Anti-Venom may not be the most potent card released in the Symbiote season, but he has one of the most exciting abilities compared to recent releases. As a 4/7, he has an On-Reveal ability, which sets the Power and Cost of your deck's top-most card to 0. Like most cards in the 4-cost category with the vanilla+ stat line, this card has a clear upside and downside.
Before discussing card and deck synergies, let's discuss the ability in depth. The “set” keyword on Anti-Venom shows that the card he affects is susceptible to Power manipulation from Luke Cage and Shadow King. Furthermore, since his ability depends on your next draw, he can't do anything if you play him on the last turn.
Cards That Synergize With Anti-Venom
It's easy to deduce that the ideal cards to pair with Anti-Venom are high-cost cards with low base Power but a high overall impact. On top of that, using cards to recoup the Power Anti-Venom takesaway is also a good synergy. With that in mind, there’s a wide variety of options, but I’ll try highlighting the most meta-relevant combinations you can try.
Knowledge is a crucial component in Marvel Snap. In Anti-Venom's case, the most vital thing you can know is which card he's affecting. From that perspective, Howard the Duck is an obvious choice and synergy for this card.
The play pattern for these two is relatively simple---put Howard down at least a turn before you play Anti-Venom, and now you'll know the card that'll have 0 Cost. As a 4/7, you can only play Anti-Venom on Turn 4 or Turn 5 to trigger his effect, so Howard can better understand when to play the card.
Unfortunately, while this pairing is a match made in heaven, it's highly constrained. His Play Rate at all ranks is laughably low, and Tribunal is the only popular deck that uses Howard the Duck. Of course, Anti-Venom can work in a Tribunal deck, but it could be tricky in a historically tight list, and playing Howard in any other deck would feel forced.
Several cards in Marvel Snap permanently raise or reduce the Power of other cards, so Shadow King and Luke Cage tend to keep them in check. Anti-Venom’s biggest drawback, by far, is setting the Power to 0, so to counter that, you can use these two cards to help your cards regain and keep their original Power once they’re on the board.
Shadow King is much more meta-relevant because of decks like Bounce dominating higher-rank games, so having him in your turn is just a strong play regardless because it doesn't feel like you’re shoehorning him in just for Anti-Venom. Luke Cage used to be in the meta when Hela was almost everywhere, and even after the nerfs to that deck, his influence hasn’t gone much lower. Shadow King has an impressive 10.6% meta-share, while Luke is trailing slightly behind with 10.21%.
Both cards have limitations, so choosing a clear winner is tough. Shadow King is easier to play because of his lower Cost, but he’s vulnerable to Cosmo, who is extremely popular these days. On the other hand, while Luke’s nemesis, Enchantress, isn’t as widely seen, he seems shoehorned in because Luke doesn’t need Anti-Venom.
However, Luke does have an advantage in that you can play him anytime, whereas you need to play Shadow King after the card Anti-Venom affects on the same lane. Overall, there’s no clear winner between these two, so both are viable options, but make sure your pick isn’t awkwardly inserted just for one synergy.
If Anti-Venom affects any of these cards, then it’s unlikely you’ll likely need Luke Cage or Shadow King to support them. Iron Man, White Tiger, and Darkhawk are from the 5-cost category, while Arnim Zola, Blob, and Taskmaster are from the 6-cost category, and they are all incredibly powerful cards with low base power. Therefore, getting their Power reduced by Anti-Venom isn’t that big of a deal because the nullified Energy requirement is just too good of a trade-off.
When you stretch this category, you can find reliable mid-cost cards like Sage, Jubilee, and Cassandra Nova, which also greatly benefit from Anti-Venom’s Cost reduction. For now, the cards mentioned above are seeing huge Play Rates and/or Win Rates, so pairing them with the new 4/6 is great.
It’s worth pointing out that reducing the card cost doesn’t affect their in-game class. If you reduce the cost of a 4-cost card to 0 with Anti-Venom, the game still registers that affected unit as a 4-cost card. As such, that unit’s interaction with Sersi or Blink will be similar to that of any other 4-cost card.
So what does this mean? Well, suppose you do turn a 4-cost card into a 0-cost card with Anti-Venom. In that case, Sersi can transform into a random 5-cost card, while Blink can swap it for a random 5-cost or 6-cost card in your deck. From that perspective, it seems that Blink or Sersi is a solid Plan B in case your Anti-Venom doesn’t hit a favorable card—you can reroll and potentially get something better. Looking at the meta, Blink’s 7.01% Play Rate makes her more popular than Sersi right now, but the latter seems under-utilized rather than just being “bad,” so she’s still a viable option.
If you get a high roll and Anti-Venom hits something extremely big, the two cards that’ll benefit the most from it are Moon Girl and She-Hulk. With Moon Girl, you can duplicate your 0-cost card and have two free cards you can play in the next turn. On the other hand, you can use minimal Energy thanks to Anti-Venom’s Cost reduction and basically play a 1-cost or free She-Hulk on the following turn.
What’s great about this particular pairing is that Moon Girl and She-Hulk naturally go into a single deck—SheNaut—which is extremely flexible and can slot in cards like Luke Cage and Shadow King to assist Anti-Venom.
Day 1 Anti-Venom Decks To Get You Started
Pinpointing the best Anti-Venom deck can be challenging with so many synergies and potential combinations. Fortunately, I’ve compiled a few meta-relevant decks where you can try this card out, extract crucial info like how you should play him, and then go on to devise a custom deck that utilizes this card to the best of its abilities.
KageMat
Are you sick of seeing Bounce reaching uncontestable levels of Power? You’re not alone, so this KageMat affliction deck is perhaps the greatest home for Anti-Venom. You have some great options that Anti-Venom can reduce the Cost of, like Ajax, Ms. Marvel, and Man-Thing. In addition, you also have Shadow King and Luke Cage to raise back any Power Anti-Venom depletes, so it’s a win-win scenario with adequate backups.
Another potential combo is how Anti-Venom pairs with Ajax—since Anti-Venom “sets” Power, he’s technically reducing it if the original Power was higher than 0. Therefore, Ajax gets +1 Power if you play Anti-Venom and don’t alter the affected card from there. Combos aside, this is a great deck that’s seeing a solid 51.01% Win Rate and 0.87% Play Rate, both of which are in their respective Top 30s. The deck is lethal against Bounce because of Man-Thing’s looming presence and Cosmo’s ability to shut down a Sage or Hit-Monkey.
Wodling
This is one of the few decks that doesn’t require Luke Cage or Shadow King too often because the cards here, like Sage and Arnim Zola, are already at 0 Power. Additionally, several high-cost cards here can be great targets for Anti-Venom. Think about it—a 0-cost Taskmaster to copy a Sage, both of whom you played on Turn 6. You can also draw a 0-cost Arnim Zola to replicate something big like Doctor Doom. The deck itself has a modest 46.7% Win Rate and 0.81% Play Rate, but it utilizes Anti-Venom in such a way that he has strong combos, but the deck isn’t wholeheartedly centered around him.
Shenaut
I briefly mentioned how Anti-Venom might work with Moon Girl and She-Hulk in the budget-friendly Shenaut deck, so here it is. Despite its almost non-existent appearance in High-Infinite ranks, the deck remains relevant by staying in the Top 20 regarding Play Rate and Cube Rate. As always, Anti-Venom has some strong hits with Red Hulk and even The Infinaut, which you can then play alongside a Shadow King on the final turn.
There’s a lot of Energy conservation here, too, so having She-Hulk and Sunspot on separate lanes to keep up with the opponent’s Power output is a great strategy. It is worth noting that I’ve chosen Shadow King over Luke Cage because of how the former counters Bounce decks and Cassandra Nova. However, if you want to perform the Anti-Venom + Moon Girl play regularly, Luke would be better for distributing Power equally across all lanes.
Conclusion
Anti-Venom seems to have a lot of implicit potential, but, realistically, recent all-purpose releases, like Scarlet Spider, haven’t done too well unless they’re extremely compelling. The card I’ve discussed today falls in the same boat, and although some of the decks I’ve highlighted compete against the meta juggernauts like Bounce and Darkhawk, they’re not nearly as consistent. Regardless, Anti-Venom seems to be incredibly fun, and with the only potential counters being Cosmo and Mobius M. Mobius, I’m interested to see how players creatively play with him.
What are your thoughts on Anti-Venom? Do you see him having a fair share in the meta? Please share your ideas and plans on using him in the comment section below!