Happy New Year, competitive snap players! Here we are at the first competitive event of the year. The Snowball Showdown offered players a unique twist on the Marvel Snap formula, while also providing a venue to showcase some high-level Snap gameplay.
During deckbuilding, players were required to include at least 1 card released in December or January. This restriction helped players hone in and focus on a specific playstyle that best matched their chosen card. During the tournament, it didn’t just matter if you won your game, but it mattered by how much you won. Each cube (or snowball) mattered!
After 7 Swiss rounds and a gruelling Top 16, we were left with our winner, Omalas, with his Shou-Lao Activate deck! Let’s catch up with Omalas and see their thoughts on the deck and tournament.
Omalas, how long have you been playing Marvel Snap? Would you describe yourself as a casual or competitive Marvel Snap player?
I’ve been playing since the official release. I was lucky enough to open Galactus and I haven’t stopped playing since! I’m a competitive player and I love these tournaments!
Can you walk us through your preparation for the Snowball Showdown?
When I prepped for this tournament I started by asking myself what card I would play with from the required tournament list. I quickly realized that the power of Chamber, Maverick, Majestic Wing Beat and Shou-Lao were quite far above the rest.
I then asked myself what decks were not possible because of the tournament restrictions? I concluded that ongoing and extreme combo decks like Tribunal and Mr Negative were not possible. I also concluded that Cerebro 3 wasn’t possible and I was clearly wrong as it made the top 4!
Then, I asked the most important question; what will people play and based on that what tech cards will I be playing. I decided that I had to be playing with Shadow King as he represents the greatest cube equity (the ability for the opponent to stay in a 6-8 cube match because they think they will win). I was convinced that Majestic Wing Beat was the answer and after testing had to accept that it was too finicky (I enjoyed a bounce list with 3, 5+ drops and a Zombie Galacta deck). I landed on a Man-Spider deck but accepted that Shadow King was unplayable in it and after practicing with my alliance concluded I had to play with Shou Lou the Undying as it was by far better than everything else.
How significant of a factor was the amount of cards you own?
I have most of the cards in Marvel Snap. I avoided buying the season pass until I was soul crushingly beaten by the Shou-Lao decks that my alliance members were practicing with for the tournament.
I think having the cards is very important since you only play with twelve cards and should draw most of your cards each game (especially when you run Card Draw like Nico). HERBIE was the last change I made to the deck and while it didn’t perform that well in the top 16 of the event, it was a crucial piece of my turn 6 plan. I doubt I would have made top 16 if I didn’t own HERBIE and instead had to play a different 2 cost card (Iron Patriot and Sam Wilson are my substitute suggestions for ranked, and for conquest it would have to be American Chavez).
Snowball Showdown had a lot of unique rules. Between the deck-building restriction and the cube points, how did you navigate that uniqueness when preparing for the tournament?
I practiced with other players who were playing in the tournament and listened to several podcasts. The two podcasts that I enjoy the most are 8 Cubes and The Snap Chat. I concluded that I would only snap after I saw all three locations or had Merlin in hand. In ranked, I will often snap turn 2, while in this event it was more of a turn 4 or later snap. It helped that I created a deck that went over the top of all the other Shou-Lao decks meaning if both my opponent and I are playing out our best hands then I knew that I would win. This allowed me to play conservatively.
The Deck
As seen by the large number of players that brought Shou-Lao, there was a clear “best card” to build around. Did you ever consider picking a different card to satisfy the tournament rules? Was there an option for countering Shou-Lao, even if it was a slim option?
I would like to thank my alliance teammates for destroying me over and over again and thus convincing me not to run my Man-Spider deck which was simply too linear for a conquest tournament.
Shou-Lao’s true power comes from placing the points on the previous card the turn Shou is played (typically the final turn) meaning the opponent can’t really interact with the combo (beyond Cosmo). What I quickly realized was; the tech cards that interact with Shou-Lao lose to Shou-Lao because Shou-Lao still puts 8 power in a location and no tech card in the game has 8 power (Sorry Alioth you don’t count). Thus, to counter Shou-Lao I decided I needed to counter the cards that support the undying dragon. That is why I chose Deafening Cord.
Spider-Ham was the only tech card that can negate Shou-Lao and is very strong against any combo deck (a deck that doesn’t play large single power cards and instead requires all cards to work together to create power). Shadow King was meant for move, merge and Nimrod.
Shou-Lao was only just released earlier this week. Was this problematic for finalizing your deck? How did you come around to the 12 you chose to bring?
Once I had decided on Shou-Lao being the strongest, the question became how I could go over the top of other Shou-Lao decks. I tried the clog package and realized that Merlin being in most decks meant that playing clog was essentially helping my opponent make their Merlin even better.
I quickly came to the conclusion that playing too many 3 drops was forcing me on turn 3 to decide if I play the Shou-Lao gameplan or accept that I now have a bunch of dead cards in my hand. Thus I streamlined the deck by replacing Annilus with Nico (so she could help get rid of The Hood) and dropped Sentry/WereWolf for HERBIE. I felt very clever adding HERBIE because I realized that I wanted 8 energy on turn 6 to be able to play Shou-Lao and Shadow King. While Merlin’s spell and Scarlet Spider turn 5 could get me to 8 energy I wanted another way. HERBIE is a 2/12 and typically the Jocasta lane is very low on power. Adding HERBIE meant that I could win my Jocasta lane even if I didn’t play Scarlet Spider on turn 5. It is important to know that when you activate HERBIE on turn 3+ that when you activate Jocasta HERBIE will do the same activate that was done earlier in the game. That changes HERBIE from an inconsistent modal card (a card with options that can be tailored to the game state) to a reliable 2/12 from the doubling activate.
Your deck includes one of the more dominant tech cards of late, Shadow King. Most have elected to forgo this card as it gets in the way of curving out Shou-Lao as well as resetting some of your own buffs. Why include him, and did you think it gave you an edge?
Shadow King was needed to stop all the other non-Shou-Lao degenerate combo decks. Nimrod was on the top of the list as a 12 to 24 power Nimrod goes way beyond the power of Shou-Lao. Shadow King also lines up really well with Maverick as he is currently 1 more base power. As mentioned above; playing Shadow King and Shou-Lao on turn 6 is game breaking against every deck (Chamber I’m looking at you).
The deck is full of a lot of higher series cards. Are there any suitable replacements for these, or is every choice fulfilling a deliberate function?
HERBIE could be a different 2 cost card. I have a few suggestions:
Iron Patriot provides snap equity as the random card can potentially be played with Shou-Lao as a 1 cost on turn 6.
Sam Wilson gives you a shield that allows you to hide your activated cards in the back row and avoid Cosmic Ghost Rider and makes Deafening Cord less likely to hit.
American Chavez is my last suggestion although I really dislike that you can’t play her and the Merlin spell that puts her back in the deck the same turn as it shuffles your deck meaning you may not draw the +3 powered card the next turn.
For ranked if you are missing Jocasta you could instead run a 2 card clog package (removing HERBIE as well).
FINALS
For the Finals, you were matched against Cougarr, who brought Shou-Lao but managed to deliver a different deck type from yourself. Did you have a strategy for playing in this matchup? Cards you were wary of, or holes you were looking to exploit?
Cougarr won the Golden Gauntlet tournament that I qualified for worlds in. I spent a lot of time playing Cougarr’s deck after that tournament. I typically run move decks, as redistributing your points throughout the game is very powerful. Move is one of the few archetypes that gets to run Cosmo (who synergizes with Mademme Web) and Juggernaut (who synergies with Craven) as offensive cards while also being game breaking tech cards.
My major game plan change was to ensure that I was winning the lane that I wanted to set up the Jocasta Maverick Scarlet Spider combo by at least 5 points by the end of turn 5 to ensure that Juggernaut couldn’t solo that lane against me and disrupt my gameplan.
I had a lot of experience playing this archetype and was well prepared with Shadow King and Deafening Cord. I knew that any game that I had 8 energy on turn 6 with Shou-Lao and Shadow King in hand was very very likely to be won by me which meant that I could play more conservatively.
I want to separate your finals into the “early games” and the “late games”. The early games had a lot of retreats for 1 or 2 cubes on both sides. Would you say you were intentionally snapping aggressively, or was your opponent just too conservative?
Since the first 4 rounds of conquest start the match at 1 cube I don’t mind snapping and then retreating and losing 2 cubes as this would be a normal retreat round 5+. Having all 3 of my tech cards being relevant in the match and my total point output potential being higher, I decided to play hyper conservative until I saw that I was going to assemble the full combo. If I was playing with Cougarr’s deck I would have tried to be more aggressive in my snapping (I think Cougarr played amazing) because I would recognize that later in the conquest round my opponent could draw well and negate my good draw.
In game three, Cougarr had Juggernaut’d your Scarlet Spider off of Shuri’s Lab. You both ended up retreating here. Did you not think you could outpower this boardstate? Did this come down to “who had Shou-Lao?”
I recognized that Cougarr had predicted my Scarlet Spider play very well and that I could not win if Shou-Lao was played. I felt my deck had an edge on his and decided that it was better to lose 2 cubes rather than 4. I suspect Cougarr came to a similar conclusion and in a perfect prisoner dilemma situation we both came out on top!
Game six ended up being the final game. Turn 6 began with all 3 lanes controlled by your opponent, but you were able to swing them for the win. Herbie was a card that you did not get much value out of so far. How much did the +2 Energy matter? Did you have a way to win without that? Were you at all worried?
I had both Shadow King and Shou-Lao in hand which made the choice to activate HERBIE an easy one on turn 5. I had designed my deck to specifically play Shou-Lao and Shadow King on the final turn meaning I felt very confident that round.
LAST WORDS
As part of winning the Snowball Showdown, your deck will be featured in a special Pack available in-game! This will allow players to pick up the cards they are missing from your deck and play it themselves. What advice do you have for players looking to translate your tournament success on their ladder climb?
My advice is to enjoy rank 93-99 as much as you can. The stakes feel very real at 97+ ranked and I love it. My advice in general is to see retreating as winning the game not losing the game. Losing 1 cube is winning compared to losing 4 cubes!
Here are my tips for playing the deck:
- You don’t need to play a card on turn 1 like most decks because the combo you will set up at the end of the game is worth so many points you don’t end up losing a lot because you played off curve. The best turn 1 play is Spider-Ham.
- Nico is meant as a secondary way to get rid of The Hood. If you have The Hood and Nico in your hand turns 1-3 just hold them until you can do the combo. Nico on turn 6 with the x2 played before Shou-Lao is game breaking.
- For turn 2 your best play is Merlin and if you have some of the end game combo pieces you should consider snapping even if your opponent is playing a good curve.
- On turn 3 you want to play a 2 cost and a 1 cost, or Jocasta. The best play is HERBIE and Agony in a fresh lane together (Agony played last to merge with Maverick the following turn).
- Turn 4 you want to play a 1 cost and a 3 cost. You really don’t want to play Scarlet Spider unless you are convinced they have Stardust or some other horrific counter card.
- Turn 5 is either 1 cost and Scarlet Spider, or anything and Maverick.
- The final turn is Shou-Lao. If you did the Maverick plan on turn 5 then you want to buff Maverick and then activate him to buff your last card.
You can use Merlin’s skills to prevent Nico’s On Reveals, meaning you can play Nico with the demon or destroy and draw 2 cards and then cancel it the following turn if needed. By turn 4 you should know if Shadow King is going to be needed and if he is you then need to decide on HERBIE +2 energy activation knowing you will need to activate Jocasta on turn 5 not 6 or you already have the correct Merlin spell in hand to get +2 energy.
My final tip is to have fun. For me that means when I’m losing I swap over to a Galactus build and although I will continue to lose I’m having a great time doing it!
Special thanks to Omalas for taking the time to walk us through their deck and tournament experience. As part of them winning, we get their deck featured in a special pack available from January 14th to 20th. This means that for the first time since these competitive events started, you will have an easy avenue to get all your missing pieces to play the Winner’s Deck! It has been announced that cards from the Seasonal Pack won’t be featured here, but that’s ok because it means you can use this as a great catch-up deal!
Stay tuned for more Marvel Snap competitive events. We don’t know when the next one will be, but hopefully it will be soon!