The Power of the Sun in the palm of my hand! The newest season of Marvel Snap brings us out into the far reaches of the galaxy with some empowered versions of old faces. Star-Lord and Drax both get a facelift, while we also get more members of the Guardians crew that comic fans will instantly recognize. Come along with me as we journey into the galaxy and review some new cards. Strap in cause I like to go at the same pace as my Marvel Snap games. Fast! Snappy!
This new version of Star-Lord is a combo enabler. The ask is to float energy, and if you do, you get a great payoff in a variable next turn. Do this on turn 5, and that means you go into the final turn of the game with so much energy that your opponent won’t be able to tell what your final output potential can be. Not to mention that Star-Lord gains that much Power as well, meaning that you aren’t sacrificing much tempo on the turn you actually play him.
High Evolutionary seems to be a natural fit for this type of strategy, but it will require some adapting, since if you are playing this on 5, you can’t skip it for the usual Infinaut or She-Hulk. If you’re looking for something more explosive, you want a strategy where your game-winning Power is wrapped up in a combo you can deploy in a single turn. Man-Spider combo decks have been using Fallen One to achieve this, so they will be happy for another way to gain a lot of Energy.
Talk about how the mighty have fallen. When we first saw this in the data mines, I got very excited. The possibilities were endless for a card that could be a copy of anything in your deck that you want. Unfortunately, it appears as though Second Dine viewed Magus as too strong because they hit it with probably the hardest pre-release nerf I’ve ever seen. A simple clause “without using its On Reveal,” and suddenly, Magus feels terrible.
What can Magus do? Ongoings seem to be a good use case at the moment, but my money is further ahead into the future. Data mined for March is the new Objective keyword cards. Perhaps Magus can find a niche with those?
Moondragon is the newest in the line of “2-Cost Scalers” that we seem to be getting most seasons. This time it’s for decks that only want to play 1 card a turn, a strategy best utilized by Doom 2099 decks. Doom 2099 just got a buff in the latest balance patch, and now with Moondragon, it looks like they want to revive this deck archetype. I see Moondragon as a second copy of Chamber. Certainly weaker, but they share similar profiles. Both like being played early and both scale in ramp decks. However, Chamber has way more flexibility built into it. Chamber can grow with cards in hand, while Moondragon needs you to play in a specific way. I can see you finding room for Moondragon in ramp decks if Doom 2099 doesn’t work out, but only as a backup plan to Chamber.
Drax, Avatar of Life, looks to be vying for the title of “best card of the season.” Drax harkens back to the midrange days of Snap, where you are looking to leverage incremental Points against your opponent, as opposed to the combo nature of the current metagame, where you are aiming to increase your Power through doubling exponentially. In a midrange world, Drax looks amazing. He is essentially a 3/7 with upside, as it is doubtful your opponent will ever play a card with 5 or more Power. Drax can potentially be as high as a 3/16 if your opponent somehow plays increasingly stronger cards each turn, but a world where your Drax is a 3/10 is more likely. It’s worth noting that Drax will always gain the Power even if he cannot move.
When I’ve talked about this card with others, there’s been some apprehension surrounding Drax, due to your opponent controlling how and when he can move. We’ll have to be on the lookout to see if this is as abusable as it seems.
If you’ve been following my reviews for a while, you might be able to pick out the kinds of cards I like, but also don’t think are good. Unfortunately, Major Victory falls into that camp. Let’s look at his main strength: adding cards to your hand. A lot of cards that do this give you a random value from a subset of cards. Valentina, for example, is getting you only 6 Cost cards, but they get weaker Power. Snowguard used to see a lot of play for the Hawk and Bear she made, but it's been a long while since a random 3 Cost in your hand had value. This brings us to the issue with Major Victory. The subset of cards he is pulling from is not very good. The best-case scenario is getting Star-Lord or Rocket and weaving them into your turns for some extra Power.
My main source of hope for this card is that they are using this new season as an excuse to buff the Guardians crew. Along with Milano, the upcoming new location that has the same ability as Major Victory, it would be so great if they made them more exciting.
I was initially a lot lower on Kraglin, but after giving it some thought, there’s some hidden potential here. I believe that trying to trigger either of the abilities is a trap; you need to go all in on one or the other. As a ramp card, Kraglin falls behind his contemporaries. He has lower power than other ramp cards, and the energy he gives is only temporary. Any of Kraglin’s strengths is going to be on the other side of his ability. The boost to power brings him up to a 3/7. If you are playing a deck that can retrigger that ability, we are suddenly looking at a pseudo +4 scaler. He also thins your deck, meaning he potentially can help you draw the things you want more easily. When looking at Kraglin as a 3/7, you have to compare it to Drax Avatar of Life, who will be released by the time Kraglin is. They are both essentially starting at that stat line, so the question you have to ask yourself is which one do you need? Do you need Drax’s movement to cover losing locations or Kraglin’s deck thinning?
Jack Flag has the kind of text that seems so basic, you’re left wondering how it wasn’t in the game already. I can see him being a consistent piece for Spectrum or Silver Surfer decks. Both of those deck styles have ways to buff your board, and you can use Jack Flag to increase those buffs further. Another deck that I’m interested in trying Jack Flag in is Victoria Hand. While it’s undoubtedly better to copy Vic Hand herself, Jack Flag can offer a similar boost as a Plan B. Since he is an Ongoing ability, it means Moonstone can copy it. Do Ongoing decks need more Power? I’m interested in seeing how this interacts with Captain Carter. Note that Jack Flag only buffs the lane he is in, so you can’t count on it going wide across your whole board, but it is looking to add some extra juice to those buffs.
Starhawk isn’t delivering a lot, but he isn’t asking a whole lot either. Sometimes you need a simple card to put out some points. To me, his best use case appears to be finding a slot in a Bounce-type deck. By placing Starhawk in the appropriate lane each time, not only will he be growing in Power, but he will also be buffing those alongside him. Cards like Clea or Sebastian Shaw like the small boosts in power, while something like Maverick will be able to pass those buffs along to another card. If you’re only going to get one use out of Starhawk, it’s best to do it on a later turn and a full lane so you can maximize his output.
So how did I do? Have I seen the Guardian’s unlimited potential, or am I just gazing blindly into the sun? For more detailed analysis on each card, be sure to check out our New card Previews coming out at the beginning of each week, all month long!
This is also your chance for your ratings and comments to make it into this month’s Snapcheck! Snapcheck will be coming out this Friday. We would love to see all your comments and ratings on the new cards! I’ll be picking 10 commented ratings to feature on Snapcheck, but I will be taking the average score from every comment, so be sure to leave your thoughts down below!