If, like me, John Walker, you’re still digging your way through the lower echelons of Marvel snap, there’s a good chance there are cards that you’re holding onto because they’ve worked so well for you. However, they are now losing more often and wondering what went wrong. The answer is: kill your loved ones.
With the help of my colleague Zack Zwiezen – who’s been playing the game for a while – we’ve put together a list of cards that you might want to eliminate from your decks.
Now let’s be clear: none of us are saying that these cards are completely useless or that keeping them in your deck is always a bad idea. It’s just that they felt so good early on that you might not have been able to bring yourself to acknowledge their weaknesses and keep them from experimenting with more interesting combinations. Be brave, be brave and let these babies go.
And remember, if you experiment too much and end up with a stinky deck, you can always add them back later! Anyway, let’s start cutting some cards!
mercury
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As my box broke before, Quicksilver was developer Second Dinner’s brilliant solution to completely removing the concept of mulligans from their deck building card game. Guaranteeing a 1-cost card in your hand at the start of every game ensures you can always play the first turn, every time, and instantly add 2 power to the board. Which at first felt vital. But the more you play, the more you realize that being able to play in the first round isn’t all that important.
Chances are you won’t lay down anything game-changing in this first round. And indeed, by not playing turn one, you fend off other 1-cost cards like Elektra. You can even get obnoxious about not playing a 1-cost you might have in your hand on turn 1, just so you can play two of them more tactically on turn 2. Again, for example, Elektra!
And as we’ll see below, decks that go for as many 1-cost cards as possible tend to weaken as you climb the ranks, meaning Quicksilver’s lack of other abilities quickly becomes more of a liability as a blessing.
Counting
When you first come across Uatu, he feels like a secret hack, a card that offers you special insights unavailable to anyone who has found him yet. His ability to show you the properties of unfamiliar places feels like something that lets you plan ahead and make psychic moves your opponent can’t predict. And to a certain degree, on a certain level, he kind of does.
Except that this doesn’t happen nearly often enough to justify Uatu having a valuable spot in your 12-card deck. The problem lies in the number of conditions that must be true for it to actually prove helpful. Obviously you need the luck to drag him to work early enough. If you don’t get him on the first or second turn, Uatu’s ability is pretty much useless. Second, you need to play a game of places where prior knowledge actually comes in handy.
So many locations have characteristics where prior knowledge is of very little value. Finding out that when it is revealed you add a random card to your hand, take a random card from it, or add a 12-strength card to either side… it’s very rare that this is important information to you. Yes, there are absolutely situations where knowing that each card gains a 5+ power as it is played is great, means you can charge up and dominate where your opponent might not know. But does it happen often enough for Uatu to remain an important card? Really no.
hulk
This one is hard. But listen: there are better and more interesting ways to finish big. Hulk is there from the start to give you the satisfaction of playing a ridiculous 12 power card against those Pool 1 bots. But it’s baby food, and you’re ready for solids.
Sure, you don’t have anything else in your deck that offers as much power. It’s simple logic. But Hulk’s simplicity is the problem. If you’re wasting all of your energy on turn 6 on a card that does nothing but add a ton of power, it means you’re missing out on a lot more fun big finishes. It doesn’t matter that Shang-Chi, available at Gathering Level 222, can wipe him out with his “Destroy all enemy cards in this location with 9 or more power”.
But there are so many cards that do more interesting things on the last turn. Like Odin adding 8 power but also re-triggering all the On Reveal abilities of the other cards in the location. This means you can see White Tiger put another 7-power card in a different location, increasing her total contribution to 15, while also retriggering Gamora’s extra +5 power if the opponent plays a card there . That brings Gamora to 17 total, even without considering a possible third card at the spot, just playing Odin increased our power by 20. Take thehulk
America Chavez
When you receive this card for the first time, you might get excited. America is a 6-cost/9-power card that always comes up in turn six, which is usually the last turn for most Marvel snap games. And yes, it’s nice to know that a powerful 9 power card will definitely show up at the end of your game. But that also means she’s not hanging around in your hand, meaning she can’t be buffed early or randomly thrown into the field.
And while adding 9-Power can be useful at the end of a game, you’ll quickly run into games as you rank up where 9-Power just isn’t enough to reclaim a zone or lock something. Worse, America doesn’t have any special abilities other than showing up in turn 6. So she shows up like Quicksilver and doesn’t really do anything. And unlike the Hulk, who is very strong, America is just kind of strong. In a specific deck built around buffing, it can work, but there are better 6- and even 5-cost cards to trade in instead.
domino
Let’s just address that here as well while we talk about America Chavez and Quicksilver. Like these cards, Domino has a unique ability that means it’s guaranteed to land in your hand on turn two. And as a 2-cost/3-power, it seems useful as a turn-one successor to Quicksilver. And early on, you can definitely win with dominoes. But at some point you have to get over these cards.
It’s hard, I know, but giving them up means giving up the consistency of always knowing what’s coming on moves one, two, and six, but you’re also giving up three spots in your little 12-card deck. Reveal to characters that have no other purpose. They don’t buff, boost, move, kill, destroy or do anything useful like that. Again, these cards can be useful in certain decks. But there are just so many better cards you could use instead of Domino, Quicksilver, and America. Say goodbye to consistency and hello to chaos. It is that Marvel snap Path.
mantis
Mantis, like the others Guardians of the Galaxy-related characters, has a reveal ability that appears when your opponent plays a card at that location in the same turn it was played. But unlike Gamora, Star-Lord, or Rocket, Mantis doesn’t gain a power boost, instead drawing a card from the opposing player’s deck. This is fun and messy what we support! snap is more fun when things are unpredictable and wild. However, this becomes far less useful in most situations fairly quickly.
The number of times people play Mantis, get a card, and then never use that card because it doesn’t work with their deck’s synergy is high. And that’s if your opponent plays a card this turn and You guessed the place correctly. If you don’t, then Mantis is a crappy 1-cost/2-power paperweight that just begs to be killed by Elektra or worse, gets left there with you unable to remove it, and takes up valuable real estate. So, yes, drop Mantis. And when you yell, “Well, she’s part of my zoo deck!” more bad news coming…
zoo decks
The “Zoo Deck” was certainly one of the most popular metadecks of snapbut with the more frequent addition of Killmonger to players’ decks, it’s now proving to be a liability.
A zoo deck is a community-given name for decks that assemble many low-cost cards, particularly 1-cost cards, which often feature animal images. (Not often enough to justify the name, but that’s the name they got anyway.) proponents celebrate that they allow you to play multiple cards in later turns, surprising players who rely on hefty 5- and 6-cost cards, like some kind of cheeky rascal hopping around between the angry giant’s legs. Except that they’re pretty much useless because of Killmonger.
Killmonger seems like an incredible OP card, although it can only be picked up by players who have reached Gathering Level 462. With only 3 cost and 3 power, it’s a playable card starting in turn 3 and takes every single 1-cost card off the board. yours and theirs. And people in pool 2 report seeing it show up a lot. The effects are brutal. Oh, and Zoo decks can also be badly hit by a Scorpion, reducing the attack power of every card in your hand by one, which can easily cost you a tight match when most 1-cost cards are low on power. So yes, Zoo Decks are fun…but not worth it later.
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