Hello and welcome back to Burning Questions, your weekly rundown of hot Marvel Snap topics. This week we're talking about the best series 4 cards, the December season, and Surtur.
1) What Series 4 cards are worth 3000 tokens?
With the additions of Agony and the upcoming Deadpool's Diner freebie King Eitri, Series 4 will swell to 28 cards. It's often hard to justify spending 6000 Tokens on anything but cards you're planning to get maximum use from, but buying a series card for half the price is easier to do. Luckily, there are currently some very powerful cards hiding out in series 4 that are worth your tokens, unlikely to downgrade soon, and not scheduled to appear in Spotlights this month.
Here are my top 4 series 4 cards to buy right now.
Despite a multitude of changes to Darkhawk and his enablers, he just never seems to go away. Even now, he's very likely underrated and underplayed and you can win an awful lot of games with the Darkhawk package (Black Widow seems particularly powerful at the moment). Don't expect Darkhawk to downgrade to Series 3 anytime soon. He spent a long time at Series 5 and he'll probably spend a similar amount of time in the middle series.
Zabu will never reach the heights he hit in his initial form, but he's felt quite powerful in his new 1/2 On Reveal iteration. The current amount of powerful 4-Cost hards we have, like Gwenpool, Wiccan, War Machine, and ever-relevant Shang Chi have been working quite well with Zabu. Now, Surtur decks, which rely on a plethora of 4-Cost cards, are fueling a further Zabu renaissance. Zabu pairs particularly well with Cull Obsidian, since he doubles as a landing spot for Cull.
Kitty isn't quite what she used to be, but she's a powerful enabler that will always be a threat to come back into the meta. She's great in the Angela/Thena package and I've loved using her recently in Wiccan lists and Hope Summers lists that aim to finish with cards like Magneto or Alioth alongside her on turn 6. If you didn't get her for free, get her with Tokens.
My sleeper pick among Series 4 cards is Man-Thing. I put him here ahead of cards like Living Tribunal, Phoenix Force, and M.O.D.O.K, which are narrow in use and you really have to enjoy the play pattern of the deck they're in to feel like you've gotten your tokens worth. Though not as good as his series 5 cousin USAgent (with whom he often shares a deck), Man-Thing has become considerably more playable since his buff to 7-Power and is probably a bit underplayed. He is solid in Ajax affliction decks and I love him in Spectrum lists. He can also be used in Abomination affliction decks, Toxic Sera lists, or any deck that naturally plays mostly high-cost cards or Luke Cage. Man-Thing is a nice counter to pull out when Zoo or Small Bounce decks are at the top of a format.
2) Why don't we know anything about the December season yet?
Usually, through the amazing efforts of the SnapFan dataminers, we know a lot more about upcoming seasons. This time, however, Second Dinner has managed to keep things under wraps more than usual. It's possible that this is the new normal and they've decided to go to extra effort to keep future content unspoiled for as long as they can. It's also possible that because the December season is tied to the release of Marvel Rivals in some manner, that they've gone out of their way to keep important information about the season a little extra secret. We're not sure how exactly the two games will cross-promote, but hopefully they find an exciting way to build interest in both games. You can expect some of the following characters in the December season, though we still don't know how they'll function or how they'll be distributed.
I think we're getting a transforming Bruce Banner card, a Doom 2099 that generates Doom Bot 2099 tokens, and a Luna Snow card that somehow generates an Ice token. Some of these cards may not come out. Remember, we've had quite a few cards that seemed like perfect thematic fits for the September (Uncle Ben, Tombstone), October (Lasher), and November (Laufey) seasons that were not released during those seasons. We still don't know why. Were they decoys? Is Second Dinner creating extra cards and waiting till the last minute to trim the ones they don't have high hopes for? A future retrospective season or an annual content dump? Do they have something else planned with them for the future?
3) Which Marvel Snap character would you nominate for President?
Captain Marvel
Carol Danvers is the easy choice. She's a former Air Force and NASA pilot, has experienced a lot of hardship and adversity that she's overcome with poise, and has proven leadership skills, empathy, and confidence. She has a strong history of supporting her friends like Spider-Woman and Jessica Jones and effectively mentoring younger heroes like Jennifer Takeda (Hazmat) and Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel). She fights for everyone and does so with swagger. Plus, even if it looks like she's defeated, she can just make a move at the end of the game to win!
Now let's jump over to the official Marvel Snap discord and check out some interesting developer questions and answers!
4) Q: It was pretty ominous once ppl got wind of Surtur’s text that it would be the type of strong that would eventually have it nerfed. Partially because we’ve seen card with “… add +3 Power” see the same fate. Is there any reasoning why cards with the +3 power text continue to get printed when they have proven pretty consistently to be strong enough for an eventual nerf.
A: The number 3 in a text box isn’t inherently too strong—it’s just a number. Red Hulk says 3, Klaw 7, Shuri says “double,” etc. Everything has additional context—for example, I doubt you’d have similar concern if Surtur cost 4 or 5 Energy.
When you give any Power buff repeatedly, that’s going to impact the strength of the given value more, of course. And as we increase such a number, we bear that in mind.
-Glenn
Author's note:
It's clear that Surtur is strong, possibly too strong. It's been incredibly easy to get Skaar to 0-Cost while protecting your entire board with Armor, Cosmo, or an occasional Alioth. I think a change that doesn't allow Surtur to get to 10-Power by the start of turn 6 will remove a lot of the appeal and identity of the card. Simply making him a 3/4 maintains his utility with Skaar, but is it enough to make a meaningful difference? I'm pretty surprised that Second Dinner decided to start him at 3/5; I think 3/4 would have been a more logical starting point. I think a pair of gentle changes, Surtur to 3/4 while also tapping Skaar to 6/10, would be my starting pitch, but perhaps Second Dinner can come up with something more clever.
5) Q: Recently it was brought to the communities attention that '138 Game Art Studio', the studio behind the Dracula variant have a section on their website where they say:
"We Utilize AI To Pioneer Efficient and Superior Milestones!
We use the power of AI drawing tools to achieve efficient and high-quality results. By applying AI technology, we can rapidly produce superb game art, in order to save development time and boost efficiency. We are also glad to develop AI-related application technologies for customers with 2D art needs".
What is the official word from SD in regards to variants that may have been created either in full or partially using AI?
A: It recently came to our attention that one out of our many partner art studios was not transparent about the use of Generative AI in their art pipeline. While none of this partner's work has been released for players, we have made the decision to discontinue our working relationship and remove all of their art from upcoming content releases.
Our team at Second Dinner is dedicated to uplifting original art and artists, and we're incredibly proud of the relationships we've built with the more than 200 artists who have contributed over 1,750 pieces of original art for our players.
Thank you for your continued support!
-Griffin
Author's note:
I was very happy to see this statement from Second Dinner. Why am I opposed to the use of generative AI artwork in Snap? Because it is stealing. These tools are always trained on the art of others. Unless the artists who created the art that the models are using argee to its use and are compensated, then bits and pieces of that art are being taken and regurgitated. There are plenty of common complaints about AI art—that it looks bad, lacks a human touch, doesn't constitute art because it's not the product of a human imagination, it's putting the livelihoods of artists at risk, etc. But even if none of those were true, it wouldn't matter because the models are trained on the creations of others, without getting their consent or giving compensation. That is theft.
That's it for this week. Come find me on Twitter and Bluesky where I post decklists for new cards as well as comic book and lore content! Check out our sister site for Pokemon Pocket news and keep your eyes peeled for our Marvel Rivals site. Join in on the comments below and let it know your answers to this week's questions!