Cosmic Power...

The second season since global release is coming to an end. Just incase you have not seen other articles, there have been a good number in the past few days, dealing with the new Collector Tokens.

Now, before I link those articles, I really want to stress one point:

THERE IS NOT A TIER LIST FOR BUYING POOL-3 CARDS.

I truly believe this. If you need a tier list for what pool-3 cards to buy, I think that is the #1 sign that you should literally buy 0 tier-3 cards with your tokens. Let them accumulate, and get through pool-3 the old fashioned way. If you eventually come to a point that you actually actively want a card, then buy that card. Do NOT try to buy cards just to "complete pool-3". Pool-3 cards are acquired often, and collectors tokens are not. This remains the same for pools 4 & 5 as well. It has been stated that those cards (maybe not all...) will derank over time, so do not buy them "just to have" them. Only buy cards you actively want to play with. So please, be skeptical of any "Pool 3 Tier List". Even past that, some people say that Destroyer and Sera are the top tier...I would personally buy Sera, and I would not even consider buying Destroyer at half price.

Personally, while I like the agency from this patch, I also feel a little trapped - it seems very risky to buy cards for "fun" due to how limiting they are. Sure, I may have fun for an hour or so...but then if the card just doesn't seem to work...I don't know.

If you are interested, they are as follows:

When the new season begins, the old season pass will disappear along with all of your old season pass missions, whether you finished them or not. As such, if you want to maximize your value over this coming weekend, try your best to complete your season pass quests and get that season pass experience locked in. If you did not buy the season pass, the levels you are hoping to hit are 45 for 500credits and 48 for a free variant. If you did buy the season pass, then level 49 gives 500 gold and 50 gives the Black Panther variant.

If you are already at season pass level 50 or above, each level gives you one Season Cache, with the following possible rewards:

Finally, with the season reset, your rank will have a soft reset. If you are not infinite (aka, you did not hit rank 100), you will first be rounded DOWN to a multiple of 10 (So from 89 to 80), after which you will lose 30 ranks (so from 80 to 50). This may impact how you want to play in the final 24 hours. If you are infinite, the first step will set you to 100, after which you will lose 30 ranks and be set to 70. No matter how high in infinite you are, your new rank will be 70.

Oh yea, and don't forget to come join the snap.fan community discord!

Cosmic Surfing Season

So, perhaps some new players want to know, "What specifically do I get if I purchase this season pass?" Assuming nothing is changing last moment, here's what you can expect:

To begin, you get Silver Surfer's base card. On top of the base card, the season pass will, as usual, come with 1 pre-determined variant for him as well as 1 (also pre-determined) variant for each of this month's 2 "supporting characters." For this season, those 2 are The Collector and Infinaut. Of course, this assumes that you get your season pass leveled up high enough to claim said rewards. If you do, you can likely also expect the normal other gains. For the same cost that you would pay for 700 gold in the shop...you get the listed card (Silver Surfer) and variants (Silver Surfer, The Collector, and Infinaut), as well as 900 gold, 400 credits, 2 random variants, 2 avatars, and some boosters (weighted towards the aforementioned cast). Please realize this is just the paid gains on the season pass track - there are still 2 additional random variants, regardless whether you purchase the pass or not - listing "2 random variants" here is on top of that, bringing you to a total of 4.

So is Silver Surfer good?

I think he's a very strong card. There are a lot of solid 3-drops in the game already and he has some significant synergy/overlap with multiple other cards - Mr. Negative, Bast, Wong, Odin, Absorbing Man, and Brood to name a few. I would even personally go so far as to say he may be the best season pass card to date!

Building Around Silver Surfer

So, you want to buy the season pass, and want to know what to do with Silver Surfer. Let's look into that! First, we will look into what we can do with him if we are still in pools 1 and 2.

Pools 1 and 2 Silver Surfer

This is a rough version of the decklist I would recommend starting with. Wolfsbane, Nakia, or Iron Heart could earn a slot as well. The deck is looking for a certain density of 3-drops, but we also want to play a 2-drop on turns 2 and 5. We added some tech to counter other decks in Cosmo, Armor, and Killmonger...and once Killmonger is in the deck, Nova is just free.

Things to note

On turn-5, we can Armor into Deathlok to protect the lane but still play our [3/5]. Alternatively, Deathlok is there as a 2nd Nova trigger.
Killmonger is great into Kazoo meta.
Cosmo/Rhino are there for control elements (of board, or opponent's plays). If you want more raw points, they could be subbed out.
Armor also has a control element to stop an opponent's Bucky.

Pool 3 Silver Surfer

Seratonin (with Bast)

I believe this will be the #1 deck in the meta. Bast hedges against Mr. Negative either not being drawn, or cards that we want swapped being drawn before Negative. Past that, we are already running 5 3-drops, and Surfer is a great target to be hit by Bast and/or Negative.

Yes, even if a card is inverted to a [0/3], Surfer should still buff it and be based off of initial cost.

All that said, this deck does not have a good answer to Galactus...Galactus for me thus far, has been super easy to beat, when I play a deck that interacts with the opponent's board...but this deck just doesn't do that. How much will that hurt it? Honestly, unsure at the moment.

For some math, note that Bast averages about +2 power per card in hand. Sera is the only card hurt (and less so since her nerf!). Sera also has the ability to be a 4-cost from Negative now. Angela can also have her nerf negated by Bast (or made into a benefit by Negative).

FAQ:

Do we every not play Bast on 1? Yes. Take the example of our hand having no 2-drops with Sera and Bast...that means we are only hitting 2 cards for benefit (and -1 power on Sera). We are 20% to hit a 2drop and 80% to hit something else that benefits from Bast, and when we play Sera, we really only lost the 1 mana potentially if we do end up drawing Angela say, because Sera will discount Angela to 1. Meanwhile, Angela gains 3 additional power.
What about saving Bast until turn-3? I think this is usually wrong, but if our hand is Bast, Sera, Iron Man, Mystique, Wolfsbane - where we have no good proactive 2 or 3 cost cards, it very likely could be right. There are other hands that could be similar, but spending mana is important.
What other cards are worth considering for the deck? Rogue would be number 1.

Other Silver Surfer Decks

There are other ways to build decks with him. He has so much room to be included. Brood and Bast are both quite solid places to start, and from there...pick a direction (based on your collection and card preferences!) Some ideas to consider:

Patriot deck.
Power-buff deck (Sinister, Mysterio, Forge, Nakia with Bast).
On-Reveal synergy (Wong, Absorbing Man, Odin).

I'm going to leave the final deckbuilds to the community, but these are just a few suggestions.

Want to be a part of the community? Join the snap.fan community discord server!

Other not-so-silver Decks dealing with surfing...

Surfer Girls is here in full with She-Hulk, hence the opening comments. This is a very strong deck.

Yes, Angel and Chavez are good. They help actually pull off the combo. She-Hulk doubles as an added 2-mana card after Wave that can be paired with Death even if we miss kill triggers, or Chavez/Aero otherwise. If we hit 4 kill triggers and Wave, we can actually play She-Hulk for 2, Death for 0, and 1 more card for 4.

The variants/locations/etc changes are already live in this article:

11-29 Variants, Balance Changes, and Bundles

And in a few days to a week, we will have an article for the upcoming pool-5 collector token cards.