Losing In Marvel Snap? Ditch These Cards ASAP!

Image: Marvel/Second Dinner/Kotaku

If you, like me John Walker, are still working your way through the lower echelons of marvel snap, there’s a good chance there are some cards that you cling to because they worked so well for you. However, now you start losing more often, wondering what went wrong. The answer is: kill your darlings.

With the help of my colleague Zack Zwiezen, who’s been playing the game for a while now, we’ve put together a list of cards you might want to remove from your decks.

Now, let’s be clear: none of us are saying that these cards are totally useless, or that keeping them in your deck is always a bad idea. It’s just that they were the ones that felt so good in the beginning that you may not have been able to bring yourself to recognize their weaknesses and prevent you from experimenting with more interesting combinations. Be bold, be brave and let those babies go.

And remember you can always add them back later if you experiment too much and end up with a stinky deck! Anyway, let’s start cutting some cards!

Mercury

Image: Marvel/Second Dinner/Kotaku

As Kotaku has already gone down, 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 each game ensures that you can always play the first turn, every time, and immediately add 2 powers to the board. Which, at first, seemed vital. Except the more you play, the more you realize that being able to play in the first round isn’t that important.

Chances are you won’t place anything game-changing this first round. And indeed, by not playing in the first turn, you push back other 1-cost cards like Elektra. You can even obnoxiously choose not to play a cost 1 you might have in your hand on turn 1, just so you can play two more tactically on turn 2. Again, for example, Elektra!

And, as we’ll see below, decks that go for as many one-cost cards as possible will get weaker and weaker as you climb through the ranks, which means Quicksilver’s lack of extra abilities will make it weaker and weaker. quickly makes it more of a burden than a boon.

Uatu

Image: Marvel/Second Dinner/Kotaku

When you first come across Uatu, it feels like a secret hack, a map giving you a special insight that’s inaccessible to anyone who hasn’t found it yet. Its ability to show you the properties of unrevealed locations feels like something that lets you plan ahead and make psychic moves your opponent can’t predict. And, to some degree, on some level, it sort of does.

Except it won’t happen often enough to warrant Uatu taking up valuable space in your 12-card deck. The problem is how many conditions have to be right for it to actually be useful. Obviously enough, you need the chance to draw it early enough to work. Unless you get it on the first or second turn, Uatu’s ability is pretty useless. Second, you need to play a game with places where prior knowledge is actually useful.

So many places have properties where prescience is of very little value. Finding out that when he reveals you’ll get a random card added to your hand, a random card drawn from your hand, or a 12 power card added to both sides…it’s very rare that this is vital information for you . Yes, there are absolutely circumstances where it’s great, where knowing that every card will get 5+ power when played there means you can charge in and dominate where your opponent might not. But does it happen frequently enough for Uatu to remain a vital card? Really, no.

Pontoon

Image: Marvel/Second Dinner/Kotaku

This one is tough. But listen: there are better and more interesting ways to a great finish. Hulk’s been here all along to give you the satisfaction of playing a ridiculous 12-power card on those Group 1 robots. But it’s baby food, and you’re ready for solid food.

Of course, you don’t have anything else in your deck that offers so much power. It’s simple logic. But the Hulk’s simplicity is the problem. Using all your energy in Round 6 on a card that does nothing but add a bunch of power means you miss out on big, much more fun finishes. Never mind that Shang-Chi, available from Collector Level 222, can wipe it out with his “Destroy all enemy cards there that have 9 or more power”.

But there are so many cards that do more interesting things in the final turn. Like Odin, who adds 8 power, but also rerolls all other cards’ On Reveal abilities in the slot. This means you can see White Tiger place another 7 power card on another slot, bringing its total contribution to 15, while retriggering Gamora’s additional +5 power if the opponent plays a card there. That puts Gamora at a total of 17, even without factoring in a possible third card in the slot, just playing Odin increased our power by 20. Take that, Hulk.

America Chávez

Image: Marvel/Second Dinner/Kotaku

When you first receive this card, you might be excited. America is a 6 cost/9 power card that always spawns on turn six, which is usually the last turn in most Marvel Snap games. And yes, it’s nice to know that a powerful 9 power card is definitely going to appear at the end of your match. But that also means it doesn’t lay around in your hand, which means it can’t be buffed or randomly thrown into the field early on.

And while adding the power of 9 at the end of a match can be helpful, you’ll quickly come across games as you rank up where the power of 9 just isn’t enough to reclaim an area or lock down. Something. Worse, America has no special abilities beyond showing up on turn 6. So, like Quicksilver, they show up and don’t really do anything. And unlike Hulk who is very strong, America is only kind of strong. In a specific deck built around the buff, it might work, but there are better 6 and even 5 cost cards to trade instead.

Domino

Image: Marvel/Second Dinner/Kotaku

Let’s just throw that in here too, while we’re talking about America Chavez and Quicksilver. Like those cards, Domino has a unique ability that means it’s guaranteed to end up in your hand on turn two. And as a 2-cost/3-power, she looks useful as a first-round follow-up to Quicksilver. And right from the start, you can definitely win with Domino. But eventually, you will have to overcome these cards.

It’s hard, I know, but while giving them up means you’re giving up the consistency of always knowing what’s coming on turns one, two, and six, you’re also giving up three slots in your little 12-card deck at characters with no other purpose. They don’t buff, boost, move, kill, destroy, or do anything useful like that. Again, in some decks, these cards can be useful. But there are so many better cards you could use instead of Domino, Quicksilver, and America. Say goodbye to consistency and hello to chaos. It’s the Marvel Snap way.

Mantis

Image: Marvel/Second Dinner/Kotaku

Mantis, like other Guardians of the Galaxy related characters, has a reveal ability that appears when your opponent plays a card there on the same turn it is played. But unlike Gamora, Star-Lord, or Rocket, Mantis doesn’t receive a power boost, instead drawing a card from the opposing player’s deck. It’s fun and chaotic, which we support! Snap is more fun when things are unpredictable and wild. But that becomes much less useful in most situations pretty quickly.

The number of times people play Mantis, get a card, and then never use that card because it doesn’t sync with their deck’s synergy is high. And that’s if your opponent plays a card this turn and you guess the correct location. If you don’t, then Mantis is a shitty 1 cost / 2 power paperweight just waiting to be killed by Elektra or worse, left there with no way for you to remove it, taking up valuable possessions real estate. So, yeah, drop Mantis. And if you yell “Well, she’s part of my Zoo Deck!” Right now, here’s some more bad news…

zoo decks

Image: Marvel/Second Dinner/Kotaku

The “Zoo Deck” was certainly one of Snap’s most popular early meta decks, but in the face of the more common 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 collect many low-cost cards, especially 1-cost cards, which often feature animal artwork. (Not often enough to warrant the name, but that’s the name they have anyway.) Defenders celebrate that they allow you to play multiple cards on later turns, surprising players who rely on heavy 5 and 6 cost cards, like some sort of cheeky rogue scampering between the angry giant’s legs. Except, because of Killmonger, they’re pretty much useless.

Killmonger seems like an amazing OP card, although it can only be picked up by players who have reached collectible level 462. At only 3 costs, with 3 powers, it’s a card that can be played from the turn 3, and devastatingly knocks out every 1-cost card from the board. Yours and theirs. And the pool people 2 report seeing him shows up a lot. The effects are brutal. Oh, and Zoo Decks can also be beaten hard by a Scorpion, which reduces the attack power of all cards in your hand by one point, which can easily cost you a close match when most cards cost 1 are weak. So yes, Zoo Decks are fun… but it’s not worth it later.