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Nico Minoru - Card Release Aftermath

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Scosco23

Nico Minoru - Card Release Aftermath

Last week, Nico Minoru came to Marvel Snap and landed like an atomic bomb. She has been an incredibly hot topic on social media and among content creators. Today we'll dive into the impact she's had on the game, some creative ways she's been utilized, and look at her future.
Nico Minoru
On Reveal: After you play your next card, cast a spell. (The spell changes each turn.)

We published our preview of Nico Minoru last week, where I argued that Nico was the type of card we needed to actually play with before knowing exactly how powerful she is. In particular, there was a lot of chatter before her release about her consistency. Some thought she might be too inconsistent, like pre-buff Snowguard. In our preview I made the case that none of her spells were actually bad, with even the weakest spells being valuable on a 1/2 body. That would imply that she would be best in decks that can always afford to use her spells but aren't reliant on getting one spell at a particular time. But we needed to see how consistently her spells would feel useful and how often you would actually want to play her out.

Now that we've had a week to play with Nico, let's dig into how she's doing and how she's being used. Is Nico a new format staple, as some have claimed? Let's take a look at her both qualitatively (via some of our favorite content creators) and quantitatively (via our statistics).

Community Feedback

MOLT

HowlingMines

dddrewsky

LambySeriesGG

KMBestMS

RevisSnap

NerfherderMS

JeffHoogland

Nico Minoru's Performance

It is very clear that Nico is well-loved, but is she actually effective? Honestly, so far, it's hard to tell. Nico can be played in pretty much everything, but should she be? She's kind of a do-no-harm card. When you don't play one of your one drops it doesn't hurt you that much, whereas you can high-roll with her. What decks is she actually a value add to? Let's dive into the numbers.

Filtering just to the last 7 days, Nico is being played in 23.57% of decks (5th highest) with a drawn win rate of 51.26%. If you cut that to only post Infinite ranks she is seen in 32.68% of games (4th) with a drawn win rate of 50.21%. Those are staggeringly high play rates, especially for a brand new card that costs 6000 tokens (or spotlight caches). Right now she is being very heavily played and experimented with. Her win rate is positive but not by a large margin.

People simply want to play with the new card, and unlike with other new cards, like Man-Thing as an example, there's far less of a downside to experimenting with her. She's a piece of most decks rather than the main core build-around card. If you don't play your flexible 1-drop in a few games you're not going to be punished in the same way you would be if you don't play a build-around 5 or 6 cost card. Also, she doesn't have a direct counter. When Man-Thing released you could just add Luke Cage into your deck to counter all of the people experimenting with him. This week we'll see Cosmo, Shadow King, and Shang Chi all increase in play to prey on those who are experimenting with Werewolf by Night. Nico is an almost totally risk-free inclusion.

She is arguably overplayed at the moment as people try her in everything. As those numbers rightfully come back down to earth, we'll get a better idea of her individual impact.

Filtering by archetype we can see she is definitely doing well in Destroy and Loki.

  • Bounce - 49.66%
  • Generic self destroy - 56.64%
  • Loki - 54.62%
  • Phoenix Force - 45.41%

Keep in mind that as we chop the data up into smaller pieces there is more variance. She may end up being good in bounce or with Phoenix Force, but users included in our data have not cracked those decks as of yet.

For the same reason that Sauron's stats are inflated, Nico's are muddied. Sauron is essentially played in one solitary deck, and that one deck is good. His stats are largely reflective of that deck. Nico is the opposite at the moment. She is being played in everything, everywhere, all at once. She's being played in great decks. She's also being played in terrible decks. That makes it hard to tell what her individual effect is. I think as her play rate naturally trends down, her uses and strengths will stick out a lot more. We may not know for another couple of weeks what she is actually best at doing and which decks really benefit from her the most.

If you scroll down on any individual card page here on Snap.Fan you will find the Synergy section that lists statistical data on the best partners for a given card (both by win rate and how often they're seen together).

Nico has been most often seen with Elsa Bloodstone. Nico has been seen together with Elsa a crazy 50.87% of the time and they have shared a 53.05% win rate.

Other cards she was seen most often with are Jeff (39.71), Forge (35.19), Carnage 34.02), and Venom (33.48).
Elsa Bloodstone
Each card you play to fill your side of a location gains +2 Power.
Jeff the Baby Land Shark
You can move this once. Nothing can stop you from moving or playing this to any location.
Forge
On Reveal: Give the next card you play +2 Power.
Carnage
On Reveal: Destroy your other cards here. +2 Power for each destroyed.
Venom
On Reveal: Destroy your other cards here. Add their Power to this card.

What jumps out most is that Nico is simply appearing alongside good cards. Nico has good synergy with Elsa, particularly with the add a copy to your hand spell, but how much is Nico helping the decks compared to how much Elsa, the (until recently) best card in the game, was carrying her.

Forge is a good candidate from this list for long-term synergy. He benefits greatly from Nico's demon spell and they both help the same type of cards in other circumstances (hello Deadpool).

The card with the highest win rate with Nico was Mobius M Mobius at a 54.35% win rate, despite not being played together particularly often. Devil Dinosaur, Blue Marvel, Vision, and Shang-Chi are the next four cards in terms of win rate in decks alongside Nico. All four appear together in Thanos lists with her, so that is a testament to her utility in Thanos.
Mobius M. Mobius
Ongoing: Your Costs can't be increased. Your opponent's Costs can't be reduced.
Devil Dinosaur
Ongoing: +2 Power for each card in your hand.
Blue Marvel
Ongoing: Your other cards have +1 Power.
Vision
You can move this each turn.
Shang-Chi
On Reveal: Destroy all enemy cards here that have 10 or more Power.

Nico Minoru Decklists

Goth Trickster

The deck with the highest win rate in our data (minimum 100 games) is this Loki deck at 59.06%. This deck contains three cards that were changed in the recent OTA update, so it will be interesting to see how this deck adapts. We've got a post-OTA Loki deck down below.

Straightforward destroy decks are among the Nico decks with the highest win rate. She may even get better in destroy as players improve their use of her. Her strongest spell, destroy and draw two, is essentially an auto snap condition in basic destroy decks. It shouldn't be a surprise that the deck that best uses her best spell is doing well.

Nico Destruct

With a 59.03% win rate, this destroy deck puts her to good use. Hulk-Buster synergizes well with Nico, but was always a bit of a fringe card in this archetype previously.

Stone Control

The next highest win rate archetype with Nico is Thanos. This list currently sports a 56.26 win rate. Thanos is especially powerful because it gains the most from Nico's spells other than the destroy and draw spell (though that one is good here too, obviously). Turning another stone into a demon or copying one to hand is surprisingly strong. The deck is good with Nico because her spells are truly never bad here. Thanos has the flexibility, especially in the first several turns, to take advantage of her more than a deck laser focused on synergy with a few of her spells. I think Thanos is the deck most especially able to weather the nerf to Elsa Bloodstone. She is worse in decks fully built around her, but her +2 buff is still great and Thanos takes advantage of it so easily.

Bananas for Nico

This is the most viewed Nico deck on our site. This deck is from Dekkster and puts Nico into a tried and true Hit-Monkey / Jane Foster package.

Deck lists for the post 10/26 OTA

Before the patch, two of Nico's greatest allies were Elsa and Angela. Let's look forward to the post OTA world and find some new places for Nico.

Mythical Loki

Loki seems particularly well suited to adapt to the changes and still feel powerful. Elsa is still strong, the Collector is back in the deck, and so are tech cards.

Gauntlet of Spells

Contrary to popular belief, Thanos doesn't have to go all-in on ongoing effects to benefit from the recent Spectrum buff. Another consideration for this deck is Klaw over Mojo. Jean Grey could be worth exploring here as well.

Spooky Surfer

The newest card in Marvel Snap, Werewolf by Night could be the next perfect partner for Nico. Werewolf craves inexpensive on-reveal cards and Nico is top tier in that category. Check out our entire Werewolf by Night preview here.

What we've learned in one week:

  • Nico is an impact inclusion in classic destroy decks.
  • She synergizes well with Thanos.
  • She is probably best in decks where her "situational-ness has less downside".
  • Nico seems to have potential in bounce but may need further testing.
  • She doesn't seem to have the impact that people initially thought she would have in Phoenix Force decks.
  • She is very popular, perhaps overplayed at the moment.

Closing Thoughts

Given how fun she is and the potential she's shown, I think Nico is a definite buy. Hopefully you grabbed her by the end of the week. If not, you can probably wait until she returns to caches on December 19th alongside Havok and Legion.

Havok
New Card
Legion
Baby
Nico Minoru
Runaways
Havok
Hellfire Gala

She's worth opening spotlight caches for if you have them at that time, and she may be worth 6000 tokens before then assuming you have a decent stockpile of them. I think she's worth the resources because she's fun and still has untapped potential, but she's probably not a must have card, as most lists with her will not be dramatically worse without her. However, given that almost every list you see from a content creator will have her in it, you might want to pick her up just to avoid constantly asking for a replacement or if she is necessary to play a particular deck (remember seeing 'replacement for Jeff!?!?' in every Twitch chat or comments section?).

Who is Scosco23?

Scott is a former editor and teacher who is now a stay-at-home Dad. He has played TCGs for a long time, including Pokemon TCG and MTG and has been Snapping since global launch. He likes to walk the line between competitive meta decks and wacky Rogue decks.

You can find him on Twitter @scodenim

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