Iron Man? Pfff, the Hydra Stomper is the real OG! This WWII-era mech suit is powered by patriotism, the cosmic forces of the Tesseract, and, ironically, a ton of unmovable conviction. It’s piloted by an alternate Steve Rogers who, even without the Super Soldier Serum, still embodies every ounce of his usual heroism that we know and love. Sure, his armor doesn't have Tony's flashy upgrades—no Bluetooth, no snarky AI, not even a seat warmer. But what it lacks in features, it more than makes up for in rustic charm, retro aesthetic, and a rugged military green paint job.
Stomp, Stomp, Clap, Clap
The last Spotlighter, Hydra Stomper, finally lands! This olive-colored hero will be a powerful new tool for Move aficionados. As a 3-Cost 2-Power card, he might seem a tad small for his cost, but the real power is under the hood with an Ongoing text that grants him +1 Power for each of your cards that moved during the game. As we've seen with Morbius, being an Ongoing scaler is fantastic because you can simply pop him into the field at the end of the game and see how well your efforts have paid off.
Let’s consider how to best kickstart our fridge-shaped hero into a real powerhouse.
Move Enablers
These cards allow you to move multiple cards during the game. I suspect they might be the best choice to accompany our Mean Green Machine.
Heimdall is the unchallenged king of Move—no card can move as many cards as he does when he sweeps your board one location to the left, moving up to seven cards with his powerful On-Reveal effect. Madame Web is a crucial move card, allowing you to move a card per turn away from her location, which is quite powerful if played early. Cloak is often forgotten due to his double-edged nature, but his effect lets you move several cards if you have open board spots. Sam Wilson and his Shield offer a way to move a card per turn without extra effort—assuming you draw Sam in time, that is. Lastly, we have Hercules, often considered a bad card, but if your intention is just to move cards without worrying about where they land, he could make the cut.
Before moving on: in the future, we might have more cards in this list. However, keep in mind that leaked cards can always be changed or might not even be released, so keep your hype in check.
While still looking at movers, we have cards that are vital components to any move deck: Cheap Movers. Cards that are quite low cost but in comparison to the ones above, they usually move a card once per game unless you retrigger them somehow.
Move Scalers
If you're using a decent number of cards from the list above, these next cards are vital for your win conditions. They love to be moved around and scale quite highly each time they are moved. I would slot all three of them if my deck is based on moving cards.
Self Movers
These next cards don't need any help from the movers listed before. They could scale Hydra Stomper into a real powerhouse.
Silk is a card that moves a lot during any game—so much so that she becomes unpredictable and unreliable. With Hydra Stomper carrying one of your locations, you don't need to worry about Silk's randomness as much. Werewolf By Night is another card that can also move a lot during a match; however, he is entirely under your control—so much so that if anything bad happens, it's usually the player’s fault since it's quite easy to mess up with this advanced card. Hydra Bob is a weird one—he’s here because he can move up to two times during a match without any help, depending on how you and your opponent Snap during the game. Just to be thorough, I'll list Vision as well. He can move an infinite number of times, but his high cost usually means you only move him once unless you cheat him into play earlier than usual.
These next few cards are movers too, but they tend to move once and then tire themselves for the rest of the game. They would help Hydra Stomper gain power but only once. They also have powerful synergy with Elsa Bloodstone, so consider her another vital component.
Extra Synergy
If we're moving this many cards, we might as well benefit even more with some highly synergistic cards. Kraven doesn’t move, nor does he move anyone else, but he loves movers. Every time someone approaches his location by moving, his scaling goes off, allowing him to be the true hunter his parents always believed he could be. Miles Morales is the Spider-Man we need with all this movement happening; getting him down to 1 Cost is incredibly easy and will surely be useful to you.
Prime Locations
Did you know that there’s a ton of locations that help Move decks? If any of these show up during your games, you might as well snap because they’ll overclock your Hydra Stomper into a huge threat. Be sure to keep the scrawny guy from Brooklyn in mind when they are posed as Hot Locations.
Alright, let's put into action all we’ve seen so far.
Setbacks
Hydra Stomper will have a hard time due to his fairly high cost for a scaler. Nowadays, we have a ton of 2-drops that scale quite high; just last week, we got Strange Supreme, who scales immensely for only 2 energy. Hydra Stomper costing more than Strange Supreme while having a lower ceiling feels disappointing for our move lists. I can see a timeline where Hydra Stomper costs 2 energy, and it would be entirely fine.
Also, to continue the comparison with Strange Supreme, Hydra Stomper has an additional vulnerability beneath all that armor due to his Ongoing text. This means that common counters like Enchantress, Rogue, and Echo could strip away the extra power you needed to win the match.
Dualglove’s Day One Hydra Stomper Decks
Silk Road
I really miss Silky Smooth—this is my attempt to bring it back. We have a ton of cheap cards and many ways to scale in this list. Try to set up a location where you can take advantage of Angela and Elsa’s effects and you’ll be golden.This list is quite versatile, and so many cards are fighting for a spot here. I slotted in Nocturne because I don't want to simply lose to Magik decks. If that's not a concern, you could replace her with U.S. Agent, Sam Wilson, or Red Guardian.
FULL MOTION
First, we move, then, we move some more. This deck is entirely based on Move cards and how to scale them. There are no secrets, just move your cards from location to location as much as you can. Notice that you won’t have any tech over here unless you count dodging Shangs by going to another location. If things get rough due to the opponent's tech, check the deck below.
Safe Motion
Same idea as the deck above. The difference is that we’ll be less greedy with our scaling and we protect our cards with Cosmo and Alioth. There are many different versions of this idea, we could also slot in Miles Morales, Cloak, and some other faces that we usually see on move decks. I’ll leave the fine tuning to your tastes.
Smoking Snakes
A classic that's too big-brained for most players. This deck is entirely based on movement; however, most of the time you’ll be scaling your movers and hiding them back in your hand, keeping them safe from Shang-Chis and Shadow Kings.Hydra Stomper slots right in as a card that will gain power without needing any extra hoops since you'll already be working on moving your cards anyway.
Variants
Hydra Stomper will debut with 2 variants on his arsenal. His “What if…?” variant will be a bit convoluted to get. I’ll go in depth below. On the other hand, if you have a soft spot for Chibis, Rodgon’s take on our Green Gundam will fit the bill quite nicely.
Final Thoughts
What if... you get Hydra Stomper? I’d say that would be great if you enjoy the Move archetype!
He’ll be a powerful addition to your collection and will surely get better with future card releases.
However, keep in mind that he is niche and narrow in his application—if Move decks are weak, he’ll be weak too.
If you plan to grab Hydra Stomper, I must mention a unique case going on with him: he can be acquired in two distinct ways.
Together with Hydra Stomper’s arrival, the Marvel Snap will be updated to include Snap Packs, the brand new card acquisition system. You’ll have the option to delay updating your game client in order to participate in the last possible Spotlight with Hydra Stomper together with Araña, and Madame Web. Those cards will be great together. I’d advise you to consider following this route if you’re missing any of those two Spider-Themed-Heroines or you really like their variants. You’ll have around 48hs to decide on rolling with keys before your game is forcibly updated.
The other option is to update your game and acquire Hydra Stomper through the Snap Pack System. After the update, the Spotlight route will be closed off and all your keys will be converted into tokens to be used on Snap Packs of all kinds. Keep that in mind because you won’t be able to turn back.
I’d recommend going this route to acquire Hydra Stomper if you don’t need Araña nor Madame Web, and you got most of the cards from this and the last season (Prehistoric Avengers). A friend of mine explained the new system so much better than I ever could so if you’re out of the loop on this new system, just click here