On Earth-2149, Steve Rodgers got a promotion from captain to colonel and then went on to become the President of the United States! Earth-2149 sounds great, right? Not so fast. He then got bitten and infected with the Hunger zombie virus! Oh no! Can Marvel Snap's latest Series 5 card take a bite out of the meta? Let's find out!
Potent Power
The zombie Colonel is an Ongoing Discard scaler, but unlike Morbius, he cares about how often you are discarding rather than the number of cards and he adds power to others rather than holding it himself. How big can he get?
It is clear that you need to be able to fill his lane and discard more often than in a traditional Discard deck. Discarding on three turns and placing him in a lane with two other cards makes him an effective 3/9. Discarding four turns and putting him in a full lane makes him an effective 3/15. These are solid stats for doing something your deck wants you to do anyway, but it's not better on average than Mobius is in current discard decks. Colonel may not be a new card that fights for a place in existing decks against easier to play Discard rewards like Morbius, Collector, and Proxima Midnight. Instead, he could be a card that demands decks change slightly in how they're built. Whether those decks will be better than what we already have is the 6000 Token question.
Alternative Discard Paths
More low-cost Discarders
Current discard decks are pretty set on which Discarders they use and each one has a role in the deck. With the Colonel, we want to be discarding as early as possible so we will probably max out on low-cost Discarders and take a look at some of the lesser used 3-Cost discarders. Could Red Shift and The First Ghost Rider see more play? Grandmaster can be a cheap way to ensure you don't miss a turn of Discarding.
Max Out Discarders
Ever since randomness was removed from several discarders, Discard has felt less like a casino game and more like a series of precision cuts. Going all out and constructing a deck that can weather getting almost everything Discarded may be a way to squeeze more turns of Discard into a game. Black Cat is technically a second way to potentially get a turn 1 Discard and can allow you to take turn 3 off to play the Colonel. Whether there is actually anything there with her where you revive her later or not, I felt I needed to mention it! She can also be good for getting ahead in a Zombie Power Man lane (more on him later).
Get Strong, Guy
There is one Discard payoff that has been largely ignored since its heyday in the Beta. Strong Guy and Captain America could form the core of a new low-cost Discard deck. This is going to be one of the first things I try, but I do suspect this sub-archetype is still a few tools away.
More Power, Man
If the Colonel isn't spectacular straight out of the box, he might need a boost alongside his infected teammate, Zombie Power Man who arrives the same day. Keep that in mind when planning your resources. Zombie Power Man can make it far easier to have 5 turns of Discard.
Scosco's Day One Colonel America Decks
The Colonel gives us a chance to build familiar decks in a new way. Will all of these surpass a similar Discard deck that already exists? Of course not, but I the Colonel is going to be a major boon to the archetypes as he will push people to experiment, tinker, swap, and theorize more. Whether Zombie Steve ends up staying in any of these or not, new things will be discovered.
Colonel D
Hungry Bullseye
What If...? Discard
Strong and Powerful Guys
Living Hel
Variants
We've got a surprising amount of variants for the Colonel; it seems Second Dinner has fully worked out its new card variant pipeline. Surprisingly, for a character without much history or lore, they don't even look all that same-y, with the Erik Gist and Rian Gonzalez feeling especially distinct.
Final Thoughts
Colonel America is an interesting card that takes advantage of Discard triggers in a novel way. It will be fun to figure out how to tailor a deck to him and I'm looking forward to building around him. That being said, Colonel America is going to have to fight his way into decks. There is a chance that we'll discover the existing Discard decks are all better off without him, which would put a lot of pressure on new decks built around him to keep him viable, which they may or may not be able to do.
This is a classic example of a card you should wait to buy. There are a lot of numbers on this card, so he has a chance to be useful, but you should wait till closer to the end of the week to pick him up with Tokens, assuming you don't have an empty Seasonal Series 5 pool.