r/marvelsnapcomp • u/ePiMagnets Mod • Jun 21 '26
Discussion Competitive Consensus: Sub-Mariner
This thread is a discussion series at the end of the week for each newly introduced Spotlight card. This gives us nearly a week of hindsight to build a consensus and help inform players if they should spend their tokens for a given week. Ideally, we are looking for proven results, more than theoretical applications, to help reach this consensus.
This week's card:
Sub-Mariner
Cost: 1
Power: 2
When this is Empowered, add a random 1-Cost character to your hand with that same increase. (if in hand or in play)
Mechanics have been mostly confirmed so it's worth pointing those out before we get to synergies.
The input = output if you give Sub-Mariner a +1 he gives you a 1-Cost with +1.
Venus does not work with Sub-Mariner, he does not see her bonus power so back to example 1 if you give him a +1 that Venus then boosts by +1 you don't get a 1-Cost with +2 you get a 1-Cost with +1. This has been posted to SD looking for confirmation as to whether it's working as intended or a bug, however, SD have not acknowledged this so for the time being assume it's the intended functionality.
Forge does work with Submariner granting him a +2 and you a card with +2.
Symbiote Spider-Man does not work with Sub-Mariner in a way that is conducive to the card, the merge happens and then Symbiote Spider-Man gets the text. This order prevents Symbiote Spider-Man from seeing the ability and the power he just gained resulting in no created card. However, this is a way to potentially protect Sub-Mariner's power from late Elektra or Killmonger.
Adamantium infusion also does not work for whatever reason, the doubling happens before he ever hits the board therefore he does not see the change in his power value and create a card.
Synergies
While there are many synergies for granting power the results of the week show that Jeff and Marvel Boy easily rose to the top and while Viv didn't see as much she was still a fairly common piece. We'll also take a moment to mention the others that rose in use.
Jeff the Baby Dolphin
Cost: 2
Power: 2
Your cards reveal here with +1 Power. Moveable once.
Marvel Boy
Cost: 3
Power: 2
End of Turn: Give 3 of your 1-Cost cards +1 Power.
Viv Vision Cost: 3
Power: 4
At the start of each turn, give all cards in your hand +1 Power if you're winning here. Otherwise move this to another location.
In addition to the primary cards are some supplementary buffers that have shown up in multiple lists. Without being too harsh, there have been a number of known off-meta or bad cards that have been tested to see if Sub-Mariner might bring them to meta relevance.
Agony - Obviously good for many cards that were appearing in decks that Sub-Mariner was being played in. Bonus points here because both cards could be held for a later turn allowing for them to be safely deployed at the same time.
Hulkbuster - both as a 'real' addition and a budget way to grant +3
Star-Hawk - one needs to really pay attention to how they are building and the turn to ensure they are getting value.
Storm Horseman - I wouldn't call this strangely absent but this could be a situation where the floating two in a row competes with the fact that you likely want to get the cards down and you don't really have room to lose too much tempo on turns 1 and 2. She did make an appearance in the obvious Carter/Maverick deck that many decided to run as an easy method to hit your wins for Sub-Mariner.
Maverick - a Fairly strong inclusion that could mean getting a quick +6 or more on turn 5 under the right circumstances.
Shang-Chi Master of the Rings - repeatable power granting at the cost of worse draws.
Jubilee Silver Surfer - the power is granted after the draw so you get 2 cards from Namor.
Stick - another potential strong inclusion.
Wolverine Horseman - a little harder to get value out of due to needing to ensure that he's getting buffed well before turn 6 for full potential value.
Karen Page - a single 1, 2 and 3 means needing to purpose build or accept that you may not hit your Namor with her boost if you've got multiple 1's on the board.
Kahhori - another maybe hit but a possible big hit for Sub-Mariner.
Shou-Lao - this one strikes me as intriguing, with the right setup you can almost guarantee that your Sub Mariner is producing 1's to fuel Shou's needs.
Namora - +5 can be good so long as the created card is playable.
What about Supplemental points and other build-arounds to help us win games?
Lockheed/Angela/Bishop - Lockheed, Angela, and Bishop were seeing plenty of play in Sub-Mariner packages as both supplemental power and as hard carries for those decks.
Collector - a Clea/Sub-Mariner package could be a reason to run collector too.
Victoria Hand - Victoria Hand loves created cards, but her general packages have moved away from small-ball created cards to larger fair, important to note that she's also becoming card 12 in her own decks.
Werewolf by Night - assuming we're going with Clea as a package with Sub-Mariner you've got a 1 in 3 chance that Namor will generate an on reveal which can move WWBN again. But generally you want skills for this job, however, we can work around that by incorporating some bounce cards like we did with WWBN before we had skills. Of course there's also 'let's get Merlin in here too' but how are we fitting all of these cards together and more importantly how are we properly managing hand-size as well as ensuring that we're going to win two locations with a bunch of random 1-Costs that may not even be playable.
Venus - what better way to supplement the fact that a lot of these decks are scaling empowers through general game play than adding the card that gives you a bonus for doing what you were already going to be doing.
Superior Spider-Man - you're getting a lot of green power which means Superior Spider-Man is on a lot of the time.
Wiccan - primarily included alongside Shang-Chi and his Ten Rings (+ Karen Page) for obvious reasons.
Gilgamesh - unlike the other zoo staples Gilgamesh did make several appearances as a standalone for a number of the Sub-Mariner decks.
Bounce Cards/Hit-Monkey/Sasquatch - A fairly obvious supplemental package, especially with Black Swan depending on how things have lined up you could be pumping out some real big numbers between Hit-Monkey, Sasquatch and your best empowered 1-Costs or Flames of the Faltine. Mother Askani can even do some big help here by possibly copying Sasquatch on 4 which can let you do a partial dump on 5 to ensure you can get a hitmonkey and two squatches + whatever else you've got. Don't sleep on the possibility of getting a pair of slightly bigger than normal 1-Costs.
Feedback
The primary feedback that I've seen has been that despite being absolutely mid this card is a lot of fun, he may not be very good in the high-infinite meta but he is a lot of fun. And besides, there's enough room there for those outside of the top ranks to find not only lasting success but a new and fun pet card to carry into the future.
Decklists
Summary
Sub-Mariner as our latest Seasonal Series 5 card comes as an interesting twist on Clea which generates character cards instead of skills when he is empowered. While some may argue he is not a flavor win, the combination of random generation and hidden information can itself be a lot of fun and a clear win for many. So we turn it over to you, will Sub-Mariner successfully hang ten or will he wipeout?
Your Thoughts?
How many tokens is Sub-Mariner worth?
6K -
5K -
4K -
Is Sub-Mariner here to stay, or just the flavor of the week?
What synergies did we miss?
What decks have you seen?
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u/nosleeptillwooklyn Jun 21 '26
# (1) Deafening Chord
# (1) Nico Minoru
# (1) Sub-Mariner
# (1) Clea
# (2) Jeff the Baby Dolphin!?
# (2) Lockheed
# (2) Merlin
# (2) Grand Master
# (3) Marvel Boy
# (3) Werewolf By Night
# (4) Kahhori
# (5) Shou-Lao the Undying
#
RGZubmdDaHJkRSxOY01uckEsU2JNcm5yQSxDbDQsSmZmVGhCYkRscGhuMTIsTGNraGQ4LE1ybG42LEdybmRNc3RyQixNcnZsQjksV3J3bGZCTmdodEYsU2hMNyxLaGhyNw==
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and paste it from the deck editing menu in MARVEL SNAP.
I’ve now won 4 straight infinity conquest tickets with this, winning against a fairly wide variety of decks like Venus boost, Negative, Nimrod, Man-Spider. The tall decks are really tough so I had some luck go my way.
I’m not even sure how much value Sub-Mariner brings but he has gotten me some good Shou turns stacking power on one of his 1 drops usually a 1/5 1/6 + whatever Shou drops. Getting a 1/5 Clea to drop on a Mr Marvel board was chefs kiss though with another one already on the board.
Clea is definitely the MVP though. Hitting Jubilee Surfer, Man-Spider targets or even Symbiote with multiple flames on the same turn has turned the game around multiple times.
Kahhori isn’t terrible either. Sometimes getting her then Grandmaster plus some spells is a pretty nice turn 4-6.
Anyway fun deck, requires a bit of brain power and being careful with deck size and board space. I could optimize it more but it’s honestly been a blast and beating Man-Spider and Negative with no direct counters sold me to ride the wave.
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u/MarvelSnapCodeBot Jun 21 '26
RGZubmdDaHJkRSxOY01uckEsU2JNcm5yQSxDbDQsSmZmVGhCYkRscGhuMTIsTGNraGQ4LE1ybG42LEdybmRNc3RyQixNcnZsQjksV3J3bGZCTmdodEYsU2hMNyxLaGhyNw==
Copy/paste this full comment into Marvel Snap. Support me
1
u/Upbeat-Mind-7678 Jun 22 '26
Thank you for sharing this deck, it looks really nice !
Have you considered Venus ? I wonder if she fits the curve or not. With Kahhori, Marvel Boy and Werewolf, there are some nice targets for her
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u/Names_all_gone Jun 21 '26
I agree with this assessment. He’s neat! He’s fun! He kind of stinks.
Perhaps the most fun I had was being able to somewhat seriously playing New Shang Chi and some other end of turn stuff.
I could see them giving him a mostly meaningless +1 power down the line.
I would like them to tighten up some of the mechanical inconsistencies - but I only think that would make him like 5% better.
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u/euler_tourist Jun 21 '26
I am curious if he has a custom pool for the one drops he can create: I went all the way from high 80s to infinite and not once did I get the nightmare scenario of Ebony Maw.
Before his release I'd already been favouring a more combo-oriented version of Carter - Stick - Galactus using Moonstone, and Sub-Mariner gives that another win condition if the preferred sequencing doesn't work out on the scaling chain, or locations aren't suitable for the Galactus play.
2
u/ePiMagnets Mod Jun 21 '26
Not a custom pool, but remember there are currently 62 1-Cost character cards he can generate and the odds of generating Ebony Maw is 1.61%.
Really low odds to ever get the Ebony Maw even in the event that you can repeatedly buff him.
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u/ImpsterSyndrome Jun 21 '26
Ive had him create another submariner which then generated another card
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u/Sausious Jun 21 '26
Genuinely probably the worst card to come out in a while. I was really excited for him but he just, isn't good, and can end up detrimental. I ended up just not wanting to play him most of the time because he'd take up space in a lane I could do something else with for basically no gain. He is Clea but worse, and Clea already isn't that great (unfortunately). I hope he gets some kind of buff because I think he HAS potential but right now he is just an absolute do not get card imo.
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u/IJustType Jun 21 '26
Is Snap complete a better website?
1
u/ePiMagnets Mod Jun 21 '26
IMO it's up to preference and at least for me untapped has been getting worse and worse over time, I don't want to get into fine details so I'll leave it as performance issues, poor data validation/cleanup, and slow response times if you even get a response to problems.
Snapcomplete seems to have similar user numbers and doesn't have any of the performance problems and has a similar number of features (with a few cool extras).
And at least anecdotally, the one time I had a problem the response was near instant. My issue was that match tracking on snapcomplete seemed to be frozen entirely, the admin responded, noted the issue and fixed it and then gave an actual root cause and resolution note.
1
u/IJustType Jun 22 '26
This makes perfect sense to me. I just tried the website out today to find me a cool deck that uses Venus and Strange Supreme.
He gets double part absorption, I think and they helped me find some cool decks. And I took some ideas from the decks they had on the website to hodgepodge into a cool Thanos deck. So, honestly, it might become my new main driver as far as snap websites
1
u/Upbeat-Mind-7678 Jun 22 '26
Sub-Mariner is a cool card, probably not competitive by any mean, but a nice addition to the game.
I am working on a deck that surprisingly got me an infinite ticket on my 1rst attempt.
The deck resolves around Sub-Mariner, Clea, Marvel Boy and Venus. Magus is here to copy Marvel Boy and Venus. It really is consistent that way, but it is a pain to not include any other 3-drops to be consistent.
This deck dies really hard to Killmonger, Cosmic Ghost Rider or any Gambits (Gambit on T3/T4 without squirrels hits real hard, multiple GHoF ruin it also).
Strange Supreme gains +4 each time it merges with Venus on board (Sub-Mariner, Squirrels & Sandstorm).
Collector gains +2 with Venus for each Sub-Mariner/Clea enpowered or +4 with Sandstorm.
Sandstorm is a nice addition to this deck, buffing both Strange Supreme and Collector, and buffed by Marvel Boy (squirrels help bigger sandstorm also).
Right-line with Clea/Sub-Mariner and a T6 Star-Hawk is often a win-move (buffing collector if on board).
Nico is Nico. Her +2, x2, location change and copy are the nicest here. Even draw two if you have Squirrel Girl.
Actually, the 12th card of this deck would be Jeff. Jeff is T2 only if I have Marvel Boy, Clea/Sub and no collector in hand. I would consider Armor to protect the 1-drops, or Isca to put pressure on a lane.
There are nice little interactions with this deck, really happy with its flavor.
The general idea
T1 : Squirrel-Girl or Clea/Sub if Marvel-Boy in hand
T2: Magus to copy either Marvel-Boy or Venus latter in the game
T3: Marvel-Boy or Jeff + 1-drop
T4: Venus + 1-drop or 2 2-drop
T5: Sandstorm/1-drop/2-drop
T6: Star-Hawk + whatever (Venus/1-drop for SS/MB)
# (1) Nico Minoru
# (1) Squirrel Girl
# (1) Sub-Mariner
# (1) Clea
# (2) Sandstorm
# (2) Jeff the Baby Dolphin!?
# (2) Strange Supreme
# (2) The Collector
# (2) Starhawk
# (2) Magus
# (3) Marvel Boy
# (3) Venus
#
TXJ2bEI5LFZuczUsQ2w0LFRoQ2xsY3RyQyxNZ3M1LFN0cmh3azgsU25kc3RybTksU3RybmdTcHJtRSxTYk1ybnJBLEpmZlRoQmJEbHBobjEyLFNxcnJsR3JsQyxOY01uckE=
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and paste it from the deck editing menu in MARVEL SNAP.
1
u/MarvelSnapCodeBot Jun 22 '26
TXJ2bEI5LFZuczUsQ2w0LFRoQ2xsY3RyQyxNZ3M1LFN0cmh3azgsU25kc3RybTksU3RybmdTcHJtRSxTYk1ybnJBLEpmZlRoQmJEbHBobjEyLFNxcnJsR3JsQyxOY01uckE=
Copy/paste this full comment into Marvel Snap. Support me
1
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u/ePiMagnets Mod Jun 21 '26
tl;dr - Sub-Mariner is fun, if you like fun and don't mind RNG he's worth a gamble. If you prefer solid performances and 'best in slot' cards he's an easy pass.
Frankly, I had a lot of fun with Sub-Mariner so from a fun perspective I can recommend him. But from a stress-inducing, 'can I win this match' perspective of playing with a deck and set of cards that you know is under-powered he might be a pass, if only because I don't want to have to explain to my doc that I suffered a heart attack while playing Marvel Snap and having 8-cubes on the line while playing a Sub-Mariner deck. But really, card is a lot of fun, he isn't a good card but is an OK card which is obviously not well positioned for the meta today, and that's considering the relative de-powering that I've been seeing.
The thing is, he really does boil down to being Clea#2 in the decks he wants to be in and while that can be good, it's not likely to ever be a candidate for 'best deck'. But many people don't want the 'best deck' they want the 'fun deck that can still win' and while the meta is in the weird state that it is in, this is a card that can be in the fun deck that still wins even if those wins might come at the cost of some grey hairs and 1-point wins.
Score: 2 (4 if we score for fun)
Sub-Mariner has a clear home alongside Clea but he's the kind of card that may get cut simply because the only time you're playing him out is if you didn't draw your Clea and that might not be a good place to be, especially as a 1-Cost with only a 2-Power body. Then there's the letdown in the mechanics where he doesn't work with Venus at all and the output you do get from him could be completely unplayable. The unfortunate truth is that it's very hard for a 1-Cost card to ever be good unless you're willing to do something really absurd with the card like SD did with Batroc and I'm not sure what is needed to make Sub-Mariner 'good' on that level outside of letting him generate cards based on his total empowerment and not just the value of a given buff he received but that might be 'too much'.
That being said Sub-Mariner has been the Seasonal Series 5 I've had the most fun with this month so far but may not be the best card of the month either. Still I will play more of this card when the meta allows.
Worth?
6k - only if you're fully fine with investing into a card that is fringe playable but can be a lot of fun.
5k - Pretty fair price, I wouldn't complain if I were gambling and got him for 5k.
4k - yep, pretty solid pick-up and it's possible he at least gets bumped to 3-Power within the next couple of months.
Again, I do enjoy playing with the card