CHAMPION OF THE KORBINITES…
WIELDER OF STORMBREAKER AND THE TWILIGHT SWORD…
HE IS…
BILL! BILL! BILL! BILL!
Beta Ray Bill is a character that almost every casual fan has never heard of, and almost every comic fan adores. He’s a horse-headed cyborg alien that picks up Mjolnir with little to no context whoops ass and becomes Thor’s battle brother in less time than you can shake a cane at. He’s so worthy that, after proving himself in a contest against Thor and saving his life, Odin ultimately crafts Stormbreaker, another Uru hammer specifically for Bill, and he flies around the cosmos on heroic adventures with his talking spaceship like the badass Gladiator Space-Thor that he is.
With worthiness to match Thor, Beta Ray Bill’s ability in Snap is similarly matched to boot: he’s a respectable 4/6 that shuffles his hammer, Stormbreaker, into the deck, and if you can bring Stormbreaker to his hand, you get to double his power. From a design perspective, I appreciate calling forward the precedent of matching powersets— we’ve now got a Thor family subtheme as deep as Wolverine’s!
And like his thundering brother-in-arms, Bill benefits from both On-Reveal synergy and deck manipulation— cards like Lockjaw and Jane Foster will help bring the mighty hammer to his hand, and payoffs like Absorbing Man, Odin, and Grandmaster let him double-dip the effect just two activations makes our Korbinite champion a 4/24!
If He Shall Be Worthy…
Now, for obvious obvious reasons, Bill invites comparisons. Thor’s a similarly vanilla baseline with a higher-than-average ceiling, with very similar strengths, weaknesses, and support options, to the point that considering the advantages and disadvantages of both feels like splitting hairs.
But why make a fight out of it?
Instead, my instinct is that Bill adds some redundancy to decks that already use Thor as a payoff. Making an entire deck centered on Bill and Stormbreaker will only invite the omnipresent Shang-Chi, Shadow King, and Cosmo to ruin your day. But by adding him to a deck already leveraging a similar effect, you increase your density of threats, making more targets than your opponent can answer.
Hammer Bros.
So, reasonably enough, the first preview shell I wanted to turn to was the classic Lockjaw deck— rather than the modern Thanos list, this deck uses cards like Thor, Wasp, and Jane Foster alongside large bodies like Magneto and Infinaut to get value for both going and coming out of Lockjaw.
Sample Bill Lockjaw
Bill slots well into the core package of Thor, Jane Foster, Wasp, and Lockjaw— from there, there’s a comfortable selection of payoffs that leverage Lockjaw’s ramp, like the Sunspot/She-Hulk/Infinaut combo to make use of extra energy and Caiera plus Skaar to further support the large bodies. From there, a couple of cards like Magneto, Giganto, or even Hulk fill the role of Lockjaw payoff. You might even run Blob— (BLOB BLOB BLOB BLOB), though he risks eating your poor hammers.
Um, Yep, Bad Call— He Loves His Hammer!
Infinitely more vulnerable but immensely sick, you might consider going over the top with On-Reveal Shenanigans. The classic core of Wong, Odin, and a slew of On-Reveals guarantee your ability to go over the top— with absolutely nothing to worry about beyond that.
Sample Bill On-Reveal
This list will truly take advantage of the difference between Stormbreaker and Mjolnir. Where Mjolnir’s second proc will be another +6, Stormbreaker’s will be a +12, and a +24 after that! With the barest protection against disruption in Echo, you’re otherwise all in on wringing as much On-Reveal value as possible. As fun as loading a lane may be, you might find more success in hedging your plays so that Bill or Thor can hold a lane by themselves while you pump another using Black Panther and Wong or Werewolf by Night. This is by far the greediest, least refined deck, but it might scratch that itch you got when you started the game, hitting your very first Wong-Odin shenanigans and thinking you’ve cracked Snap wide open.
What’s that? No, I’ve never seen that dog in my life.
Now… Fetch!
For the third shell I’m sampling, there’s a slightly more refined Junk list that I think Bill can slot nicely into. If we’re serious for a moment, Bill is your standard 4-cost power payoff— a card that hits a ceiling of 10+ power after a level of investment. This makes him a prime candidate for Zabu, who lets him get Stormbreaker in your deck earlier for you to draw him.
Sample Bill Junk
This Junk list already runs Zabu to leverage both the Annihilus package and Werewolf by Night, who in turn plays well with Thor and Jane Foster chasing Mjolnir around— from there, a ‘second Thor’ that benefits from Zabu and heightens all these existing synergies certainly feels slottable into the deck, possibly in the place a tech card like Enchantress. Trading a valuable but situational answer for more general pure power is a tradeoff that usually goes in the opposite direction. Still, of these three, it might be the most viable place for Bill.
Further Deckbuilding
In general, Beta Ray Bill will likely fit into any list Thor slots into, and it might be true that just about any deck that runs Thor might as well run Bill. Still, it might take more noodling, but Bill has other edge-case advantages over his Asgardian compadre. For starters (like Daken), any beginning buff applied before his effect (either in hand or on board) will increase Stormbreaker’s power gain proportionately.
Similarly, any deck using Zabu to turbo out powerful 4 drop beaters and tech cards anyways might get away with using Bill as an alternative power option to Darkhawk or Sentry, who demand more deckbuilding support.
Either way, you’ll want to look out for the unholy trifecta— Cosmo, Shang-Chi, and Shadow King will challenge our champion and try to put him back in a box.
Variants!
As of now, Bill has but two Snap variants to his name… But they’re also variants done by two phenomenal artists I’m excited to see more of in this game. Chase Conley has strength for dynamic posing on full display here, and Mike Del Mundo is one of my all-time comic art favorites who rocks this back-issue Spotlight variant with a painterly, stylized rendition of Bill.
Will I be dropping 6000 tokens to get this Del Mundo Spotlight variant? I say thee… yea.
Verdict!
Beta Ray Bill will be the source of some flashy highlights— he scratches the same itch that a card like Black Panther does, where the doubling can be leveraged into truly enormous numbers. He’ll be the source of some cautionary tales, too— anybody who’s played Wong-Black Panther-Zola will tell you exactly how vulnerable those enormous numbers can be. I think the most success he’ll have will be as a secondary source of power rather than the core payoff to a deck. Thor’s relatively niche play feels like a portent of what Bill’s will be: the competitively interested and frugal may find him a safe skip.
But for the True Believers out there, undaunted by such naysay…
