Zero Shuri
Shenaut
Cerebro 3
-
And on the back of Armor, let's look at funny location: Rickety Bridge
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/location_def_images/RicketyBridge-3843e70426f7dce5a8b1abab9a79cf31a842325a62540e0db0dcc838c7aff1d6.webp)
Classification: Detrimental - Any time there is more than one card here, they all get destroyed. Unless...
Rarity: Uncommon
Favored Decks: Destroy, Lane Lockdown
Analysis:
Rickety Bridge is a favourite amongst more experienced SNAP players but an absolute bane for anyone just starting out. It is a location that looks simple on the surface but there are tons of tricks, game knowledge and tactics that it tests. This location is basically a game of chicken in a nutshell. When do you go in? And when you do, are you confident that you can set up a play here without the location triggering? Whenever I see this location, I always check to see if I have any cards in my deck that are favoured, because the cards that work well here are VERY difficult to contest against if you don't have a corresponding counter card.
This is also a location where once it spawns, you definitely want to try and go wide because it is not a location that you need a ton of power to steal. Even in the situation where the Nexus spawns, you have to be very careful about building tall because Rickety Bridge can absolutely be used against you and you want to minimize the impact of that happening. If you don't want to deal with any of its shenanigans or are just otherwise playing a deck that needs the play space, Armor is the way to go. As described above, it stops card destruction, so once it is placed down, you can stop a lot - but not all - of the nasty things one can use this location for. On the other hand, if you are trying to take as great advantage of this location as you can, it is best to play wide as noted to minimize the impact, then turn the tables against someone on late Turn 5 or 6 since it reduces the amount of time one has to recover.
Combo Plays
There are lots of ways to use the Rickety Bridge to your advantage. Many cards can interact with it to cause devastating plays. In general though they fall into two categories - either aiming for card destruction or taking the lane out for cheap:
Wasp - 0 Cost means you can play Wasp out anytime. So if you play her out on a late turn, you can force an opponent to also either sack a card or risk losing the lane because of 1 power. Since she doesn't cost you any Energy to play, Wasp is basically a free pressure tool or a free way to relieve yourself of possible pressure should the opponent play something first.
Colossus - Colossus is a pretty boring card but he was built for locations like this. Since he is just flat out indestructible and doesn't provide lane equality like Armor, Colossus basically lets you take the location for a measly 3 Power unless your opponent has an answer. This may come in various forms such as Rogue or Hazmat but if an opponent doesn't have one, it is very difficult to steal it back.
Professor X - Pretty risky since Charles is only 3 Power. But playing him on to the Bridge prevents further destruction and plays on to it, meaning it can stop a turn 6 Bucky (see below) and outright take the lane if an opponent has basically been trying to avoid the location. He's best combo'd with Jeff in this case, giving you 6 power and guarding you from an opponent's Jeff should they try to take the lane back.
Bucky / Winter Soldier - Against all play conventions for the old Buckster, this time you want to play him on the very last turn. Bucky's ability means that if he is destroyed, he gets replaced by a 6 power card. So for 2 Energy, you threaten to take the lane for 1 power. And if the opponent had played anything OR plays anything directly into the lane, he immediately spawns and basically takes the lane since the destruction gets rid of whatever your opponent played. 6 Power in this location is not trivial. It beats raw Doom for instance and of course, the above mentioned Colossus and ties with Professor X + Jeff. To really win this against old Buck, you want something with solid reach or have the play go off at the end of the game (more on this below).
Mr. Fantastic / Klaw - Both let you add power onto the lane without actually being on the lane yourself. The advantage in this case is pretty obvious.
Captain Marvel - Captain Marvel is somewhat conditional here but forces the opponent to commit 5 power more than you in some way down the lane in order to not lose it. Playing Carol in a separate lane means that at the end of the game, she will take the Bridge for you if she can win it by moving there. Since Carol's check is done at the END of the game, this means that the location's effect would have already taken place, so no further cards are destroyed. This is how you can have more than 2 cards on Rickety Bridge. As an example how this can work, if you played Colossus and your opponent played Buckey, your opponent would be leading at 3 vs 6. However, since Captain Marvel is worth 4 points and she can win that lane for you, she will flying in as part of her check and take the lane back IF it would win you the game. The main issue here is of course, needing to be within her small power threshold in order for Captain Marvel to make a difference. You can't even use any supporting cards like Kraven here because they will most likely be destroyed.
Aero - The first of the cards that gets into destroying an opponent's play, Aero's redirect means you can play her as a sacrifice to eliminate an opponent's Turn 5 play IF they are only playing one card. You have to read the board though. If an opponent is playing a deck like Bounce, Aero is at best neutral for you since you are basically paying 5 Energy to get rid of their last card when they are most likely playing several. However, if your opponent is playing Zero Shuri and Shuri just went down? You can be taking out a 28 Power Red Skull. Instant GG if that happens.
Quake - Like with Space Throne, this is my personal favourite but again is conditional. This time, it is dependent on what the other 2 locations and what the middle location is. If you can play into the center and there isn't any bad locations for you, Quake can be a very hilarious way to turn the tables against an opponent. Once played, she will shuffle the 3 locations around. So if an opponent has heavily invested into another lane, it is quite possible for Quake to then place the Rickety Bridge underneath their feet there and basically destroy the entire investment. An absolutely dick move that costs you only 2 Energy. It can backfire because the locations do move randomly, but it is pretty great when it works.
Magneto - Magnetman is similar to Aero but better in some ways. He works best when an opponent has played their establisher and it is a 3 or 4 cost like Brood or Dracula. Playing Magneto then redirects those poor fools onto the bridge where Eric sacrifices himself and blows up everything he took with him. If you played something else earlier that can take the lane like Colossus, this move then lets you cheese the bridge while removing the power off of another lane - basically a game winning Turn 6 play. Of course, this doesn't work if the establisher the opponent played isn't a 3 or 4 cost, and you still need a card to win the lane after so it can be less flexible than Aero.
Doctor Octopus - Speaking of asshole moves, say hi to Doc Ock. When played, the good doctor will randomly take 4 other cards out of your opponent's hand. And since the Bridge destroys cards anytime there is more then 2 on it, you basically kill 4 of your opponent's cards while only losing your one. Even better - if you played Iron Fist previously, he will then bump Doc Ock back onto a safe lane before the Bridge triggers, letting you get rid of 4 cards without losing Otto. See you in hell, Shang!
Absorbing Man - Absorbing Man lets you repeat any On Reveal effect you played previously. I am sure I don't need to explain why this can be very devastating. Playing Aero on 5, then Absorbing Man again on 6 onto the bridge is like the type of thing that gets you stabbed in a back alley. It effectively lets you pretty much lock down an opponent if they are playing single large cards like Devil Dino or the Infinaut. At 4 cost, he's obviously not cheap but if you have a strong board position, Absorbing Man lets you double up on a trick your opponent might think you have already exhausted.
Living Tribual - As with the Space Throne, Tribunal works great against the Bridge if there is another lane you can safely play him out on. Build tall in that lane, then Tribunal splits the power. Ignores all the cheese and stupid nonsense an opponent might be using against you. Do be careful though as even though he isn't thought of as a big boi, at 6 cost, it means he's likely going down on his own, which does leave you vulnerable to Aero.
Invisible Woman + Ultron / Dr. Doom - Using the same logic as with Captain Marvel, this is a way to let you sneak more cards into the lane. In this case, a Patriot shell works because Sue will prevent the cards from being revealed until after the location effects take place, then they will come in and place a large amount of power into the lane courtesy of Patriot.
Armor + Enchantress - Yep. Rug pulling as described under Armor's entry can be very effective here! Your opponent might think you are extending an olive branch to play cards here, but if they start outpowering you, rug pull them out by sacrificing both Armor and Enchantress at the same time. Like with Magneto, helps if you have something else to take the lane with thereafter.
-
Love that Rickety Bridge analysis.
The amount of emergent complexity the game gets out of a single line of rules text is seriously impressive.
-
Time for another Marvel favourite: Magneto
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Magneto_02-97888c9de4b99dd8bbb09f5ff8e668351b5d607ec7a1da201d16132051a31a32.webp)
Cost: 6
Power: 12 (Par)
Ability: On Reveal - Move all of the opponent's 3 and 4 cost cards into this lane.
Ideal Turn to Play: 6. While his best buddy's ideal play window is 5, Magnus' ideal play window is 6. He really is best saved as a finisher due to the fact that Magneto's repositioning is best utilized as a surprise. You can play him earlier but that gives time to course correct, which isn't ideal - despite Magneto's 12 Power body.
Archetype: Movement / Lane Lockdown
Uses:
There is a joke in SNAP about Move players in that they are similar to Flowchart Kens from Street Fighter 4. Essentially anytime it is Turn 6 and it is possible, the turn 6 play is ALWAYS Heimdall. And it's not hard to see why this is. For the longest time in Pools 1 and 2, Move players basically lack a lot of their tools in the late stages of Pool 3. As a result, when all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail. What saves Move players in Pool 3 is that they start getting more cards added to the archetype's arsenal. Move in general often starts out with smaller base cards that grow larger as the game goes but they never quite scale to the size of Destroy because Move has the added benefit of repositioning. Magneto is a representation of that. He's basically the other 6 cost finisher in Pool 3 and beyond. Move decks really like Magneto because he often results in a much bigger field shuffle than Polaris and instead of effecting you like Heimdall, he hits the opponent. If your opponent has like 1000 Power Venom in one lane and Knull in another, guess what? Magneto on 6 can move Venom into the Knull lane and basically steals the game. It helps Magnus that lot of the key cards in SNAP are 3 Cost cards and some of the best establishers are 3 cost like the before mentioned Venom.
What makes Magneto good is that he's basically Polaris and Aero except on steroids. He can basically shove 4 cards in completely separate lanes directly into just one. And much like his actual character, his card is at its best when it is played in a similar style as a martyr. Sacrificing Magneto to lose the lane he is played on is a very common tactical choice because it is often game winning. Of course, it isn't the only play available. Magneto is nice because he also has a large amount of power behind him. In the event where repositioning isn't to your greatest benefit, Eric can still come down as just a Turn 6 stat stick ala Hulk. Yeah, he's not as strong as the Hulk since him moving other cards into the lane offsets your power gain, but a lot of 3 and 4 cards don't always have a lot of power to start. This holds true especially for the support ones like Jubilee, Kazar and Moon Girl. So if he's paired up with someone like Kraven, you can often take out the majority of the sting when playing him this way.
Because of his repositioning ability, Magneto does a few other duties that are otherwise often reserved for cards that are lower cost. Using Magneto in this way often requires you to Ramp him out because his 6 cost makes him prohibitive to play other. The first is that he can be (non-surprisingly) used as a tech card. Moving your opponent's cards away from their lane can disrupt a combo that is somewhat in motion and can save you from a last minute comeback. Take the Wong/Mystique/Gambit/Ironheart combo for example. This is a combo that when it goes off will often be a game winner because it destroys 4 cards from your field while boosting up the power of their own cards by 24, albeit spread randomly. If you have priority, Magneto can be played to pull out the rug from under Wong and Mystique by positioning them now to a different lane than the one which was played. This second use is that he can be used to move cards that are otherwise almost immune to other forms of interaction. A great example of this is Cosmo. Once Cosmo is played in a particular lane, he will shut down a large number of cards in that lane because On Reveals will no longer take place. If you can find a way to play Magneto out earlier, you will actually have a way to force the Doggo away from that lane which you want to play On Reveal cards into. This is most relevant with decks that use Invisible Woman, where Cosmo then comes out to often stop the entire combo. Magneto can redirect Cosmo, and thereby allow the combo to still take place at the end of the game. Similarly, he can be used to interact with Dracula - a 4 cost card that often lacks tech cards to counter it as it sits at 0 power until the end of the game. Magneto can shove him into a lane you are not contesting and basically make him truly worthless.
Due to these factors, Magneto is often a highly regarded card. He does have his fair share of weaknesses however. The first is obviously that he doesn't effect costs that are not 3 or 4 cost. There are establishers at all cost levels of Marvel SNAP, so Eric only being able to target 3 or 4 costs means it limits the scope of where he can be at his most effective. If an opponent is playing a Kitty / Taskmaster combo, Magneto doesn't interact with either card at all. You're better off using Aero in this case. The second is that Magneto is often worth less than the 12 power he is stated on the tin. Compared this to Polaris who is a 3-5 and therefore, +1 above par for tempo, and you'll see that Magneto is probably more realistically like a 6-6 once you consider the cards he moves. Therefore, if you aren't taking advantage of his ability, Magneto loses a lot of value. If you are only looking to play a stat stick, regular Hulk exists. Lastly, Magneto's ability is randomized. You're only targeting 3-4 cost cards, sure. But if an opponent has multiple 3-4 cost cards, you're kind of gambling on what cards Magneto ends up pulling. If an opponent has Brood, Captain Marvel and Attuma in play, he could very well just pull all 3 Broods + Captain Marvel, which can be pretty worthless. A smart opponent can also work around Magneto by completely filling in the lane he thinks you are targeting, which then prevents any cards from being able to Move there.
Ultimately, Magneto is another tool in the box primarily for Move players. Other decks can use him, but they often don't have ways to reduce the power he drags with him into the lane or they lack ways to take advantage of the repositioning. And if you can't do either of those things mentioned above, Magneto CAN still work as a stat stick, but at that point, there are often better choices for that role. Like a lot of B tier cards in SNAP, he works pretty well in his archetype, but loses something when he steps out of his element.
Common Combos:
Magneto has a few fun ways he can be utilized. At 6 cost, he's often the piece that completes the puzzle so he's rarely the initiator:
Kingpin -> Magneto - Pretty self explanatory. Kingpin forces an opponent to play on his lane otherwise you can play Magneto on 6 to destroy their cards.
Lockjaw + Wasp -> Magneto - One of the few Lockjaw big pulls as Magneto has good power alongside an ability. Here's, he's primarily used for his stats, but a good Magneto pull will also drag some stuff into the lane you are contesting with Lockjaw, reducing the spots available for a counter play from an opponent.
Kraven -> Magneto - I mentioned this before but to put a little more depth here, Magneto dragging multiple targets into Kraven's lane means he offsets the net power loss from Magnus' ability. This can be critical for holding a lane, while you still want to remove an opponent's power elsewhere.
Wave / Sandman -> Magneto - When your opponent is stuck playing just 1 card a turn, Magneto's 12 Power and ability to move cards around is pretty devastating. Unless they are playing raw stat sticks, this is a good way to control exactly where their power ends up going.
Professor X -> Magneto - A funny and thematic combo. Since Charles locks down a lane completely, this then allows you to get a more controlled draw of what cards Magneto moves into his lane. Also a good way to ensure that you aren't pulling a card from which you've already won a lane from with Xavier.
Storm -> Juggernaut -> Magneto - A combo using primarily X-Men cards! Storm + Juggernaut is pretty devastating since you knock away any cards played into Storm's lane with Juggs. However is they played something like Brood into that lane, you're probably going to lose the lane still cause those 2 Broodling are very likely going to get buffed. Magneto can be an effective way to pre-empt that and shove them elsewhere.
Rank/Tier: B tier. Like Aero, I think Magneto has seen better days but he's a still a solid 6 cost finisher. At worst, you can use him as a basic stat stick, but that's not really using him to his full potential. He requires more tactical thought as he's a repositioning tool but better players can find ways to work this to their advantage.
Most Used Decks:
Lockjaw Lotto
Hela Discard
Movement
Lane Lockdown
-
Let's look at what I consider the best location in the game: The Bar with No Name (BWNN)
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/location_def_images/BarWithNoName-2774f6458c6bd08a42e3783506390e5563737a4c50704542f1ebbd80b014639b.webp)
Classification: Restrictive - Scores are basically inverted and so are power values.
Rarity: Rare
Favored Decks: None. BWNN doesn't favor any particular deck. It instead calls for creative solutions...or skip the lane entirely.
Analysis:
Bar with No Name is basically my favourite location in the game because it takes a simple rule in SNAP and flips it around. Instead of the person with the highest power winning the lane, instead it is the person with the LOWEST score wins the lane. Pretty much all cards in the game sans one or two have positive values or instead hit the opponent's side. So to win this location, you always have to get creative and out-think your opponent. There are some cards that always give you an out, but many, many plays with BWNN are often surprises because of the rule inversion. Once this location spawns, you tend to always have to keep it in the back of your mind because you are either losing 4 play spaces or you have something up your sleeve that you want to save and surprise your opponent last minute. Be aware of players that snap when BWNN spawns. Because often times, it means they have some trickery going on and you can't really play the rest of the match in a conventional manner. Ignore it at your own risk.
What I like to do when I see BWNN is to treat it like a restricted location at first, then see what the rest of the location spawns are. Remember, you only need to win 2 of the 3 lanes. If the other 2 locations work to your advantage, you can use BWNN as a setup point for a combo and have the results land on the other two lanes. On the other hand, if the other 2 locations are neutral or are disadvantageous to me, I try to think if I have any solutions to work around BWNN. Barring that, I stay in the game until a SNAP at which point I'd retreat to avoid the risk of a loss. As I noted above snaps when the Bar is in play are very dangerous because it will often result in a combo you have probably never seen before. While bluff snapping is often not a good option because you can't read any tells from an opponent, this is the one case where it might be worthwhile.
Combo Plays
A few individual cards can work on the Bar by themselves, but often times, winning it requires a combo of cards you would usually never play together. It is worth covering the ones I'm aware because it demonstrates the creativity of SNAP's player base:
SWitch/Storm/Rhino - All 3 of these work to steal the location last minute. If you completely ignore bar, you basically give an opponent that has one of these real estate agents a pass. Going back to play windows, you can see why I emphasize SNAP is often about timing. Sure, you can play these on turn 2 or 3, but it's often better to save these till Turn 6 because they it requires a very risky read from your opponent to play something into the Bar with hopes that you are doing the same. There is one location change card I left out because he does something completely different...
Legion - Legion is basically the grade A dick move when BWNN spawns. Since he changes every location to the same one he is played in, players would often hold off on Legion and wait until Turn 6 to the drop Legion into the Bar, losing that lane but basically stealing the other two if their opponent has played any other cards into them. There are a couple of ways to stop this, but they all require reading the opponent having Legion. For example, Cosmo on Bar on Turn 6 with Priority is an instant win. The better Legion players will aim to keep their power across all lanes relatively to not be as so obvious as to just wait until Turn 6 for the Uno reversal.
Quake - Like with Rickety Bridge, Quake on BWNN can be very devastating. Again, the location positions can be random, but if your opponent is building tall in the other two lanes, a Turn 6 Quake will basically shuffle everything around, meaning that one of their tall lanes can end up with the BWNN, resulting in possibly stealing 2 lanes with a 2 Energy card.
Captain Marvel - This one is just mean, but pretty great in long endurance matches such as Conquest. The idea is simple - play Captain Marvel on BWNN. Since she will move to a location to win you the game, if you are losing this location but can win the swing in another lane within Captain Marvel's power range, she will fly off away from the Bar and leave it as a 0-0 tie. This requires no effort from you. Your opponent however is stuck in a mind game trap. You could very well play a real estate agent on the last turn and steal the lane for 6-7 points. So do they play anything into the Bar and try to pre-empt that possibility...OR do they ignore it, hoping that you don't and try to power through the other 2 lanes and hope to be above your Captain Marvel's power threshold?
Polaris / Spider-Man / Aero / Magneto - All four run on the same concept. If your opponent plays a card (or series of cards), that can be moved into BWNN, these can make for a good single card surprise play. They work with different pools and types of cards though, so when they are the most effective varies depending on an opponent's deck. For example, Polaris works great on stuff like an early Ebony Maw or Winter Soldier as they both have higher power than her. Aero works great if you see something like Shuri because even without priority, you know a big card is coming down so a redirection can cause them to lose the lane. Magneto can a great surprise to Surfer decks - especially Brood - since the bulk of their cards are 3 cost.
Mister Negative / The Hood / Sentry - The only two cards I'm aware of that have Negative power values. Remember, you win the lane if you are ahead by even one point. So Mister Negative himself, for once can steal a lane despite being -7 from tempo here. Sentry deserves an honorable mention but is not reliable because the Void only spawns on the right most location. So if BWNN spawns anywhere else, the Void he creates doesn't give you any advantage.
Ironheart/Typhoid Mary, Ironheart/Hazmat - The first combo card play but re-iterates my previous point. The idea is simple. Play Ironheart earlier (like say Turn 5) into BWNN, then play Typhoid Mary/Hazmat elsewhere. Both Mary and Hazmat gives every other card on your side of the board -1 Power and since Ironheart has 0 Base power, this can let you steal the lane by 1 through a -1 Ironheart. Ironheart will never hit herself with her ability, so this is 100% safe.
Iron Fist/Doctor Octopus, Doctor Octopus/Ghost Spider - Same idea, but different order depending on the card. Continuing his reign as being king asshole, playing Doc Ock onto BWNN will almost guarantee winning the lane because pulling out 4 cards from an opponent's hand is almost certainly going to trump the 10 power he provides. But on the offchance it DOESN'T, playing Iron Fist or Ghost Spider then lets you lane ditch and steal the lane, while reinforcing another position by 10.
Doctor Octopus/Galactus - King asshole appears twice in this location with 2 different combos. Sure, taking down 4 cards and winning a location is pretty great. You know what else Doc Ock sets up in this case? Galactus. In fact, this is almost certainly match winning because your opponent can't play anymore cards there and if their power combined is greater than 5, then Galactus "wins" the lane because his power is lower resulting in his effect triggering. The only issue is that you need to move Doc Ock away from the Bar afterwards. So this is pretty much reserved for an Iron Fist combo only...but you could also get lucky by pulling an opponent's Shang. At this point I'm pretty sure Doc Ock was bullied as a child at this point since so many of his combos are basically the equivalent of giving your opponent the finger.
Cosmo/Hobgoblin, Wong/Hobgoblin, Zero/Hobgoblin - Hobgoblin is a -8 Power card that flies into an opponent's lane when revealed. So if you play Cosmo on bar, then drop Hobgoblin, you put yourself at -5 and win the lane. Wong is similar, except the double on reveal forces Hobgob to fly back into your lane, resulting in a -6. Zero is even better because he can be played with Hobgob on the last turn and can be played in a separate lane, allowing you to cancel Hobgob's effect and landing in your lane at the full -8.
Green Goblin / Absorbing Man - Pretty funny and works on a similar principle as the above. Green Goblin is -3, so doesn't work with Cosmo and only gives you -1 with Wong. However, you CAN launch Green Goblin into another lane, then play ABSORBING MAN into BWNN to launch him into your opponent's lane, giving them +4. This is one of the few times where launching a positive power card works in your favor and is a neat way to take the lane.
Either Goblin / Taskmaster - Don't have Absorbing Man? How about a Taskmaster? Tasky will copy the power value of the last card played. So if you play Hobgob on 5, then Tasky on 6, Tasky becomes a -8 Power card that just sits in the lane you play him in. In this case, he works perfectly at BWNN.
She-Hulk/Viper - Speaking of launching positive power cards, there's another one with the same idea. She-Hulk decreases in cost per point of energy that was unused in the previous turn. So as long as you have 2 Energy as float on 5, this is a combo you can use on 6. Gifting your own She-Hulk to the opponent puts them at 9 power while Viper is only 3, letting you take the lane by a difference of 6.
Black Panther/Zola - Zola destroys a card in the current lane and then creates a duplicate in the other two lanes. In fact, Zola himself is great when BWNN is involved because he has 0 power, so he can be played safely into it without causing you to lose. You do need something else to combo him with though - Black Panther is usually the best recipient because cards duplicated by Zola have their On Reveals reactivated again, resulting in 2 large Black Panthers. The downside is that playing a large card into Bar is often a tell that you are going to Zola so you have to be careful of that.
-
Lizard
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Lizard_03-e4e090cc5ccc77a93c299e315bd3b1fc777afdf3b305d58a6d18a01602936331.webp)
Cost: 2
Power: 5 (2 above par)
Ability: Ongoing - If an opponent has 4 cards in this location, -4 power
Ideal Turn to Play: 2-6. Kind of depends on what your goals are. If you want priority, then you probably want to play Lizard early turn 2. At that point, very few cards can compete on a Power basis to a 2-5. On the other hand, if you have cards that can combo with it or you want to be safe, playing him late game on 6 works too.
Archetype: Lane Lockdown / High Evo (HE)
Uses:
Lizard is the first card you get and that I'm covering where he has a negative ability that looks to be a real problem if you are using him. He's normally a 2-5, which is a great stat line BUT the caveat being that if an opponent fully fills that lane, he becomes a 2-1. 2-1s are pretty terrible, even when they have GOOD abilities like Psylocke. I remember when I just starting playing SNAP last year, that I had a discussion with Grefter and said something along the lines of, "Lizard is kinda meh", to which Grefbro replied, "Nah he's good fam". Months later, I can clearly say that newbie me was wrong. Grefbro once again dispensing the bestest advice.
The first thing you have to understand about Lizard is that 2-5 is just a good stat line. In fact, it is so good that he was actually nerfed to this current iteration. It used to be his power loss was only -3. To make him less attractive to play, but still retaining his role, they decided to increase his penalty instead. However, Lizard is also one of those cards where his penalty can be like -10 Power and it still wouldn't really matter because in the decks that best use him, his negative ability might as well not exist. There are many, MANY ways to get around it - from moving an opponent's cards, moving your own Lizard, disabling your own Lizard or just making it an unattractive proposition. As a result, Lizard is just a strong card that advances your board state well. 5 Power is a real amount of power. Not overwhelmingly so, but definitely solid enough to win lanes with.
The second thing that should now become a bit more obvious is that because there are so many ways to get around Lizard's negative effect, he ends up having a *lot* of combos. And the best part? Many of these combos aren't even complicated. They are often 2 card combos that work his negative ability into a strength. For example, Lizard + Mojo is a combination that leverages Kurt's power loss into a possible power gain on Mojo. Mojo only gains Power if the lane is filled in completely by both players. The issue with him is that when an opponent see this, they will avoid playing cards so Mojo cannot gain his +6 and become a 2-8. Throw Lizard into that lane and now the opponent is stuck with either letting you get away with a 2-5 or risk potentially blowing up Mojo. His effect also isn't symmetrical, so he makes for an excellent guard too against Rogue. Playing Lizard + Patriot for example means Rogue risks a 50/50 of gaining Lizard's -4 effect instead and basically blowing 3 Energy. You don't have to be a long term player to realize that is an awful trade.
Typically, Kurt is played out early to gain priority, and then from there, played with the intention of using that priority to win. But don't be mistaken - Lizard has a pretty wide play window and doesn't lose much effectiveness being played on 6 either. With 5 Power, he can be a good surprise drop into a lane where an opponent isn't expecting much else. Because he only costs 2, he can be effective with another 4 cost on Turn 6 - notably Enchantress because she can also disable his ability. This allows you to attack an opponent at the same time while putting a solid amount of power in the same lane. A Turn 6 Lizard that has been hit with Sauron can be dropped with a Sauron'd Maw and another 3 Cost, resulting in 12+ power across different lanes. As a result, Kurt is generally pretty flexible and when to use him really depends on what your aim is.
As strong as Lizard is though, he doesn't have a real defined archetype until you get to around mid Pool 3 and more and more tools become available. His most definitive home is in HE decks where his power loss, might as well not exist because these decks often run Luke Cage to stop you from killing their massive Hulk and combos well with Hazmat. However, High Evo himself is a Pool 5 card, so unless you get lucky, Lizard won't have his primary home for awhile. He does do okay in Zero Shuri decks which can regularly remove his ability as well as Lane lockdown decks that shuts off play space, making it real difficult to lane flood. Otherwise though, before then, he's an anchor but doesn't have a real place anywhere. This can make him awkward to slot in and he usually ends up being the first card to get cut in those decks.
Other than this deck building identity crisis however, Lizard is stronger than what might appear at first glance. He's obviously best in decks that can work with his detrimental effects, but you can flex slot him into many other places until you find the better substitutes and not miss a beat. I think Lizard does teach a very important less about SNAP, which is that Power values matter. There are many other cards like Lizard that have significant drawbacks, but there are often ways that exist in SNAP to work around them. And more often than not, these cards are played pretty regularly because being above tempo and not having to pay a true cost is a game winning advantage. Lizard still existing in SNAP's current landscape is a testament to that.
Common Combos:
Most of Lizard's combos deal with his detrimental ability but that doesn't mean there aren't others:
Lizard -> Mojo - Asks your opponent to pick his/her poison. Do you leave Lizard unchecked as a 2-5 or risk accidentally blowing up Mojo to a 2-8
Lizard -> Punisher - An early Pool 1 Combo that works on a similar principal as the above. Punisher can act as a deterrent and stop an opponent from trying to flood nuke your Lizard since he gains +1 Power each time.
Lizard -> HE Cyclops -> Regular Cyke is an abilitiless 3-4. HE Cyke though is a 3-4 with the ability to drop 2 cards by 1 Power each every turn as long as you give him 1 point of float. You can see how this combination works. Play Lizard, then HE Cyke to secure foothold. If your opponent wants to contest, they risk getting blasted by Cyclops - making him effectively more like a 3-10. Not exactly a great trade!
Luke Cage -> Lizard - The first of the many combos that work to mitigate Lizard's power drop. Luke just stops Power Reduction and since he is Ongoing as well, his ability trumps Lizard's - meaning Lizard will always be a 2-5 as long as Cage is on the field and not disabled.
Zero / Lizard OR Lizard / Enchantress -> Don't have Cage? Zero works too since he disables abilities, good or bad. Enchantress is an even better way of going at it cause you also attack an opponent's side by disabling their Ongoing abilities in that lane. The best part is that her 4 Cost here means she can be played alongside Lizard for a 6-10 but also attacks an opponent. One of the few cases where a Turn 6 Liz can be pretty good.
Lizard/Polaris OR Lizard / Magneto -> Best on Turn 6 and does depend on an opponent's play but also a way to reverse uno and rug pull the opponent. If they flooded Lizard's location early, playing either Polaris or Magneto can shuffle their 1-2 or 3-4 cost cards to a new lane and basically freeing it up, resulting in Lizard regaining his 4 power loss.
Lizard -> Patriot, Blue Marvel, Luke Cage OR Kazar - Yep, Lizard works as a guard too like Armor and Goose. Except he is better because he just straight up either makes Rogue terrible or forces an opponent's Super Skrull to also absorb his -4 penalty. Enchantress is slightly different because unlike Goose, Lizard doesn't stop her from being played and the removal of your negative effect might not matter to them if they aren't bothering to contest your Lizard lane.
Rank/Tier: A tier. For a card that doesn't have a real defined archetype, Lizard has always been good. It's funny because at 2-4 he was barely played in beta, even when his penalty wasn't as harsh. In his current iteration, he lacks a defined home compared to say Dracula, but he's a good sub or filler card that advances your board state, especially if you want priority early.
Most Used Decks:
Spectrum Destroyer
Lane Control
Ramp
Zero Shuri
Cerebro 5
High Evo
-
Jessica Jones
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/JessicaJones_02-97f09ff82ca3636eb75950c32723d2f84e87737e3ef6e3bc0d1853fae9bc8f2c.webp)
Cost: 4
Power: 4 (2 below par)
Ability: On Reveal - If you do not play a card in this lane the next turn, gain +4 Power
Ideal Turn to Play: 4. Jess Jones is a card that like Professor X, has a very restrictive window. If she is not played on 4, her effect on 5 is hugely detrimental as it impacts where you can go for 6. You can ramp her out on 3 with Psylocke or Zabu, but at that point, there are better stat sticks if that's all you're looking for.
Archetype: Anchor
Uses:
When you are just starting out in Pool 1 and the number of cards available to play are more limited, Jess is actually not too bad. A 4 cost that turns into 8 power is strong enough that she might often even clinch out lanes on her own. The issue with Jess though, like Punisher, is that she's a card that definitely gets phased out as you enter into later pools and the game starts opening its doors up more. Jess is a card that has a *lot* of problems that don't become that evident until you really start experimenting and realizing her restriction for the +4 bonus to kick in really screws with her ability to be used in any later Pool 3 and onward decks.
So where should we start? Let's talk about her play window, because this is something that gets glossed over but is a chief reason for why Jess has issues. In essence, she is a 4 cost establisher card that HAS to be played on Turn 4. Playing Jess Turn 5 basically restricts your own play space on 6 unless you are okay with just playing a 4 power card on 5. On 6, she is no different than an ability-less card because she needs an extra turn (like Hawkeye) for her effect to proc. Since you see 9 of 12 cards in your deck over the course of match, this means that Jess has an effective play rate of 12.5%. And while there are other cards that also have single turn play windows like Sera or Professor X, those cards when they ARE played have huge impacts. Jess is a card that just gives you 4 more power, which is a pretty marginal return for such a narrow window. If you just wanted to play a 4 cost anchor, there are better options such as Warpath or even Rescue - both of which have their own issues too. Playing Jess just basically sets yourself up to be locked down.
Outside of her play window, the condition of her ability poses another problem. I guess true to lore, Jess has to work alone to be effective. Unfortunately, this means in SNAP, she doesn't combo well or work with many other cards. Thus, similar to Lizard, she doesn't have a true archetypical home. Except in her case, this problem is even worse because at least Lizard is good and does eventually get a couple of spots where he is a key component. Jess just doesn't. The fact that you cannot play a card in the same lane after her, really restricts on the types of things you can do with her as a card. A common combination early game is to play Storm into Jess Jones for 10 power as it poses a moderate amount of power but even then, it still loses to Namor, who is also a Pool 1 card. Now imagine what happens by the time you get to Pool 3.
Then you add in the fact that she's also vulnerable to a handful of tech cards and her playability basically goes out the window. Her one saving grace is that at 8 power, she JUST dodges the Shang threshold, which is good as an anchor. However, that's about all she has going for her. She's still vulnerable to Cosmo and Shadow King. She can still be moved around by Magneto or get wrecked over by Leech. She can't be played against a lane where Goose is residing. The list goes on. About the best you can do for her is to play her in a Lane Lockdown deck along with cards like Nebula and Sunspot, so that when you aren't able to play in Jess' lane, the other cards there still grow. Playing her alongside some other movers such as Vision also help cause then you can shuffle them over to Jess' lane if you really needed to reinforce it. However, these are all ways to work around Jess' limitations. At that point, you really have to ask yourself - why bother? You're probably better off using another card unless you really like her.
Common Combos:
Not much to say here. Jess' effect doesn't combo super well with other cards because you need to leave her alone for her bonus to kick in:
Storm -> Jess Jones - Locks a Lane down by Turn 4 with 10 if you get it to come on curve. Decent in early Pools but it's marred by a strict window and can still lose to stuff like Namor or a boosted Warpath.
Nebula -> Jess Jones - If you are going to have to old!Spiderman yourself and lock yourself out of lane, you might as well find some way you can add power while you are being locked out.
HE Cyclops -> Jess Jones - Same principal as above except you take power away from your opponent. Loses to Luke Cage, but that's true for most HE Cyke combos
Vision -> Jess Jones - Since Jess' ability means you cannot play on her lane, move cards can be played elsewhere then Move into it on 6. Stuff like Nightcrawler, Captain Marvel also work. I just went with the largest mover to illustrate the concept.
Rank/Tier: D tier. Outside of Pool 1-2, Jess has a lot of problems. She's severely hampered by the fact that she her narrow window of play results in a very marginal bonus. Needing to lock yourself out for a turn is equivalent to getting hit by old Spiderman and that risk just isn't worth the reward.
Most Used Decks:
Lane Control / Lockdown
Ramp
-
Rescue
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Rescue_03-8caaeefa425bc3e603e14215188d3bca9d2faa9a4e1dd14f110bbd6588f9c1a7.webp)
Cost: 4
Power: 5 (1 below par)
Ability: On Reveal - If you play a card into the same lane the next turn, +5 Power
Ideal Turn to Play: 4. Rescue has the same play window issues as Jess...that should give you a good idea about what I think about her in general
Archetype: Anchor - Like Jess, Rescue doesn't have a set defined home. You might want to play her with a Movement deck since she works best with those although she doesn't Move herself.
Uses:
I could probably take what I wrote about Jess Jones and just copy and paste it for Rescue because in practice, they both have the same problem: a very tight window for a marginal payoff that has an additional downside where you are forced to play into particular lanes and thereby locking yourself out. Rescue is a bit more offensive when it comes to this because while Jess can be excused for being a Pool 1 card, Rescue is a Pool 3 card. At that point, you don't expect to see as many stinkers, but Rescue certainly qualifies under that umbrella. However, that wouldn't do justice to this analysis, and truthfully, she is different than Jess Jones in a couple of crucial ways. So let's try to go over them without repeating myself too much.
Rescue's ability is basically the reversal of Jess's. Instead of NOT playing in the lane, with Rescue, you have to play into the lane to get the bonus. The devs seem to realize this is more restricting since with Jess, you technically have 2 lanes to choose from. So they compensated this by giving Rescue an extra point of power. The other benefit to Rescue is that as she wants other cards to work with her, she does have more combo viability than Jess. This then it is easier to add her to more decks since even if she isn't that strong, there are at least ways to utilize her and not lock yourself down by accident.
One good example is that she can combo with Professor X. Sure, Attuma does it better, but Rescue can be played into a lane already with another card that isn't Armor and grow to a respectable 4-9. Another example is to use cards with movement or flexibility to get around Rescue's lane limitation. You are basically shining a big spotlight onto that specific lane when she is played, but you can also play with that fact as a feint. No one said the next card you have to play MUST be a 5 cost card. So a good way to get around Rescue's restriction is to play her alongside another low cost card. You can split it in various ways but Wasp deserves a special mention here since she is 0 cost. This means you can play Wasp to trigger Rescue, then play a separate 5 cost card in another lane. This can be a good diversion if an opponent wants to play Professor X themselves for example and try to lock you out from contesting the last lane.
These small combo plays make Rescue better than Jess except with one caveat. A boosted Rescue is exactly 9 power. If there's one thing in SNAP you never want to be is to hit 9 power on the dot and not have a way to get around it because that just makes you an active Shang Chi magnet and you're not even getting as much out of the deal if they didn't draw him. Is this a worthwhile trade-off for the increased card synergies? Given how prevalent Shang usually is in the meta, probably not. And it shows because in practice, you pretty much never see Rescue at all. With all the same problems as Jess AND an added Shang vulnerability, that should hardly come as a surprise.
Common Combos:
A lot of these as noted deal with the issue of Rescue being lane restricted:
Rescue -> Professor X - Very similar to Attuma Professor X, except it is one less power than Attuma.
Rescue -> Vision - Gets around Rescue's limitation somewhat but letting you move your 8 power Vision on Turn 6 if you need to reposition. Used to be done with Captain Marvel so the AI can auto move her to the best possible spot. However, given now that Captain Marvel is -2 Power from her original iteration and -4 from Vision, Vision's the better card now for the same function.
Rescue -> Wasp/Kitty - As described above, gives you a way to play around Rescue's limitation while acting as bait. Your opponent may be lured into a false sense of security of knowing that you have a play in the Rescue lane and might even suspect a larger secondary play, but probably not a 4-5 Energy play.
Daredevil -> Rescue -> Whatever - A risk mitigation way to play Rescue. This way you can at least see what an opponent might play on 5 and whether it is worthwhile to drop something into the Rescue lane or play something else to nullify the Turn 5 play.
Rank/Tier: D tier. Rescue is basically Jess Jones 2.0. Her ability might be the inverse of Jess, but she has the same problem as her and does not do enough to mitigate any of those issue.
Most Used Decks:
Lane Control / Lockdown
-
Crossbones
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Crossbones_04-dfb4004fda174f1b7db735ade8b52a88dc010d036697014c2c5c00dd1aa34f7b.webp)
Cost: 4
Power: 8 (2 above par)
Ability: Passive - This card can only be played in a location where you are already winning.
Ideal Turn to Play: 4-6. About the one thing Crossbones does have available is that he is playable once you have the energy for him. Whether or not you can ACTUALLY play him is a different story
Archetype: Anchor / Lane control - Crossbones' ability pretty much makes him incapable of being used reliably in any other archetype.
Uses:
Crossbones has issues. You don't need to be a veteran SNAP player to see that. He is the very definition of a "win-more" card because he literally cannot be played unless you are ahead by 1 point. That means if a location is untouched by both players, Crossbones can't even be played. This makes his very inclusion into most decks iffy because the chances where he is a dead card is just too high. It'd be one thing if he was like Wong, where if he went unchecked, he would win you the game. But the only thing Crossbones does is add 8 power. That's pretty paltry for such a harsh restriction and 4 Energy. To add insult to injury, you can't even play him like other 4 cost establishers like Attuma and Mary where they can be combo'd into. Crossbones has to be played virtually stand-alone which really sinks him as usable.
Don't get me wrong though. 8 Power is technically above tempo, and functionally, if his Cost was lower, Crossbones would be very much usable. During the pre-Zabu nerf days when Zabu would reduce all 4 cost cards by 2 Energy, Crossbones was highly competitive because he became a 2-8 without much of a condition tied to him. Unlike Jess or Rescue, he didn't need an additional turn to proc his effect and he didn't need to be set up into like Mary. This meant that Crossbones was just a good value card...albeit at 2 cost. What this shows is that, IF Crossbones had a cost reduction, you'd probably see him more often because supposing that he was at 3 cost, he could be played similarly with Sera or be added as an option in Surfer decks. At 4 cost though, he's at best a 3-8 with Zabu, but that's still too risky and not enough of a reward. Put another way, Maximus, who is a 3-7, gets used selectively and his downside is much easier to deal with. So in games where Zabu is AWOL, Crossbones has virtually no presence and decks that DO use Zabu typically aren't looking to just a play a 3-8 stat stick.
The one thing Crossbones does have going for him as with Jess is that he sits right below the Shang threshold. So if you do get a chance to play him, he'd at least be something an opponent can't delete with kung-fu asian man. He also can't be disabled by Cosmo, Shadow King or Enchantress/Rogue. Heck, he can even serve as a guard against Leech and SpiderHam! But those are very fringe benefits for an otherwise difficult and clunky card to use. And despite what seems like few vulnerabilities, he is still open to being de-powered by Valkyrie so it isn't like he's 100% foolproof.
Once you then add-in the fact that he only adds power to a location where you are winning AND being unable to control exactly which lane you are winning, Crossbones ends up extremely lackluster at best since this means you can't even plan around when and where he will go. Sure, there are ways you can make him *able* to be played, but they might be in suboptimal areas like Jotenheim, where nobody wants to play a card early. A turn 3 Mr. Fantastic in the Middle will add power to every lane, but if your other 2 locations are Quantum Realm and Rickety Bridge, you're in trouble. Until he sees a bit of a tune-up, Crossbones will very likely remain underused because he is just too often dead or unpredictable. And the times when you can use him, your reward is to simply win more? Yeah, no thanks.
Common Combos:
Crossbones is typically a pay-off card due to his restriction, so he's pretty much always going to be recipient versus a set up card:
Mr. Fantastic -> Crossbones - Probably the most reliable way to play Crossbones. Mr. Fantastic on Mid gives you 2 power in each lane and is a good way to secure priority. Then on 4, you can drop Crossbones into whichever lane you are still ahead by. You can also amplify this in similar ways via Squirrel Girl on to add 1 additional power if needs be.
Silk / Spiderman -> Crossbones - 5 Power is a pretty moderate amount as noted. Silk's constant moving and Spiderman's redirection are both effective ways at relocating which lanes you have a winning amount of power in. From there, that gives you a window to plop Crossbones down on to the board.
Jeff the Baby Landshark / Vision / Nightcrawler -> Crossbones - Similar to the above and a more controlled way of doing it, but using Move cards allows you set up a lane with more power which then lets you drop Crossbones. The downside is that there is a one turn delay because Moved cards do not count towards a lane's power until the Move is completed - which takes place before the reveal phase of each card.
Rank/Tier: F tier. Crossbones borders on the realm of playability, sitting pretty much at the top of F or bottom of D, but his play restriction makes him virtually impossible to pre-plan where you can use him. If his cost was lowered as in the Pre-nerf Zabu days, he'd actually be a pretty reasonable card. As is though, no luck for Rumlow in the current landscape.
Most Used Decks:
Lane Control / Lockdown
-
We've mentioned this card a few times in the topic, but I think it is a good time to shed light on what it does as major archetype defining card: Cerebro
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Cerebro_03-6446adc24429a418658b919c1d343a9000ac1a8ae109193eea9e916d466db192.webp)
Cost: 3
Power: 0 (4 below par)
Ability: Ongoing - Give the highest power cards on your field an additional +2 Power.
Ideal Turn to Play: 5-6. Although you can play Cerebro as early as Turn 3, it is best played late into the match due to its sheer surprise factor. One of Cerebro's main strength is that it can incorporate a bunch of underutilized or cards with no seeming synergy together, only for the Turn 6 to happen and basically turn the entire board's power values upside down. Turn 5 is a consider if you want to use 6 for other plays, but means your opponent will know before going into the final turn what you are playing. And of course, as in any card game, being predictable is often a death sentence.
Archetype: Cerebro - Namesake Card!
Uses:
Here is a card that is real interesting. Cerebro buffs cards up similar to things like Ironheart and Blue Marvel but it only buffs up cards that have the highest power value. In short, if you currently have a 6 Powered Winter Soldier and a 4 Powered Carnage on the field, it will only boost up Winter Soldier to a +8. So on its own, it doesn't seem impressive since all it does is give +2 to a card. The kicker is that this buff effect hits *every* card as long as they are all the highest value. In short, if instead you have a 3 powered Cosmo and a 3 powered Armor on the board, BOTH cards will receive the buff. So Cerebro is actually an excellent tool if you plan on going wide. It does mean you have to do a lot of deck planning because you essentially need cards all to converge on to 1 main power value, but the big advantage is that you can utilize a lot of underused or otherwise unseen set of cards together.
A good example of this is something like Cerebro 5. So the goal here is to hit the board with a lot of 5 powered cards, then use Cerebro at the end to buff. The problem is that typically 5 Powered cards don't come cheap...at least they don't if you play more traditional ones like Polaris or Miles. This can make it quite difficult to effectively 5 flood your board. The solution to this is to then add cards that are normally less used due to their issues and thus are more unconventional. For example, you can slot in Star Lord, a 2-2 that only goes up to 5 power if his On Reveal procs. Medusa is another option as she is also normally a 2-2 but can become a 2-5 if you can throw her into the middle lane. Awkward card combinations like this can throw your opponent in for a real loop because on the surface, they don't resemble any archetype at all. Then Turn 6 comes around and that's when you slam like Cerebro on the board to add up to +8 in any lane.
The nature of Cerebro means that often times, playing a lower Cerebro value is better than playing a higher one. There are simply more cards that only have 2-3 power versus cards that have like 7-8 power. So while you can do something like Cerebro 7, the higher the values, the less effective Cerebro becomes because you simply don't have enough bodies to toss onto the field. In terms of effectiveness, Cerebro 2 and Cerebro 3 are often the most played followed by Cerebro 5. Of these 3 values, Cerebro 3 is probably the most competitive one in today's landscape. This is owing to a few factors, but namely having more available real estate agents, more powerful tech options and being able to utilize 2 power cards even if it ends up weakening the overall state of the board. Meanwhile, Cerebro 5 is kind of the best upper range - where cards have an adequate amount of power that they aren't wont for needing Cerebro to be drawn to threaten taking over a lane.
Despite its wide scope, Cerebro has a few crippling weaknesses that prevent it from real rocketing in terms of play rate. The worst amongst these issues is dealing with power adjustment effects from locations. There are lot of locations in SNAP - around 130 of them in fact. Unfortunately for Cerebro players, many of these locations also provide a power modifier for a card. When your deck is built upon reaching a certain power value and not going over it, these things will be the death of you. Locations that normally are neutral like Xander or beneficial like Muir Island are all of a sudden complete nightmares to deal with because one miscalculation can mean your Cerebro now only hits one card instead of an entire lane. Then there are locations that either drop unwanted tokens like Monster Island giving you a 9 Power Monster token or negative power locations like Sewer System which then further cap how much power you can output in a lane. It is for this reason all Cerebro decks really want to have a real estate agent available and why C2 and C3 are the most played. Between Scarlet Witch, Storm, Rhino and Magik, you can safely get rid of these and not deal with the hassle.
However, that doesn't stop an opponent's card effects from hitting you. Cerebro players are real vulnerable to power adjustment cards in general, which is why Luke Cage is also often a card included. Being only 2 power, he will almost never steal Cerebro's effect for himself unless you are doing some real goofy idea like Cerebro 0. Yet at the same time, he will guard against stuff like Soul Stone, Scorpion and Hazmat - all of which can hurt the potential reach of Cerebro. Red Skull in particular is a huge bane for Cerebro players because his Ongoing effect alters the power value of all opposing cards in his lane and it is impossible to Turn off without giving the opponent an advantage unless you play C5. For lower Cerebro values, Titania also spells trouble since she's either 5 power for your opponent or ends up hogging the Cerebro buff all to herself. As the game continues its life span, there are sure to be more cards that have power adjustment effects - all of which can impact Cerebro in different ways.
Because Cerebro plays with all the same values typically, it is also a deck where a smart player can figure out the potential ceiling of the deck. Remember earlier when I said being predictable can be a death sentence? Here, having an opponent figure out you are playing Cerebro is bad for 2 reasons. The first being that they know exactly how much power you can output and can therefore hedge on whether or not they can beat you. The second is that if they know they cannot, they can simply retreat for a low cube loss. You want to be able to mask your intentions with Cerebro as much as possible, but sometimes that can be pretty tough to do because even in Cerebro, there are certain cards that are preferred choices. Your best bet is to often mesh these together with what looks like another archetypical deck play. For example, Forge + Brood suggests Patriot, but can be a good way to lean into Cerebro 5.
The initial idea of Cerebro was to give a way for players to buff up their tech cards since they are often below tempo and can be hard to interact with. As the game has progressed though, this idea has become less and less important because now there are just more cards you can use for various Cerebro values. The best Cerebro decks though have often maintained this identity, which is probably why C2 and C3 are still the most popular variants to this day.
Common Combos:
Depending the Cerebro value you are trying to make use of, there are multiple different combos you can utilize. Here are some short and simple ones:
Universal
Luke Cage -> Cerebro - Basically your main defense against anything that gives minus values. Useful against stuff like Scorpion, but more often utilized on annoying locations that might spawn.
Cerebro -> Mystique - Doubles up your Cerebro effect. Self explanatory. Giving your cards +4 is pretty good!
C2 Combos
Goose -> Cerebro - Guards an early Cerebro against Enchantress and 50/50s Rogue. Super Skrull can use Cerebro's power, but if they aren't playing their own Cerebro deck, this is a very minor advantage gained by Skrull. The best part is locking down a lane this way with Goose forces an opponent to also play low cost and therefore often low powered cards to this lane, making it easier for you to win it.
Storm -> Cerebro - Other than being a real estate agent, here's a situation where dropping Storm and early Cerebro can be useful because you effectively shut the lane off from further counter play. If you play another 1-2 in the Storm lane on the same turn, you can still buff that lane thereafter for noticeable power.
Brood -> Cerebro - A real simple 2 card combo but turns Brood into a 3-12, barring additional power boosts. A very good way to close out a game since the Cerebro play here also then buffs up all other 2 costs you might have played for the rest of the game.
C3 Combos
Invisible Woman -> Cerebro - Yep. See Goose. This one is better in some ways because your opponent doesn't necessary know it is Cerebro hidden underneath. Worse in other cases because unlike Goose, Sue won't stop large big costs from landing into the lane.
Cerebro -> Wasp / Yellowjacket / Valkyrie - Pretty much a killer Turn 6 play that guarantees a lane. The caveat is that you have to play Cerebro on an early turn, which can give yourself away.
Bast -> Valkyrie -> Cerebro - C3 is often the best Cerebro value to play with because Bast and Valk let you 3 Power wash your entire board and hand, making it easy to set up.
Cerebro -> Shadow King / Shang Chi - Like with the Valkyrie Play, this is another line that pretty much flips the board because Shadow King will reset values while Shang destroys anything over 9 power. Then you boost all cards with the same 3 power by another 2 points.
Rank/Tier: C tier. Cerebro is a card that offers some wide deck building opportunities. Because of this, these decks are often unpredictable and be quite strong because of it. Unfortunately, many locations in the game actively screw Cerebro players over and these decks often have a power ceiling, which means that it just loses to certain decks that can scale or explode really well.
Most Used Decks:
Cerebro
Negative
-
I got your D-tier Rescue right here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bU2PWs9qIZSTQw-T27x4KL7JKpn2ABib/view?usp=drive_link
-
I got your D-tier Rescue right here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bU2PWs9qIZSTQw-T27x4KL7JKpn2ABib/view?usp=drive_link
Nice one. Let me know when you get Rocks as your mascot.
I haven't updated this topic for awhile, so let's go over something quick and dirty. I've been recently asked if I wanted to contribute to a "Card of the Day" style analysis on the reddit board, so I will probably be cross posting at some point! Maybe. The game has gone over 4 or 5 patches since the last time I posted and a lot of stuff has changed - maybe when I get unlazy, I will review the analysis for a few of the cards I've already visited. This mainly applies to Wave, Aero, Chavez (which has undergone big changes) but also to minor adjustments such as Black Cat and Shang (minor OTA adjustments mostly).
Anyway, back to business: Colossus
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Colossus_06-4da6c586b1ba9e61ab1b2bbe319829fea7838b1cfd4e9e3cf10d26d85fa59139.webp)
Cost: 2
Power: 3 (Par)
Ability: Ongoing - This card cannot be debuffed, destroyed or moved once it is played.
Ideal Turn to Play: 2-6. Colossus has a wide play window overall. That's his main selling point arguably in that he's old reliable. Unfortunately, it does mean he's pretty boring otherwise
Archetype: Anchor / Ongoing - Predictably
Uses:
As far as cards in SNAP go, Colossus is probably the most boring. Yeah, I'm aware abilitless cards like Wasp and Misty Knight exist, but those have an alternative form with High Evo (HE), which then makes them more powerful and interesting. Colossus really just sits there. Quite literally too because once he's on the board, you can't really interact with him. He's immune to being destroyed, being debuffed by power down effects and can't be shoved around at all. If it wasn't for locations being a thing in SNAP, Colossus would basically be interchangeable with Shocker most of the time. They are both 2 cost 3 power cards that don't do much - just that Colossus' ability means he has good defenses against most things that want to interact with him.
Where Colossus really shines is with locations that have detrimental effects. Take Negative Zone for example. This is a location that applies a -3 Debuff to any card played in its lane. Well, Colossus' ability means he doesn't care about that, so he sits there at his regular 3 power value. Your opponent now has to play a 6 power card to counteract him...more if you buff Colossus in some other way. The above mentioned Rickety Bridge is another. Simply play Colossus onto the Bridge and if your opponent doesn't have a play to answer, you basically steal it for free since he can't be destroyed without first taking away his ability.
His ability means he's an excellent defensive card against most disruption effects, often creating 50/50s or worse for an opponent if the disruption most interact with the board. A common example is with Polaris. Polaris interacts with 1-2 cost cards, which Colossus is. However, Colossus' ability means he nullifies Polaris' ability to move him. If you have a high value 2 cost card like Invisible Woman or Zabu, Colossus can make those disruptive plays chancey because now there is a chance to hit Colossus instead. While he doesn't 100% nullify them, it is nice that he at least has par value for a card and doesn't require a separate tech card to offer this defensive bonus. Like you would expect, Colossus is just solid. This in turn also means that cards that have merge effects like Hulk Buster, are good with him too since like Wolverine, Colossus is hard to destroy.
Flip side though, because there's not much you can do to interact with Colossus, it also means that there is a ceiling to how useful he is. He won't win you games in a way like a Turn 6 Shang Chi might. He also doesn't set up combos like Wong or present a threat like Kingpin. So in short, Colossus is often just...there, sitting cozily at his 3 power. There are ways of course to leverage this such as with Cerebro, Spectrum or Destroyer. But overall, Colossus is about as straightforward as you can get. His ability often isn't good enough to just take away with Rogue or Enchantress but at the same time, his 3 power doesn't mean nothing either since you can use him as anchor in other ways.
Common Combos:
Because of his ability, Colossus isn't very interactive, which limits the ways a card can combo or play off him. Still, you can try some of these:
Colossus -> Destroyer: Pretty straightforward if you want to play Destroyer without risk of actually vaporizing your board. The nice thing here is that Colossus can sit in any lane instead of a lane that has been hit by Armor or Professor X. Logan is actually better since he gets that +2 buff but Logan also isn't synergistic with Colossus since he actually wants to be destroyed, versus Colossus who cannot
Colossus -> Man Thing: Man Thing is a recent release but he's pretty powerful, applying a -2 Power to all 1-3 cost cards in the lane. This hits your cards too so your options are to either not put 1-3 costs there, use Luke OR something like Colossus which ignores Man-Thing's ability.
Colossus -> Hulk Buster: Yep. Colossus works with any other power-up card because he has innate immunity to Shadow King. This just means that enchant creature type cards like Hulk Buster have less risk when used on him. Downside - he also doesn't do much else with it unfortunately.
Rank/Tier: D tier. There are actual rocks in the game, but Colossus is probably more of one by definition. You can't really interact with him once he comes down, but that's the beauty of the card. Unfortunately, that also kneecaps him in how he can be interacted with, which in turn means he has a very low ceiling potential.
Most Used Decks:
Spectrum Destroyer
Cerebro 3
-
Wow, big disagree on Colossus. He's one of the best two drops in the game in my opinion. Just being able to play him on Death's Domain or the two or three other instant kill locations is an easy turn 6 win condition. Also has some newish synergy due to nerfed Luke Cage. One of the few cards you can play along with Hazmat or Typhoid Mary. Probably going to see a rise in High Evolutionary decks with Cage getting wrecked so that's another counter to them. Yes, he's only three power, but he's three power that can only be stopped with Rogue or Enchantress.
-
Wow, big disagree on Colossus. He's one of the best two drops in the game in my opinion. Just being able to play him on Death's Domain or the two or three other instant kill locations is an easy turn 6 win condition. Also has some newish synergy due to nerfed Luke Cage. One of the few cards you can play along with Hazmat or Typhoid Mary. Probably going to see a rise in High Evolutionary decks with Cage getting wrecked so that's another counter to them. Yes, he's only three power, but he's three power that can only be stopped with Rogue or Enchantress.
Let's respectfully disagree then. Which other 2 cost cards do you see him being that much better then? Especially ones which you commonly see? Like he's definitely better than Mantis, Mordo, Star Lord and probably Okoye. But I have a hard time seeing him being better than Psylocke or even Quake - neither of which I see being better than a C tier card. Quake, if played with the right location sets wins things on her own for 2 power. Psylocke can combo into really powerful plays or Ramp into necessary engine cards like Mr. Negative or Sandman. Colossus' ability is good defensively but the problem is that it doesn't disrupt or slow an opponent down and he's difficult to interact with, meaning he's often just going to be a 2-3. New Luke Cage still dumpsters HE Cyke but I'd argue it's probably killed off both Hazmat and Mary because now they are basically never worth their value without significant set up (in Mary's case, I can't even see how she is ever a 4-10 again if you play ANY other card other than Luke or Colossus). That doesn't help Colossus at all but just hurts those two other cards playability. I also already noted how he's basically very sturdy. He's basically almost always 3 power because his ability by itself isn't worth taking away. But because of that, you can use him as anchor in some decks such as C3.
Side note - My rankings are also obviously personal opinions so don't get too worked up about them. Anecdotally, I rarely ever see Colossus in the game currently and you never see him in Netdecks nowadays or from creators either, which I think reinforces my position. He's probably more realistically a Punisher scenario. Fundamentally not terrible but definitely powercrept.
-
Rogue
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Rogue_11-4ab1a985621f5f56ad0f35920ba7f6269634e454c2197ad201390f4f852c2411.webp)
Cost: 3
Power: 2 (2 Below Par)
Ability: On Reveal - Steal an Ongoing Ability from an opponent in this lane. Rogue gains this power.
Ideal Turn to Play: Varies, but typically late game - usually 4-6. Rogue is very rarely, if ever, played on 3. She is the first card we are looking at that counters Ongoing abilities (there are 3 in total)
Archetype: Tech / Ongoing
Uses:
I have real mixed feelings on Rogue. She's a card which I really want to like, but more often in practice, if you're looking for Ongoing Hate, there are two other tech cards that do similar jobs as she does. And more often than not, Enchantress is probably a bit better than Rogue. Don't get me wrong though - Rogue is fun. How can she not be when you're basically doing a Uno Reverse against an opponent with his own card abilities? The issue is that Rogue is only useful in some specific circumstances. However, when she is good, she is *really* good.
Let's look at her main advantages compared to her compatriots. The first thing of note and the main that separates them is the cost. Super Skrull and Enchantress are both 4 cost cards. Rogue costs only 3. This has obvious applications. Rogue is more flexible for your curve and can easily fit alongside another card late into the game. She can fly under Goose which has merit, even if she is only a 50/50. After all, 50% is better than 0% which what Enchantress bats against it. It also gives her innate synergy with Silver Surfer, which IMO, is one of the best cards in the game. In terms of Power, 2 power is obviously not great, but Super Skrull costs 1 more and has the same power, so relatively speaking, Rogue is winning that trade there too. So altogether, she's just a more efficient tech card than the other two.
But of course, if you are paying for less, there are definitive trade-offs. The first here is that Skrull and Enchantress can match the 3 cost if the deck runs Zabu. And just as Rogue has synergy with Surfer, all 4 costs have synergy with the tiger. With Zabu's cost reduction, now Enchantress and Skrull can go through Goose as well, although the added set up makes them a bit more clunky. Second, Rogue only shuts down one Ongoing effect. While this can effectively be game winning, like if you steal your opponent's Knull or Iron Man, it might not be enough depending on what they are doing. Further, because you can only steal one ability, anytime there is more than one Ongoing ability in the same lane, Rogue becomes a gamble and immediately drops to 50/50. That's obviously not great. Because she cannot self-target, and is dependent on what your opponent plays, Rogue also is harder to combo into. Enchantress can hit your own Lizard, Red Skull, Mary, etc. and effectively let you play those cards with no downside, something Rogue (and Super Skrull) cannot.
At the end of the day, which of the Ongoing tech cards you use depends on the deck and what you are trying to do. Rogue is best in decks that want to run an Ongoing tech card that doesn't care too much about being able to combo into other cards. For this reason, she tends to be weaker because Enchantress can be used to set up a powerful series of card plays without relying on what the opponent does. If an opponent plays no Ongoing cards, or the only Ongoing card they are playing is Lizard, Rogue is effectively a dead card. However, if you're just looking to shut down one troublesome Ongoing ability like Wong or Knull, Rogue is a god-sent. Being 1 less Energy cost is a big deal at being able to deploy Rogue because it means she can come onto the board faster and you still might have room to play another meaningful card to impact your board.
Common Combos:
Like other cards where they are dependent on what an opponent plays, Combo plays off of Rogue is hard. One important consideration is that once Rogue copies an ability, she gains that ability for the rest of the game. Meaning if you can then dupe Rogue, she will have the same Ongoing text as the first ability she stole. This has some obvious applications if you are able to steal something of high value.
Rogue -> Mystique: Mystique copies an Ongoing effect of a card that YOU own. If you Rogue and steal an ability, Mystique then gives you a copy of that stolen ability. This is really good if you steal something like Iron Man, where the stolen ability can function well on it's own without a lot of other support.
Rogue -> Onslaught: See above. Onslaught doubles the effects of Ongoing cards. So Rogue + Onslaught doubles up on an Ongoing ability you stole.
Quinjet -> Nico Minoru -> Rogue: A 3 card combo that lets you dupe a Rogue with a stolen ability and then replay it at -1 Cost. Quinjet/Nico is a combo you might see in a Loki Collector Bounce shell, so there's a case where this 3 card combo is a real thing.
Rank/Tier: C tier. I think Rogue and Super Skrull are probably comparable and both are slightly weaker than Enchantress. The main issue here is that both cards are reliant on an opponent playing meaningful Ongoing cards. Rogue has no effect if that is not the case. Granted, the ability to steal an opponent's ability is always fun and can flip the board state entirely if she steals something meaningful.
Most Used Decks:
Surfer
Negative
Spectrum Destroyer
Ongoing Tribunal
-
Let's talk about VSM's favourite card - Valkyrie
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Valkyrie-2cef4d9876ebca4e51334c98f99d76789bb4cf97680e02a8ac43db450e53074b.webp)
Cost: 5
Power: 3 (6 Below Par)
Ability: On Reveal - Set the power of all Cards in this lane to 3.
Ideal Turn to Play: About 95% of the time, Valk is best played on 6 for the biggest surprise factor. However, there are times when you want to play her on 5 - especially if you can dupe her effect with Absorbing Man
Archetype: Tech / Support
Uses:
Most tech cards in this game flutter around the 3-4 cost range. Not cheap enough to be freely available, but not so expensive they become the only Card play available on a given turn. Of the cards in the game, only a handful of 5 Cost cards serve as tech cards. Valkyrie is one of them. She's a high cost, low powered card which is obviously bad in terms of stat line. If you're going to pay 5 Energy for a tech effect, it better win you the game or you're going to be in deep trouble. Luckily, Valkyrie does exactly that. She's a lane stealer thanks to her extremely powerful ability but she does require some set up to be used properly.
Valkyrie's effect makes it such that any cards in her lane are set to exactly 3 power. It doesn't matter if you played Shuri then doubled a Red Skull to 28. If someone plays Valk in the same lane, they will effectively turn your 28 power down to 3 - effectively killing your Turn 4 and 5 in one fell swoop. This already sounds pretty good, but then you can just play cards after Valk reveals to win the lane back, right? Well, yes. But that's why most Valkyrie users will look to flood your lanes first. Valk's effect is symmetrical so she hits cards on your end too. So you'd think just flooding the lane results in a tie. However, here's where a neat priority order in terms of power determination comes into play. Valk resets power to 3, but Ongoing effects are not considered to be part of the card's stat. They are an "Ability Power" effect essentially so Valk doesn't turn them off. So in the above example with Red Skull, if we both flooded lanes and I hit you with Valk, that lane would just be mine because of Red Skull's Ongoing ability, which gives all of my cards an extra +2 power.
Knowing these rules, you can set up Valk yourself with an Ongoing effect. You don't need to play the Ongoing effect in the same lane. Just as long as you have one active, about 95% of the time, it will result in you breaking lane priority. And that's the key. If you have something that can break parity, Valk will win the lane she is on once she is played. You do have to be careful though because if you play with priority, you'll miss any unrevealed targets. Order is therefore also important. Playing Valk then Demon keeps your Demon at 6 Power. Playing Demon then Valk turns your Demon to 3 Power and possibly losing you the game.
Most of the time, you're going to want to play Valk late and without priority. Partially, that's due to the surprise factor, but more importantly, you need proper set up to ensure your hitting everything since you otherwise risk unrevealed cards winning that lane. However, there are situations where you will want to hit a target earlier with Valk. A great example of this is with Shuri. Shuri is highly telegraphed in that for her effect to kick in, the card being powered up MUST be played in her lane. So against Nimrod destroy variants, you want to either have priority going into Turn 6 or pre-empt them on 5 with Valk. Doing so means you overwrite their power doubling and drop Nimrod back down to 3 Power. Nimrod is Shang Proof so this is one of the few ways which you can kneecap the Nimrod Destroy player before he starts splitting copies because once he does, you are likely going to lose. Having him dupe 3 Power cards is obviously not ideal! You can even do a dual Valkyrie play where you drop Valk on 5, then use Absorbing Man to dupe the effect. This is extremely powerful because opponents already don't tend to expect Valkyrie let alone two Valkyries. Indeed, most Shuri players would rather play Armor to stop a NTW or Shang versus Luke Cage to stop a possible Valk.
With all that said, it should be obvious then what Valk's weaknesses are. She will lose to most Ongoing effects because they can break symmetry. She will also lose if another card sneaks into play after her effect because 12 power in a lane is obviously not very high. Her cost means she's very inflexible and you need to preplan where she is going to be played and her overall impact because likely in the turn you play her, you can't do much else. Luke Cage voids Valkyrie setting power to 3 if it represents a drop, so he completely dumpsters you as does Shadow King who will reset power values if he is played after you. Priority control is important as is making sure there are no Ongoing effects in the lane you want to drop her in. As such, Echo and Rogue are some of Valk's best friends. Enchantress works too, but has higher base power and being 4 cost makes her harder to use than the other two. Ghost can be useful too if you have issues dealing with priority to ensure you reveal last.
Valkyrie's effect is devastating but she has to be for essentially being a 5-cost tech card.
Common Combos:
Valk has some really mean combos - like outright lane winners - if you have the right draw. But then like Professor X, if you're paying 5 cost for a tech card like effect, it better be. The good news is that Valkyrie delivers on that promise as long as you are aware of her flaws.
Valkyrie -> Demon / Titania / Antman: Let's start with the obvious. If a Lane already has 2 cards played, Valk + Antman gives you a point total of 16. If an opponent has played 4 other cards here as well with no Ongoing effect, Antman will win it for you after Valk goes off.
Cerebro -> Valkyrie: In C3, Valk is devastating. She serves as a way to both kneecap an opponent's lane while simultaneously bringing up all of your own on the last turn.
Doc Oct -> Valkyrie: Doc Oct pulls out 4 cards into a lane. As long as there isn't an Ongoing effect, Valk will cut them all down to 3 power - so 12 to that lane - which then makes it easy pickings to outright win it.
Hood -> Sentry -> Valkyrie + Demon: A simple set up. Sentry creates a Void that is -10. Play Hood in the same lane, then on 5, 3 wash the entire lane with Valk. Demon from Hood then wins you the lane.
YellowJacket -> Wasp -> Antman -> Valkyrie: A very powerful but 4 card combo which can be dumped on the last turn. Both Wasp and YJ or 0 Cost and Antman is 1. So Valk's 5 + Antman's 1 means this combo is valid for non-limbo games. Dump all 4 into a lane an opponent is investing and steal it.
Invisible Woman -> Valkyrie: A delayed Valk, like Shang and Killmonger, can be a magnificent way to lane steal. You just have to be wary of what cards you have in there that win parity after Valk goes off.
Rank/Tier: B tier. Valk probably borders on the bottom of A, but to be conservative, I'm placing her in B. She's basically a 5 cost tech card that will basically steal lanes for you as long as you have the adequate set up. That does mean she isn't as flexible as some of the other cards, but her effect is so good that in the decks she works in, she's an effective finisher.
Most Used Decks:
Control
Junk
Negative
Cerebro 3
-
Going to talk about a card, which I hope will lead up into something new for this topic, which is deck and game discussions. So with that said, let's look at a Series 3 big enabler card: Sera
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Sera_04-7468858f280b1b3a66d5415239b896816821ec89a1209cffd36a72b9e944fc48.webp)
Cost: 5
Power: 4 (5 Below Par)
Ability: Ongoing - All your cards cost -1 Energy to play
Ideal Turn to Play: 5. Sera is hard locked more or less into a 1 turn play window. Playing Sera too early risks her getting hit by an early tech card. Playing her on 6, obviously does nothing. You want to be late enough into the game that when Sera comes down, your opponent doesn't have much room to maneuver to disable you since a 5-4 stat line is obviously paltry.
Archetype: Enabler / Sera Miracle
Uses:
As has been said many times in this topic, modifying play windows is huge. Because of this, any card that alters the cost of other cards will always have some merit even if they are a little tricky to use. Sera fits the very definition of that. She is a flat -1 Energy Cost to all further cards plays once she comes down. The catch is that Sera basically only has a 1 turn window, so if she misses her window on 5, she basically becomes a dead card. That and the fact that her stat line is paltry means if her ability isn't doing anything, there is zero reason to play. Still, you may have only 1 turn, but that 1 turn can let you cause some real havoc.
While Sera can work well with many other cards, she's often best played alongside other late game turners - namely other tech cards - to do the greatest damage. This makes sense because many powerful tech options are 4 cost cards on base. Playing Sera now makes them 3 cost, allowing you to double up and play 2 of them if needed. When paired with Zabu, that 4 cost now becomes 2 cost and you can play up to 3. 3 tech gives you a lot of options to blow up your opponent's board. By Turn 5, you can often see what shell the opponent is running which means a more experienced player can guess what you may have on hand. If you start playing a lot of 3 costs, I know I need to save my Shadow King because you are likely playing Surfer as your last card. If you are playing Shuri, I know that last turn is probably a combo of Taskmaster + 1 large one drop - Hood Demon, Titania or a Sauron'd Maw. As such I will play Shadow King AND Shang to catch Tasky. This type of tech counter strategy has lead to Sera having her own archetype - the Sera Miracle - which focuses on Turn 6 turnarounds for this exact reason.
Of course, that doesn't mean Sera doesn't have other homes. 3 cost cards also often carry a lot of good tech, so she naturally finds a bond with Surfer for similar reasons. On the flip side, if you just need to cheat out a lot of big cards like a Tribunal deck, then Sera might also make sense. In this case, you'll often partner her with Magik to increase the number of turns where her impact can be felt AND as a way to extend Sera's play window. Where Sera makes less sense are often in very straightforward or "On Curve" type decks that don't need to dump a ton of energy plays at any time. Stuff like Zero Shuri/Kitty Shuri/Generic Destroy or even Shenaut often have game plans where their ideal curve doesn't require them to use up more energy then they have (in Shenaut's case, they actually want float) so a Turn 5 Sera actually doesn't do anything.
Even though she can provide a pretty big benefit, Sera has some rather large drawbacks as well. I've already mentioned the stat line, but there are other limitations here too. For example, Sera cannot reduce a card's cost below 1. So deck types that have a lot of 1 costs such as Thanos or Zoo have zero reason to play Sera usually. Related to her stat line, because she often finds homes in other heavy combo decks or tech heavy decks, most of the other cards, including Sera herself often have bad power. This doesn't seem like much of an issue on the surface. But when an opponent drops cards where you can't hit them with any sort of tech, this is a real serious issue. Cards that flutter around the 7-9 mark and cost more than 2 usually present problems for Sera because those types of decks just tend to outpower you. The cost reduction can also be a negative depending on certain location such as Crimson Cosmos, which can then just lock you from play.
Funnily enough, even though you can ramp out Sera early to get more of her benefit, I'd actually recommend against doing it. It obviously varies from a case by case situation, but placing an early Sera screams for your opponent to disable you. A lot of players might not be experts, but even the greenest of players know giving you more energy to work with is a bad idea. As such, this type of play carries a lot of risk and it often isn't worth it. Unless you're playing a deck that needs to ramp out multiple pieces, a single turn can often be enough to turn the tides around.
Sera is a card that is easy to misjudge. I think most players value her much higher than I do. To me, Sera should be a card where if she comes down, she aids you in whatever goal you are accomplishing. So her best homes are like with Surfer where you don't NEED Sera, but she's obviously very nice since she gives an extra card play. If your game plan 100% depends on getting Sera to the board, your deck is going to be shaky at best since between the various disruption effects, bad locations and draws, the chances where you can enact such a plan are not common enough.
Common Combos:
Sera's energy reduction, even though it gives you only 1 real turn to play with, can't be underestimated. Reducing Costs by 1 is huge, letting you play two 4 cost energy costs for example and it stacks with Zabu, sometimes letting you just dump cards. That said, even though you technically get more of a discount playing her early, a lot of the combos save her for 5 so the big swings on 6 can come out.
Sera -> Shang Chi + Absorbing Man: Sera works best with most tech cards as they border on the 4 cost, preventing them from being able to use multiple ones on the last turn. To get around that, you can either play Zabu or Sera. Sera has the added benefit of also reducing cost on tech cards of other costs, which then lets you mix and match for the scenario needed. Double Shang being one of those combos that's just very nasty if your opponent doesn't account for it.
Zabu -> Whatever -> Sera -> Valkyrie + Absorbing Man: This is an example of what I mentioned above. In this case, both Zabu and Sera have to be played because Valk costs 5. But with this set up, you can double Valk on 6, which is pretty devastating.
Magik -> Wave -> Onslaught-> Sera -> Iron Man + Living Tribunal: Sera can also enable long complex chains, in this case, in conjunction with Wave and Magik. You're goal is to stack Onslaught, Iron Man and Living Tribunal in the same lane. This costs a ton of energy and isn't normally playable...which is why you need to cheat cards out with Wave, then use Sera's discount to play the combo. Done correctly, this slaps 29+ Power across all 3 lanes. You do of course need to play everything on curve, so it is fragile but certainly possible.
Zabu -> Wong -> Mystique -> Sera -> Whatever: Yeeeah, here's another on curve requirement, but done played in this way, you go into Turn 6 basically able to dump a massive On Reveal combo. Your opponent could be baiting you into a sense of victory, but if they don't have Cosmo at the ready and priority, this is basically GG.
Sera -> Surfer + Brood + Any other 3 Cost: Yep. 3 Cost is the magic number as mentioned several times. In a Surfer deck, Sera's often added as the sole high cost piece because she enables you to then play 3 cards on Turn 6. This is often Surfer + an establisher and maybe one tech card to steal the game. Brood in this case, is often the go to.
Rank/Tier: C tier. Sera is a similar case to Professor X in that while they both only have a 1 turn window, when they are played, their impact is rather large. The difference is that unlike Charles, Sera doesn't end matches. She does let you do some powerful combos, but you still have to plan your turns and Turn 6 turnarounds can leave you quite vulnerable to disruption.
Most Used Decks:
Sera Miracle (Control)
Ongoing Tribunal
Surfer
Wong Combos
-
This was my go-to deck before Surfer got Nerfered.
Psylocke, Colossus, Ironheart, Brood, Mister Fantastic, Silver Surfer, Cosmo, Rhino, Polaris, Absorbing Man, Enchantress, Sera
Psylocke should only be played on turn 3 (for early Sera on 4) or turn 5 (if you didn't pull Sera). Turn 6 has a lot of options, including
Surfer+Absorbing Man
Brood+Absorbing Man
Ironheart+Absorbing Man
or Surfer+two other three costs
Enchantress could be replaced by Rogue (don't think she was out at that time, or maybe I didn't have her). Colossus gives you something to do on turn 2, and is just nice to have in general.
Deck was easily 90%+ win rate before the nerf.
-
Shadow King
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/ShadowKing_02-eee254b5e82b47222e4cfe6cf8d566a2f84e56a7489847dc8a18c3edd77eb52e.webp)
Cost: 2
Power: 2 (1 Below Par)
Ability: On Reveal - Reset the Power of all cards in this lane to their base power
Ideal Turn to Play: 6. Playing Shadow King (SK) at any time other than 6 means an opponent may still have ways to buff the cards you're hitting. His 2 Cost makes him very flexible and easy to slot in - doubly so if you have any sort of cost reduction.
Archetype: Tech
Uses:
Of all the cards released since I started playing, I think Shadow King has probably seen the biggest upswing after patches. When he was released, he was borderline unusable. At 4 cost and 3 Power, no one was going to use him when Shang was in the same range and did even better by just outright removing cards off the board. Old Shadow King's issue can be summed up in two words: Bad Statline. He costed too much and didn't have enough power to warrant using him even as a tech piece. Since then, his cost has dropped from 4 to 3, then 3 to 2 and his power suitably adjusted until where he is today. At 2 Cost, SK now has a distinct niche from Shang and is in some ways, the better tech card to slot for specific combos and decks.
Resetting an opponent's card to their base power is obviously really powerful. A lot of the build-up type cards like Kitty, Wolverine, Deadpool, just get absolutely eaten by a well-placed end-of-the-game SK. And in the case of cards like Wolverine and Nimrod, SK serves as the premier tech to them because they are immune to Shang. At 2 cost, he's now versatile enough to be slotted into many, many decks and can dumpster a lot of anchors on this own. See an opponent's giant Deadpool? SK can work even better than Shang in this case because he's actually +1 on base versus Deadpool and costs 2 energy less. It also makes him easier to be used in combo plays. For example, playing SK into a lane with Brood to reset your opponent's power down, then dropping Surfer to give all your Broods +2 can result in a massive swing. Similarly, you can drop SK to neuter all power gains from a location like Muir Island, then play Luke Cage on SK to regain all the power lost from SK's reset.
Because he is best used as a surprise (like a few other tech cards), SK is almost reserved for a Turn 6 play despite being able to be played as early as 2. This means you have to manage priority for most of the game if you intend to use him for the greatest effect. In current SNAP play, needing to give up priority has an added drawback in the form of Alioth, who will just flat out eat your cards if you don't have priority, without them getting to reveal. This vulnerability exists for a lot of tech cards but it hurts stuff like SK more because he is so very much intended as a last turn play. At least even with a card like Shang for example, there are fringe cases where you might consider dropping him early. SK suffers more because he doesn't straight up delete a card. So in essence, you are playing a 2 power card against whatever your opponent is playing that turn versus a Shang for 3 and an opponent technically playing nothing if you destroyed something.
SK's other weakness is in the form of cards that override his power resetting effect - namely Luke Cage and in some cases, Valkyrie. Valkyrie is less of an issue as the two counter each other depending on which one goes first. But Luke just wrecks SK completely. Luckily, current SNAP has nerfed Cage to the point where he only effects one lane now (just like SK) and since Cage is usually better played pre-emptive versus reaction like SK, your SK can usually dodge him. 2 power is also low enough that SK often can't win lanes on his own and will need some support. Take Black Panther for example. If Black Panther grows to be 16 Power or whatever, you can counter him with either Shang OR SK. However, while Shang can win by himself as he removes BP from the field, Shadow King does not. He needs at least another 3 power card in the lane to take it. This power (or lack thereof) is a real issue for Shadow King...especially now that he can now longer be buffed by Surfer. You have to be actively winning a lane before SK goes down because his 2 power is very paltry leaves much to be desired.
Common Combos:
Luke Cage -> Shadow King: Nukes your opponent's power gains but lets you keep yours. Only a 4 energy play so there is a lot of room for additional follow-ups.
Invisible Woman -> Shadow King: A delayed SK guaranteed to go last more or less, eschewing the importance of priority. Useful if you're planning to drop some other large base cards into the lane as a surprise.
Shadow King + Absorbing Man: Dupes your SK effect. The cool thing about this is that now he is 2 cost, you no longer need Sera or Zabu to enable this play. Similarily, you can do...
Shang Chi + Shadow King: Pretty much forces an opponent to weave a thread through the needle because their cards can't be above the Shang threshold, but also can't be buff cards or they will just get ruined. Obviously play Shang first. You can even do this on 2 different lanes.
Cerebro -> Shadow King: One interest aspect of Shadow King is that, while Luke will raise power back up, there are no cards in SNAP OTHER than SK who will drop a card back down to their normal power. Sure Hazmat exists, but she's a universal -1 effect. What I'm referring to is if your card gets buffed accidentally, there isn't a real way to reset them. Normally not an issue...except when it is because you are playing Cerebro. Here, a Shadow King into a Cerebro can cause a field wide change in power that can let you steal games unexpectedly.
Rank/Tier: B tier. SK is good. Real good. He's finally carved out a different niche from Shang (his primary competition) and his lower cost makes him a lot easier to use. Unfortunately, the existence of new cards like Alioth means there is definite power creep and SK is unfortunately one of the more impacted victims, preventing him from being a true A rank.
Most Used Decks:
Control
Zoo
Surfer
Cerebro 2
-
So we're going to do something different today - let's look at one of the most prominent and popular decks in SNAP. It's not necessarily the most successful, but it is a deck that pops up pretty frequently due to its accessability. I've also mentioned it a few times plus we've gone over a lot of it's most essential component, so it will be easier to digest.
Without further ado, let's look at a typical Sera Miracle deck
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/decks/286007.webp?v=40e15eccef43199c8cde95cdc9631c3ca52a34dd9f1a28d781c803571484a46e)
General Gameplan
Sera Miracle is equivalent to a Blue MtG deck that is loaded with counter spells. It's primarily a reaction based deck that is focused on playing tech cards to shut down an opponent's game plan. The deck is flexible with numerous different subs (based on the flavor of the month, your own preference as well as the availability of what cards you have) so it tends to be a deck that most players can assemble the moment they get out of Pool 2 with a little investment. The major card you will be likely missing then is Sera but the deck is functional without her and you can grab Zabu as an alternative. This deck focuses on last minute turnarounds for the biggest cube gains possible. There are of course fringe cases where you will be playing on curve but those tend to be cases where if you don't stop your opponent right there, you're probably going to lose - Hi Wong.
The deck focuses on having low tempo for most of the game until around maybe Turn 5. The main reasons for this is to keep priority low because you have a lot of tech cards that only work if you go second. Thus, understanding and being able to control priority is key. Sunspot is a great addition here because he covers two of the decks main weakness: 1) it's low power output and b) the tendency to have a lot of float. You're not often running Armor though, so you have to be careful that you don't accidentally Killmonger your own Sunspot. There are ways around this of course - one of the new cards recently released specifically guards 1 and 6 cost cards from destruction. You can easily slot her in to guard your Sunspot in favor of another tech spot. The rest then comes down to Turn 6. By Turn 3 or 4, you need to have a good idea of what the opponent is doing because then you can properly weigh your chances of winning. If you still don't have the tech card in hand drawn, or the opponent isn't playing something you can tech against, you're probably in trouble.
Despite being the namesake of the deck, this deck does function without Sera. It's not as explosive though because despite being available for only 1 turn, that 1 turn lets you dump a huge combination of cards. Sera + Zabu is -2 on Cost for your 4 cost and those 2 costs become 1 Cost. So you can quite literally dump your hand on 6 when the pieces line up. Some variants of this deck also play Magik (this one does) to increase the chances of a Sera draw making for even crazier Turn 7 Turnarounds.
Outside of the deck being low power, it also suffers though from being largely prediction related. Some decks such as Kitty Shuri for example, can both afford to have a couple of tech cards but also can just do their standard solitaire game plan if your opponent isn't interfering and end up with a sizable point count at the end of the game. Not Sera Miracle though. So many of your cards are below par that if you aren't countering something, you're probably just going to lose on straight tempo loss. This deck has a very high learning curve for that reason. You need to be able to predict what the opponent is holding and then be able to play the appropriate counter. You also need to be able to math quickly because that will determine whether or not your paltry output is enough, which sometimes despite countering an opponent's plan, isn't.
Key Cards:
The most important cards on this list despite the name of the deck are probably your 4 Costs. Shang and Enchantress can hard counter really greedy play styles and Absorbing Man let's you double up on it. However, the fact that they are all 4s is a FeelsBadMan moment on Turn 6 because you can only play 1. That's why having Zabu OR Sera on field is important. Past that, the rest of the deck is very flexible. Zabu/Sera are obvious additions here to support your 4s going down by 1, but the rest is kind of up to you. This variant I run adds Maximus and Aero for power, but you can also go with something like Ms. Marvel and Gladiator. You can also run stuff like Cosmo, despite being contrary to the deck because Cosmo wants priority instead of not.
General Play Lines:
Turn 1: Play Echo/Sunspot in a desired lane. If you don't have the variant that covers your own Sunspot, be very careful because you might blow up your own Sunspot by accident.
Turn 2: Almost always Zabu if you have it. Your 2s are otherwise holds to tech against other cards. SWitch kills bad locations or extremely favourable one for an opponent. Shadow King's power reset is best done at the end of the game. Otherwise, you pass.
Turn 3: Turn 3 is interesting here because like Turn 2, you're probably not playing Killmonger on 3. Some exceptions exist - like blowing up an opponent's Sunspot before you play yours - but you're likely covering a Turn 1/2 play versus actually playing anything on Curve. Magik comes down on this turn if you are running her. You don't have anything to guard Limbo though, so be wary of an opponent cutting off your Limbo.
Turn 4: See above. Turn 3 in that you're most likely covering for a Turn 1-2 play. If you're running Ms. Marvel as an establisher, she'll probably come down here.
Turn 5: This is a critical turn for this deck because unlike decks that don't have Turn 5 as being as important, here, Sera Miracle relies on Turn 5 to set up a Turn 6 play. If you've already played Zabu and want to cover it, the Cosmo variants can place it down to stop an opponent from shutting it down. Otherwise, Sera can be played here as can Aero to redirect an opponent's play and set up a single tech card counter.
Turn 6: Play the tech cards you need to swing the game. Highly suggest you math out what your power totals are and see if it's adequate. If not, you Retreat. If Limbo is on field, then you should play Aero for the redirect or Sera for the end of the game (see Turn 5)
Turn 7: Repeat of Turn 6 more or less. Use Enchantress to stop Ongoing stacks, Shang to kill big bodies, Shadow King to get rid of pump cards, Killmonger for 1 cost hate, etc.
Sample Game to Come!
-
Let's talk about the sassy queen herself. And no, I'm not referring to Emma Frost, but instead: Magik
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Magik_13-597d08d9e194bfe1bbbe5c2e19d4172588a37f78993327489a33ca29565aed0d.webp)
Cost: 3
Power: 2 (2 Below Par)
Ability: On Reveal - Change the location of this lane to Limbo (Extends the current game from 6 turns to 7 turns). This card loses its effect if played after Turn 5.
Ideal Turn to Play: 3-5. Obviously a dead card on 6. Magik's best time to be played will really come down to the deck and what you're planning. In combo heavy decks that have steep energy requirements and tough curves, Magik wants to be played as early as possible. For decks that appreciate her but it's not a death sentence if she doesn't come on to the board late, then it is better for her to be played late so an opponent has a reduced amount of time to play a follow up real estate agent and pull the rug from under you.
Archetype: Real Estate Agent / Combo Support
Uses:
Magik is one of those cards that I feel a lot of people misuse. Players think "Add an additional Turn" and immediately think that let's them do all sort of crazy stuff or adding consistency...but completely forgetting the fact that this also applies to an opponent since SNAP requires 2 players. Having a potential for a Turn 7 game can be all kinds of wacky so it is often best to decide if your deck wants a Turn 7 to begin with BEFORE slotting Magik into your deck.
Let's get down to the basics. Magik doesn't "Add 1 turn to the game". Rather, she flips a lane's location to "Limbo" which reads, "There are now 7 turns this game". This wording is very important because it means if Limbo is changed to another location, the Turn 7 goes away. This proverbial "rug pull" is what keeps Magik from flying much higher in terms usability. She can be outright countered by real estate agents so the promise of a Turn 7 is only as strong as whatever safeguards you are using in place to keep it there. If she did the former of adding 1 turn for certain, she'll probably be a S rank or A rank card as once the turn is added, it would theoretically never go away. Although that does create some unending games if an opponent then plays Magik on Wong, so let's be thankful that the description is the latter.
Because Limbo can be flipped at any time, if your deck wants a Turn 7, you're best off running one of Magik's allies in the deck. The most common and easily accessible of these is Cosmo. For 3 Energy, you'll stop other On Reveals - which all Real Estate agents are and force an opponent to play a much higher cost if they are trying to catch you with your pants down. Luckily, Cosmo and Magik work in several decks together - most notably Shenaut - where Turn 7 is basically a wincon. So guarding Magik isn't terribly difficult, but you do need to pay an Energy cost to do it. The higher the cost you pay, the better the protection and sometimes this can be very worthwhile. If your plan on Turn 6 is basically to wait as in Shenaut decks, dropping Leech down on 5 makes perfect sense. Not only do you pretty much 100% guard Limbo, but you nuke your opponent's hand of all their abilities, which can be game ending on its own.
Determining whether Magik makes sense for the deck really comes down to how badly you need that extra turn. Like Wave, Armor and Cosmo, since her effect hits both players, you have to make sure your deck can play a potential Turn 7 better than an opponent. Some decks are rely on a Turn 7 to function. Shenaut has already been mentioned, but stuff such as Tribunal also pretty much rely on it. On the other hand, despite being 3 cost, Magik does less well in Surfer because Surfer decks tend to rely on options and teching to secure wins. Their point totals are often more middle of the road (high teens to low 20s) so adding a Turn 7 can be real problematic when your output is limited. Then there are decks where they don't need Turn 7 but having a turn 7 basically makes them explode. Generic Destroy and Mr. Negative both like having Magik but the lack of a Turn 7 doesn't kill them. They just scale up really well with an extra turn, so playing Magik against these decks is generally bad unless you have tech cards ready in the wings.
Ultimately, Magik is another support option which are better in combo heavy decks versus those that do not. Adding an extra turn isn't always beneficial but players should be aware of her increased frequency. At the time when I first started playing, Magik was actually 5 cost, giving her only a 1 turn window. This made her much more limited in most cases since she had to compete with other 5 drops. But at 3? She's much more flexible and being able to extend the game by 1 also means extending draws by 1. For that alone, a lot of players end up saving a slot for her, when the decision should really be more about overall deck objectives and cohesion.
Common Combos:
Magik -> Cosmo: The first of the few combos that aims to guard your Limbo. Playing Cosmo prevents any other real estate agent from coming in and removing Limbo from under you. They can still do it, but it requires a lot more footwork or energy cost to do so.
Magik -> Legion: A more extreme version of the above. Playing Legion on your Magik turns all locations to Limbo. That stops the singular real estate agent from coming in to do damage. Like with Cosmo, an opponent can still theoretically get around it, but it isn't easy and much more complicated. Unlike Cosmo, Legion also relies on having priority. Cosmo being Ongoing means once you plop him down, you're good to go. With Legion, you need to ensure you are flipping first - otherwise an opponent can pre-empt you.
Magik -> Leech: The above two methods not satisfying enough for you at guaranteeing a Turn 7? Try Leech. Nuking your opponent's hand of their abilities will in 99% of cases, pretty much rip their ability to remove Limbo away from them. That 1% chance is obviously higher since you could theoretically top deck a real estate agent, but Leech is about as good as you can get.
Magik ->Storm/Rhino/SWitch: While this doesn't generate much power, it is definitely one of the few ways Magik can be used offensively. Fool your opponent into thinking a Turn 7 is coming, then pull the plug yourself. Best done with a bunch of high powered cards so you can get a lead going into Turn 6 when you snipe your own Limbo. For this reason, Surfer is great here as Magik, Rhino and Storm are all 3 costs.
Magik + Mr. Negative -> One of the major benefactors to Magik and the additional upside here is that Magik doesn't wreck Mr. Negative's curve. You could Turn 3 Magik into Turn 4 Mr. Negative or vice versa and both plays are still legit. Both get you an additional draw too, which as noted in Mr. Negative's write up, amps up how stupidly OP your endgame will be.
Rank/Tier: B tier. Magik certainly had a glow up from when she was first introduced. Adding an extra turn and 7 energy allows for more powerful combos and opens the doorway to new decks that otherwise wouldn't be possible. However, the ability to strip Limbo out from under you means you're sometimes playing a game of chicken more than a game of SNAP. She's not for every deck and decks and since the added turn also benefits the opponent, one has to be certain they will get more out of it then an opponent before putting her on to the field.
Most Used Decks:
Shenaut
Generic Destroy
Hela Discard
Tribunal
-
On the trend of cards people tend to misplay or have the wrong conceptions about: Jubilee
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Jubilee_04-a176ce5195d6115ff952122dfe3cc0686dda0af98fcd214346bbec4a2e89cf67.webp)
Cost: 4
Power: 1 (5 Below Par)
Ability: On Reveal - Play the next card from your deck to this location.
Ideal Turn to Play: Varies. Jubilee's ability gives her a wide window depending on what you're trying to do. If you're looking to fish a card that just needs to be played, then the later play the better since it'll more guarantee you get the right pull. On the other hand, if you need a card *right now* and you don't have it, Jubilee can be played as a last ditch hail mary.
Archetype: Support
Uses:
There are no real draw engine cards in SNAP because decks are so small (only 12 cards). Sure, you have Adam Warlock but he's very finnicky to work with and his recent "upgrade" turns him into a Turn 5 play that *may* have a chance at an extra draw. In short, "Draw cards from deck" abilities are in short supply in SNAP since they become pretty busted pretty easily. Everyone knows how powerful stuff like Ancestral Recall (that was the draw 3 from Magic right?) and Pot of Greed (from Yugioh) are, so it makes sense why you don't see this ability much - if at all - in SNAP. Jubilee is kind of the exception to the rule. She doesn't provide you with an extra card, but she's about as close to it as you can get.
Jubilee's ability lets you pull the next card from your deck on to the field. What this means is that, in essence, Jubilee replaces herself as a draw in exchange for another card that you would have gotten. So, instead of seeing 9 cards in a game of SNAP, Jubs lets you see 10. When you are playing combo decks that need or want to have certain pieces, Jubilee becomes uniquely powerful in that she's another way to dig deeper down into the deck if your natural draw doesn't give you what you want. If you recall back to my post regarding old Chavez and consistency, Jubilee adds that to these decks and makes them way more playable. Even discounting that, if you build a deck with a lot of high costs, Jubilee's ability to summon them for 4 (possibly 3 energy) can be a complete steal. Summoning an Infinaut for 4 is pretty good versus the practical 11 you would need to play him otherwise. Yeah, you may just have created a Shang magnet, but the point is that you can play that big boi significantly earlier. Now an opponent either has to dedicate their Shang to that lane or abandon it completely, letting you reinforce the others.
SNAP does complicate some things because so many things are about timing. Since she summons a card on to the field, there are drawbacks specific to SNAP that make it such that she isn't an Auto-include into every deck. Most notable is the consideration of play space. You are only allowed 4 cards at any particular lane, and Jubilee with her 1 power occupies basically 2 spaces for the chance to see an extra card. In short, your deck best be built on having a "less is more" mentality because Jubs can quickly flood a location and restrict the number of plays you can make. Tech cards also become tricky to include because they are so timing specific. Playing Jubilee in hopes of reaching your Infinaut but pulling out a Shang or Rogue sucks. Not only do you lose the tech card, but you basically spent 4 energy to do nothing. You basically either have to play Jubilee with the tech card in hand (so it will never be summoned) or just eliminate them from the deck completely.
The key to making Jubilee work in your deck is to structure it such that any pull she makes should be a good one. I've already mentioned using a bunch of high-cost cards with her, but also combo decks that don't mind their pieces coming in at different turns also hugely appreciate Jubilee. The most notable of these is Tribunal. Tribunal is an extremely finnicky and fragile deck that basically requires you to play a 17 Energy play to reach its wincon. A standard game of SNAP only has 21 Energy, so this is actually *much* harder than it sounds. Jubilee gives those decks another life-line since she can pull one of the necessary cards for 2 Energy less OR pull the required combo card by being played on the last turn. For this reason, she's commonly paired with Iron Lad as a way to basically play the entire deck. What better way of ensuring your combo goes off but to be able to play every card you have?
At the end of the day, Jubilee's a great card because her function is so unique. She's not buffing cards or disrupting an opponent. In fact, in an ideal game, you probably actually *don't* want to see Jubilee because that means you'd have picked up another card you slotted into your deck - basically an important synergistic piece. But the ability to also cheat a card into play widens that and gives her new dimensions. Her play window is as wide as whatever you're trying to do. If you need to pull a Magik for whatever reason, Jubilee's window is then 3-5. On the other hand, if you're trying to pull Tribunal, her play window expands all the way to the end of the game because Tribunal just needs to be on the field. She's basically giving you a way to see more of your deck when you play her and there's a lot of merit to that.
Common Combos:
Jubilee -> Ironlad: Part of the two card combo I was referring to that let's you dig down into your deck. Jubilee let's you pull the next one, then Iron Lad scans then one after that. When combined with the below, let's you see your entire deck. But Jubilee/Lad is just a generally decent combo line if you know your deck has good targets and because your hand sucks at the moment.
Magik -> Jubilee: See above. Magik bringing the game to turn 7 means you get to see 10 instead of 9 cards. Combined with the above, now you get to see the entire hand. But even without, Jubs and Magik let's you see the 11th card, which is still pretty damn good.
Jubilee -> Mr. Negative: Other than a last ditch hail mary attempt to play Negative, Jubilee can be really good here because she can call forth an inverted card and let you draw an extra one as a result. There are some situations of course where this isn't favourable (such as pulling Negative Mystique), but also cases where it can be highly destructive. Notably, it's possible to pull an Inverted Jane Foster for 1 or 4 Energy instead of playing for 6, and then drawing everything else in the deck that is 0 cost.
Rank/Tier: A tier. Jubilee is about as close as you can get to a "Draw one card" ability. It should be pretty obvious why this is powerful.
Most Used Decks:
Negative
Tribunal
Hela Discard
Lockjaw Lotto
-
Another one following the same trend - Yondu
(https://game-assets.snap.fan/card_variant_images/Yondu_03-c2a01c9009f1f243c31c346637edb3f409bb948cddbf6c1b3eb2b5dc04ccda4d.webp)
Cost: 1
Power: 2 (Par)
Ability: On Reveal – Destroy the top card of your opponent’s deck
Ideal Turn to Play: Turn 1. Yondu is a pretty weak card overall (more on the analysis). However, one of the real values he will always provide is scouting. For that reason, a Turn 1 Yondu is better than a Turn 6 Yondu.
Archetype: Destroy
Uses:
So we’ve recently looked at 2 cards that are powerful but often mis-conceptualized. Yondu is continuing that trend but he’s in the opposite direction. Yondu is probably the biggest noob trap in the game in that he looks really good on the surface but in practice, he’s pretty weak and only really works in one type of deck.
Why is Yondu weak? Well, let’s look at it like this. If instead of “Destroy”, we just reword Yondu’s ability to “Put the top card of an opponent’s deck to the bottom”, does your opinion of him change? It shouldn’t because fundamentally, he’s basically doing the same thing, but for a lot of players, they see “Destroy” and think they are getting rid of an opponent’s actual play. Like sure, there are times when Yondu hits a win condition of the opponent’s – like blowing up a Galactus or Hela – and it results in an instant Turn 1 retreat. But you could also hit something else – maybe a tech card that doesn’t work against you. If that’s the case, all you’ve done is help your opponent’s skip a bad draw.
Once you understand that last bit, Yondu’s appeal quickly diminishes. He can easily help your opponent and you have no way of really knowing. In fact, I’m pretty sure you can mathematically prove that playing Yondu actually does nothing. As long as your opponent has cards in their deck, you don’t really deny them any deck draw. All he’s actually doing practically is showing both you and your opponent what he/she won’t be playing with this round.
This kind of leaves Yondu as a card with 3 fringe uses. The first is that because he counts as a Destroy, he helps out with Death’s cost reduction and Knull’s overall power. Both of these cards are common power plays for Destroy and Yondu being able to start the deck’s engine on Turn 1 has some merit, especially since he isn’t blow up your own cards. The second is that he works as an early scout. In continuing matches such as Conquest, this benefit is reduced. But on ladder, being able to take a peek at what your opponent might be playing (especially if they skip Turn 1) can give you a good idea of whether or not you are favored. And that in turn helps with more aggressive Snapping. Finally, Yondu works just as warm body in decks like Zoo or Flood where the goal is get a lot of bodies on the field, and then buffing them via Kazar/Blue Marvel and the ilk.
These aren’t particularly strong uses, but it is something – and keeps Yondu from complete irrelevancy. Like if you compare Yondu to Angel, both are kind of bad, but Yondu is notably less bad than Angel. You are at least doing something when Yondu hits the field – even if not much. Worth a deck slot though? Probably not unless you are early in your SNAP journey.
Common Combos:
Yondu -> whatever -> Knull: Yondu basically starts off the Destroy train. There are no Destroy enablers on Turn 1, so Yondu actually does provide a unique niche here. The destroyed power coming from your opponent’s deck helps and adds to your Knull’s power at end game.
Yondu -> Killmonger -> whatever -> Death: If you’re going the Death route, Yondu provides a 2 for 1 letting you blow up an opponent’s card, and then being blown up himself by Killmonger. However, if this is what you’re going for, Squirrel Girl provides an extra body for Killmonger so is still better value. Poor Yondu.
Rank/Tier: D tier. Practically speaking, Yondu isn’t doing much unless you are playing Destroy. And even in Destroy, he’s best thought of as an early scout rather than a serious play. He’s likely the first to be replaced.
Most Used Decks:
Generic Destroy
Cerebro 2
-
I actually fought a Yondu deck that was pretty wacky. Wong, Yondu, Cable and I forget what else and it was milling my deck pretty effectively.
-
Yeah, Mill can be powerful because denying card draw is strong. The issue is that the cards that do mill in SNAP right now are all too slow. You have to be actually taking away enough cards from the deck so that your opponent starts losing draw for the analogy I posted above to not be true. Yondu and Cable on Wong is interesting, but probably falters in our current day game where Discard and Destroy are currently reigning. I mean, you'll get Tribunal players, but Tribunal is a bit of a meme anyway. That deck loses to like any form of disruption that it's honestly kind of amazing it exists.
-
Tribunal? It's been one of the top decks in past months. My own version is quite successful.
I am now convinced that any card you review will be changed in the following balance patch.
-
Well we haven't see any new patches to Jubilee and Magik yet, so I don't consider myself some kind of Doomsayer. Are we playing in completely different pocket metas? Tribunal in my experience is so incredibly fragile. The main issue with that deck is needing to play 17 Energy worth of cards and since you can't energy store, you have to cheat the cards out in some way. It dies to any of the following:
1) Anything that takes away Tribunal, Onslaught or Iron Man because your power just isn't competitive without one of these 3 (Spiderham, Moon Knight, etc.)
2) Anything that stops you from cheating cards out early. Even a disabled Ravonna can be bad because it means you can't play Iron Man on 4 or Iron Man/Mystique on 6
3) Ongoing hate tech - all of them are bad for you. This is also a case where Echo can be even played late because you almost always have to stack those core 3 cards together. Super Skrull let's you counter an opponent's Rogue and wins mirrors, but you just lose so badly to Enchantress. The deck can run Cosmo but that can cause you to lose in other ways if you need Jubilee or Iron Lad to pull cards from the bottom of the deck. PLus that's giving up a slot for added consistency with another energy cheating card.
4) On that note, Cosmo is also very mixed. As noted above, he stops Enchantress and Rogue but you still lose to Echo and you block your own Mystique, Jubilee and Iron Lad.
5) Location tech - Magik is almost a requirement. It is very bad for you if Limbo is disabled in some way
6) Any sort of Move/relocation tech - Since you need to stack the 3 big bois together. Juggernaut is bad. Spiderman is bad. Stregon is also bad.
7) A natural bad draw line really messes up your power output due to how fragile your curve is. Certain cards have to be played on certain windows or you just lose.
8) Related to the above, any sort of debuff is also bad because Iron Man doubles the loss and Onslaught quadruples it. So even a single -1 is bad for your overall power output.
You can't pack any protection of your own other than like Cosmo because the deck simply doesn't have the time to play a tech card other than on like Turn 3. But Turn 3 is also the best time to play out one of your cheats (Wave/Magik) since you're going to be busy every other turn trying to land the 3 big cards all together.
I'd be interested in hearing what version of the deck you are playing. Unless it's some sort of hybrid like Hela Tribunal, Tribunal has always been about going super tall. In this current meta with Discard and Destroy reigning, Tribunal does well because neither deck really packs any tech and the only tech they do pack is mostly Shang..which Tribunal normally is immune to since all their cards are under Shang's updated threshold.
-
I run Ebony Maw, Baron Mordo (I know, he's kind of my mascot card), Maximus, Lizard, Luke Cage, Namor, Shuri, Iron Man, Crossbones, Red Skull, Dr. Doom, Living Tribunal. Main thing is you're not limited to playing one combo. Just putting up big numbers everywhere. Ebony Maw and Maximus on turn 3 is 13 power your opponent has to deal with in one lane. Namor can hold a lane by himself. Shuri+Lizard or Maximus works on turn 6 if you've got nothing else.
1) Hurts, but isn't a deal breaker. A third of my deck benefits from Spider-Ham lol.
2) Not applicable.
3) Nobody plays Enchantress. Echo you can drop Maw, Lizard, Skull on. Rogue is a problem at times.
4) Not applicable.
5) I don't need Magik, and if my opponent plays her it tends to benefit me more.
6) Nobody plays any of these.
7) Not a big problem, although it's not unusual to have nothing to play first three turns.
8) Luke Cage. Give me my money, honey.
Snap.fan has Tribunal at Seen: 5.36%(#79)
Won when Played: 61.13%(#15)
Won when Drawn: 51.93%(#186)
Won in Deck: 50.89%(#205)
Not amazing but not terrible certainly. I probably win 75%+ with this deck. I only play in Conquest though.
-
Maybe we just have different definitions then. Your deck doesn't look like any Tribunal decks I've seen - it looks more like a Shuri mold but adding in Tribunal over Tasky so it goes wide versus tall. Not running Armor with Shuri? You're a much braver man than me. I've seen enough Negasonics that I'm always weary about making such a telegraphed play - let alone Shang. Do you like not see Shang at all?
1) I think with your deck, you're giving up the ability explode in power (we're talking like 50-100+) but adding in Shuri as an alt. No Onslaught and a bunch of big bodies - so yeah, no worries about Pigs or old Leech.
2) Your deck isn't a typical Tribunal deck that needs to cheat energy out. Not sure why you would discount this as an actual issue in Tribunal though. His power is pretty limited if you're not playing him out with force multipliers.
3) Again, are we playing in different pocket metas? I've definitely seen my share of Enchantresses. She's like a staple in Sera Miracle and yeah that deck isn't meta, but it's pretty frequent since it is easy to put together. Echo you can delay drop on Turn 5-6 if need be to basically kill the big stack. You don't have to slam her out on Turn 1.
4) I've seen Shuri decks cut out Cosmo after her nerf. It still comes in on occasion just not that often obviously since Tasky can't copy a card if you Cosmo the lane.
5) Traditional Tribunal definitely needs Magik. Try playing it without her. You just simply don't have time to play what you need. One Shuri deck that I came across in conquest had Shang/Abs Man as subs and which gave it a Turn 7 contingency play and was pretty amazing. I've since added that into my own deck. It lets you have a massive Turn 7 play on your own. But it's not really Tribunal.
6) Really? You never play against anything with Surfer? They carry Spiderman and Juggs pretty regularly considering Storm is also a staple in those. Stregon I'll give you. Just noting he is also bad for traditional Tribunal. Also if you're using Super Skrull, Rogue or Mystique, Magneto can totally spoil you as well and he's pretty common thanks to all the Thanos running around recently.
7) Traditional Tribunal doesn't really have time. The curve is extremely tight. Assuming no Magik, you're looking to play Wave on 3, Onslaught on 4, IM on 5 and Tribunal on 6. If you have Zabu and Ravonna, they help immensely by making the curve more flexible but playing them after 3 is pretty much a no-go. Also in general, I am not a fan of not playing anything in 3. Having your first card to be played on 4 makes for an extremely fragile win in my experience.
8) When are you playing Cage in traditional Tribunal? In Shuri...maybe. But I feel like you're better served playing Armor and Sauron over Cage personally. Certainly easier to fit on curve (Armor into Sauron into Shuri is obvious) where as Luke is more clunky (in your case, you just play Luke cause you're not running Sauron).
I rather try playing a deck to see how it works personally. I'm always a bit weary on stats. Between a combination of bots and bad players (yours incluced) and varying opponents on Collection Level and MLM Rank, that tends to skew the percentages.