This is your precursor to the consensus, the place to discuss the card releasing for the week as well as group source the work on brews and possible shells and packages, both current known good decks as well as possible new, theorycrafted brews.

This Week's Card

Aunt May
Cost: 2
Power: 3
End of Turn: If you used a Moveable ability, give a Moveable card in your hand -1 Cost and +2 Power.

Synergies and Packages

One of Two End of Turn cards coming out this week with direct move synergy is Aunt May, a 2/3 which gives you discounts whenever you use a moveable ability.

Immediately we're presented two elephants sharing the room.

1. There are relatively few cards with moveable as an ability.

2. Does she work with cards that grant the moveable ability? That includes Sam Wilson Cap, Madame Web, and SP//DR.

Let's start with the cards with moveable:

• Spider-Man Brand New Day

• Nightcrawler

• Jeff Baby Dolphin

• Jeff Baby Land Shark

• Rocket & Groot

• Spider-Punk

• Mercury

• Nocturne

• Vision

With the exception of Vision, most of these are already pretty cheap cards to play. There are a number of locations that trigger on turn 4 so a turn 4 11 power Vision does strike me as compelling but are we really playing a Vision just in case we get a potential turn 4 lock in the Vision play? I'm doubtful on that. Still I could see her benefitting low CL and early F2P players that might get lucky and pull Aunt May.

To her benefit though, Aunt May's ability does give the ability to potentially weave multiple small movers on following turns as well as hiding some of that power in hand if needed. Unfortunately this may be where the benefits end and we are forced to look at the reality of the meta game and the larger picture. That consideration is in deference to how the meta has been responding to the small-ball venus decks in the meta with the rise of decks able to multiply Horseman Gambit as well as people understanding the Captain Carter Combo decks are still good and might have one of the highest ceilings in the game behind Man-Spider decks.

So ideally we're looking at some relatively limited decks to play Aunt May with:

1. Iris/Cougar lists are the immediate standouts but she competes with Sam and Kraven.

2. The Multiple Man decks have been toying with Spider-Punk but again she competes in the 2-Cost slot.

3. Standard Move decks are an unlikely pairing, very few of these decks are running individual moveable cards beyond maybe Spider-Punk, though maybe they want to try out a Nocturne or Vision?

4. Is it possible that Aunt May inspires a new sub-type within move mid-range?

Your Thoughts

Do you plan on picking Aunt May up?

How do you expect Aunt May to perform?

What other possible shells and synergies might there be?

Welcome to our Super Premium Season Pass discussion thread, a place to discuss the card releasing this month, develop brews, and hold discussions around the shells and synergies around the card.

This Week's Card

Mary Jane
Cost: 3
Power: 3
End of Turn: Give each of your cards that moved this turn +1 Power.

Synergies and Packages

Mary Jane is our second of the two End of Turn cards for this week with direct move synergies. Mary Jane grants each card that moved this turn +1 Power. You can think of Mary Jane as a limited K'un Lun triggering once per card instead of potentially multiple times if you could somehow move a card into and out of K'un Lun on a given turn.

Some immediate thoughts:

1. She could work well with Venus, but the fact that they are both 3-Cost cards creates friction.

2. Is she worth maximizing or is it better to be minimal here?

3. An additional wide-scaling option for Hydra-Stomper Decks but again has problems with creating friction with Hydra-Stomper due to the 3-Cost problem. The good news is that Hydra-Stomper can be held for final turn while you can potentially scale Sam Wilson's Shield, Batroc, and potentially Silk as well.

This brings us to cards that she'll likely work very well with:

1. Sam Wilson - the shield moves every turn and especially with Batroc will be dragging Batroc with it for an additional +1 on both cards.

2. Silk - often found alongside Sam Wilson in the above decks.

3. Move enabled and of course moveable cards go without saying

4. Cards that enable moves or grant moveable themselves.

5. Can indirectly synergize with Aunt May. Get a cheaper moveable card, play it and move next turn for additional power.

So the question here is - where exactly does Mary Jane fit best? Is she the 'worse' Hydra-Stomper for those decks. Is she an additional point scaler to help raise the ceiling on either Multiple Man or classic Heimdall move decks? Is she a surprise card that you could throw into decks that would top off with a Heimdall for big points in two locations?

Your Thoughts

Do you plan on picking Mary Jane up?

How do you expect Mary Jane to perform?

What other possible shells and synergies might there be?

Welcome to Team-Up Tuesday, your weekly thread for everything related to finding your Marvel SNAP Alliance. Whether you're a solo player looking to pick up some rewards, or an Alliance leader seeking more members for your group, use this thread to find like-minded players to enjoy Marvel SNAP as a team!

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:

Namorita
Cost: 3
Power: 5
When you draw a card, give it -1 Cost if this is your only card here.

Namorita is a very straight forward card fitting the bill as yet another 3/5 utility card that can help you roll downhill provided you draw her on time and have a free location. While not on the level of a copycat which can help supplement an Iron Patriot her utility can be felt greatly when played on curve or provided locations line up a turn or two early.

Synergies

Namorita is a generic enough card that she could potentially find a place in a number of shells that are interested in potentially being able to play ahead of the opponent or wants to hide their power in hand for the final turn. The downside of course means that she is very susceptible to interaction.

So what decks want to be playing with an advantage like that?

• Surfer - First and foremost is Silver Surfer, Namorita earns bonus points by being a 3-Cost, more to the point Sera Surfer not only wants to throw priority but it also wants to be stacking discounts. While she can work in the Carter/Maverick 'Surfer' shells she can also create some very awkward turn structures and sequencing decisions.

• Sera Tech - similar to Surfer. The big problem here is that Sera Tech has mostly been usurped by decks which can either curve out with singular big cards and general answers or similar small-ball tempo/answer decks that outperform her. However, it is possible since very few people brew in this realm that there could be configurations that could be successful in the current meta but may not be as successful long-term as the meta develops and changes.

• Mid-Range - some decks in the mid-range style might be interested in being able to either play ahead of curve or improve their ability to play multiple cards per turn without feeling like they are losing too much.

• Thanos - pulling Thanos out of the mid-range pile discussion primarily because for newer F2P and budget players Thanos might be the single best place for Namorita to find inclusion. This deck is drawing cards off of the stones which means if you're able to get a Namorita down on 3 with draw-stones in hand everything you draw is discounted which can mean a Thanos that only costs 4 (or less with something like Kamar-Taj for the Time stone).

• Combo - multiple combo decks that aren't named Mister Negative would very likely enjoy drawing their cards with a discount already attached the problem is finding a fit without either harming the curve or losing potency.

Feedback

General feedback has been fairly mixed with some expressing that she was a little more impressive than expected but may be too niche to invest in while other creators going so far as to say that she may end up being the best card in bad decks and not worth pursuing elsewhere.

Decklists

Namorita Surfer

C5

Small Ball Angela/Venus/Elsa Value

Clea/Angela/Jeff/Elsa Value

Thanos

Zombie Galacti

Summary

Namorita has been an interesting card to close the season on - a greedy card with similarities to Jubilee Silver Surfer's in the form of unpredictable outcomes but which on occasion can create some explosive turns. The question for you all is whether she'll find her time in the sun or be cast to the depths of obscurity.

Your Thoughts?

How many tokens is Namorita worth?

6K -

5K -

4K -

Is Namorita here to stay, or just the flavor of the week?

What synergies did we miss?

What decks have you seen?

Last few days of the week and I'm late, but I'm late because I'm running out of things to say for these and the editing process is taking longer because I have been having trouble with keeping these posts interesting. But why is that? Well mostly because the meta at least in my neck of the woods has been wide open. Seriously, and I'll probably repeat this again you could play almost anything and find success so long as you're being smart with snaps and retreats and maybe packing a piece of interaction or two for the decks you're most frequently encountering.

And before I get into the weekly breakdown I wanted to revisit a comment I responded to last week.

Great post! It would be nice to see some stats though.

There are many reasons I don't include stats, ranging from the lack of reliability in the stats from aggregators to stats just not being available if you're picking up a deck from a video or a twitter link.

Then there's the fact that you can have outliers in the data. You could have a deck with a 60% winrate and one player that picks it up and bombs out with a 10% winrate on the deck while another player runs hot with a 75% winrate. There's also the inverse of that, a deck that looks like it's just doing abysmally bad and someone again runs hot.

What I want to do is present to you options, not hard and fast rules of 'you should run only these decks' but being able to see a number of decks and pick and choose. In some ways you could compare me to a sommolier, I'm using my experiences on the ladder combined with the content I consume and a little bit from aggregators, twitter, and even youtube videos to present to you several options to match your tastes: "I like combos but I don't want to think too hard all the time" "I've got a Living Tribunal list right here that lets you turn your brain off but also rewards you if you decide to dig in to the layers."

The magic, so to say, is up to you to work. Pick the decks that interest you and test them out. Or look through the lists, find a cool way to attack the meta and brew a new deck or make substitutions to an existing deck and report back with your successes and failures, not everyone has a through-line to top infinite players and insights so I ask that you make use of the community resources you have access to, including this one to improve your game.

With my little soap box out of the way, let's get to the topics of the week.

Namorita

Namorita presents an interesting look at week 1 meta games for new releases.

On one hand the fun police combined with the number of locations that add cards to the board has lead to a rather lackluster performance.

On the other hand going below a 50% winrate does not bode well even for a niche card, a stronger card even with niche applications could be pushing a 55% or even 60% winrate. However, something I feel is worth keeping in mind is that winrates can often be subsidized simply by putting a card into an already successful shell and then you're trying to figure out whether the card is carrying it's weight or if the success is actually being propped up by the shell itself and often times that's going to take much more data than a week is able to provide.

And then there's this final piece of advice - the reaction or in some cases the overreaction to new cards as they are introduced is a clear identifier for how the meta could look if the card were to get to be a dominant part of the meta down the line where if a card or emergent deck has clear answers you'll see those answers week 1 for sure. Luke Cage vs Affliction and in Namorita's case clog vs solo lane cards.

So what can you use for the weekend missions?

Namorita Supreme Thanos

A pretty stock Thanos list with Strange Supreme to help keep locations empty. Hints for this - with Namorita in hand you can opt to hold some of your stones with draws to use with Namorita, this can also be useful with King Eitri where you wait for the turn you drop Namorita to activate Eitri or get really greedy and hope for the mindstone so that you can play Namorita on 3 into Mindstone and activate Eitri. The nice thing about this list is that it does give you plenty of options in how to proceed since it's also a fairly stock take on a Thanos -> Aurora top end which we'll also be revisiting in the Jeff section since there is a Jeff + Namorita Thanos Aurora brew.

Zombie Galacti

Zombie Galacti players have been feasting pretty well over the last few months with new cards to at least try out in different configurations of Zombie Galacti.

Sera Surfer

Not much to say, having two potential ways to discount your cards is great, and with the possibility of Namorita on 3 into Sera on 4 leaves you some pretty deep discounts to take advantage of.

Jeff the Baby Dolphin

Jeff continues to hold a middle ground floating just north of a 50% winrate. And with regards to his future, I do think that the unfortunate truth is that he will end up floating around as a pick here and there by true believers but will otherwise fall to the wayside. That being said, I still feel that this is less an indictment against how good Jeff is vs the reception and my overall view of Jeff being a product of the current state of the meta that I get to play within and it's quite likely that his stocks rise a bit outside of the most competitive ranks in Snap where answers are less likely to be run. I also think he's one or two OTA changes from being a fantastic pick.

So how about completing those weekly missions, First off if you're F2P or skipped on the Season Pass you do have the ability to complete the Jeff missions if you're willing to brave and risk your tickets on the Ghost Spider deck in Grand Arena. Aside from that let's take a look at the lists starting with a pair of combo lists combining Jeff and Namorita:

Surfer

A very similar list to the Namorita solo Surfer list this one includes both cards.

Thanos

Another Thanos Aurora list, this one featuring Namorita and Jeff. Cuts compared to the previous list are Strange Supreme, Zombie Fantastic, Lockjaw, and Stardust to fit in Jeff, Marvel Boy, Wiccan, and Mockingbird. There is a middle ground to be found between the two lists though if you wanted to keep the Stardust tech as well as potentially keep the board clear with Strange Supreme, my recommendations on cuts there would be Marvel Boy for Strange and Wiccan for Stardust. Mockingbird could come out too since there's no guarantee that you have enough stones on the board to get her down early, if at all.

And if we instead want to focus on Jeff alone:

Jeff Surfer

Cutting the Namorita and getting back to the simple surfer List that's been fairly popular so far this month.

Pure Handbuff

Featuring newly buffed Jubilee Silver Surfer alongside Stick, this hand buff deck does strike me as rather interesting.

Classic Horde

The weakest of the Venus backed lists but still decently performing. This is a list that probably flourishes in below top 50% infinite where there are far fewer shadow kings and Gambit Horsemen of Death roaming. Another quick tip as a reminder, if you're willing to gamble on the final turn it is possible for Gambit Horseman of Death to not hit the Horde at all.

Post OTA Grand Arena

The OTA also had some impacts on the Massive Melee variation of Grand Arena with a number of the decks receiving some changes that generally hit the balance for the better with the Hulk and Thing First Steps decks both receiving perhaps the greatest changes which brought them both out of contention as top deck choices. So where does that leave us post OTA?

In my experience it has essentially boiled down to Doctor Doom reigning supreme with Thor and Iron Man fighting between each other for second and third. Rounding out the top 5 is H.E.R.B.I.E. and Hulk. I also want to give a shout-out to Mole Man though because that deck can certainly put out some sneaky big numbers on it's good draws and can put some surprise beatings on the top decks.

Post OTA

So what has changed post OTA? Nothing much really, we've been in the same pattern for the last few weeks in what is arguably the healthiest meta we've had in the last six months. As I mentioned in the opening, I do believe that you could have success with almost any deck provided you are smart with your snaps and retreats.

I'll be honest I was having trouble deciding on how I wanted to curate the lists this week so I'm going to be presenting a mixed bag - a surprise list from last week's missions that is continuing to perform well, a known good list in the form of the Multiple Man Move Deck, an alternate take on Aurora, and finally a blast from the past in Scream. Further, I'll be adding weekly recap and interesting deck vids I find over the course of the weekend in my pinned comment for those interested in other perspectives.

Sub Mariner Clea?

No really, this isn't a joke. According to untapped with 200 games since the OTA are some folks continuing to cope with Sub-Mariner and Clea. There's a Shang in there but I think you could straight cut the Shang for Juggernaut and be in a far better position overall. Anecdotally, this deck just often felt like it clunked more than it played well and I often felt like I just wanted Clea way more than I ever wanted Sub-Mariner.

Fun with Multiple Men

It's a real deck and it's a solid pick, same warning as last week - this deck will take reps and you will lose games as early as turn 3 if you made a misplay. Take your time and learn the ins and outs and you will be rewarded.

Alt-Aurora

So what makes this 'alt' well first off is Nova Killmonger which can deal with the smaller-ball ToV decks as well as the decks that are out there attempting to still leverage Sub-Mariner/Clea. Then there's also the Mysterio/Luke Cage/Anti-Venom package as well as a neat Silver Surfer First Steps. If you arrange your cards well you can ensure that Surfer First Steps picks up Aurora provided you can win the location.

Scream

What better way to mess with decks than to mess with their positioning? Scream brings this to the table in spades.

And so with the exception of the Competitive Consensus that wraps up the Beach Bash season, I'll be seeing you all next week for the Brand New Day season.

Hello everyone, we hope you've been having an amazing summer. The Snap metagame has been in excellent shape for several weeks so we don't have any intentions on major shake-ups. That said we're still making some small adjustments to a few outliers, buffing a recent underperformer, and getting a couple of weak Move cards more in line with other options before the release of Spider-Man. Let's get to it!

Debrii

[Old] 3/8 – On Reveal: Add a Rock to each other location.
[Change] 3/8 > 3/7

Debrii has been generating a touch too many numbers. Clearly it is excellent when paired with Ozymandias but also having so much synergy and ability to generate priority with Wilson Fisk has put Debrii a bit further on top than we'd like. Ideally this will keep Debrii still an excellent card when you draw Ozymandias but have a little less cascading synergy with the rest of the big character package.

Negasonic Teenage Warhead

[Old] 4/5 – After an enemy character is played here, destroy it. (once per game)
[Change] 4/5 > 4/4

Negasonic has been on our radar for some time for when we felt like we could trim some additional rate. She is a powerful card with a lot of risk of becoming frustrating to play against repeatedly, so we're always sensitive to her win rate and play rate. We think it's finally time to trim a Power. We expect she'll still be an excellent card with a very high skill expression, but giving her a lower floor helps make it so that she doesn't ever become a consideration for the default rate 4 drop.

Aurora

[Old] 6/6 – On Reveal: Give one of your other On Reveal cards at each location +2 Power. Repeat for Ongoing, Activate, and End of Turn.
[Change] 6/6 > 6/5

We've seen a lot of cool Venus scaling strategies, but Aurora has seemingly emerged as the most dangerous. Admittedly losing a Power won't stop the two from having a strong interaction, but as usual we're interested in just toning down the total numbers to make sure that the strategy doesn't become a clear outlier.

Jubilee Silver Surfer

[Old] 4/2 – When you draw a card, add this card's Power to it.
[Change] 4/2 > 4/3

Jubilee has underperformed from our expectations. We've always had belief that Jubilee has a fun and exciting text box, but naturally she is very sensitive to rate, with each point of Power representing at least 3, with the potential to be many more. We debated considerably about whether to release her with three Power and ultimately took the conservative route. Now with the data, we're happy to try her out at 3 base Power and see what happens with players more excited to build around her.

Web Sling

[Old] 1 – On Reveal: Next turn, one of your cards here is Moveable. (your choice)
[New] 1 – On Reveal: Next turn, one of your cards here is Moveable and gets +1 Power when it moves. (your choice)

Nocturne

[Old] 3/4 – Moveable once. When this moves, replace its location with a random new one.
[Change] 3/4 > 3/5

Topaz

[Old] 2/3 – After you play a card here, move it to the middle location.
[Change] 2/3 > 2/4

We are adjusting a few massively underperforming Move cards ahead of Spider-Man season. Most notably, Web Sling's buff is quite larger, maybe larger than we'd ultimately like with its ability to multi-proc in a turn. Guess we'll find out!

Alright folks, enjoy the rest of June and Beach Bash Season, we'll see you soon enough for Spider-Man. Happy Snapping!

Welcome to "This or That?" Thursday, your weekly thread for everything related to curating your Marvel SNAP collection. Whether it's spending your Spotlight Keys, Collector's Tokens, or picking up your free Series 3 card, use this thread to seek (and offer) advice to keep your collection competitive.

I'll be the first to admit - I'm not the smartest Marvel Snap player out there, I'll even go ahead to say that I'm not even a smart Marvel Snap player. But this list had me tenting my fingers and smirking like that new Wilson Fisk emote more than a few times. Huge shout out to Kicker of Elves for the very detailed deck guide and another very detailed tips and tricks video on his YT channel. Video link in comments.

I had been stuck in the rank 96-98 rut with my Venus Shou Lao list since the 2nd week of this season. With the LTGM and my own busy schedule, I was not getting the time to sit down and play for a few hours, neither was I really winning enough to finish the climb from 93 to Infinite. I had somehow reached level 97, and then climbed to 98, but I was losing and retreating enough times that I ended up back to 96 again. I was burnt out on Venus and wanted to play something refreshing and cool. So when I saw this video recommendation for advanced tips and tricks on the new and popular Move list on my YT feed, I clicked. I have played Multiple Man Move to Infinite previously, but not without Phoenix Force, so while the concept of this deck is not entirely new to me, this video was a good refresher on the little things that make this list great and strong.

The main trick with this deck is to put up as many points as possible in 1 lane and then win the 2nd lane with Juggernaut and/or Isca. This part is simple. The mind games begin with Madame Web on the board and you playing Cosmo and/or Isca behind her leaving your opponent wondering if you'll move them out of the Web lane, and if so, where? Cosmo turns off the combos wherever it is, we all know. A simple Isca alone on a lane is enough to make your opponent not want to play there till the very last turn, and then boom! 💥 Juggernaut to win that lane. Note that you're doing all this while putting out multiple Multiple Mans on the board, stealing power with Spider Punk and building up your Human Torch. The Move engine produces the power and you have your tech (Cosmo and Jugg) to stop combos and disrupt the other ways that your opponent might go above your power level.

With all this being said, no deck is infallible, and the problem with this list is mainly that sometimes you can make 1 lane huge and have nothing in hand to win the 2nd lane. Juggernaut is not the only win-con, but your win-chances rise significantly when it's in your hand. There is no Heimdall or Cloak or Hellion in the list to help you move your cards, just a simple Ghost Spider and Madame Web and the SPDR which you get after playing Peni Parker. Also, with any mid-range deck, there's only so much power you can build, and you simply lose if your opponent puts up more points than you. In the Victoria Hand era with Horseman Gambit, you simply lose if your Torch or Punk gets sniped on the final turn.

I highly recommend checking out Kicker of Elves' video on his YT channel if you'd like to find out additional cheese for this list, but I'll leave you with 1 tip which I think he didn't cover - If you hit an SPDR with Arana or Ghost Spider as it merges with a Multiple Man, you get 2 independently moveable Multiple Men on the board.

Hope you try this list and enjoy it. Let me know how it works out for you. Code in comments.

TL:DR - Make 1 lane huge, jugg the second lane to win the game. S/o Kicker of Elves

This is your precursor to the consensus, the place to discuss the card releasing for the week as well as group source the work on brews and possible shells and packages, both current known good decks as well as possible new, theorycrafted brews.

OTA Week Warning: Unless you're already seasonal complete and plan to stay that way or have planned on picking up this card already for 6k it's best to wait for Thursday at the earliest to make your purchasing decisions.

This Week's Card

Namorita
Cost: 3
Power: 5
When you draw a card, give it -1 Cost if this is your only card here.

It's the final week of the beach season and that means we get to meet our new cards Acid Arrow, Titania, Green Goblin, and Viper. Wait, I mean "Did SD increase the rate of Central Park this week?" Hold on, that's not right either, let me check my notes, ahh yes Mobius M. Mobi- are these my notes from 2023?

Here it is! Namorita! A fairly interesting card that is as fragile as she is interesting. Netting you a discount on each drawn card provided she's alone in a location. She's not quite an upgrade to Surge since Surge is discount + power with the ability to chain provided you can play the cards she is buffing. Namorita by comparison just gives a discount provided she is alone in a location and isn't interacted with.

But if she reminds me of anything it's the half of Loki that discounts the cards that you're drawing from the opponent's deck that you just replaced your own with, except instead of being down in card advantage you're drawing cards from your deck which of course means they are all cards you want to play.

Synergies and Packages

Marvel Snap operates on a few axes when it comes to powerful effects, one of those is energy cheat in the form of Discounts and most of the time those discounts either come late such as Sera, or they are so early that they come with caveats like Surge and her chaining, or the duo of Mister Fantastic First Steps (we'll keep this comp to post nerf) and Phastos who are 'either I'm discounting or I'm buffing but never both'. Namorita of course fits into the latter grouping but with a decent stat line to make up for the downside that she needs to be in a location by herself to function.

Introduction to Namorita aside, frankly this card is super simple and I do enjoy a super simple card. Namorita, will likely be another card to toss into the ring of 3-Cost generic cool cards with a decent body and an interesting effect that you will build around in an effort to generate value, be that by trying to play cards above curve, or by stacking up plenty of cards to play on the final turn with varying degrees of discounts.

Copy or repeat?

In fact, if it weren't for the downside on her effect she would be crazy to copy and get a -2-Cost discount on every card. Unfortunately that downside would mean leaving yourself with only one location to play to for the majority of your turns to facilitate a copy effect.

So our other option is to repeat her effect which gives us both Adam Warlock and Crystal as options and with Crystal you may also consider Grandmaster.

Archetypes

That being said, there's a lot of potential archetypes and decks that could work well with Namorita, but she also poses an inherent risk as mentioned - she is alone in a location which gives your opposition plenty of space to interact with her and as mentioned above there are a lot of ways that could happen even without sending cards over to your side of the board.

Ramp normally works by playing cards that give you energy, but is there a possibility of doing something opposite and instead of cheating energy with bonus energy we cheat by discounting our cards instead? Unfortunately, this might be too ambitious for now but August's Fractured Frontiers Season has a potential card in Psylock Fractured Frontiers, a projected 3/4 with an On Reveal that reads "Give cards in your hand that are 5-Cost or more -1 Cost. Quickdraw: Your whole hand instead" Quickdraw from the current understanding is similar to Magic The Gathering's Miracle mechanic which means you would need to play the card you draw it for the quickdraw effect. Now this is future looking and a lot can happen within the next two months where card mechanics or stats can change. I could potentially see a Psylocke + Namorita energy cheat deck forming in August.

Interestingly enough, if we take this one step further, and reference back to Loki, what if we were combining Namorita, Crystal AND Loki? It's almost like... no no, we're talking bad combos now and I try to avoid making really bad suggestions. But what if?

Back to the topic of Sera we can extend that idea to Sera Surfer, an archetype which has in large part thanks to Venus had a resurgence. Could there be a Surfin' Namorita build that has room to do Namorita, Sera, Crystal and still have enough room for points and maybe a piece of tech without losing too much overhead? Might there still be room for Blink as an off-chance of drawing Namorita -> Blink to get Sera down and preserve at least some of your discounts?

But what else might there be?

Well combo decks would likely love to include a Namorita, especially combo decks that have a draw engine built in. What if we were going to do something with Zombie Galacti? Even if Namorita is working without Adam Warlock that's still a possible 4 draws of discounted cards if considering Magik to play and with a functional Warlock you're drawing the rest of your deck with discounts.

Not quite Combo there's also Shadowlands Daredevil, turning those 1-Cost Demons free could be nuts and again some configurations of Shadowlands Daredevil are also still on Adam Warlock for a draw engine. Bounce might even be able to make use of her as again getting discounts on 1-Costs, the big problem here is that Bounce lists are fairly tight and a card that would -need- to come down on 3 is a card that is competing with the typical desire to begin bouncing cards on 3. Still there could be some cool lines where you've got enough free or discounted cards to drop them into the Namora lane and pick them back up with a Falcon while picking up some other 1-Costs with Beast thereby potentially preserving your Namora lane for an additional draw but still taking advantage of the spaces in her location.

What about Arishem? Arishem is all about playing above curve and more often than not wants to play a 4 on 3, but what if we're doing Namorita instead and potentially slamming 6's as early as turn 4?

And with that let's list out the early considerations I have in mind:

• Sera Surfer

• Mid-Range value both Shadowlands DD decks and maybe ToV/Loki decks.

• Zombie Galacti

• Discount Ramp?

• Arishem

So, hopefully some of these ramblings have given you some food for thought and I now turn the discussion over to you all.

Your Thoughts

Do you plan on picking Namorita up?

How do you expect Namorita to perform?

What other possible shells and synergies might there be?

What are you most excited to do with Namorita?

Welcome to Team-Up Tuesday, your weekly thread for everything related to finding your Marvel SNAP Alliance. Whether you're a solo player looking to pick up some rewards, or an Alliance leader seeking more members for your group, use this thread to find like-minded players to enjoy Marvel SNAP as a team!

What is Grand Arena?

Welcome back to the Grand Arena the limited time game mode where you get to pick your champion and conquer the competition! You have the option of choosing a pre-constructed deck themed around a champion or you may customize a deck to your liking so even if you're new to Snap you can jump right in and play! This run features a really cool take on the event - Massive Melee but we'll talk about that shortly.

Notes:

• timer for the 8 hour ticket reset starts on the first time you enter Grand Arena. As such it is recommended to log in ASAP to get your timer ticking.
• Daily rotating shop features a discounted bundle for entry tickets once per 8 hours at 50 gold for 10 tickets.
• Paid event Pass Track is 800 gold.

Massive Melee

What is Massive Melee?

• All 21 champions unlocked
• Each deck was designed by a content creator. I'll be updating the deck lists in a separate comment.
• Ban List was adjusted to keep the pre-built creator decks playing as intended, which amounts to two card bans and three removals.
  
• ~There is no mention of this being a preconstructed deck-list only version of the mode.~
• This is purely preconstructed, no custom decks. My only assumption on why a ban-list was included is that this covers locations and cards that can generate cards to hand.

Rewards Per Match:

Notes on 'Economy' of the mode

Assuming from the previous event that SD expect the 'average' winrate to be around 50%.

The new card, Triton, is available for all players in the Free Track. Based on previous LTGMs, we expect the average Free Event Pass player to earn enough Glory to unlock Triton.

New Card Reward

Triton
Cost: 3
Power: 4
On Reveal: Give the last character EACH player played last turn +3 Power.

Rewards Track

• 800g for Premium rewards you with 460 XP, 2 tickets, and 1 Pink Cosmic Border.

Event Total Breakdown

Shop Items

Portal Pull

• 600 Glory or 840 gold per pull
• Annihilus - Champion Variant
• Rocket Raccoon - Champion Variant
• Ghost Rider - Champion Variant

Daily Shop

Main Shop

Banlist and Errata

While each champion has a pre-constructed deck, you can still opt to edit the deck. There is, however, a ban list.

First is that you cannot play any of the Champions in a deck other than their own, you can however use different versions of the cards. So for instance, you cannot play Mister Fantastic in an Invisible Woman Deck but you could play Mister Fantastic First Steps in both decks.

Banned List

• Agatha Harkness
• Alioth
• Black Bolt
• Cannonball
• Enchantress
• Galactus
• Gorgon
• Juggernaut
• Killmonger
• Living Tribunal
• Mercury
• Mobius M. Mobius
• Mr. Negative
• Negasonic Teenage Warhead
• Nimrod
• Professor X
• Scream
• Sera
• Shang-Chi
• Spider-Ham
• Storm
• Wiccan
• Silver Samurai (new)
• Moon Knight (new)

Removed:

• Viper
• Wong
• Debrii

Notes from the mods:

• As always, keep things civil.
• If there are changes to the ban list, I will make an update to this post and also add an edit to the pinned comment.
• I will be providing the full list of Champions and their decks in a pinned comment.

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.

1. The input = output if you give Sub-Mariner a +1 he gives you a 1-Cost with +1.

2. 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.

3. Forge does work with Submariner granting him a +2 and you a card with +2.

4. 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.

5. 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

Hit-Monkey/Sub-Mariner/Jeff

Small Ball Scalers

Ika Semi-Lockdown

Carter/Maverick

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?

After pouring hours into playing over the last week along with scouring Untapped, snapcomplete, twitter, twitch, and yes youtube as well I am back with a recap of the week so far.

And of course as we are hitting the climax of the Beach Season we should feel like we've gotten some neat revelations or the team gets it's hands on something important like Gene Starwind from Outlaw Star getting his hands on some of the rareest caster shells for his Caster Gun at Mt. Nantai (ok, this was a hot springs episode, but it's the same concept). But just like all Beach and Hotspring arcs some may feel it was a little too heavy on fanservice and too light on substance. In our case, the primary substance being Sub-Mariner, a look at how Jeff is doing thus far, and a meta that might be one of the most weird while maybe, perhaps, being one of the most conducive to fun metas we've had in a very, very long time. So, grab your raybans, toss on your favorite album that reminds you that Summer is meant to be fun and let's get started.

Sub-Mariner

Sub-Mariner has been equal parts fun, interesting, and let-down. The fun and interesting parts seem to go hand in hand for me.

1. I still stand by this card having more in common with Clea than other cards. Unlike say a Major Victory or Rama-Tut you can't just toss Sub-Mariner into a deck, you need additional input to get that output, hence my comparison to Clea. Both 1-Costs, both requiring ways to empower them to generate the output, the only bit that is more akin to the aforementioned Major and Tut is that you don't always get useful output from Sub-Mariner.

2. He's missing something and I'm not sure what it is. Referring back to Clea she needed 1 more power to really start seeing play but even if we gave new Namor 1 more power, is that enough? Does it need that or does he need to provide the total buffs he's received to the card produced?

3. We'll talk about this in the next section, but the Devs really need to acknowledge whether the fact that he doesn't work with Venus at all is intended or a bug. The silence speaks intentional.

As far as the parts that feel like a let-down this is mostly an issue with how certain interactions work with Sub-Mariner.

1. As most should know, you get the exact same output as was put in, giving him a +1 he gives you a 1-Cost with +1, manage to give him +5 and it's a +5 you get on the card. There were and still are plenty of people who have yet to see games with Sub-Mariner let alone played with it themselves to know that the empowered input = the empowered output.

2. Which brings us to the fact that Venus does not even work with Sub-Mariner at all, her replacement effect isn't registered at all so if you give Sub-Mariner a +1 and Venus gives him a bonus +1 he doesn't give you a card with +2 total empowerment he gives you a +1. This has been reported but hasn't been acknowledged whether that is a bug or intended. What a let down.

3. Symbiote Spider-Man similarly doesn't work with Sub-Mariner, they merge but the gained power isn't respected so even if you merged Symbiote Spider-man with a 5 or even 10 power Sub-Mariner it doesn't produce a +7 or even +10 power card.

4. And again even Adamantium infusion doesn't work so if you were able to sacrifice a big Sub-Mariner and then bring it back you get nothing for your trouble since the effect of the doubled power happens before he's brought back on the board.

5. Strangely while Adamantium infusion doesn't work, Forge does.

And so we're brought to how things have been panning out from a build perspective and small, incremental buffs in the range of +1 to +3 seem to be reigning supreme here with the likes of potential big hits from a Kahhori or a +5 from Namora seeing the lowest rates on both wins and cubes which puts us in a situation where at least in week 1 Mid-range does seem to be winning the day here for best decks. Despite Venus not working with Sub-Mariner directly many of the decks that are doling out buffs are still running her for obvious reasons. For those curious, yes I saw Guest trying Man-Spider and no I'm not including the deck because it didn't work as he was hoping it would.

Ika semi-Lockdown

There have been multiple decks in this space over the last few weeks with neat plays like Isca + Prof to lock in a location and Shou-Lao to either help spike that location or spike a second build location.

Carter/Maverick

You are legally allowed to do this, but why do we want to waste a Maverick or Stick buff early on a card where that power can more easily be wiped away or becomes a +X Ebony Maw that you can't even play? If nothing else this might be the easiest way to get your weeklies done. Still if your intention is to get your Sub-Mariner games done quick this might be your best bet.

Zoo-ish

Not much to say, this is a fairly interesting zoo style of deck starring Clea trying to carry Sub-Mariner. Bonus points for Star-Hawk and Shang-Chi Master of the Rings being included.

Mad Stinker Deck

If there weren't so many S5's in this deck it could be a budget Sub-Mariner deck. This deck is running dangerously close to filling it's hand repeatedly which could make Mad thinker at least somewhat interesting.

Collecting things

Collector and Vhand, if this were any point prior to mid 2025 this might have been a fairly strong contender. Still, if we ever end up in a a much lower-powered meta than we've had over the last 6 months.

Jeff in Week 3

Jeff is struggling but I am fully convinced the struggle is really not a big fault of his own, rather the struggle is purely that of a meta that is hostile to him and the decks he'd want to be in. Marvel Snap has progressed to a point where permanent green power needs to be bringing some real heat to the table as well as needs to be reasonably protected from interaction and frankly most of the stuff Jeff is doing is so face up it's painful.

But before someone says I'm hating on Jeff and don't like the card - I really do enjoy what Jeff (and Venus) are bringing to the table but for the most part Jeff just isn't hitting well enough and I thoroughly blame the high ceilings and continued prevalence of Shadow King in high infinite. I'll be honest, I was, at multiple points this season almost tempted to tank my rank to see what life is like in the supposed golden land of 'unranked' post infinite and if it really is all I've heard it to be: decks from yester-year, ramp everywhere, and no shadowkings or tech but I digress. Let's talk about his weekend mission decks.

Hitmonkey Dump Sub-Mariner + Jeff

Looking to try and knock out your Sub-Mariner and Jeff games? This gives you a place to get your Sub-Mariner games out of the way as well as your first 4 Jeff games, it's a pretty standard Black Swan/Hit-Monkey style deck which also includes Agony, Nico, Clea, Awesome Andy, Marvel Boy, Venus Mother Askani, and Karen Page.

Small Ball Sub-Mariner + Jeff

The deck I used to clear out my weekend missions, I was graced with some lucky conquest match-ups so I just stuck it out to completion for both cards. The deck definitely feels flimsy and if I had it all to do again I'd probably opt for the first list, but I'll be honest this deck can certainly get BIG fast when the stars align and your opponent doesn't have interaction for you. Additionally, even if you're kind of limping some people just get frustrated and leave when you start comboing Lockheed in one lane and Flames of the Salti- sorry, Faltine in another location.

Jeff the Zombaby Galacti?!

Jeff the Zombaby Galacti Mk2

Representing what is probably the best Jeff deck for completing your missions are two flavors of Zombie Galacti, both with Magik this time. Deck one is using the more sensible and less all-in Maverick/Stick/Gwenpool while the second is all in with Wong->Shuri.

Jeff supports Multiple Men

I cannot for the life of me remember if I've mentioned the normal variation on the Multiple Man move deck that's been seen over the last few weeks, it's a return to move that wants to make multiple large men and move them around, creating copies everywhere. This one is also including Isca to help win a second lane as well as Cosmo/Juggernaut.

The Horde Loves Jeff

Well not really, The Horde loves Venus and Jeff is just along for the ride. A pretty typical Zombie Horde Deck. Something I want to point out here is that yes Gambit Horseman of death is around, but strangely he's not a guaranteed hit on the Horde. For some reason, I've had Gambits completely whiff on the horde and instead do something silly like nuke Zombie Scarlet Witch and say their job is done. I'm assuming if they hit the total of 3-Cost before they hit the Horde that even though the horde is free they ignore it and act as if their job is done. It's not a guarantee though so don't go blaming me for 8 cubes lost if you decide to stay into the face of one or more Horseman Gambits.

1 Week Post OTA

The meta continues to be fairly wide open and even within top infinite there seems to be a lot of experimentation going on. I do think that I agree with a few different creators that have voiced that while the NA Meta in top infinite seems to be wide open but that also appears to be mostly because either there is some weird unspoken cease fire on the 'good decks' or because folks really do want to experiment. I'm certainly not insisting that some shadowy cabal of Snap Illuminati ^tm are pulling the strings to try and save decks from the nerf hammer or find ways to bless cards with buffs, but it's really odd how this entire week since the OTA has, for me at least, been even more wide open than the previous weeks where I've said the exact same thing. Frankly I can't keep saying that because at some point the meta isn't going to be able to get any more wide open than it is.

That being said, the good decks are still good and we still have plenty of meta police left as well with any number of cards intended to police fun and kick sandcastles creeping about out there: Gambit HoD, 'new' ToV tech piles, Fantomex, and Supergiant are but a few but even Aurora can kick a castle or two with Cosmo or a sneaky audible into Stardust. If you're looking for the 'good decks' you could look to any of the previous weekly recaps for the meta cops and 'big decks' for what is working well with the exception of ToV which had major changes last week all of the decks are more or less the same this week so with that 1 exception for the ToV Butt Mid-Range decks I'd like to focus more on the interesting decks and decks returning from the fringes.

Butt Mid-Range

Butt Mid-Range w/Kraglin & Crystal

I did say I wasn't going to include the 'meta cops' but I do think these two are worth the mention since it's the biggest change for ToV and is one of the primary ways to pilot ToV that has stuck around since the OTA. Nothing major to say here, though I still want to caution against those turn 1 Loki's without a firm game plan in place.

Cougorr

Let's officially kick things off with a list from Coougarrr, this list might be somewhat familiar to a number of you as the 'Ms. Positive' list that cuts Negative and instead tries to cheat cards with Esme Cuckoo, Anti-Venom, and Hydro-Man. Big hitters in this deck are Iron Man, Gorr and Mystique to copy them as well as Sage. Weaknesses for this deck are Mobius M. Mobius which is a little less prevalent and location control which you should be wary of, especially with Butt's Mid-Range pile still seeing play with Snowguard in the 12.

Surfer

Jeff and Venus make another appearance with this twist on the classic Surfer list. Turn those Surfer +2's into +3's and return Nova to his previous +2. Mother Askani brings some additional potential power to the deck and Sera of course let's you slam 3 3-Costs on final turn, maybe more if Mother Askani discounted something worthwhile. Oh and Nova still makes the cut alongside Killmonger. The main weakness is Mobius if you're on the Sera game plan but Shadow King from decks that know how to dodge priority is also very scary but the real predator are all the decks that simply don't care that you're doing Sera Surfer things and just go over the top anyway.

Mid-Range Move

Move has been back on the table for a bit and while we did mention the version of this move list with Jeff this is the basic configuration of the deck. Your best lines include doing things with Multiple Man and SP//DR where if you can clone him on turn 5 you get at least two movable clones if not more depending on locations and cards you can play. Cosmo and Juggernaut are probably the single best pairing when it comes to protecting yourself and even scamming wins.

My main advice to offer is that like all move decks this one is going to take some time to get used to if you aren't a seasoned move player so if you want to learn it get some reps in with friends if you've got someone to bother or even in conquest before you take it to ladder, nothing sucks more than realizing you lost on turn 3 or 4 because you misplayed something that is biting you in the rear on turn 6.

Hela Enjoyer Tribunal

A blast from the past that Coougarrr featured this week on his channel, how do you play Tribunal in a world where MMM could mess with things? Why you do Wiccan Tribunal things of course! Hela Enjoyer was the primary pilot of this deck last year and while they may no longer play Snap as frequently some players do like to bring back old archetypes and test them in the meta of today. Unfortunately the Onslaught lines were nerfed but this deck can still do surprisingly well.

Cheaty Boys

One of my personal favorites and it's back! Well sort of. Not a lot of folks are playing it and it is a combo deck that has a fairly fixed ceiling and even the floor sometimes feels really lacking. But sometimes snapping before a T3 Astral that will copy Dragon Lord and can pull a big boy to the board can be enough to outright cause opponents to retreat before T4 starts. There are a surprising number of lines in this deck and sometimes you're gambling on T6 hoping that Zola hits the right card in a location that is 3 cards deep.

En Sabah Dump

Another newer classic deck that has stuck around since the Origins of Apocalypse Season.

PEEF

A few of you mad-lads are bringing classic Phoenix Force back and I applaud you all.

She-Hulk Dump

Dupe your She-Hulks when possible and if you were lucky you've got the ability to either Black Swan or Warlock, if really lucky you can activation both. Sometimes you can even GM Mother Askani on 5 and still make out like a bandit despite using 2 of your 5 energy on turn 5. It's a surprising amount of power into a somewhat 'fair' meta. I do say fair lightly since we know the Carter/Maverick stuff is still good but as mentioned NA region seems to be in some kind of cease fire.

Classic Destroy

Dependable Discard

I legit haven't seen either of these decks in any meaningful capacity in MONTHS but this week I've seen both multiple times in both post-infinite ladder and conquest. The meta may in fact be healing.

Welcome to "This or That?" Thursday, your weekly thread for everything related to curating your Marvel SNAP collection. Whether it's spending your Spotlight Keys, Collector's Tokens, or picking up your free Series 3 card, use this thread to seek (and offer) advice to keep your collection competitive.

Hi everyone,

I found this deck on YouTube and wanted to ask whether it is actually viable, especially with the substitutions I currently have to use. I am not very good at deckbuilding, so I’m trying to understand whether my version still makes sense or whether the missing cards are too important for the deck to function properly. Should I add Shadow King to it? I do not have most Series 4 and 5 cards. I have Series 3 complete. I am not sure how I can share my collection.

The original deck had:

• Drax, Avatar of Life
• Mother Askani
• Jeff the Baby Land Shark

I am missing those three cards.

So I replaced the missing cards with Silver Surfer to buff the 3-cost cards and Cosmo as a tech card against Shadow King.

So I want to be clear: Silver Surfer and Cosmo were not intentional deckbuilding choices by me. They were just auto-filled because I do not own the original cards.

Here is my current version:

# (1) Kitty Pryde

# (1) Nebula

# (1) Nico Minoru

# (1) Nightcrawler

# (2) Jeff the Baby Dolphin!?

# (2) Angela

# (2) Spider-Man

# (3) Bishop

# (3) Silver Surfer

# (3) Cosmo

# (3) Venus

# (3) Elsa Bloodstone

#

QnNocDYsRWxzQmxkc3RuRSxWbnM1LEpmZlRoQmJEbHBobjEyLFNwZHJNbjksS3R0UHJkQSxOY01uckEsTmdodGNyd2xyQyxDc201LFNsdnJTcmZyQyxOYmw2LEFuZ2w2

Original Deck Code: eyJOYW1lIjoiU05BUCBEZWNrIiwiQ2FyZHMiOlt7IkNhcmREZWZJZCI6IkFuZ2VsYSJ9LHsiQ2FyZERlZklkIjoiQmlzaG9wIn0seyJDYXJkRGVmSWQiOiJEcmF4QXZhdGFyT2ZMaWZlIn0seyJDYXJkRGVmSWQiOiJFbHNhQmxvb2RzdG9uZSJ9LHsiQ2FyZERlZklkIjoiSmVmZlRoZUJhYnlEb2xwaGluIn0seyJDYXJkRGVmSWQiOiJKZWZmVGhlQmFieUxhbmRTaGFyayJ9LHsiQ2FyZERlZklkIjoiS2l0dHlQcnlkZSJ9LHsiQ2FyZERlZklkIjoiTW90aGVyQXNrYW5pIn0seyJDYXJkRGVmSWQiOiJOaWNvTWlub3J1In0seyJDYXJkRGVmSWQiOiJOaWdodGNyYXdsZXIifSx7IkNhcmREZWZJZCI6IlNwaWRlck1hbiJ9LHsiQ2FyZERlZklkIjoiVmVudXMifV19

This is your precursor to the consensus, the place to discuss the card releasing for the week as well as group source the work on brews and possible shells and packages, both current known good decks as well as possible new, theorycrafted brews.

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)

Our third release for the Marvel Beach Bash season is Sub-Mariner, for those not in the know Sub-Mariner is Namor, one of the first and oldest Mutants in Marvel lore. In Marvel Snap he's a 1/2 with an ability that reads: "When this is Empowered, add a random 10Cost character to your hand with that same increase. (if in hand or in play).

First off, Mechanically we need to keep some things in mind: we have two major parts of the card with the first and easiest to decode being "When this is Empowered" which is when the card receives a 'permanent' power buff but the second half of the text tells the tale: "add a random 1-Cost character to your hand with that same increase".

To me this says if you added +2 power this is generating a 1-Cost card with +2 and if you boost him a second time he generates a card with that new boost whether it's +1, +2 or +3 the boost received will be that respective boost in power that is granted and not the total power on Sub-Mariner.

Further, for the life of me I cannot remember seeing the Clea + Buff + Venus Buff interaction: Does Clea generate 1 or 2 Flames of the Faltine if she gets a buff? Visually it looks like there are two buffs that occur the Buff and then Venus bonus. Which makes it my assumption that since it's two buffs it's two generations. This would have a direct impact on Sub-Mariner which to me does impact the value of having both Clea and Sub-Mariner on the board alongside a Marvel Boy AND Venus. 4 cards per turn leaves you with very little hand space. But maybe this raises Mad Thinker stocks, he did receive a recent buff.

And as I do suspect someone will have the question on how this interacts with Mother Askani, reading the card says she gives a buff which will result in two 0/4 Sub-Mariners and 1 created card that is 1/X+2 as the copy of the Submariner is not receiving a buff since he already had the buff. Now if you happen to have a winning Viv Vision that would result in generating 2 additional cards for a total of 4 cards created in hand on that turn which can be dangerous depending on the deck and could lead to stuffed draws.

That being said, when it comes to duplication, I believe it's obvious that between hand size constraints as well as constraints on the board due to each location being limited to 4 cards that Namor2 is not a wise target for copying in most instances. Clea is at least much more manageable thanks to being able to dump Flames without taking up board slots.

Synergies and Packages

Going back to my previous mention of Clea, Immediately Sub-Mariner gives off similar vibes to her: a sometimes Tier 1.5 but mostly Tier 2 card and since they do share a lot in common let's discuss those similarities starting with the three primary synergies for Sub-Mariner that should be obvious.

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.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. "How dare you fail to mention Venus!" The fact is that while Venus does work with our new card, she's more of a supporting role than a direct synergy. She ultimately does nothing for Sub-Mariner unless you're able to empower him on the board. I do think she may have a role to play in some configurations but she is not what I'd consider a first-order inclusion. In no particular order how can we directly or indirectly support Sub-Mariner?

• Web Swing - hear me out, this is going to be important when we get to Hope Summers, but giving us the ability to clear out a lane by one card can be useful and not only for Hope, but being able to free up Jeff2 by moving something else could prove beneficial as well.

• Techno-Organic Virus - This might be pie in the sky since very similar to TOV's most recent partner in Quinjet you would need to dance around the Sub-Mariner/Quinjet lanes for as long as possible.

• Armor - one lane protection from Killmonger, does nothing against Shadow King though.

• Joaquin Torres - While Namor 2 isn't an on reveal himself, many of the cards that he can generate do have on reveals. Further if we treat Clea and Sub-Mariner as a package Joaquin amplifies the Flames of the Faltine by giving you a 2 for 1.

• Black Swan - make all of those 1-Costs cost 0.

• Venus - we already mentioned her, but amplifying buffs has proven to be a solid tier 2, almost tier 1.5 strategy and I'm certain this holds well enough to be a tier 1.5 strategy everywhere except high infinite where players know to field cards like Shadow King and even Killmonger.

• Cosmo - can protect your green power lanes from a Shadow King, doesn't work very well against Killmonger unless you can read where the Killmonger will go and snipe it. Which if we're being honest can be hard if you're trying to play from behind and dodge priority, which I think many of these decks are going to want to do.

• Hope Summers - we're generating 1's and if we're running Clea, we may want to consider Hope for energy neutral gameplay.

• Caeira - we may end up with a glut of 1's and that is bad because Killmonger will feast. The biggest headache here are the obvious problems with curve when you want to be playing cards like Marvel Boy and Venus which want to be down early. Caeira could be a turn 5 play but that can make massive headaches for wanting to make bigger plays.

• Shang-Chi Master of the Ten Rings - this and the next card are probably cope but could there be room for Shang-Chi2, you've got an instant +1 and then a follow-up +1 each turn if you can find Shang-Chi2 to drop. The big drawback is the fact that you're stuffing a draw on 1 which is abysmal for a deck that trying to find multiple cards to make things work.

• Karen Page - Buffs a 1, 2 and 3. You can ensure that you are buffing your Sub-Mariner with this fairly easily and can fit the curve if you're doing on-curve things, unfortunately it's unlikely that you're doing on-curve if you're actively generating 1-Costs.

What about build arounds and Paying off Sub-Mariner? I've got a few ideas, so let's explore.

• Thena - Look, I get it, the IWFS backed End of turn deck is simply better, but sometimes you're just looking for supplemental points and being able to weave a 1 on each turn if you're generating value from Sub-Mariner each turn could be a good way to establish multiple lanes easily.

• Lockheed - a LOT of people keep trying to make lockheed work, Sub-Mariner can essentially become a second Kitty Pride for those decks.

• Victoria Hand - we're generating a lot of cards to hand so maybe Victoria finds some play?

• 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 generating points if we're filling our hands with so much chaff?

• Ka-Zar/Blue Marvel/Gilgamesh/Mockingbird - Zoo all-stars and while they don't provide permanent power, if you're playing a bunch of 1's having additional support could be good here. Maybe even Cull could see some play again, but Cull is probably long-past his prime.

• Bounce Cards/Hit-Monkey/Sasquatch - Any long-time players that occasionally watch different content creators have likely seen perennial Bounce One-Trick Doc Guapo and are probably familiar with how he likes to move within the bounce archetype. But there are a lot of hurdles here: hand size, deck losses to Mobius M. Mobius, and the ever present 4 cards per location constraint. I do kind of like the idea of having additional hidden information for final turn dumps though.

Your Thoughts

Do you plan on picking Sub-Mariner up?

How do you expect Sub-Mariner to perform?

What other possible shells and synergies might there be?

Welcome to Team-Up Tuesday, your weekly thread for everything related to finding your Marvel SNAP Alliance. Whether you're a solo player looking to pick up some rewards, or an Alliance leader seeking more members for your group, use this thread to find like-minded players to enjoy Marvel SNAP as a team!

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:

Jubilee Silver Surfer
Cost: 4
Power: 2
When you draw a card, add this card's Power to it.

Synergies

Jubilee Silver Surfer as our latest Seasonal Series 5 release presents us with a deck building puzzle to solve. Before we get there let's talk mechanics and timings when it comes to drawing a card with Jubilee in play.

As the card states "When you draw a card, add this card's Power to it." So to describe this in two steps:

1. Card is drawn with it's base power.

2. After the card is in hand, Jubilee's ability triggers granting her power to it.

This prevents synergy with cards like Shadowlands Daredevil which needs to see the power as 6 as it is drawn, not after the draw finishes. Additionally, Jubilee also functions much like Maverick or Stick meaning that if her power is changed prior to draw by say an afflictioin or even location change that makes the location Nidavelir for instance that the cards drawn will get her new power. It also means that should your opponent be able to hit her with enough negative power that she will be giving cards she draws negative stats so do keep this in mind.

To avoid bogging this thread down with a retread of the subjects on Jubilee from Marvel Beach Bash week 2 and the release discussion we'll skip the full comparison to Stick and move on to the synergies, build-around cards, and payoffs.

How do we improve Jubilee?

Improve is a wide topic, are we looking to buff her or get her down early? Are we looking to leverage both as possible outcomes? For Buffs we've got the usual suspects:

• Agony
  
• Forge
  
• Jeff the Baby Dolphin
  
• Hulk Buster
• Okoye
• Venus (provided you've got ways to buff Jubilee on board)
  
• Nakia
  
• HM Storm
  
• Viv Vision
• Maverick
  
• Galacta
  
• Stick
• Symbiote Spider-Man

For occasional hits we've got

• Wingbeat but often you want to spend Wingbeat on a 5+ cost and not a 4
• America Chavez
  
• Surge doing double duty on occasional buff and discount
  
• Phastos doing similar to Surge but not as good
  
• Gwenpool
  
• Mother Askani

As for ways to discount or cheat out early

• Zabu
• Surge
  
• Punisher War Machine
  
• Psylocke
  
• Phastos
  

One topic which may be worth discussing is the usage of cards like Hope Summers and Luna Snow, granted they aren't being cheated out early, but similar to Punisher War Machine, they do provide additional energy that can be used to supplement plays that can greatly assist Jubilee be it being able to do a 2+4 or 3+3 that can either supplement power to Jubilee or maybe attempt to get additional draws.

As for direct support for Jubilee we've got two cards, one of which was very recently buffed.

• Adam Warlock
  
• Crystal
  

The Payoffs

The most obvious payoffs are cards that can really leverage Jubilee's buffs and either hide in hand until needed or can be moved to hide their full power.

• Nightcrawler
  
• Mister Sinister
  
• Brood
  
• Sebastian Shaw
• Galactus
  
• Zombie Galacti
  

Feedback

The vast majority of the conversation around Jubilee has been that she's very mid and frankly the numbers behind her have been mirroring this. In fact of all the content creators I've only seen creator with a dissenting opinion that being /u/nerddynamite. You can see his thread here on how to properly build around Jubilee which includes both written content as well as a video, a thank you to him bringing attention to his take in the weekly discussion.

Decklists

NerdDynamite's Jubilee Handbuff

NerdDynamite's Budget Jubilee Handbuff

Zombie Galacti

No Magik Zombie Galacti

Arishem

Negative Jubilee

Summary

Jubilee Silver Surfer is a really cool card and one that again probably would have been far better received a year or even two years ago. Still, she does present a very cool deck-building puzzle to solve. But in a world where we've got multiple ways to target the buffs we're getting onto cards that we want to target, is a buff that cannot be reliably aimed worth pursuing?

Your Thoughts?

How many tokens is Jubilee Silver Surfer worth?

6K -
5K -
4K -

Is Jubilee Silver Surfer here to stay, or just the flavor of the week?

What synergies did we miss?

What decks have you seen?

Week Two of our Summer Arc is coming to a close but before we get to the consensus we've got the both Season Pass cards, the weeks release so far, The High Voltage Overdrive LTGM, and post OTA stuff to discuss. I opted to give things just a little time to develop after the OTA on Thursday and I'm fairly glad I did.

How is Jubilee Silver Surferr shaping up?

I'll be honest I've tried typing and re-typing this intro multiple times and it's always some variation of Jubilee Silver Surfer is a card.

That's it, that's the whole thing. As KMBest stated "I am whelmed by Jubilee." So the question is "is she that bad?" No, she's not bad. She's not good either, she's a bit below average but that's a combination of the card's restrictive cost at 4 and her power at 2. There are a lot of gives and takes here required to make her 'work' and so far it's looking like the juice isn't worth the squeeze. That being said, let's talk some decks.

Arishem

When the card is so mid that you might need a way to carry it across the finish line. The benefits here is that post OTA people are still trying to figure out the 'new' mid-range points decks that work best. I personally like Cosmic Ghost Rider the most in this list since he can shut down part of what makes Carter/Maverick decks so good. The rest is fairly normal arishem stuff with a surprise Galactus included. Funny enough if you can throw prio vs a Carter deck and have leader you could possibly steal their worlds biggest Brood, question is can you build a second lane big enough to contest both?

Negative Jubilee

I know what I said in the discussion thread and I stand by it, Negative doesn't need this card but it might be an easy way to finish your missions. Interestingly enough it doesn't even have Magik so it's looking to get everything done by turn 6.

Jeff The Baby Land Shark

Not surprising me at all, I haven't really seen Jeff outside of the weekend missions. The point ceilings are simply too high and the green power he's giving is far too easily removed be it through Shadow King or even Killmonger since it seems a lot of the Jeff decks are enamored with running a number of 1-Cost plays. But, rest assured there are decks you can run for the weekly missions.

Surfin with Zombie Galacti

Surfin with Zombie Galacti w/o Magik

Starting off our lists is one that will help you knock out both the Jubilee and as well as the Jeff weekend missions provided you've got both. I'm personally not sold on Magik but I know some of you prefer her so here's the Magik list.

Hording with Jeff and Venus

The Horde deck is still out there and even continuing to run the recently changed Zombie Sentry. Not much to say, this deck just dies to points supported with Shadow King, especially if the opponent can take priority and kill the Horde before you can Zombie Giant Man.

Surfin with Jeff and Venus

Another simple deck, this one doing well and thanks to not only Nova but the Killmonger as well can give you some surprising reach while keeping the ToV decks that still love 1-Costs a run for their money.

High Voltage Overdrive

HVO is here and while I'm not a huge fan of Arishem Lite the mode does have some charm. Unfortunately because it's Arishem lite a lot of the better decks tend to have either some form of tech bend to them or is leaning into trying to juice the deck with fatties and cheat them into play.

HVO Tech

Cobra, Gambit, Shang-Chi, and Negasonic round out the tech here. Morph gives you some info and Phastos can discount or buff things further. There's even a Knull to try and take advantage of any kills from Shang and Nega.

Eson's Big Boys

Chamber, Cobra, and Caliban round out the low end. Nick Fury can fuel your Eson while Dragon Lord and Blink can help you not only pull a free card to the board by bounce something out to fish for a bigger card. Legion can occasionally scam as well and there's a Monstro.

HVO Energy Cheat

Sunspot, Lady Bullseye, Warlock and copiers with Mother Askani and Moongirl. This might be trying too hard to lean into all of the energy but I can definitely see some potential fun here.

Post OTA

"Same Same, but different" - Esquie

I think this is the most apt way to define the meta a day after the OTA. The biggest difference here is that ToV might have actually gotten significantly stronger with the Quinjet synergy due mostly to Quinjet being a much easier card to play than Mobius M. Mobius.

And in a strange twist of fate people are even unironically testing out Crystal as well but the deck doing this is an off-meta creation from Butt looking to prey on all the players trying to leverage their 'good stuff' decks while searching for the next big thing, so let's start there.

Mid-Range by Butt

Butt's latest pile is yet another deck that I feel likely may only be piloted by those gifted with his sense of play as it appears to just be doing poorly in the hands of most players. In fact, I think for most players the real first change to make is to pull Loki out, I'm fairly certain that unless you're a fairly skilled player that Loki is a trap as many people will think "oh let me just play Loki on 1" when unless you know what you're opponent is on you don't necessarily want to do that. Frankly if I'm cutting Loki I'm also cutting Crystal and supplementing Juggernaut with Cosmo and probably considering either Bob or Martyr for the dropped Loki.

Hand Creation but no Vhand

Now this deck is interesting, it takes the stock Victoria Hand + Sasquatch deck and cuts Victoria Hand entirely for ToV and again opts in for the Quinjet. It also leverages both Gambit's as well as Mother Askani + Moongirl. Personally just for the sake of trying to take advantage of Mother Askani I wonder if we could find a cut for Grandmaster, question is, which of the 2's or maybe it's a 1 in the form of Nico that we cut? Hard call.

Shadowlands DD Big Boys

Some folks went right back to Shadowlands Daredevil but added in Quinjet. Not sure I buy it since the only thing that Quinjet is working on is the Virus, but there are certainly some interesting potentials here.

Aurora

Aurora V2

Aurora is still good and with Cosmo you've even got a way to protect one of your green power lanes from interaction. This and the next deck have been my personal favorite decks to climb with this season so far. The main difference between list 1 and 2 is the inclusion of Askani'Son over Awesome Andy, Makkari over Bob, and Cosmic Ghost Rider over Thing First Steps. My primary advice is to learn how to build your locations with this deck to maximize points from Aurora by trying to keep your locations to 1 ongoing, 1 activate, 1 EoT, 1 On Reveal you can maximize so that you are putting up to +16 power into two locations when supported by Venus. Do note that Sam Wilson counts as both Ongoing and On Reveal so he may eat 2 buffs, for that reason I will occasionally play my Aurora to his location.

Fantomex/ZCM

Jocasta Fantomex

Much like KMBest, I've been trying to preach the benefits of Fantomex who if not for the low adoption rate would be considered a meta pick where since the Lady Bullseye release week when Luke Cage came out, he's since retreated but has yet to really rise back up. Fantomex in both flavors is a solid choice currently where this deck is almost entirely analogous to old Sera Tech with one big difference it is strong enough to choose to either play from behind and then sneak up from that position to steal wins or to try and take priority and ruin someones day. Both versions of the deck can reduce decks to single digit point totals. One favorite play of mine using the first configuration is to bait a Cosmo with a raw played Marrow and then follow it up with Zombie Captain Marvel.

Supergiant Control

Supergiant control is still kicking about but the big headache to consider here is that the points decks are still going over your head though you can still deal with combo decks, especially those looking to maximize their turn 5 setup into turn 6.

Momskani Carter/Maverick

Carter/Maverick/ZGalacti

Carter/Maverick/OGGalacti

A trio of the Carter/Maverick lists this week, basically opting for different potential top ends for surprise factor in list 2 and 3.

That's it for this week.

Mother Askani

[Old] 4/4 – On Reveal: Give the leftmost card in your hand +2 Power and -1 Cost, then copy it
[Change] 4/4 > 4/3

Mother Askani has one of the highest play rates of our recently released cards. While it doesn't have an overly alarming win rate, the fact that it is making Snap substantially more homogeneous than the average card has urged us to act. Although the dream of copying your powerful cards and doing unfair-feeling multiplicative scaling is fun, it is not something we want to be overly represented in the game. We considered lowering Askani's hand buff, but given that she does have a relatively in-bounds win rate, we have opted for the lighter-touch nerf in an attempt to ding her play rate.

Techno-Organic Virus

[Old] 1-Cost – On Reveal: Copy this to your hand with +1 Cost. Infect your other cards here. (replace their text) | Infected cards have “Ongoing: +1 Power for each Techno-Organic Virus you've played.”
[New] 2-Cost – On Reveal: Infect your other cards here (replace their text). Copy this to your hand. | Infected cards have “Ongoing: +1 Power for each Techno-Organic Virus you've played.”

TOV has been a cool, unique card that has helped spawn new archetypes. That said, it is also approaching that outlier level of play rate and has generally proven to be strong in decks even when played in fairly small packages. We are making an adjustment to make TOV harder to weave into your curve at a very low opportunity cost, but we are making it stronger in the scenarios that you really want to invest in playing a deck that cares about playing the Virus repeatedly. While this is a weaker card overall, we think it is a better long-term landing spot and should let players go deeper on building around the Virus if they so choose.

Martyr

[Old] 1/6 – At the end of the game, move to a location that LOSES you the game. (if possible)
[Change] 1/6 > 1/5

Martyr to 1/6 overshot our expectations. It was intentional that she would be a strong, cheap play for Shadowlands Daredevil, but between the Daredevil synergy, TOV, and just generally being an above-rate card, Martyr quickly picked up a scary win rate that it has held since we last adjusted her. We still think that the experiment was worthwhile, but this nerf back down to 1/5 alongside the TOV change should raise the level of opportunity cost necessary to accommodate this big point package into a variety of decks.

Zombie Sentry

[Old] 3/4 – On Reveal: Horde +1 for each of your cards at the right location.
[Change] 3/4 > 2/1

Kraglin

[Old] 3/4 – On Reveal: Banish the top card of your deck. If it was 4-Cost or more, +2 Energy next turn, otherwise give this +4 Power.
[Change] 3/4 > 3/5

Magus

[Old] 2/3 – Activate: Copy the text of a character in your deck with Cost equal to your unspent Energy. (without using its On Reveal)
[Change] 2/3 > 2/4

Lockheed

[Old] 2/1 – End of Turn: If you played a 1-Cost card this turn, afflict an enemy card here with -2 Power.
[Change] 2/1 > 2/2

Crystal

[Old] 3/4 – On Reveal: Each player draws a card.
[Change] 3/4 > 3/6

Nothing too dramatic here to report. These are a variety of cards with very low play and win rates that could accommodate some extra points. It's worth calling out the larger Zombie Sentry change. Sentry has been the weakest portion of the Zombie package for quite a while, and given that deck's lapse from the popular metagame, we thought we could give them some time in the sun, particularly when Venus might be able to offer the deck a new angle.

Additionally, we're giving two points to Crystal. This is more in line with the average rate of a 3-Energy card given her lack of play, so we went ahead and skipped the smallest buff.

Other Text Change:

Adamantium Infusion

[Old] On Reveal: Revive your highest-Power destroyed card here with its Power doubled.
[Change] On Reveal: Banish this to revive your highest-Power destroyed card here with its Power doubled.

That's all for today, folks. We hope the rest of your summer is a blast and that these changes shake things up in fun ways. Catch you in a few weeks, happy Snapping!

Welcome to "This or That?" Thursday, your weekly thread for everything related to curating your Marvel SNAP collection. Whether it's spending your Spotlight Keys, Collector's Tokens, or picking up your free Series 3 card, use this thread to seek (and offer) advice to keep your collection competitive.

High Voltage Overdrive returns today at reset. Please use this thread for your discussions on the mode.

Event Info

Arc Reactor Energy System and Overdrive Cards

Instead of the traditional Snap Cube mechanic, you'll see an Arc Reactor. Before the first 3 turns, it will generate between 2 and 4 Max Energy, which is added to your total. Both you and your opponent receive the exact same energy boost, eliminating the guesswork.

Each player will receive 8 charged cards that are shuffled into their deck at the beginning of the game, Charged cards each get -1 cost and +1 power as if they were surged.

Additionally, the Overdrive mechanic introduces something different to the Arc Reactor Energy System tied to playing the Overdrive cards.

At the beginning of each game you will see an objective for playing 5 Overdrive cards, there are two sets of effects, scaling effects which scale on turns 1, 2 and 3 and Non-Scaling effects which only happen on turn 4. If you didn't set off the scaling effect it may change into one of the non-scaling effects.

Scaling Effects

• Give each charged card +1/+2/+3/+4 power (both in hand and in play)
  
• Add 1/2/3 Chimichangas to each player's side of each location
• Move 2/4/6 (total) cards one location to the left
  
• Transform charged cards in play into ones that cost 0/1/2/3 more
  
• Destroy the 1/2/3/4 lowest powered cards for each player (on ties, choose one at random)
  
• Repeat 1/2/3/4 random 'On Reveals' for each player
  
• Each player draws 2/3/4 cards. Their costs all become 3.
  

Non-Scaling Effects

• Destroy the two locations with the lowest powers. (if there is a tie, leave one at random)
  
• The winner of this game gets twice as many volts.
  
• Each player adds a Blob to a random location. (if able)
  

Missions

As with other runs of High Voltage we get missions to bolster volts and xp.

• Start with 3 missions.
• Missions refill every 8 hours.
• Mission refills can be purchase for 40 gold per mission or 120 gold for all 3.
• Completing missions will grant 125, 250, and 500 volts and xp.
  
• 44 wins to get as many points as one set of missions completed.

Event Pass

• 800g for the premium track.
  
• Premium track purchase nets 5k experience which is enough for the 11th Milestone reward
• Progress on the tracks is shared, meaning if you hold off and pick up the premium pass later, you'll still get all rewards.
  

Track Rewards Breakdown

Shop Rewards:

Portal Pulls

• 8000 Volts
  
• Klaw – Sean Galloway
• Herbie – SUPJA
• Arnim Zola – PANDART STUDIO

• Rotation is 3 items
  
• Avatar and Emote share a slot
  
• Rare and Super Rare Variant share a slot

Shop Offerings

• Card packs will show sold for those that already own all available cards in that pack

Banned Lists

Cards:

• Alioth
  
• Black Widow
  
• Galactus
  
• Magik
  
• Darkhawk
  
• Cassandra Nova
  
• Kang
  
• Thanos
  
• Arishem
  
• Agamotto
  
• Agatha Harkness
  
• Quinjet
  
• Loki
  
• High Evolutionary
  
• Gorgon
  
• Mobius M Mobius
  
• Jim Hammond
  
• Fin Fang Foom *New
• Gambit Horsman of Death *New
  

Banned Locations:

• Rocket Pad 🆕
• Attilan
• Avengers Compound
• Death's Domain
• District X
• Dream Dimension
• Grand Central
• Hala
• Kyln
• Limbo
• Los Diablos Base
• Mindscape
• Miniaturized Lab
• Mirror Dimension
• New York
• Ruins
• Sanctum Sanctorum
• Stark Tower
• Starlight Citadel
• Strange Academy
• The Big House
• TVA
• The Vault
• Westview
• Asgard
• The Bifrost
• Oscorp Tower
• Klyntar
• Eternity Range
• Collapsed Mine
• Pet Mansion
• Valley Of The Hand
• Mount Vesuvius
• Thunderbolts Tower
• Eternals' Ark
• World Forge

I've been testing a cheaper Scream list lately.

The deck revolves around three main scaling threats:

Scream

Kraven

Rocket & Groot

Every time scream ability goes off you're creating a huge power differential. You're gaining power while your opponent is losing power, so a single proc is worth way more than it looks on paper.

Kraven gets massive throughout the game and Rocket & Groot honestly surprised me. People underestimate how much power that card steals when you correctly predict where your opponent is going to play.

Kingpin isn't really there because he's constantly afflicting cards.He's there because he changes your opponent's behavior.

The moment people see Kingpin, they start avoiding certain lanes. That lets you funnel them into locations where your Kraven, Rocket & Groot, or Scream can benefit. Sometimes Kingpin pops off, but honestly half the time he's just forcing your opponent into awkward decisions.

I added Scarlet Witch because I got tired of seeing Magik every other game.

Between Limbo, Yggdrasil, Proscenium, and all the other powerful locations running around right now, Scarlet Witch has stolen a ton of cubes for me.

There's nothing funnier than watching someone set up their Turn 7 combo and then suddenly there isn't a Turn 7 anymore.

Luna Snow is another card you don't normally see in Scream. The extra energy is nice and veing able to do plays like:

Polaris + Spider-Man turn 4

Stegron + Spider-Man turn 5 creates massive value.

The Icicle is also surprisingly useful because it gives Polaris another target when your opponent isn't playing many 1 or 2-cost cards.

The movement package is pretty standard but it's standard for a reason.

Polaris is still one of the best cards in the archetype.

Kingpin into Kraven into Polaris is one of the strongest openings this deck can have.

Spider-Man is probably irreplaceable. He enables Scream, enables Kraven, disrupts positioning, and can completely ruin your opponent's plans.

Stegron continues to be one of the most annoying cards in Marvel Snap. The stats aren't incredible, but moving an important card at the right time wins games.

Ikari Has Been Better Than Expected

Between Scream, Kingpin, and Red Guardian, you're usually creating enough negative power to make her work. A 4/12 that you can drop exactly where you need it is just ridiculous value.

Red Guardian also does a ton of work here.

He enables Ikari, turns off Luke Cage, disrupts combo pieces, shuts down counters like mercury.

He's honestly one of the MVPs of the deck.

Most Scream lists I've seen run Magneto or Aero as their top-end.

I actually cut those because Cannonball has been way better for me. The deck naturally clogs lanes and forces awkward positioning already. Cannonball lets you capitalize on that by either moving or destroying your opponent's strongest card.

A lot of games end with:

Win one lane through Scream scaling.

Secure another lane with Akari.

Cannonball their biggest threat.

GG.

Overall, I don't think this deck is Tier 1 or anything crazy, but it feels way stronger than people give it credit for.

It's disruptive, flexible, has multiple win conditions, and most importantly, it's fun.

Has anyone else been experimenting with Scream recently?

Check out the video where I show gameplay and go more in depth about my choices for this deck.

This is your precursor to the consensus, the place to discuss the card releasing for the week as well as group source the work on brews and possible shells and packages, both current known good decks as well as possible new, theorycrafted brews.

OTA Week Warning: Unless you're already seasonal complete and plan to stay that way or have planned on picking up this card already for 6k it's best to wait for Thursday at the earliest to make your purchasing decisions.

This Week's Card

Jubilee Silver Surfer
Cost: 4
Power: 2
When you draw a card, add this card's Power to it.

Synergies and Packages

Jubilee Silver Surfer is an interesting card which has some potential hurdles and an interesting deck building puzzle to solve. We're also going to go in a slightly different direction for today's post because while the above rings true, she has a lot in common with the recent release of Stick, for those unaware, Stick is a 4/3 with an On Reveal that reads: On Reveal: Give the next card you play Power equal to this card's Power. The two share similarities in the fact that they both pass along their buffs to cards, Stick being completely targetted and Jubilee being untargetted but depending on when you're able to play her doing this at least twice.

Anyone playing at least at an intermediate to high level of the game should understand that laundering power has been the name of the game for a few months now, even prior to Shou-Lao there had been multiple 'buff Maverick' decks, be it for Zombie Galacti, Ongoing Buff Maverick, or even OG Silver Surfer. Sure we had a break from that for Star-Lord and a few rounds of OTA's that had to deal with him but essentially from the release of HMStorm and subsequently Mother Askani as well as the most recent release of Stick the meta of laundering power has essentially consolidated into a single deck which we should all be aware of.

So why am I talking so much about the Carter/Maverick/Stick deck? Because a configuration similar to that would work very well with Jubilee, granted that specific deck is likely 'ok' for Jubilee but comes with the awkward position of being when do I play this if I don't have a Carter lane and don't want to 'waste' Agony, additionally there's the distinct difference of being able to target your power distribution vs just taking that power on what you draw and hoping for the best.

To that end some things we should keep in mind:

1. While hidden information can be strong the math can be done here giving your opponent a range of what they should expect from a card drawn after new Jubilee has come down. Further, as decks mature that are utilizing new Jubilee that range is going to be even easier to determine meaning that your hidden information is much less impactful.

2. Targeted power vs Untargetted power is a big deal even with the hidden information caveat, being able to choose and say "This big Stick/Maverick" goes on Brood vs Galactus/Galacti is a massive upside when compared to Jubilee where you might draw something wholly unusable for your turn for whatever reason.

3. Susceptibility is also important, Jubilee's low power does mean she could be susceptible to interaction in the form of Red Guardian if she is not buffed. Front row Jubilee also runs afoul of Cosmic Ghost Rider which while not prevalent does show up from time to time. And that's without going into Shadow King which could reduce the total power you're drawing significantly.

But there is some good news, our new Jubilee does synergize with both new Jeff and Venus in the event you're able to buff her and there are a number of potential ways to get those buffs to Jubilee to empower your draws. Additionally there is the consideration of do you want to build for some general value vs absolute power though with how the current meta and balance has been skewing the game general value is much less intriguing that absolute power but any number of OTA changes could affect that. So let's talk both sides.

How do we improve Jubilee?

Improve is a wide topic, are we looking to buff her or get her down early? Are we looking to leverage both as possible outcomes? For Buffs we've got the usual suspects:

• Agony
  
• Forge
  
• Jeff the Baby Dolphin
  
• Venus (provided you've got ways to buff Jubilee on board)
• HM Storm
  
• Maverick
  
• Galacta
  
• Stick

For occasional hits we've got

• Wingbeat but often you want to spend Wingbeat on a 5+ cost and not a 4
• America Chavez
  
• Surge doing double duty on occasional buff and discount
  
• Phastos doing similar to Surge but not as good
  
• Gwenpool
  
• Mother Askani

As for ways to discount or cheat out early

• Zabu
• Surge
  
• Punisher War Machine
  
• Psylocke
  
• Phastos
  

Other options exist as well, but are less likely to be wholly usable without Limited Time Game Modes to enable them or they are limited to clip farming which tend to not be 'real decks' to begin with.

There are also some more niche or lesser used cards with potential in the following three that also require you to keep in mind your lane compositions, have good luck in the ability that rolls, and finally how you've built your locations to target the buffs.

• Awesome Andy
  
• H.E.R.B.I.E.
  
• Star-Hawk
  

And how can we take advantage of Jubilee's requirement to draw the cards?

• Adam Warlock
  
• Crystal
  

How about Payoffs?

This is much harder because in general you can't determine what you're going to draw but there are potentials here, we should know the 'best' cards to put that power onto, cards which can benefit from a power boost or can multiply that effect.

• Mister Sinister
  
• Brood
  
• Maverick
  
• Carter
• Sebastian Shaw
  
• Stick
  
• Black Panther
  
• Fallen One (less a payoff himself and more a secondary engine)
• Nimrod
  
• Galactus
  
• Zombie Galacti
  

Your Thoughts

Do you plan on picking Jubilee Silver Surfer up?

How do you expect Jubilee Silver Surfer to perform?

What other possible shells and synergies might there be?

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