Entering the last phase of our series, the high-cost cards have always been a dominant force regardless of whether the meta favors tech, Power, or a specific archetype. Nowadays, however, 5-cost cards are in a troubling position where they can’t provide the ease-of-play of low-cost cards or compete with the potential of 6-cost cards. Except for a few relevant cards, this category is struggling to keep up.
5-cost: Winners Among Losers
5-cost cards are experiencing some of the same issues as 4-cost cards, which include being too massive in Cost and, thus, lacking the usability or Power-to-cost ratio compared to their smaller variants. If you asked me two months ago, I would’ve said this is probably the most reliable Cost Category, with cards like Gilgamesh, Darkhawk, Iron Man, and Sandman dominating their respective turns.
However, with the change to Zabu, there’s been a small renaissance of 4-cost cards emerging from the shadows. It’s not enough, but at least they’re starting to enter the big leagues. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a savior like this for 5-cost cards except maybe Agent Venom and Cosmo, who’ve only given the spotlight to, at best, four cards in this category.
Now, the meta is keen on letting big Power win matches, and so re-using a 3-cost card twice or playing a 6-cost card once feels like it's adding significantly more value and decisiveness. Fortunately, as mentioned, some 5-cost cards have begun finding homes in some of the ruling meta decks simply because of their utility, boosting their overall importance.
Iron Man is currently the face of this Category and is leading the charge for its 5-cost brethren. With an outstanding 59.41%+ Win Rate (when played) and an 11.37% meta share, this card is an automatic addition to any popular Bounce deck, using Iron Man to reach ridiculously high Power in a single lane thanks to their rather high Power ceiling.
Agent Venom has been a key agent in Iron Man’s renaissance, pun intended. Casually giving +4 Power to Iron Man raises his effective Power output to 8, and with a Sage or Hit Monkey alongside him, you reach a certain level where the opponent just gives up unless they have a specific counter.
The same rules and reasoning apply to Blue Marvel, which has roughly the same stats as Iron Man. With a slightly lower meta share but more consistent Win Rates, this card is a core component in Zoo decks, which usually have the #1 highest Win Rate for most of the week for several months. If I had to put it simply—Iron Man has better potential, but Blue Marvel has better consistency.
If we look at matches from High-Infinite ranks, we see that Iron Man is much more prominent because players are getting more used to Bounce decks. However, the deck’s success doesn’t translate into individual success since, as mentioned, Iron Man’s overall Win Rate is fairly mediocre, showing that he’s only viable under specific pretenses.
Finally, we have Ajax, a noteworthy 5-cost card with a strong impact on the meta because it’s the perfect counter matchup to low-cost Zoo-based decks. While he’s not seeing a ton of play and has a modest 55.66% Win Rate, his archetype is in the perfect environment to cause devastating plays. In fact, his High Evo shell has the second-highest Win Rate in Marvel Snap at the moment, and it has remained near or above this position for quite some time.
Klaw is simply a great card, and it’s extremely common to see him side-by-side with Iron Man in the aforementioned Agent Venom Bounce deck. His Play Rate, Cube Rate, and Win Rate are within the Top 60, and being a good target for Mystique means you get another effective Klaw at 3-cost. This makes his stats seem even better.
Iron Man, Blue Marvel, and Klaw usually compete head-to-head for a general-purpose 5-cost slot, and in most cases, 2 of these 3 make it, while the remaining card sees minimal play. In this meta, however, none of them has the short end of the stick, and I believe it’s mainly because of Iron Man’s and Klaw’s unbelievable and reliable Power synergy with Bounce.
Diverging from big Power, Legion, and Blink are the best surprise-factor cards in this category. Legion’s location-manipulating abilities are a nightmare for anyone playing Magik (which many people are playing), and his influence in the War Machine deck, which I went over in the last article, makes him a superb card.
His stats are solid all-around: 0.44 Cube Rate and a 9.33% Play Rate, both of which are their respective Top 30s. His Cube Rate potential, in particular, is massive, so he’s seen as almost a must-have card in Arishem decks to catch opponents off guard and steal Cubes.
Although Legion is broader and more random, Blink is more archetype-specific and played under certain conditions. She used to have a commonplace in Conquest’s second most popular deck, Hela, but with the nerfs to Hellcow and Black Cat, that deck has slowed down. Still, Blink’s starting to appear in Galactus, War Machine, and even Living Tribunal decks. She’s gained a massive spike in Win Rate and popularity over the past week, and players predict that her influence will grow continuously as we go through this Power-dominant meta.
Lastly, Darkhawk is managing to stay relevant on the back of Cosmo being a serious threat at High-Infinite ranks. For now, Bounce and the Darkhawk package are fighting for the top spot at higher ranks because of how easily they get to unreachable Power levels.
Darkhawk, however, has higher potential because Cosmo shuts down the opponent’s gameplan, and Cassandra Nova is a nightmare for Arishem decks. Although a modest 4.75% Play Rate, most of which is from High-Rank games, Darkhawk’s solid 61.44% Win Rate puts him near the top of the leaderboards, easily beating out any other 5-cost card in this regard.
Rising Stars Among The Category
When you think of a late-game pair, this is the combo that comes to everyone’s mind. Stature and Blackbolt have recently gained a boatload of traction as two solid yin-and-yang cards, especially after the emergence of the Agatha-Black Knight deck. Although that deck is losing some momentum, it highlighted just how easy this combo is to slot into any deck and use. Both cards have similar stats and a good individual Win Rate that keeps them within the Top 50.
Furthermore, they’re starting to appear in some niche decks in High-Infinite ranks, including but not limited to War Machine, Mill, and even Darkhawk decks. With the recent release of Misery, Mill might see a resurgence, and with this combo offering disruption and Power, it’s best to start expecting them more often.
With Power being the centerpiece of this meta, it’s only logical that something practical like Sera would see a massive comeback to enable your explosive final-turn plays. Remaining unchanged for months at this point, she’s one of the few 5-cost cards that everyone knows how to play, hence her improving Play Rate.
Sera’s mostly played in Silver Surfer and Living Tribunal decks, but she’s starting to make an appearance in Hit Monkey’s Bounce list, which has the #1 Average Cube Rate in Marvel Snap. Silver Surfer decks are also climbing back due to their Power-focused nature and their above-average ability to counter Clog. However, that deck is still not greatly effective at higher ranks, limiting Sera’s overall reputation as the game-changing card.
In the previous State of the Costs article, I talked about how Wong was a rising star despite Cosmo's reign. Naturally, with Wong’s rise, we saw, more or less, an uplift in Wong's three best friends in this category: White Tiger, Namora, and Black Panther. White Tiger and Black Panther, particularly, are doing well, with the latter having a commendable 6.54% Play Rate.
Black Panther’s stats are especially pretty eye-catching when you realize that he's a Series 3 card, unlike White Tiger, a Series 0 card. The most popular card combo involving these three are as simple as you can get: Wong, then White Tiger/Black Panther/Namora, and finally Odin or Arnim Zola. It's also worth noting Symbiote Spider-Man’s contribution to popularizing this combo again at higher ranks.
Cannonball has been a part of several homes since the card’s inception—you could’ve found him in Lockdown, Clog, and even Scream’s Control decks. However. except for Scream, these homes got nerfed one by one, especially Clog, which dominated almost every range of ranks until a few weeks ago.
Despite that, Cannonball hasn’t taken any major hits. His Play Rate fell from the Top 60 two weeks ago to #83, but his Win Rate is still in the Top 25, which is exceptional for any card in this category. This could be a result of the recent High Voltage mode inflating this card’s stats (because Cannonball is a common addition into Arishem, which is EXTREMELY popular in High Voltage right now), but players often report unexpectedly losing because of him.
Considering the general meta overlook as of now, Cannonball’s usefulness varies a lot. He can be a solo location winner against Bounce, often destroying cards like Bishop or Hit Monkey since they don’t have anywhere to go. On the other hand, he’s pretty much useless against the Darkhawk package because of Cosmo’s prevalence. In any case, you’ll frequently find yourself getting caught off-guard by the opponent’s Cannonball, and that surprise factor is key to stealing cubes.
Underplayed 5-Cost Cards That Deserve Your Attention
Sandman has felt the full force of irrelevancy after his nerf. After being the most oppressive high-cost card when Patriot/Ultron decks were running rampant, his change to essentially becoming a Dream Dimension has successfully made him a chore to play with. His Play Rate has dropped to a measly 1.96%, and his Win Rate or Cube Rate isn’t faring much better either.
In truth, he’s not an instant match-winner like he used to be, and taking a half-measure like increasing the cards’ Cost by 1 isn’t assuring enough to guarantee a spot in decks.
Devil Dinosaur is arguably the most popular card among beginners, and if you're a veteran, you've likely played the classic Collector+Devil Dino deck back in the day. At one point, this was usually the biggest 5-cost card you could have in a deck. Sadly, though, the current meta and several previous metas haven't been kind to our favorite prehistoric creature.
For the past few weeks, the hype has been around low-cost cards, including the current Bounce meta, which doesn't like keeping cards in hand by the final turn. As such, you'll rarely find Devil Dino reaching high Power in those scenarios. It's also hard to currently justify using Devil Dino when you have cards like Iron Man and Klaw, which aren't susceptible to Shang-Chi.
Even if we move away from those two cards, there are other options, too. You also have Ajax, who regularly reaches Devil Dino’s level of Power, and his deck is MUCH better for the current meta. Overall, Devil Dino suffers the same problem as a lot of early-game cards—he’s just there for the initial experience, so giving him too much incentive might create imbalance at that level.
Looking back, Gilgamesh’s influence almost feels inflated. Although he has a strong Win Rate, his Play Rate has sunk to the mid-100s after being in the Top 30, which is honestly one of the biggest falloffs we’ve seen. Why is that the case? Well, this card was seen as a huge threat because of how tall it could go during a meta where low-cost cards were dominating and only reaching high single-digit units.
Now, in a meta where Power is commonplace, and cards like Hit Monkey and Hela often put more than 20 Power on the board, which Zoo isn’t confidently competing against, Gilgamesh has taken a massive hit. Still, he has the 3rd highest Win Rate when played, showing that he’s still comfortably winning matches. So, it leads me to think whether he’s underplayed because people aren’t confident of him or whether these figures are purely thanks to Zoo decks being so accessible and plug-and-play.
Like Stature and Blackbolt, another devasting high-cost combo back in the day was Annihilus and Sentry. In fact, these two were a better combo than Stature and Blackbolt in many ways because they clogged lanes and offered better Power output. However, with Sentry becoming a 4/8 and his Void becoming 4/-8, the combo’s effective Power saw a meaningful 4-power decline.
Furthermore, with Clog overtaking Junk as the prominent oppressive deck, Annihilus’ contribution started becoming less and less impactful. Now, he’s struggling to stay in the Top 200 in terms of meta share.
The Vanilla Stat Line: Is 5/9 Still A Thing?
So far in our State of the Costs series, we’ve seen how the infamous power creep has let several newer cards exceed their Cost category’s vanilla stat line. However, the original 5/9 set by Abomination is only contested by Gilgamesh, Jane Foster’s Thor, Spider-Man 2099, Aero, and Red Skull.
But why is that so? Is it because 5/9 is too powerful? Absolutely not. Unlike prior Cost categories whose base Power needs to be considered, 5-cost cards either provide a lot of utility or output Power passively. For instance, Ajax usually reaches 15+ Power with his deck, while Iron Man could be a 5/90 with the right Tribunal setup.
On the other hand, Cannonball can be a 5/7 Shang-Chi or a lane-winning solo card, while Valkyrie can completely decimate a Blob or any Clog deck. There's also someone like Vision, who’s just a 5/8 but is regularly considered a “safe” option because his ability is simple yet versatile. All in all, unless you massive a definitive use case, being a simple 5/9 or 5/10 is almost unusable at this Cost category, and, as such, this is another vanilla stat line that’s faded away into irrelevancy with updates.
Conclusion
Despite the meta heavily focusing on massive Power output via both low-cost and high-cost, it’s unfortunate to see that 5-cost cards are still struggling to make an impact on the scene. They’ve been neglected for several months up to this point, and while their condition isn’t as bad as 4-cost cards, the other Cost categories are seemingly pulled way ahead.
To make matters worse, it seems the only saving grace for the 5-cost category is a fateful OTA because the next Spotlight Caches indicate that there are apparently no new 5-cost cards coming to Marvel Snap. As such, the names we’re used to hearing will remain unchanged for the most part.
We hope you now have a better understanding of 5-cost in the current meta-game and which cards in this category are thriving these days. Let us know what 5-cost cards you're getting annoyed by the most and what 5-cost cards you want to see become popular again in the comment section below!