Cosmic Skaar
Summary
The thesis of this deck is to play 10+ power cards on turns 3, 4, and 5 giving us a free Skaar to play on turn 6 alongside Alioth to seal the victory. The key to this strategy is our two 3-Cost cards Surtur and Gladiator as both of them can reach 10 power without much investment while being played on turn 3.
Snap Condition + Odds
For this deck, getting a 10 power card down on turn 3 is the primary Snap condition because it sets us up for a free Skaar on turn 6. Surtur is our favorite card to play on 3 with a boosted Gladiator as the backup.
Surtur will be drawn by turn 3 in 50% of games. That's pretty good by itself but running Gladiator with two enablers (Forge and Agony) means we get to play a 10 power card on turn 3 in 71% of games. Here's how the math breaks down.
Draw Surtur by turn 3: 50%
Don't draw Surtur but draw Agony and/or Forge + Gladiator by turn 3: 21%
Total odds of playing a 10 power card on turn 3: 50% + 21% = 71%
Background
This deck is inspired by a Skaar deck I took to infinite back in January 2024 when Skaar first released. That deck relied on Forge or Nico into Gladiator as the main plan with 3/5 Hulkbuster onto Martyr, Lizard or Silk as the backup plan.
Some nerfs ruined that deck but now we've got some new cards that help the gameplan such as Cull Obsidian, Hydra Bob, Agony and Surtur as well as updates to existing cards such as Crossbones and Alioth both going to 10 power.
Key Cards
Surtur
Surtur is the primary gameplan as he just needs you to play two other 10 power cards. Gladiator is the backup because his requirement is a little stricter. He needs to receive a +2 power boost from somewhere. Luckily there are quite a few cards that can provide such a boost.
Gladiator
Is a good fallback in games where we don't draw Surtur. Forge and Agony provide easy ways to boost him to 10 power and Nico occasionally will as well. In games where we have both Surtur and Gladiator on turn 3 we want to aim for Gladiator on turn 4 with Agony/Nico or 5 with Forge.
Has the added beneft of likely being good against Agent Venom decks since we aren't running any interaction otherwise (there are some options for that though).
Agony
Agony vs Arana comes down to personal feelings. Agony disappears after her effect triggers so you cant play Cull on her later. However Arana can't boost a card the turn you play it. I like the idea of being able to do Agony + Gladiator on turn 4 after a Surtur on 3 so I'd go with Agony.
Nico
Nico is fantastic because of the flexibility she gives us. She can boost our Gladiator to 10+ power. She can give us a copy of a card that we've played into Agony or Arana or played Hulkbuster onto. It's rare, but she can provide some quirky wins such as giving a copy of a boosted Hydra Bob. Her only bad spell for us is the destroy one because Forge is our only good target for it. Even the Move is useful for getting a card like Crossbones into a different lane or playing Gladiator into an enemy Cosmo lane before moving him.
Hydra Bob
Bob is great with Cull and Crossbones bc he can Move to reallocate your power while still helping fulfill their conditions.
Forge
Forge over Hulkbuster because he has better synergy with Gladiator while Hulkbuster is mainly good for the Nico(2x) use case. HB onto Gladiator on turn 4 floats enough energy for you to play She Hulk on turn 5 to get Skaar down to 2-Cost
Armor
Armor over Cosmo because playing Cosmo guarantees that Skaar won't be free on turn 6.
Cull Obsidian
Cull is the best 4/10 bc his restriction is easiest to satisfy especially running a moving 1-cost like Hydra Bob.
Crossbones
Crossbones as the backup 4/10 because our deck is beefy and his condition is easy to satisfy and the 'overinvestment' downside is mitigated if we play him into a card like Bob or if we leverage Nico or Aranas movement capabilities.
No 5-Costs
We don't run ANY 5 costs because our 1 costs are too important for setting up Skaar or playing our beefy boys. We'd rather go 4+1 on turn 5. Also running She Hulk means that sometimes she's our" 5-cost" if we float an energy on turn 4.
Skaar
Getting him to 0 cost is the entire point of the deck. Surtur and Gladiator help us achieve that. In some cases we'll have to settle for a 2 or even 4 cost Skaar. If we can play Gladiator onto Agony or with a Forge buff then that let's us play Skaar on turn 4 which is pretty nice.
Alioth
Alioth because you're probably gonna have priority on turn 6 and he can protect one of your lanes from interaction.
She Hulk
She Hulk because you might float enough energy on turns 3 or 4 that let you play her early. She also lets you skip turn 6 in Limbo games and explode on turn 7 with free Shulk, free Skaar and another card.
Other Options
Shang Chi as a tech option for the mirror. Other 4/10s based on your preferences. Other big 1-costs like Martyr or Silver Sable to help grab priority.
Shadow King could work as well because most of our power is legitimate but he obviously would hurt our Gladiator or Forged/Agony cards.
Thanos. He's a 6/10 that synergizes well with Cull and Skaar. We'd want to run less 1-Costs in that case.
I think this deck could also be adjusted to run War Machine and Ebony Maw. Maw + HB on turn 3 would be 10 power but Maw is also good on turn 6 if Skaar is only partially discounted. War Machine allevites the conditions on Cull and Crossbones.