We have one more card to release as the Black Order season ends. Proxima Midnight, the fearsome wife of last week's card, Corvus Glaive, joins Marvel Snap. Let's examine what she can do and where she might fit in.
What does Proxima Midnight do?
Proxima is a 4 cost 7 power card that reads, "When this is discarded, jumps to your lowest-Power location. (that isn't full)." At 7 power, she is a pretty decent body for a 4-powered card, but with the way her text reads, the real power she has is when she is discarded. Logically, this would mean she needs to be in a deck that can abuse this ability to get a free 7 power at a location you are most likely losing.
How does she work?
Her text is straightforward and works like other cards that jump to the board, like X-23 or Wolverine.
However, unlike those two cards, she doesn't jump to a random location. Instead, she jumps to the location with the lowest power that isn't full. This is a big bonus because it means her location is much more predictable than other cards that jump randomly. The wording here is critical because it says the lowest power location, not a location you are losing. Those two statements might usually mean the same location, but it doesn't always, so don't get tripped up by accident. Other than that, there isn't much more that complicates her. Discard her, and she jumps to the board. We've seen this idea before.
Locations, locations
With her ability to target a specific location, the most intriguing part is how she interacts with the location variance in the game. In countless games I've played and watched, I've said to myself, "ok, I need Wolverine to jump left or right," or something along those lines. But, with Proxima Midnight, I can confidently say I will discard her, and she will jump to this specific location. That being said, there are certain locations that you want her jumping at and some you do not.
Please jump here
Here are a bunch of locations that I want her to jump to. Some are here because they are usually unreachable, and some are here because they typically have low or random power, making having a guaranteed 7 power a big bonus.
Please don't
The big downside of Proxima's text is she jumps to locations with the least power. Most of the time, these locations will have the least power because you don't want any cards at that location. In the case of Oscorp Tower and Murderworld, you don't want her to jump early but are ok late. Space Throne is interesting because 7 power might be enough to win that location, but I'd rather be in complete control of that than leave it up to chance my opponent can't put more than 7 power there. Odds are that they will. Bar with No Name is the big one because this will lose you that location, and you want low power there, so just be careful if this is on the board.
Card Synergies
Outside of the obvious discard-your-own cards, there are not that many synergies that Proxima Midnight has; however, there is one that is pretty interesting to consider.
While this is a discard card, the cool thing about Proxima and Dracula is that your Dracula lane will typically have the least amount of power because he doesn't gain strength until the game ends. If Proxima is discarded with Dracula, she will probably jump to the same location as him. He will then gain her power, which is a 14-point power swing. That is pretty great. Now, is Proxima the best thing to discard with Dracula? Probably not. But the surprise factor here can make for some exciting game choices.
JFSnap's Day One Deck Ideas
Proxima Discard
This is a straightforward discard list and where she will be best positioned. Essentially, in this deck, she will be a free seven-power card that you get from one of your early discards or your hand after your turn 5 M.O.D.O.K. Again, there isn't anything novel here, just good discard stats.
Disrupt Discard
This deck is an exciting take because instead of just trying to discard your cards, this employs a couple of cards to disrupt your opponent's hand while trying to minimize the damage from discarding our cards and maximize our profit. Wong is an exciting inclusion here, but because many of our hands either replace themselves or add more power to the board while just getting rid of our opponent's cards, having our discard reveals happen multiple times is a benefit. This can lead to a big Morbius and an Apocalypse by the end of the game. It's possible that Zabu should also because we have four 4-cost cards, so feel free to mess around with that.
Surprise Discard
This is a surprise lockdown-type deck that uses typical lockdown cards like Storm and Professor X to make lanes inaccessible while our cards that can gain power are placed in those lanes, or we can jump Proxima to a lane that we locked down but didn't win. Corvus is our main discard card here, which can help us ramp into a Professor X if we want to or have extra energy to play an early Doctor Doom. Colleen Wing is in her mainly to get a targeted discard for your Daken. Killmonger might be better, or switching our Daken for something else is the key, but placing him in a lane and then locking that lane down while increasing his power has some benefit. Especially if you Corvus away both Proxima and the shard. That is a massive power swing.
Proxima will fit nicely into a traditional-style discard deck. The only other deck she could be in is maybe a Hela deck, but I honestly don't think she is needed in that deck at all. I'd rather discard big cards to bring back than discard a card that ends up on the board since Hela can't bring her back if she is already there. There is an argument that she can make the games that you don't draw Hela more winnable, which is a decent argument, but realistically, with how consistent Hela is already, there is not a lot of need to change things around. But if you want a list, here is one.
Hela Proxima
Is she worth it?
Proxima Midnight is a series 5 card, so she costs 6000 tokens to buy from the shop, and she will be included in the spotlights caches this week alongside M.O.D.O.K. and Daken. Unless you are a discard fanatic, I don't think she is worth the 6k tokens. Many other cards at that price point provide a lot more use. However, suppose you like to discard, and you are missing M.O.D.O.K. In that case, it's a decent idea to use your caches for her because you'll be getting three discard pieces that are pretty useful, especially M.O.D.O.K., since he enables the main discard deck. If you pick her up, let me know how you used her in the comments below.
