Here we are, back again as promised to finish up with the Game Mode and Series 4 cards of the season! Marvel Snap continues to shower us with new cards which means we need to decipher the ancient texts of each one and decide which cards are worth investing in. I’m here to help break it down, but I like my card evaluations like I like my Marvel Snap games. Fast. Snappy!
But wait! This time I’m not doing it alone. I’ve asked for the Star Ratings from FIVE other Snapfan writers. Let’s see what I thought compared to them!
A card of great potential!
The ceiling of this only goes up as long as they keep printing good Skill cards. If played early enough, you’re looking at 5+ Power of value. I want to like this card, and perhaps some day I will. It wasn’t long ago that a 1/5 Hydra Bob was a metagame staple. So why is this so different?
Scratch needs to be on the board before you start casting spells in order to gain Power. Think of him more like The Collector. This means you either need to hold back your skills until you draw him, or hope you get Scratch on the board as soon as Turn 1 or 2. This also means he’s a very bad card to draw on Turn 6, unlike Hydra Bob. I would like this card so much more if it was an Ongoing card. If it was like Morbius and you could play it after any skills this would be a 4 maybe even 5 star card.
If you want more in depth thoughts on Nicholas Scratch I have an article here from earlier this month!
Extra energy is usually better than cost reduction. Kale is a great way to ramp into 5 and 6 cost cards. You can also save your energy for when you actually need it.
At the end of the day Jennifer Kale is a pretty basic design and a card text that should exist in the game. She’s got a well defined niche of ramping from 3 energy into 5, which we’ve seen on other cards before (Psylocke, Luna Snow). The flexibility she offers also gives you the opportunity to ramp from 4 into 6. Time will tell if she’s able to stand out from the other cards of her kind.
If you want more thoughts on how Jennifer Kale compares to other Energy boosting cards, I have another article about her here.
Easily my favourite card of the season!
Not only is it a move counter but she can move herself and she brings back the amazing Cannonball lockdown! She will be great in Sanctum Showdown.
I’m a big proponent in card games for Aggro style decks. Winning the game as fast as possible before your opponent has a chance to set up. In Marvel Snap, opportunities for that style of play don’t come very often so when they do I latch on quickly.
Mercury brings back the Cannonball combo. If you play Cannonball on a lane where cards can’t move, they get destroyed instead. This means if you can find another way to guarantee win a Location, Mercury and Cannonball together can win the second. Decks like Clog can make great use of this. Sending Rocks and negative Power cards to their side to block up one Location means you virtually have the game decided by turns 4 or 5.
If that wasn’t good enough, Mercury can also move once herself! We’ve seen how powerful incidental Move has been in the past on cards like Nocturne or Rocket & Groot. I imagine they find a way to balance Mercury some more soon, but until then u will be using her as much as I can!
Hellion might be the most overlooked card I’ve ever seen. He is able to create unpredictable game states and allows you to reallocate your Power in ways that best suit you. I’m calling this the most forgotten card of the season if not the whole game.
I get it, it had a bungled release, and came out with its partner Mercury being more exciting. Despite this I don’t believe this is a bad card and my fellow writers at Snap.Fan agree.
You’ll want a deck where manipulating Power on board in one shot will be beneficial. Think of it like the New York Location, except your opponent can’t benefit from it. I don’t even necessarily think you need Move payoffs to take advantage of this although they are certainly good with this.
I’d say Hellion’s best days are still ahead of it. Perhaps in the Sanctum Showdown?
Very few players own this card, but I think it’s better than it appears. Created cards are showing up more and more these days. A well timed strike from Cobra can flip a lane in your favour, Activate gives you all the control
Let’s talk briefly about the card nobody's spending volts hoping to get.
We’ve seen 2/3 tech cards have their niche in the past. This is definitely one of the weirder attempts at that design but I still think it can be useful if the right situation calls for it.
Created cards are becoming an ever present type of design. More cards each season either reference them or create them, meaning more deck you see will either have them as part of their core strategy or include them for incidental value. Not to mention the many Locations which add cards to the board. Those are created cards too.
I’m not calling Cobra a metagame staple, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the type of card people will regret not picking up in Snap Packs eventually.
Destroy fans rejoice! You finally get a new toy! When this becomes more widely available expect it to shape the meta game. This would be amazing even if it didn’t gain any power!
Deep at the center of one of Marvel Snap’s biggest controversies is Kid Omega. There’s a lot of talk about the price of this card so let’s take a quick look and see if it’s worth the cost.
Destroy decks have been desperately looking for a new way to enable their payoffs. Being able to throw this down and then on a later turn control when it pops has enormous value. This lets you sequence Deadpool and Nimrod kills while also conserving Energy. What more could you want?
It also GAINS Power?? Who designed this card?
Notably it doesn’t gain Power like Venom does, meaning it checks the total Power of the card after it has been destroyed. For example, if you destroy a Knull hoping to get double the amount of destroyed power in your graveyard you’d be out of luck as it only sees the 0 Power of Knull. However, this means when you destroy Deadpool, you get the doubled Power from when it goes back to your hand.
You’re a wizard Harry!
Now you get to put the skill in your deck without creating it from another character.
This card is just waiting for someone to work out how to take advantage of it!
Here at Snapfan we are a little higher on this card than most. I’ve seen a bunch of players much better than myself say this is a bad card, but I’m not quite yet ready to throw in the towel. There’s a few interactions that I think may be interesting enough.
Astral Projection will want to be paired with high impact On Reveals that both don’t care about its own Power, and don’t mind not staying on board. This is an admittedly small list.
Gwenpool strikes me as an interesting pair with Astral Projection. “Hand Buff” decks are mostly about keeping your power in hand and not on the board where they are vulnerable, so you don’t mind that on Turn 3 this is a play for 0 Power. Getting to get 2 Gwenpool triggers on stuff like Kitty Pryde or Mysterio will make up for the tempo loss. Astral Projection is also nice if you draw it later because Gwenpool will ignore it in hand when distributing buffs.
There’s also something intriguing about using this with Malekith. That would let you pull a 3 Cost and under out of your deck and keep it hidden until the final turn, and it wouldn’t take up two board spaces like Malekith does. This is also a nice Malekith target itself since it gives you more opportunities to play out the On Reveals you don’t want to hit leaving only the good targets in hand at the end of the game for Astral Projection.
What did you think of our review of the new cards? Did our projections hit the mark? Hit me up on Twitter (link) or down here in the comments and let me know what you think about these Game Mode and Series 4 cards.
The next season is just around the corner so be sure to check back in for our next Snappy Review!