The third and final of the Golden Gauntlet Qualifiers has ended. Casual and Competitive Snap players alike were buzzing with excitement for their last chance to qualify for the World Tournament coming in November. After fighting past 540 competitors (including a couple Golden Gauntlet Champions) we have a new champion to join their ranks, Cougarrr!
Cougarrr brought a deck poised to aim at the emerging tournament metagame. Being one of Marvel Snap’s most competitive players, they had their ear to ground and knew what to prepare for. They combined the two main elements of Marvel Snap gaming into a single deck; a points package and a tech package.
In Marvel Snap a “points package” is a set of synergistic cards whose goal is to be your board presence. It’s the meat of your deck, what you are using to get the largest numbers into play. Marvel Snap games are won by having the largest numbers in two out of three of the locations so you need to have a cohesive gameplan on how to make that happen.
The second part of that gameplan is the tech package. Not only do you have your own points, but also your opponent’s points to interact with. That’s where the tech cards come in. The trick is knowing which tech cards to bring and which to leave home.
With only a twelve card deck, you won’t be able to cover every base so you’ll need to decide which is the most important. Essentially you need to know the weaknesses of your deck and how to cover for them. With all this in mind, let’s get Cougarrr’s perspective on their deck and the tournament.
Cougarrr, how long have you been playing Marvel Snap and do you have experience with other competitive card games?
I’ve been playing Marvel Snap since the end of 22’ / beginning of 23’. My first season pass purchase was MODOK, I believe. Experience with other games? None at all! This is the first CCG I have been heavily invested in.
What rank/SP do you typically hit in Marvel Snap seasons? What’s your highest rank of all time? Would you consider yourself a casual or competitive Marvel Snap player?
Definitely a competitive player, although that wasn’t always the case. I’ve held the #1 position on the leaderboard before, with my best finish being #4 global (#1 NA). Since the end of 24’ I’ve hovered around the top 20 usually, some seasons higher some lower.
Are you “Collection Complete?” Did you find it a struggle to get the cards needed both for testing and playing in this last tournament?
I am not although I have the resources to be. I did not find it a struggle but I do buy the season pass, gold pass, and the occasional bundle. Also I tend to complete my weekly missions and earn all the LTM rewards.
Out of 5 Golden Gauntlet tournaments you are now the third winner to come from the PXL alliance. What kind of preparation and testing did you do leading up to the Golden Gauntlet? What is it about the PXL alliance that pumps out champions?
Most of my preparation and testing came from just tweaking things on ladder. Once I found the build I liked, I took it into a couple gold conquests and into another tournament match (the Snap Judgments League).
The PXL alliance is a tight knight group of competitive players. We are all very active in discord communities and love to discuss anything about Snap anytime! Many of the “meta” decks this year have originated from PXL minds, which speaks to the type of players we house.
The Deck
Describe your deck for us. It seems to be some sort of mix of tech cards and Move related synergies. Why choose this over going all in on either Move or tech?
I like to think of it as an early scalers point package, with a few tech cards that synergize and a few that were meta calls. The 2 other Golden Gauntlets I participated in, I actually brought more typical Move lists. I knew the field would be harsher towards Move for this one. When you go too in on tech, you put yourself at a disadvantage when it isn’t relevant. This list struck a balance to where when Cosmic Ghost Rider or Mobius M Mobius wasn’t important, I didn’t feel it too much.
Cosmic Ghost Rider is a relatively new tech card that hasn’t made much of a splash yet. What were you hoping to target with that that you couldn’t with other cards? Is he replaceable or did you have any victories that were only possible because of him?
Cosmic Ghost Rider was aimed at End of Turn mainly, with positive hits against Move, Discard, and Destroy as well. I believe he is a flex spot, Lady Deathstrike could have served a similar role in this tournament. Outside of the tournament on ladder, it may be better to just run Hellion or Legion. I don’t think any of my games were unwinnable without him, but in other games he certainly made me favored!
Your deck contains a couple cards that were nerfed not too long ago, Cannonball and Juggernaut. Are they really still good enough despite that? Did the nerf accomplish anything?
Yes they are! It helps that the points package is synergistic with these two cards, making them easy to justify. I believe the Juggernaut nerf made him viable in fewer decks, but better in the ones he still is ran in. Cannonball on the other hand definitely feels the nerf.
Were you ever worried your core point scalers (Hydra Stomper and Kraven) were not going to be enough in the metagame? What decks were you expecting to come up against that they couldn’t be enough for?
I felt pretty confident into the field, having the tech cards to drag most people down to my level. Decks I was afraid of included Sauron Sugi (Supergiant), Skaar, Cerebro, Hela, and Nimrod. Additionally, Destroy and Vhand (Victoria Hand) felt slightly unfavorable for me.
Is this the kind of deck that you think would do good in ladder or Conquest? What advice do you have for people looking to pilot it after seeing it in action?
I believe this build is better suited for Conquest, although it has been quite good on ladder for me. I think a few tweaks to make it easier to pilot would help less competitive players on ladder. My advice would be to save Miles and Elektra. The power of this package is being able to redistribute points late in the game. Also attempt to get the most you can out of Silk. Each move matters & there is much skill expression to be found here!
Semi Finals
Your semi final match was against a previous Golden Gauntlet winner, Roram a.k.a. Pixel Guy. This is someone you know well. Did you think you didn’t have a chance or was this a pretty even opponent?
Roram is a good friend and I was happy to match against him this tournament! I believe his deck was slightly favored, but I knew I had a good fighting chance.
You’ve seen 12 Power Ares get copied and you have a pretty good lead on the Rocket Pad location, but what made you stay in for 4 cubes? Did you think you had enough points to win a second location?
Honestly this was entirely a cope stay, I knew immediately after clicking the end turn button. I should have left! I will say I was hoping to draw a Cannonball on turn 5 to duplicate, but that didn’t happen.
You are now down to only 4 cubes. Roram immediately snaps. Why stay? Was your hand that good that you could imagine a comeback or were you ready to pack it in?
Leaving would have put me down to 2 cubes, forcing me to win 5 straight in an unfavorable matchup, highly unlikely. I had a fine hand with Kraven / Silk / Batroc. I felt his snap was on the first location, which I knew Kraven would take.
I also snapped back when the third location revealed this game, pressing the one sided Raft advantage (which I of course, got Destroyer from).
The comeback moment, Juggernaut vs Negasonic. You managed to use their Supergiant against them. How did that feel?
It felt great and gave me a big confidence boost! I knew Supergiant would be present this tournament and Juggernaut or Cannon Ball work great under her ability.
You see Roram stacking Deep Space. What did you think Roram’s plan was? Be honest, did you do the math predicting The Living Tribunal?
To be honest, I had no idea. I knew the middle was his most contestable location so I played to remove his cards from there each turn. No math was done LOL (I must use that emote a little differently than everyone else).
After a quick loss, the score is now 2 against 2. The locations come up with Limbo and Fisk Tower. Was this it? Did the location randomness screw you? You ended up winning but did you think you had to play from behind the whole game?
No, quite the opposite actually. Like KMBest said on the stream, the limbo favors the deck with the scalers. Fisk Tower was a deterrent but I did not have to move anything there. I will say I was quite worried about my Hydra Stomper getting hit by Enchantress, but I was happy to have the match come down to the wire, regardless of the outcome.
FINALS
In the first game your hand didn’t really seem great, and yet you snapped. Was the reveal of the K’un-Lun location that beneficial that a snap made sense? What’s your snapping philosophy and did that change at all with the context of this being the finals?
I felt like I had favorable locations that first round and decided to push my advantage. The opponent faced me earlier in the tournament and I was expecting to force a retreat, with them knowing my deck. Generally I snap when locations favor my deck, when I’m hitting my early curve scalers, or when my opponent has a bad draw. I don’t think my philosophy changed much in this final round, I wanted to keep doing what got me there in the first place.
It’s still relatively early in the finals match and we get the “Snap into Snap Back” situation. It’s currently 9 to 8 for you, so even if you lose this you are still in it. You miss the 50/50 of where the facedown Darkhawk was going to go. What was going through your head now? Did you think you could still turn it around or were you expecting to have to go 1 to 9 cubes?
Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think my Cosmic Ghost Rider placement mattered. I was going to have priority with my curve, so if he hid the Darkhawk now, there was nothing I could do to disrupt it. I was attempting to aim for the Turn 6 Darkhawk, assuming he hadn’t already drawn it. I was very confident in this round, I felt like I was in the driver's seat and was surprised to see the snap back. A.P.O.Y. played amazing all tournament but this was the biggest mistake, which it being 4:00am their time probably didn’t help.
You ended up winning every single lane in the last game. Was that just lucky numbers or a case of good positioning? How much math is involved in a scaling moving deck like the one you played?
I believe it was a case of good positioning. I had my largest two scalers in a lane of their own and my smaller two together in a lane. Not to mention Miles, Elektra, and Cosmic Ghost Rider all playing for significant stats. A fair amount of the math is done for you outside of the final turn. It’s important to count the amount of Kraven buffs, if Batroc moves, how Silk will move, and ultimately how big Hydra Stomper will be. “Math” done early in the game is thinking about how to place Sam and Kraven to maximize the amount of procs you will get throughout the game. Sometimes it’s better to stack on an odd draw than it is to separate them.
Cougarrr’s Socials
X
Twitch
Early reports suggest that about 200 people will be playing in the Golden Gauntlet World Tournament. Did you get a chance to qualify? If not that’s ok! (I didn’t either haha) It is still going to be an exciting event for Marvel Snap. We don’t currently have any indication of the future of tournaments in Marvel Snap but I imagine that the success of the Golden Gauntlet series has shown there’s a demand for them.
The World Tournament will be held on November 8 so be sure to mark that on your calendars and be ready to check out the coverage!
To celebrate our latest champion, we are giving away SEASON PASSES for the current Undead Horde season! This will also grant you the bonus rewards for this season of a Collector’s Series 5 pack and the Nightforged Arnim Zola variant when redeemed on the Marvel Snap Shop!
I’ll be randomly drawing the winner on X and Snap.Fan. Here are two ways to enter!
The first is to comment here on Snap.Fan with your DISCORD username and your favourite moment from any Golden Gauntlet Qualifier!
The second is to follow me on X as well as LIKE and COMMENT on this post there!
Doing both of these things will give you two chances to win! You have until Tuesday October 14 to enter, with the pass given out that day at reset. Good luck!