Finally, the monumental arrival of Starbrand is upon us! But who is Starbrand? To be honest I didn’t know either, but don’t you worry! We’ve done some serious research and I can claim without doubt that this is Starbrand:
Huh… I don’t remember him having such a big—moustache. Maybe we made a mistake. Let me correct that, this is the real Starbrand!
I’m sorry miss but I don’t think you’re the one we’re looking for. Surely the next one.
Nope.
Thats a similar symbol but I don’t think you qualify, better luck next time, Quasar.
Is that a friggin Tyrannosaurus!? That’s so badass! Next-
There it is! We had to go way back to find this guy.
Imagine that you’re just a simple caveman and one fine afternoon after cave painting all day you decide to take a break and go for a stroll outside only to inherit a cosmic tattoo that turns you into a hulking form with the strength and power to single handedly be an extinction event. That’s what happened to Vnn, the very first* of many Starbrands. Weirdly enough, the form is unique to him, no other Starbrand was as big or as angry as this guy. You see, they had no anger management therapy back then.
*The first Starbrand is actually the t-rex
Back to Snap
The biggest 3-Drop that we have ever seen! 10 power is so big that he makes Gladiator, the former biggest 3-Drop, look like mister negative in comparison. Of course with all that power, Starbrand has a nasty side effect on his Ongoing effect. Basically he grants 6 power to your opponent divided into the other two locations where Starbrand is not present. Effectively, if you don’t cancel Starbrand’s effect, he becomes a 4 power card in the grand scheme of things.
Luckily enough for this big guy, we have quite a few options when deciding on how to remove his detrimental effect. Zero often goes unsung on how powerful he is, he is big for a 1-Costed card and his effect could easily wipe away Starbrand’s nastiness before he even comes into the field.
Sauron could be a reasonable response, if you slot him in, be sure to consider more cards with awful Ongoing effects to sweeped under the sabertooth-rug like Typhoid Mary, Ebony Maw, Lizard, and Red Skull. It goes without saying that most of this gang is also benefited by the always charming presence of the Enchantress.
Considering all the powerful characters above, maybe it’s time to dust off your best Shuri variant for her possible resurgence with Starbrand
Starbrand’s mighty power is also quite synergistic with the hottest giant in town, Surtur. Together with Skaar and his 10-Powered gang could fit cozily into a deck that practically builds itself with Starbrand. The power of your cards is so big that you could probably ignore Starbrand’s harmful effect.
Another fascinating aspect of Starbrand is that he can practically guarantee that you’ll win a specific location by turn 3. The most straightforward way of taking advantage of that is by including Iron Patriot in your list. His need for power display can be met easily with Starbrand’s help as a follow-up.
There are also some locations that would work quite well with Starbrand–what’s this? Someone dropped a location that was made just for him? And will it be a Hot Location for his week? What a weird coincidence!
I always cover Hot Locations on my Location Lowdown series so check my next article where I’ll talk about the location and the best strategies to play with them.
Other than that, there are some other locations that could work quite well for Starbrand, so keep an eye out for when they show up as Hot Locations. My favorite play would be winning Bar With No Name by simply playing Starbrand.
Dualgloves's Day One Starbrand Decks
Its Ragnarok All Over Again
This will be my first tryout with Starbrand. I just wanna figure out if he is enough to bring Surtur and his friends back from Valhalla. We are ignoring Starbrand’s effect in favor of dropping huge beefy dudes all over the board from turn 3 onwards. We also have some protection for our guys with Cosmo and Armor so no Shang will control your overwhelming power.
Raisin Brand
BEWD’s cooking and it smells amazing! We are back again with Moon Girl Magik doubling up all the big power we can muster. Agamotto is a great addition to this archetype as he can often be the savior when neither Hope nor Magik arrives. Bolts of Balthakk will pay the energy bill needed for you to play She Hulk together with your best last turn play.
Believe in Malekith
Do you trust Malekith? He’ll be the star of this deck as he often will grab tremendous amounts of power from your deck and hide away in safety until the end of the game. We also have Enchantress and Zero to shave off some of our harmful effects when Sauron gets rug pulled by Malekith.
Big Power for a Small Collection
Is Starbrand your very first Series 5 card? If so, this deck was made for you! It’s a classic that can still pull wins away from your opponent by simply being bigger. Starbrand will fit quite nicely in this and will make your plays more powerful and diverse. Shuri is the key card that makes the magic happen, prioritize playing her and following her up with a big enough card from your vast list.
We Big. We Dumb.
This list might need some refining but more than one way of removing Ebony Maw’s restriction makes him insanely powerful. I want to slot in Electro here somewhere but his effect is completely wiped off with Sauron so I’ll have to figure something else for it. But until then, this list is quite capable of leveraging Starbrand’s power into wins. Thank BEWD for his brew.
The So Called Big 3
Surferbrand would be a better name but I made my choice. We’re trying to see if it's possible to win by simply playing big 3-drops. That’s it, that’s the gimmick. This deck might suck really hard but I’m always trying to make something weird whenever a new card shows up and this is the line I’m taking. Hopefully it all works out.
Variants
Final Thoughts
Starbrand will be the BIG GUY for 3-drops, there is no way around it. We’ve seen time and time again how simply good big cards are. Meta comes and goes but whenever a big guy for 3 energy is needed, Starbrand will be the biggest option soon followed by Gladiator. I dare say that Starbrand would actually be good in Sanctum, a shame that he won’t arrive in time to be played there. But should you grab the card? It depends on how much you enjoy big dumb cards. I’m certain he’ll be a good card but he is quite uninteresting like the other big guys before him. Consider waiting a little bit for the community to cook with him to see if he is intriguing enough to you. His spotlight mates are Series 4 so that's a week that doesn’t offer much value. If you don’t have Skaar, I would grab him as he is a great card especially in the revived Hela. Phastos is runt as he isn’t considered a good card, at least for now.
