This weekend marked the second official Marvel Snap tournament. Golden Gauntlet 2, this time with more than twice as many participants! Unlike last time, the event was split over TWO days. 7 Swiss Rounds on Saturday and the remaining 3 rounds and cut to Top 16 on Sunday. After surviving through all that, we were left with one winner. Our new Golden Gauntlet Champion, Roram!
No longer were we in a metagame with an unstoppable Tier 0 deck. Players would have to figure out on their own what would be the best option for the two-day event.
Roram settled on what is arguably the most controversial deck. A deck that featured not only previous metagame tyrant Thanos, but also “nobody’s favourite” Arishem! People have a lot of opinions about the role randomness plays in competitive Marvel Snap, so I took the opportunity to not only congratulate Roram on his win, but ask him about his opinions on Arishem.
Roram, how long have you been playing Marvel Snap and do you have a background in playing other card games?
I’ve been playing Marvel Snap since the Miles Morales Season. I loved playing Yugioh as a kid and eventually moving on to Magic the Gathering. I used to LOVE playing Gwent but it got stale after a while.
Your in-game name, Pixel Guy, where does it come from and what brought about your love of Pixels?
I named myself Pixel Guy because of two reasons; Everyone hated on Pixels because it was the popular thing to do so I wanted to beat people with “All Pixel” decks. The second reason is that I actually do like their quaint charm. They have a cool look to them.
We went into the Golden Gauntlet 2 with a wide open metagame. New balance changes, 4 new cards. How much of that affected your testing?
I mostly tested against 3 decks. Honifer’s Agamotto deck, “Move Bounce” and “Mercury Cannonball”. I thought those would be the most played new decks in the tournament. “Move Bounce” in particular is the deck I would consider the best right now and spent most of my practice time trying to beat it. I didn’t practice against Thanos or “Galacta Surge Tech Piles” because I already knew how to beat most of those decks by playing “34 Card Monte” on ladder for the last two weeks.
34 Card Monte - Golden Gauntlet
“34 Card Monte”. For those unfamiliar, it’s the deck that has the most cards possible added at the start. It includes Thanos, Agamotto, and Arishem. What led you to selecting this deck for the tournament?
I chose this deck because it abuses the “Open Decklist” format of the tournament. It gives me an informational advantage while my opponents are left second guessing their plays due to Arishem’s randomness. This basically gave me an “unfair” advantage going into every game cause I knew what they could do and their power outputs in lanes but they didn’t know mine.
You’ve been pretty open on your streams about this deck needing a nerf. Do you have any thoughts on what should change? Arishem? Thanos?
Thanos and Mockingbird are the main two cards that need either reworks or nerfs. Arishem isn't a real competitive deck without Thanos’ consistency. And Mockingbird is Thanos’ best friend. She’s a free 9 power that can go in any lane, it’s a crazy advantage.
If I were to adjust them in any way I’d probably make Mind Stone a 2-Cost card and make Time Stone draw Thanos in a similar manner that Temporal Manipulation does for Agamotto. Thanos starting in hand so that you can always play on Turn 5 or sometimes Turn 4 in an Arishem deck is a massive advantage. Mockingbird should probably change where she only counts cards created in hand or in play, not cards that are created in deck.
During the live coverage you were called “The Villain” for bringing an Arishem deck. What do you say to the idea that cards like Arishem should be banned in future tournaments? Do you think that Arishem is a problematic card for tournaments?
I think banning cards for tournaments is a bad move for a game that constantly gets updates and balance changes. If any cards do get banned though it will most likely be Arishem, simply because he can take advantage of the “Open Decklist” format and give an overwhelming advantage for the Arishem player.
Not only were there many location changers like Merlin’s Omniversal Presence and Thanos’ Reality Stone, but there were also the 12 extra cards from Arishem. Do you think Marvel Snap’s competitive scene suffers from the elements of randomness?
I think people blaming RNG for why Marvel Snap isn’t competitive are a little foolish. If you know a location significantly benefits your opponent more than you, and they snap, you have to leave even if you don’t want to.
This works in the reverse as well. You need to snap on the locations that benefit you. Conquest and Friendly Matches are rarely decided by one random element. It's almost always due to how players play their match ups and set up their win conditions. Retreating is a huge part of this game and should be utilized more effectively.
Can a good player beat random elements like this or are they always in an unfavourable matchup?
I don’t think randomness was the reason why good players like Honifer and Kingpin lost. I believe they lost due to information disparity. I was able to use the “Open Decklist” format to know if my opponents were running specific tech cards. If they weren’t, it allowed me to play more aggressively. People will always remember the Quake Bar With No Name game, but the real nail in the coffin for Honifer was the early snap in the TVA game. A small misplay that ended up costing him the round.
Since your win I’m seeing an increase in the “34 Card Monte” deck on my pre-infinite climb. Do you have any tips for those who are trying the deck after seeing it in action?
Don’t be afraid to play your big boys out early and make sure you set up Jugg lanes. Remember your optimal turn 6 is Juggernaut plus Images of Ikonns or 4-Cost tech card.
What about tips for beating it?
For midrange enjoyers, Gorgon and Cass farm this deck, especially Gorgon. For combo enjoyers, you’ll pretty much always win with Mister Negative if you respect Limbo location changes. For archetypal enjoyers, Discard, both the Bullseye and Apocalypse versions are unbelievably favored into Arishem, if you are running GAMBIT. Gambit adds RNG to your side and can flip the tides for you.
The Finals
In the finals there was a moment where 8 cubes were on the line. Everyone watching, even the commentators, were sure you had it won, and yet you retreated. What were you thinking of at that moment? What were you afraid of that you couldn’t play around?
I lost to a lucky Polymorph the Squirrel into Killmonger left to revive the Enchantress. From my point of view, if I won I’d still have to win another game but if they won, the tournament would be over. I decided to retreat rather than gamble it all. This was probably my biggest misplay of the tournament, as I was definitely more favored to win it all right there. I wasn’t willing or ready to take that chance.
How cool was it to recreate the scene from X-Men 97 where Gambit supercharged Wolverine’s claws?
It was pretty freaking awesome! To be fair I low rolled the Gambit so badly. I only needed to kill a single card in the middle or right locations to win and I missed both. I did however misplay that turn. I played the Space Stone before Gambit but I didn’t have enough time to switch it. Let’s just say that was actually the luckiest part of the tournament.
Live by the randomness, die by the randomness. You lost two cubes to your opponent’s Gladiator pulling your Reality Stone and making the Rickety Bridge location. Were you worried that your lead was shrinking? Did you have doubts about winning at that point?
I don’t know if I was worried per say. I was honestly more pumped for my opponent because that was a sick play! I try to not let losing to RNG bother me. I get more mad at losing to my own misplays.
I had doubts for sure. I was saying “It’s joever. It’s fudging joever” in my room over and over, but I pulled through in the end.
In the last game you made the choice to abandon the middle location. They also had a 0-Cost card courtesy of The Raft. Did you consider retreating here?
I never considered retreating there. I knew this was going to be the best chance I had to beat him. I had a guaranteed win lane and they needed to win two lanes. I'm always going to take those chances.
Final Thoughts
Huge thanks to Roram for sharing his thoughts. If you are looking for more from him, you can find him on Twitter and regularly streaming high level Marvel Snap gameplay on Twitch. Roram is on the road to becoming an official Marvel Snap Content Creator and would love your support!
Both of our Golden Gauntlet champions hail from the Order of the Pixel alliance. The pressure is on for another PXL member to win Golden Gauntlet 3!
If you have any more questions about the deck, or want to share your opinions about randomness in competing Marvel Snap, feel free to leave comments here for us to see!