Marvel Snap Creator Reveals His Best Decks And Fav Card

Image: Second Supper/Marvel/Kotaku

marvel snapBoss Ben Brode recently sat down and talked about the popular free-to-play card game. He revealed a few decks he’s currently playing – one of them being a nasty job that probably annoys a lot of players – and said who his favorite character in the game is. It’s Mysterio aka Jake Gyllenhaal in the Marvel movie Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Far From Home. You see, I said I would explain it.

Marvel Snap seems to be everywhere these days, with nearly every site covering the best and worst maps, strategies, and more. Lots of Kotaku staff are currently playing it. My friends play it. Random people I follow on Twitter are playing it. And I understand! The game is great, change some of the old ways card games generally work while ditching the loot boxes and pay-to-win items that so many F2P card games suffer from on mobile. So it only makes sense that in today’s environment, where everyone is hungry for Marvel Snap content, Ben Brode sat down with IGN and shared his favorite decks, how they work, and why Mysterio of all cards is his favorite. (Spoiler: Doesn’t seem to have anything to do with movie star Jake”Chest James“Gyllenhaal.)

Speaking to IGN, Brode revealed three decks he currently plays with. The first was what he called the “Omega Red Deck” which is built around Iron Man, Onslaught, and Omega Red.

Image: Second Supper/Marvel/Kotaku

“With this combo,” Brode explained, “You just have a huge amount of power in one place because Omega Red is five power, Iron Man doubles that, and then Onslaught doubles that double again.” Since Omega Red adds extra power to other areas if placed in an area where you are leading with 10+ power, the card will definitely put you in a good position to win the match. And Brode uses Invisible Woman to hide it all until the very last turn, keeping your opponent in the dark.

The second deck he showed off was originally named the “Dickwad” deck, but Brode says his son made him change the name to the “Butthead” deck. As the names imply, this deck is all about being super shitty to your opponent using annoying cards to screw with them and cause problems.

“It’s a lot of really, really mean cards,” admits Brode. “So I play The Hood and then give you The Hood. It plays Debris, so it fills the board with rocks. It plays Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, and Polaris, so I’m trying to basically lock you out of some locations. And then it plays a bunch of cards like Spider-Woman, Hazmat, and Black Widow to clog your board and then give all your cards minus power. That’s kind of the shtick.”

I have a similar deck to this and I feel bad using it but hey, a win is a win. Speaking of, this reminds me of a deck our own John Walker has started using recently…

Image: Second Supper/Marvel/Kotaku

Finally, the third deck he spoke to IGN about was “The Beast” deck. It’s an odd creation, with Brode even admitting he’s unsure of its quality. The deck is filled with almost every low cost card, in fact there isn’t a single four, five or six cost card in all of this. The idea was to build a deck around Beast and Falcon.

“So Beast returns your other cards to your hand and they cost one less, so you can make a free card that way,” Brode said. “Then Falcon will return them again and they’ll still be free. So you can play them multiple times. I play Iceman. I play on Korg. I play Elektra. I play Hood. And The Collector, because I bounce cards in my hand all the time. Of all his creations, this one intrigued me the most. Unfortunately, I don’t have all the cards needed to run it, but I might create it when I do.

Read more: Marvel Snap’s Big New Black Panther Season: What You Need to Know

As for his favorite map, Mysterio, Brode said it was one of the first maps the folks at Second Dinner started working on when marvel snap development began over four years ago. And Brode says that, early on, highlighted what was really fun about Snap: the mind games.

Image: Second Supper/Marvel/Kotaku

“When you play Mysterio, it’s a five power, two energy card. Very powerful,” Brode explained. “But he disguises himself and he plays two other disguises in the other places, so your opponent doesn’t know where you played Mysterio. They only see three Mysterio question mark cards. And they kind of have to guess, “Where would this real Mysterio have played?”

This leads to a very tense situation where your opponent is trying to figure out where the best area is to play Mysterio in this match. But then they also have to ask themselves: are you deliberately playing it somewhere else, even maybe in the wrong place, just to avoid the opponent guessing correctly and counter-attacking? Or maybe you’re building to put it in a bad position, but then put it in a good position, assuming the other player is overthinking your moves? Or maybe… well, you see how it goes.

“So there are some really interesting mind games with this card,” Brode said. “I just think it’s fascinating.” You see, even the creator of Marvel Snap is playing the game like an asshole. Sorry, asshole.