Benjamin Reilly, A.K.A. Scarlet Spider, is finally joining Marvel Snap on this very Tuesday, the 24th! Huh, what's this? I must be seeing double–four Scarlet Spiders!?!
Who is this guy? And what does he have to do with Clones of all things? I’m glad you asked. So–
Let’s Do This One Last Time
Ben Reilly’s story is quite crazy, even for comic book characters. He is a clone of Peter Parker, made by the villain Jackal, the local mad scientist filled with vengeance for Spider-Man at the time. His convoluted vengeance plan involved tricking the clone into thinking Peter was the clone that wanted to replace him so that they would fight to the death.
After a very convoluted story, Ben finds the truth that he is the clone and, in so doing, decides to exile himself and adopt the name Ben Rilley after Peter’s Uncle Ben and Aunt May Reilly Parker. He went on a very personal journey, and after a lot of soul-searching, he decided that even though he wasn’t the real Spider-Man, he still had the responsibility granted by his powers. So he made amends with his story and decided to follow through with his memories of Uncle Ben. He wore his amazing new costume and was named the Scarlet Spider by newspaper reporters.
He has grown into his own person and no longer has any existential doubts about being just a clone. He even figured out that he was better off fighting Venom since his Spider-Sense works against him, and he was never the host of the symbiote.
Many things have happened since his first appearance; he died but got better, assumed Spider-Man’s mantle at one point, and even became a villain, but we don’t talk about it. I suggest you start reading his story from his first appearance to understand the character better!
Scarlet Spider 101
Scarlet Spider joins Snap as the third brand-new Activate card. He is a 4-Cost 5-Power card with the Activate effect that reads, “Add an exact clone of this to another location.” Seems powerful, right? After you activate his effect, you get 10-Power for just 4-Cost, although it has a few drawbacks, like you can’t use it if you don’t drop him on the board by turn 5, and you can’t choose exactly where the clone goes. However, I still think the card is excellent.
Firstly, let's talk about some common misconceptions that I’ve seen about the card. He creates an exact “clone” of himself, not an exact copy. The clone is a vanilla card called Scarlet Spider Clone, not another Scarlet Spider. He works similar to Mister Sinister, who also creates a clone.
Secondly, I’ve seen some people theorizing about using him together with his brother, Symbiote Spider-Man. It seems reasonable; you would play Symbiote Spider-Man into a location, play Scarlet Spider as the second card on that location, and then activate Symbiote Spider-Man, thus getting the Scarlet Spider effect of creating a clone on an 11-Powered card after the merge. I’m sorry to say, but this won’t work. The end result of the merge between the two will be Symbiote Spider-Man. Since you activated his effect already, you won’t be able to activate him a second time with Scarlet Spider’s effect since every Activate card can only be used once per game.
Getting the Most Out of Scarlet Spider
Raising his power as much as you can before activating him would be great since you’re basically buffing two cards for the price of one. The best bet would be Namora; she is a fantastic card that is always sidelined because Junk cards have always been somewhere in the meta ever since she was released. Araña helping the Scarlet Duo becomes 5 Power for 1 Energy because you can activate her at any point before playing Scarlet Spider. Forge could do the same thing, but you have to follow him up with Scarlet Spider strictly, and he costs 1 extra energy compared to Ms. Corazon.
Some more cards could raise his power, but they require more effort since energy is a bit wonky. For example, Gwenpool or Shuri should work fine with him. Still, they all cost 4 energy, meaning that your playlines will be inefficient unless you figure out how to manipulate your energy by playing Psylocke or Zabu.
Some other, more obscure buffing cards could help raise Scarlet Spider’s power. Elsa believers rise up because her +2 is doubled up on Scarlet Spider. We also have Hulkbuster, which would be a whopping 6 power for 2 energy. If you’re feeling lucky, you could play America Chavez in hopes of hitting Ben. We also have some Wakandan extra power with Okoye and Nakia. We also have Phastos, who many believe is a good card but hasn’t found his home yet.
We don’t need to rely only on cards to buff him up. His biggest advantage is probably how many different locations benefit him. Anything that gives power is doubled up with Scarlet Spider by the very nature of the card. If a location like Muir Island or Shuri’s Lab shows up, you can probably Snap.
Since we are talking about locations, I must say that the clone can easily conquer any hard-to-reach location if you manage your board carefully before activating Scarlet Spider.
Possible Synergies
We could forgo giving extra power to Scarlet Spider to take advantage of his ability to drop 2 different 5 powered cards into the field for 4 energy. Why would we want to do that? It is to buff both the original and the clone with Cerebro, of course! We have to make a deck featuring many cards with 5-power, like HydraBob, Doctor Doom, and Lizard.
Another strategy that should be solid is Patriot. The Scarlet Clone, as a textless card, would be buffed by Patriot without a fuss. Also, since he is two cards for the price of one, you could use him to fill up your board space to get a bigger Dazzler together with Doctor Doom in case your Ultron doesn’t show up.
One thing that I must say before we move on to decks is that since Scarlet Spider is an Activate card, he has way fewer counters than usual. However, he still has a tough time against the deactivator, A.K.A. Red Guardian. If he hits your Scarlet Spider before you activate him, he is taking away 7-power from your power total. So be careful and pay close attention to your spider sense if your opponent is playing Silver Surfer or any other deck that could feature the Red Menace.
Let’s look at some decks!
Dualgloves’ Day One Scarlet Spider Decks
Scarlet Moon
Who left these Hopium canisters here?
I wanted to start with something new and fancy. This deck is an extremely weird take on Cerebro 5. Moongirl, the latest member of the 5 Power Club, is the keycard of this deck; if you duplicate a ton of these cheap 5 powered cards, you might be able to win on the last turn by vomiting everything on the board. Remember that Martyr and Hydra Bob could leave your Ant-Man hanging outside of the 5 Power Club.
ITSY BITSY SPIDER
There is a song about spiders and waterspouts. I don’t remember what happened to the spider, but I think it had something to do with gaining +5 power. This deck is quite crammed up with 4 drops that want to be on the board as soon as possible; that’s why we are running Psylocke and Zabu. I want to see if the playline of Zabu/Psylocke into Scarlet Spider, then Wong, and a Namora Odin to finish it up is justified. If that happens, the Scarlet Duo would be a metric ton of power explosion in the last turn. The bad part about this is that it would be quite easily counterable. It should be fun!
Clones Are Made in America
So let’s see if Sandman is still an annoying enough card. We are running a couple of buff cards to get big Scarlets, and we finish with our Ultron or Doom, depending on the board state. One thing you should be mindful of is that Araña doesn’t interact well with Brood; unfortunately, she gives the power after the broodlings are summoned onto the board.
Blink and You'll Miss It
This will be next Tuesday testing out to see if it is worth evolving one of the Scarlet Spiders with Sersi or sending them back into the deck with Blink. At least one of these playlines might be competitive, but I’ll need to do a lot of testing. Other than that, it is a regular ramp deck. Don’t worry too much about electro because you have more than one way to eliminate its limiting effect.
Blink, and You'll Miss It
Another very experimental list. The idea is to use Activates and On-Reveals to get enough 10-Power cards onto the field to get a surprise last turn, Skaar. There are many combos we could do, but probably the best-case scenario is Symbiote Spider-Man while having single cards in the other locations, so you can play Namora and merge her with Symbiote Spider-Man to get her on-reveal twice in a row while also making Symbiote have 11 power; that's a free Skaar right there.
Verdict
You might be wondering if you should spend your precious keys or tokens on Scarlet Spider. I’d say it's probably best to wait a bit. Scarlet Spider is a pretty unique card, and on top of that, it features the new keyword. All that makes this card quite challenging to evaluate without putting your hands on it to try it out. He has a ton of different possible synergies but nothing groundbreaking that I could see so far; maybe he is missing more cards that would work greatly with him, like our girl Namora.
One thing that he has in his favor is his spotlight. If you don’t have White Widow, this is your chance to grab it, as she is a fantastic card even after her nerf. Skaar is awesome, but he got hit hard when Mockingbird lost that one power. Until another good 10-powered card shows up to help Skaar, he might be out of the meta for a while. Ultimately, it is your decision, but I suggest you wait a bit and see what people cook up with to see if it's worth your resources.
