The next Thunderbolt to enter the mix is the patriotic US Agent. If you are unfamiliar with this character, that is ok since most people playing Snap probably don’t know his origin, but let's look at who he is and what he can do.
Who is US Agent?
US Agent or Jonathan Walker was originally labeled Super-Patriot and was essentially a patriot-type villain for Captain America. Always wanting to be a hero, Power Broker (essentially a criminal organization that offers people superhuman abilities for a price) offers him the chance to get enhanced strength, and he takes it. US Agent has been featured in some of the most recent MCU titles, such as The Falcon and The Winter Solider, and will return when Marvel releases The Thunderbolts movie in 2025. Now, let's see how those strengths manifest in the game itself.
What Does US Agent Do?
US Agent is a 2-cost 3-powered card that reads Ongoing: 4, 5, and 6 cost cards here have -3 power. Essentially, he is Man-Thing but for the higher-cost cards instead of the lower-cost ones.
As card effects go, this is a pretty straightforward card with few tricks. The important thing to remember is that this applies to all 4, 5, and 6-cost cards, not just your opponents'.
Is this a good thing?
This is the question that has been rolling around with his release: is this effect good? Honestly, I am not sure. Man-Thing has the benefit of hitting low-cost cards, which are more likely to be played more often than the higher-cost cards, so hitting multiple targets is easier. With US Agent, you may only hit one target in a lane, thus making him essentially a 6-power card. However, if you hit two cards, he essentially becomes a 2-cost 9-powered card, which isn't bad.
Card Synergies
This is not so much a synergy as it is a card that goes hand in hand with things that give negative power. Now, Luke Cage is realistically the counter to people running US Agent, but most decks do not currently run him. If you are trying to subtract power as a strategy, it's a good idea to include something that makes it so your cards can’t have any of their power taken away.
As one of the sole cards you can send to your opponent affected by US Agent, it's natural to see this being a good inclusion in a deck with US Agent since sending them -11 power can be lane-winning.
This might be a weird one, but limiting the spots where your opponent can play their big cards means you are more likely to hit a lane with more 4, 5, or 6-cost cards.
Low-Cost Cards
Instead of listing every low-cost card, this is just a general statement that since low-powered cards do not get hit by the US Agent when they are in a lane with him, they will remain at their power.
So what's the deal?
He doesn’t have a lot of location synergy and he has very little general card synergy just because he has a pretty general effect. Also, unlike his bigger buddy, Man-Thing, there are few options for filling your opponent's board with high-cost cards to inflict negative power on. He also doesn’t want to be played on turn 2 since your opponent will avoid that lane with their higher-cost cards. However, lane management is intriguing to keep your opponent's high-cost cards out of the lane. So what's the point? We have to think about possible power when talking about US Agent. He has 5 different power potentials to think about. With no high-cost cards in a lane, he is a 3-power, but with 1 in the lane, he becomes essentially 6-power. With 2 that's 9 and with 3 that's 12 and if there are 4 then 15. 15 power for 2 costs is huge. However, realistically, he will be a 6-powered card, but for 2 energy, that is still not a bad rate. Let's look at a list of decks that help maximize his potential and give you the most power for your investment.
Decks to Try
Zoo
This is a zoo deck, which naturally will miss the negative side effects of US Agent. Again, the idea here is that he is a low-cost card with potential high power, so playing him on turn 2 is not the ideal situation. You want to wait until your opponent has committed some high-powered cards to the board to maximize his potential.
HE US Agent
High Evolutionary has always been the deck that likes to inflict negative power and then use that to your advantage. So here is a pretty straightforward deck that uses US Agent as another low-cost card that can inflict negative power and help lower the cost of Abomination. There is some weird synergy here: if you don’t have Luke Cage on the board, you can use US Agent to dodge Shang-chi, and then after they have missed, use Luke to get your power back.
Sera Toxic
This probably isn’t the exact best spot for him since it is more heavily on negative infliction than a typical Sera control-type deck, but I like the idea of slamming this down on turn six as a possible 9-power swing in a lane where my opponent has committed some of their higher-powered cards. Luke Cage is essential here to ensure you don’t also inflict negative power on your cards.
Is US Agent Worth It?
As a series 5 card, US Agent comes in at 6000 tokens, which is a lot of resources for just one card. With the way that the meta is currently, he isn’t well positioned because low-cost scaling cards like Angela, Elsa, and Hope currently dominate a lot of the format. None of these cards get hit by US Agent, so his effect isn’t as potent as it could be. The deck that I think he affects the most might be the Tribunal decks because compounded negative power takes a dent in the non-busted draws that The Living Tribunal can get. Still, other than that, it’s hard to see him making a big enough impact in the current meta to warrant using your tokens. As for using your spotlight keys, he is bunched up with Jeff and Mirage, which are pretty useful cards, although Jeff is the best and most useful of the bunch. If you do not have Jeff and have keys to spare, this is a good time to pick him up since he is incredibly useful. He is my favorite card, so I will be opening to get the variant. However, if you already own Mirage and Jeff and don’t need variants, this is probably a skip week, and you should save your keys for the cards coming out later this month.
