The Snap Chat: Marvel Snap Podcast
Hercules: The Movement God Arrives! | Leaked Patch Notes & Road Ahead | Skaar & Caiera In Review | The Snap Chat Ep. 62
How good is Hercules for the move archetype? What is expected to change with the leaked patch notes and the recently released road map? How has Skaar & Caiera performed compared to expectation? Join Cozy Snap and Alexander Coccia as they chat about this and more on this episode of The Snap Chat and every week as they discuss all things Marvel Snap.
How good is Hercules for the move archetype? What is expected to change with the leaked patch notes and the recently released road map? How has Skaar & Caiera performed compared to expectation? Join Cozy Snap and Alexander Coccia as they chat about this and more on this episode of The Snap Chat and every week as they discuss all things Marvel Snap.
What's going on guys and welcome back. Tuesday is going to be a massive day for the game. We have a brand new patch that has been leaked. Alex and I are going to break down all of the cards that most likely will see change tomorrow. We're also going to be breaking down the new movement MVP, Hercules. Is this guy going to change move? Is it finally going to be great? Is it going to be trash? Should you buy him, Alex and I are going to break down all the combos and why he might be pretty good. Lastly guys, we have the road ahead. Alex and I are going to break down every single item, do some speculation, and of course, talk about clans and all the excitement around what's to come to Marvel Snap. We're going to talk about that all today and more on this episode of the Snapchat. And as always, I'm joined by Mr. Alex Coccia. What a week man. What a week, we got leaked patch notes, we got the road ahead, we got two cards coming out once how you doing, bud?
Alexander Coccia:I'm doing great, Cozy, and you're right, it's been a completely wild week in Marvel Snap having multiple releases in one week. Those leaked patch notes that came literally out of nowhere, they just accidentally released them on their own website, like they're self leaking, basically, right? And then you have just, I don't know, it's just been crazy, and the meta's in this really interesting place, I love it when it's like this. Tons of brewings happening right now, and that's when I have the most fun in the game. It's a great time to be a Marvel Snap player.
Cozy Snap:Second Dinner hates the idea of us getting sleep, I swear. Like, two, two cards, man! Like, sometimes, like, I don't know about you, but like, whenever, like, I don't know, a lot comes out at once, I have to kind of judge, like, oh, what am I going to make a video on? You know, if we get, like, the patch. I was thinking about it. There's going to be months where we have two new cards. And the balance patch hits, and I'm just like, I don't, it's going to feel pretty cool, because there's going to be like a whole lot going on, but how's the year starting out? How's Snap starting out for you?
Alexander Coccia:Starting out great! I've been having a lot of fun brewing new decks and kind of trying to be creative. One of my kind of go to's for the season has been like, what are some cards that aren't seeing a lot of play that perhaps can lift the relevance of the new cards that came out in Kyara and in Scar? And so like, I've been brewing some interesting stuff and I've been having a lot of success and I take some pride when like I beat players kind of. Climbing to infinite with decks and with moves that they're not expecting. I think that like, when I, they're going for AQs, like, Oh, what's this guy going to hit me with? And I take them by surprise. It's a great feeling. And I think that when you're brewing, I think it's just, it's such a fun experience and snap. It really is. I know that the meta is what it is. And we talk about meta decks all the time, but there's something special about brewing something wholly unique and taking it to the ladder.
Cozy Snap:Well, look, man, I'm excited to talk about it in the intro, but. Leaked patch notes. I mean, there's some really spicy changes to cards that there's a couple, man, that, like, they're gonna go from, like, worst to best, right? Like, I'm just, you know, pumped to talk about those. And then also, the road ahead, dude. My gosh, we've been talking about this stuff forever. Like, the first thing I thought about when I saw it was like You! And I was like, and us, and talking about this, and really trying to will it into existence. But with that, that's what we're talking about over here. Alex, what are we talking about on your side of the Snapchat?
Alexander Coccia:We'll be talking about Scar, and giving our final rankings and some deck suggestions for you guys out there looking to make the best of the Season Pass card Scar. We're also going to be talking about Kaiera, giving our final rankings on Kaiera, and also discussing some of the major decks where she's finding success in currently. And then finally, as we do every single week, we'll be closing off with the Snapchat Mailbag.
Cozy Snap:Well, Alex, we got the new card, man! Is it gonna be a movement MVP, or is it gonna be hot trash? Hercules. He was in Disney, he was Greek Mythology, and now he's in Marvel. Let's go ahead and break him down, man. We're gonna talk about the spotlight caches, we're gonna talk about where we see him fitting in overall. Let's start with just kicking it right to it, man. The spotlight cache. Now with him, we've got Werewolf by Night, and finally, the people have been clamoring, Alex. The card that you haven't had for how long now, my friend? Howard the Duck. I'm gonna be honest. Pretty bad Spotlight week, especially after Werewolf took a big hit, and definitely one of those cards that just like, lost popularity massively after that hit. Which is funny, because he's still a decent card. What do you think of the Spotlights, bud?
Alexander Coccia:This is definitely one of the weaker weeks. I have to roll because I still, it's Howard's the only card I do not have in Snap. I REFUSED to spend 6, 000 tokens on him. I'm just not doing it. I'll roll my keys. But yeah, Werewolf by Night did get hit pretty negatively by the nerf. However, it was still a pretty good cog in several decks until the most recent kind of release of the new season, so everything has kind of shifted. Overall, like, Werewolf was still 100 percent playable. If you don't have Werewolf, it's worth getting him. Yeah, but I mean, there's a lot of question marks around Hercules. That's the thing. And that's what we're discussing here. And we were a little low on Hercules last week and I did some humming and hawing and thinking, and well, I think we're still right. I think that like, I'm going to stay firm on my two star rating here. But we had to record the last week's podcast prior to the release of the video like the development video update. And they showcased that Hercules was actually going to impact the opposing side. Which is actually a key component of his potential power. So having that clarification really does help this discussion, I think. And so I'm really interested in hearing how you still think about him.
Cozy Snap:You're like leading into it. You're like, yeah, you know, I was doing some hoeing and humming. I'm like, dude, don't, don't, don't do it, Alex. Now, first let's just like break down the bare basics. I guess I forgot to read the card off, right? Hercules is a four cost, six power card. The first time another card moves here, each turn, move it to another location. Now, right off the bat, let's highlight two different things I don't like about this. And then the things I do like. The first time, right? We just talked about that. It just, it's brutal. Because you can't have multiple cards go into that, and we're starting to get decks, you know, you have Cloak, Heimdall, there are cards that can move multiple cards, and so it's gotta be kind of very methodical in the placement of these cards. But also, move to another location. This one hurt me, man. I was bummed about this. If it would have been moved to the other location, right, so if you moved a card, and then it moved to the only location that it didn't originally, you know, is involved in that equation, then you have some dependability, and you know where that vulture's gonna go, whatever, right, and I kinda like that. But it's been confirmed, it can go back to the original location from which it moved from, right, so that kinda had me a little bit hesitant to get too excited as well. Now, 4 6, that's fine. I think that's interesting. Oh man, here's the thing. I really actually spent a ton of time with this guy. Really trying to figure out like, can we talk about him potentially being a decent card, right? Like, is it going to be another cog for move? And I think there's kind of a larger problem at whole, and I want to get to it. I think actually some of the leaked patch notes have to do with it as well. And it's like movement for the team over there, for Mr. Glynn. It's got to be one of the hardest archetypes to balance because you It's, it can be so close to being broken, which is why I think there's a lot of, like, restrictions on the movement cards, right? Obviously, the first time is there. You know, on him, Spider Man 2099, the first time, something moves. And we've seen that time after time. And there's small things that I think Herc, Hercules as a card overall. Yeah, I'm, I'm honestly, a two star is where I'm landing at. And, and the upside, I think there are some interesting mechanics about it. I do want to break it down. I think there are some spicy things to come. Especially with the leaked patch and some of the cards within that. And then also as like a control mechanism. But is it going to be enough? Now I want to start the conversation with who he kind of reminds me of, Alex. And to be honest, man, he reminds me, and this is the problem, of Ghost Spider. And I'll tell you why, and not in as far as his viability. But I feel like between this, Doctor Strange, movement cards come out always way too high in cost. Like, if Hercules was lower cost, I'd immediately be more excited about the card. The problem is, is with movement, you're trying to get so many moving pieces happening. You're trying to get so many combos. And you gotta get Hercules first, you have to get a card that benefits off Hercules, and then you have to get move enabled cards as well, right? So there's like a lot of things you need to even have a subpar finish. And that's what has me a little bit hesitant to get too excited about him, like kind of right off the bat, you know? And then on top of that is like, even his general use is still not too, too crazy. But I will say there are some really fun synergy cards and things like that. Talk to me man, what are your first kind of initial thoughts?
Alexander Coccia:My first initial thoughts is you could have added Phoenix Force to that list, right? Phoenix Force was exactly that, over costed, got brought down. Still not quite the meta piece that some people might expect it to be. But playable, definitely playable. So Phoenix Force is a good example of like being costed too high and having to be brought down. And you could start there. I think there's synergy with Phoenix Force, potentially the idea of like moving the Phoenix Force, either a human torch or multiple man. into that location getting a benefit than being forced to be bounced out. I mean, with multiple men, you probably run out of space pretty quickly, but with that human torch, it's going to get nice and massive. Right. So there's probably a lot of benefit there, but I think you actually brought up something really interesting. The idea of like, how is this card hold out just as like, not even just as a core move piece, but like just as like a tech card or, you know, does it. Can you use it in flooded locations? Is there like storm synergy, right? Can you storm and then Hercules and prevent visions from coming in? Actually even Jeff, but with Jeff, I'm not sure. Would Jeff still make it? Cause nothing can stop him. Or would he still bounce with Hercules? It's one of those mechanics things you'd have to test. But Phoenix force, I think was a really interesting idea.
Cozy Snap:I feel like this deck has become similar to, like, Mr. Negative, where it's a combo deck and it's already gonna win if you get said combo most of the time. Like, how much does it actually need help? Will it Introduce new Phoenix Force combos? I think so, maybe. I think that can be something cool. But do you know what I mean? It kind of already wins if you get the pop off.
Alexander Coccia:Absolutely, no, exactly what you mean. Like, if you have Phoenix Force and it's floating around at 96 power because you have your Human Torch or whatever, then yeah, like, what do you need a Hercules for, right? You just need your Taskmaster. Like, you need your other win condition. Usually your opponent's just like, well I'm gone. See you later, right? So you're right. Is Hercules just that pure greed combo play that's really unnecessary in a deck that already struggles with consistency. And like, if Phoenix Force is four and Hercules is four, what, you're playing Phoenix Force on four, then Hercules on five and then bouncing into him on turn six and not even knowing where it lands in the end of the day. Right. So it's like, yeah, it's probably potentially an unnecessary combo piece to the deck. I agree a hundred percent.
Cozy Snap:So I don't want to go into the leaked patch patch notes at all, but I do want to bring up one card from it. Because it's important in this conversation before we dive into the synergy. So, one of the cards that are gonna be getting some change, finally. We've been talking about it for a long time. It's going to be Kingpin. Now Kingpin is going from a 3 4 down to a 2 3, I believe. And instead of destroying cards on turn 6, every time a card moves, it gets negative 2 power, if I believe in the patch notes correctly here. The reason I bring him up is, I think this is a very important tool moving forward, and ultimately could help out move. And let me tell you why. Movement needs more cards like Kingpin that can hurt for moving, so that you can be punished for moving. And then in turn, we can end up getting much better movement cards, right? Or much, we can get rid of the first time effect, or things like that, right? Like Kingpin is the first card, out of two cards, that can punish somebody for moving cards. And we need more of those outside of locations. Not necessarily they get destroyed, but the negative two power, things like that. Right. And then they can, they can kind of be a little bit more loose with what they can do with movement decks in total. Does that make sense?
Alexander Coccia:Oh, it makes perfect sense. What you said is absolutely brilliant. Essentially you need that release valve. For move gives move the ability to actually kind of rise amongst the ranks a little bit. So that has some counterplay. Like if, if, if you don't have the king pin doing the negative two and you don't have that counterplay, then it's very hard to raise the ceiling of that archetype. Right. Just imagine what like devil dinosaur would feel like if Shawn, she didn't exist. Right. It's the, it's the exact same or blob. For that matter. Right. Dark. So a hundred percent. I agree. Right. By allowing Kingpin to be a legitimate tech card against move, maybe you actually allow that ceiling to rise a little bit on moves, potential power.
Cozy Snap:Yeah. And that's like a big piece. I think ultimately we can get to a really cool place because time and time again, it feels like, Oh, that's a cool move card. If you're really good at move, you can, you know, have a success, but then they have just so many restrictions, and the card draw, and the way that you play it, and they're usually too high cost, that it just ends up being a deck that I would rather just play another deck. Why would I, you know, there's other decks that do things so simply, man. Shuri, like, why would you not just do that for more dependableness, right? But anyway, man, so Phoenix Force I thought was a definitely a good idea. But looking at movement cards as a whole First of all, dude, you know, if we're trying to talk about the good, let's talk about where I do think Hercules can have some spice to him. I mean, dude, we, we, Vulture's gonna be great here. I think Vulture's probably the biggest winner out of this, outside of one other card. People forget how fast this guy scales.
Alexander Coccia:Oh, no kidding. And I mean, what you can really do is you can play Hercules on turn four. And then what you can do is you can play Vulture into Ghost Spider, pull him into the Hercules lane, you know, plus five, boom, bounce him out, plus five. That's pretty good. And you can Heimdall on turn six, and then he's moving everywhere and there's all this bounce. But again, with Hercules, you have no idea where everything's gonna bounce. This is gonna be complete chaos, right? But yeah, I think Vulture's a massive, massive winner here. And he's hard to Shawn Chi. He's hard to to Shadow King because if you don't have initiative, you really don't know where he's going to end up. Right. So I think Vulture's really gonna have some time to shine in the upcoming season.
Cozy Snap:I mean, he did legit. Just two plays. If you even just do the Ghost Spider play, and then let's say Heimdall, you can get him to 23 power very fast. I mean, instantaneously, right? Because he can go move, bounce, but then you have to make sure he's in the right thing. Like, that's the problem, like we just said. We don't know where he will end up. But Vulture, just like, all together has a lot of potential. You know, I think one of the cards, it's not to stray from move too much, but we always kind of have to talk about it when we're talking about these new cards. It's a four cost, right? Xabu lacks a lot of other fours in the movement category, right? But getting Hercules out on three, which brings us back to the conversation of a cheaper cost, Hercules, then you really can start cooking. Because using four, five, and six, the thing that move has going for it Is it does now have a lot of cheap movement cards. Doctor Strange, Ghost Spider. So you can theoretically start really moving things around. But it's tough, because Strange moves, you know, the highest cost card, and then you have to make sure that Vulture is higher than Hercules at 6. There's still Cogs to be worked out, but I think that that could ultimately be a place you know, if we can get Zabu out and ramp him out a bit earlier.
Alexander Coccia:Absolutely, and if, unless my memory fails me, I'm pretty sure that technically, Werewolf by night moves, correct? And therefore, he would synergize with Zabu as well, so potentially you could see like a Craven, Hercules Werewolf by night deck, which could potentially create some value. Cause I mean, Hercules and Craven should in theory work well together, not necessarily in the same location, but it'd be interesting if like something gets pushed out of the Craven location to generate space, hits the Hercules, bounces back in, right. I think there's potential for Kraven as well, but what's interesting is, I mean, if you're going to try to run a Kraven, if they have Kingpin, well then it's a total disaster, right? So that's where that ceiling, that kind of counterplay comes into play that what you were discussing prior.
Cozy Snap:Well, we're getting the ceiling before we get a good move deck, right? So it's like, if this were to even take off, just plug in Kingpin and kills the deck, I think, great. But on top of that. The thing I'm worried about Kraven is back to that first time effect, right? Because I thought the same thing. I'm like, oh man, Kraven's gonna be great here. Like, man, minimum 2. 8, 2. 10. You can really get this guy spiced up like the old days. When we had the the Jeff Nightcrawler meta. But then it's like, what do you wanna play with Craven? Well, you obviously wanna play silk, but then if the opponent goes first and they move silk and it goes to Hercules, she absorbs that first time move and then it's over and then that's it. And, and you don't get to do maybe the combo that you were about to set up. Right? So I love Craven. But then do you have to now take away cards that could have worked with Craven? In the past, cause of that first time effect, you know?
Alexander Coccia:I know the first time effect is actually really prevalent in move. Cause like of course, Spider Man 2099 has it as well. Right. And that's actually one of per game, not just per turn. So it is a massive limiting factor. And I wonder if they're internal testing, if they try to not allow it to just be once per turn. I wonder what that looked like, honestly.
Cozy Snap:I think the problem is, you would have to, okay, so we just talked about Vulture, who, like, let's not just, like, scrub past this guy. Like, getting this guy even up to 13 power with one Ghost Spider, like, that's stupid. That's really stupid good. And there could be a place for this. I'm not saying that this card's done. There is an absolute world where Sarah move tech is a thing. And that's maybe something that I'll be trying with Hercules. You get Vulture down a little bit, and then you can start playing Strange for cheap. You can use Ghost Spider. But more importantly, you utilize Vulture and one other card, and I can't tell you how many times when I get back into movement, I try to make this card work because it's my favorite in the package. I think this could be the coolest thing to do late turn now, and that's gotta be with Dagger. I think Dagger might benefit the most, potentially, from Hercules. Because going and getting plus two for each enemy card and having that proc twice seems stupid good. That seems like she can scale extremely fast.
Alexander Coccia:It's so funny because Dagger is one of those cards in Snap that I very frequently forget exists, like, not, not because I'm trying to talk smack about it, like, I think we've established in the past, this is a good card, but like, it's just, you'd never see it, right? And it's, it is difficult to use, but dude, you're right, right? Like having hit Dagger bounce into the Hercules, get bounced back out, provided that they have stuff on the board. It's going to benefit a hundred percent and it benefits from Heimdall. It's going to benefit from anything else you're doing, whether it be with Iron Fist or Ghost Spider. And a lot of these cards, as you mentioned, have been coming down in price, right? The ability to combo with Dr. Strange Ghost Spider, which of course got cost reduced as well. Right? So, you're getting a lot more opportunities to do these combo centric plays. And it's not susceptible to Killmonger. It is susceptible to something like a Shadow King, but then again, still, with every move card, it can be difficult to predict where Dagger's gonna end up.
Cozy Snap:Especially because she's towards the end of the game, I think, to play for, like, the best case scenario. I think the problem, too, and there's probably an answer, and there's probably ca somebody who plays a lot of moves can answer this for me. It's the way that Snap works with order of operations that I think also can hurt this. So, in my world, I was like, okay. Hercules could be a great left side card, right? You're kind of like keeping this thing at bay that's kicking things back over. I'm like, this is awesome. But if you were to have, let's say, Dagger in the first spot in the middle and you play Heimdall, okay? And it moves Dagger. You have three cards, let's say, in the left location. Stick with me here. Dagger moves. I think all the other cards would try to move. And it wouldn't have Dagger move, Hercules kicker, and then the next card up moves too. I don't think that's how that would work, because I think it has to finish that process, yeah?
Alexander Coccia:It's so funny, in my notes I literally have WTF mechanics question mark written down. Because I have no, I'm not sure how the Heimdallr mechanics actually work. I've tried to research it. I believe that Heimdallr will go, like, goes location by location, and then does the card placement order. So like, the top left card moving left will be the first one to move, I believe. But then again, like, it's, I'm not sure, like, I gotta, like, watch it in slow motion again to really get a firm understanding. So it's like, it should be the first card that enters the location is the first card to move out of it left, no?
Cozy Snap:We, the problem is, is that we don't have a lot that triggers this, right? Because in my head, I'm like, we could test it now with, like, maybe Fisk Tower. So, like, if you were to play him into Fisk Tower, and you have a card move, and that dies, does the next card move? I don't think it does. I think it just kills that card that moved initially. That spot is full. But then, it's Hercules, like, an instant trigger. I don't think it's gonna work that way. Because, if it did, then Hot, right? Hot, like, then you could, you could strategically set up Dagger in the middle. Vulture's next up. You move, you know, the, the Heimdallr. Pushes Dagger to another location. Dagger just got 16 plus power. The Vulture that you already kicked up, then goes again. Then we're talking really good, kind of, synergistic play. And so that's why it has potential. I think Heimdall's actually, now that we're on it, I think it's just an interesting, you know, obviously, card in Hercules if you plan it out right. Heimdall's just a big, statted card that can move, you know your final play of the game if you don't want to do some of the other, you know, stuff with Doctor Strange and Ghost Spider and Cloak. I don't know though, I think between Vulture and Dagger and Human Torch With Cloak, Ghost Spider, and Doctor Strange, there's a shot, there's a shot that Hercules could end up having a really big power finish play somewhat more consistently. It's not going to be competitive, or super competitive, but I think it still has a shot.
Alexander Coccia:It definitely has a shot. But at the end of the day, what it comes right down to is how consistently can you allow this card to perform? Like the best decks out there are the ones where you can reliably kind of reliably perform the thing you want to perform it. The decks do the thing they're designed to do. And Hercules has so many question marks around its mechanics, around the randomness of its location, knock and stuff like that, that can make it a little difficult, right? I mean, it's literally the opposite of something like a Professor X. Professor X, when you ramped into Pro X with Jeff in hand and all that, you knew exactly what the result was, right? You knew you're going to lock down the location. If you undershot, you had the Jeff, you had the Blue Marble, you had all these answers. With Hercules, you can't plan that way, right? You just, you just can't plan that way. And so like, ultimately, I wonder if it's going to be inconsistent enough. To really take it down a notch, but you're right. The potential is definitely there for this to be meta impactful.
Cozy Snap:I want to see, honestly, an OTA that just handles all of move. If this doesn't work as well. And I think on the radar, we don't have anything else to move for a little bit. Like I want to see like some spicy, let's just test it out changes, right? It doesn't work, kill it. Let's take Heimdallr to a five cost, six power. Let's like, let's try to mix things up and see if we can spice up move. Because I think it's a really cool archetype. With not really a home, right? It just doesn't really have all that play. If you're playing Move, it's cool. I think there is a lot of big brain plays. You have some of the most agency with Move, which is really interesting as well. Ultimately though, I think Hercules being 4 cost is his biggest con, his biggest hindrance. But I'm not going to write him off. I said that whenever we talked last week on the Snapchat. Don't want to write him off yet, but I would say this is that week. Where most of the time, like the Martyr Week, if you guys can save, you guys can save the caches. There's some good cards coming out, man. We got Grandmaster, we got other good things. This is the week, you go watch your favorite YouTuber if you want to see this card in action, but for the most part, you probably just let him sit on the bench.
Alexander Coccia:Absolutely, and There's, it's also worth noting that Grandmaster and Hercules might have some interesting synergy together. Because I believe Grandmaster moves the card mid, so if Hercules is mid and Grandmaster moves it and knocks it back out, that could be kind of interesting too, but that's a whole other conversation for another day perhaps.
Cozy Snap:Yeah, I'll end it on this, I mean you brought it up at the beginning, but Storm used to be played in move decks like semi every now and then, because you can get into that location that's been closed off, and you kind of have that, and yeah, I think There are people that's saying you can play Hercules to follow her on four, and then kick off a Vision or Jeff trying to get in there, and there's some control factor there. There's, that's just a niche. That's, it's not, it's not going to be used all that much, right? It's just probably not going to happen. All I know is when we talk about new move cards, I'm always like, you could do this, this, and this, and then I get into a game of Snap, and I'm like, oh yeah, this is how it kind of ends up happening. I either get all my move enablers, not the cards, whatever it might be but Hercules. Might underwhelm, might impress. I think Alex and I though are going to be low and we're happily going to be proven wrong if that's the case. However, the good news, Alex, I think, is that on the same day In the morning, we're gonna actually be getting an updated patch, right? So we're gonna have a lot of cards changing, and so you don't even have to feel like you need to get Hercules if you want Snap to be fresh. I do think it's very important, this patch, to kind of spice some things up. And lo and behold, man, we got leaks, right? We got leaks. We know to a large extent, and I would expect most of it to stay the same. What will be coming on Tuesday? Now, this is subject to change, but again, I would say the cards in here are are gonna be in here, I think we know that for certain, right? Every now and then there's been a small number tweak or something like that, but this is usually gonna be pretty spot on. So, Alex, I mean, dude, we have a lot, we have a lot of cards to go through. We already talked about Kingpin, I think that's exciting so we can kinda carry on with that. Fisk Tower now, instead of destroying a card. Will give negative four power to a card, which I also think is cool. And one of the best parts about the Kingpin change is they stated that they can kind of start adjusting him more if needed. You know, he used to kill a card on turn six. There was nothing you could do to adjust that.
Alexander Coccia:Yeah. So he has more dials now, which make a lot more sense. So if they need to like tune them up a little bit, they can, they can change the numbers, change the debuff, buff them from like a power perspective, a cost perspective, whatever it is a lot more versatility than what it once was, but I will say though, is I did like the old effect. I think that there should be a card in Marvel Snap that does kind of do the old fist tower thing. I think that was still kind of cool. I mean, I have highlights on my channel or it's you know, Magneto pulling in on turn six, King Penguin, boom, boom, boom. I like it. I like it, right? And so actually, to be honest with you also Fist Tower, one of the locations that had one of the best animations and sounds and everything like that, like very interactive, right? So I'd hate to see that like could be completely deleted from the game and hopefully it comes back to some degree, but I agree. I think that the Kingpin change is good. Silky smooth, honestly, isn't what it used to be, but still there's going to be a deck that's similar or, you know, Capable like that again, and at least we're gonna have a tool for it.
Cozy Snap:Yeah, for sure. I hope like the snipers on the roof on Fist Tower still shoot, but it's like their power. Like, it just like gets the power down. I think Magneto is a huge turn swing now. Like, yeah, you can't kill them, but you can also have some really interesting things to kind of move everything over. Spider Man now, you know, depending on like, him losing two power may not be as imperative as like, Iron Man losing two power. So there are some cool things you can do there. I think that this is the beginning of, like I said, some cool things for movement. But let's get to man, if they didn't see the patch notes A lot of people want to know about it. Let's talk about him. Loki, guys. Loki is getting hit, but not. He is going to a 4 6, and instead of replacing your hand, he'll be transforming your hand. I think the only card that transforms at the moment is Spider Ham to Spider Pig. Potentially something like that. And you know, this is one that we just gotta see in action, I'm a little bit, I just don't, why, why are we giving them power, I think is the biggest, let's talk about the ability in a second. I just don't know why we're giving them power, right, like, Kitty Pryde had her day for so long, and they like, notably just like, Chopped her head off because they were like, she had her time. I just don't know why we're not making him like a 4 3. He's White Queen with a Sarah effect at 4 cost, still.
Alexander Coccia:Honestly, I think they're giving him power because it I wonder if the nerf was kind of overkill as it was. Like, I honestly don't think Loki was that much of a problem. Like in my play experience, I don't think he was that bad. And like, I know that I might be in the minority there, but like, yes, he was strong, but so was everything else. Like you could get absolutely, you can get your cheeks demolished by a shuri deck, right? Loki has counters. Loki has like poor match ups, but Loki also has very strong match ups too. Yes, at the top of the ladder, it was often being played, but I think we talked about it like last week. Like I got an infinity border before the new season, which she now is getting hot before it was too hot, I was playing she not against the top 100 Loki player and we got the infinity border and they should have been able to beat us with the snow guard utilizing the ability to kind of disable the limbo with The Hawk, like Loki has all these tools, but we still got that dub. So I am actually not all against that extra power because we don't want Loki to die. Do you really want this whole archetype to die and disappear?
Cozy Snap:No. So I think this is where I'm excited about it. And then like what I meant. So first of all, guys, his biggest like companion, his friend, the collector is not going to work with him anymore which is obviously big because it's not even just about the collector getting, you know, huge, but more importantly, it's about. You could play him with other cards with the Collector that would then add to your hand, and you had this kind of like, overall synergy going on with like, Loki. And what I do like about Loki, and what I think the future of him is gonna be, is playing cards early game to give you a good position late game to transform your hand, and then use your opponent's cards. When you had that happening with Collector, and then you had Snowguard, and you had these other cards that would just feed your hand, and you had a way to Get good presence early game, and be able to have the advantage of Loki. That's where I think some of the issue was. I think this is a good change. I do. I think that getting rid of Collector, and we think Quinjet. We think Quinjet as well, but we don't know. Either way, if it doesn't do Quinjet, I guess a no. Because this will transform the way Loki decks work, I think, in the future. I think this could be the perfect change to make him competitive, but not too good, and then you can feel good. About playing Loki again, right? Shuri was in the, you know, people hated you if you played Shuri, now it's widely accepted. Would love to see the same for Loki in the future.
Alexander Coccia:No, I agree 100%. Like, I don't play Loki because I don't want people to hate the fact that I'm playing Loki, right? But I also will say that I found Collector to be one of my absolute win conditions. As someone who plays a ton of Shadow King, I liked going 8 cubes against Loki players that had high Collectors, expecting those Collectors to survive turn 6. Yeah, it was one of my favorite things to flip that location. And it's exactly what we talked about was, was SCAR last week. The idea of playing SCAR as a four 11 and it's something like a shadow King. You could beat a low key, no problem. Throw up 11 power with SCAR, take that collector down to two, two again with SK. It's perfect. Right? So like it was a bit of an Achilles heel that you can attack over confidence because SK could have been. Like Shadow King was kind of hard to defend against because Loki players aren't putting Cosmos in their decks, right? So I felt like it was an attack vector that we're now losing but overall it's definitely going to take the power potential out of the deck.
Cozy Snap:Yeah, we'll have to see where like the future of Loki goes and I think though It's good for the future because then it makes other cards now not get nerfed like werewolf by night Would he have ever gotten hit if the Loki? Variation existed. I don't know. Right. Now speaking of, it is kind of crazy. We see some cards where they kind of go crazy on nerfing and some not so much. I feel like this is a good sum up on Loki. You know, I'm glad they didn't get rid of the cost reduction actually. I think that's really unique to him. However, let's talk about our next card, man. Miss Marvel, and I think the sentiment of players is like, wow, they really love Miss Marvel because they just didn't really bother to take her down too hard. Whereas I think, I don't know, I think this will be pretty cool. I will say this, again, we, you know I've, I've always been big on Miss Marvel, and, and just the pure 415 was crazy. She is top easy five cards in the game. People at this point, at this point when I create a deck, it's not even a question if you should put Ms. Marvel in there because she just adds typically benefit unless you're doing like a hella lockjaw kind of thing. Ms. Marvel is in every deck, and I think that people don't understand this change could now limit. Her in every single deck and she's still a good card. Now essentially all you have to do guys now is have two unique cost cards in each lane instead of one. Which ultimately really changes the control mechanism or moving a Jeff to Sanctum and getting extra five. She's still good. She's not tamed enough in most people's eyes. But I think this will actually dramatically decrease her play a little bit.
Alexander Coccia:Yeah, it adds a significant amount of the restrictive effect of her play pattern, right? It also, it greatly increases the complexity of her text, which I mean, is getting absolutely out of control at this point. One of the most complex cards to actually read in the game. However, what I will say is, yeah, the effect is definitely going to be much more restrictive. But I have another kind of side point to this, like Is, should we just give Professor X a little bit of power back? Cause like Professor X Miss Marvel was a major component and major reason why Professor X got nerfed. Now you just can't throw Pro X into a location and get the plus five, right? You can move the Jeff in, of course, but I don't know. I'm just saying, I feel like Professor X took a bit of a bullet for Miss Marvel. And now it might not be a popular take, but I'm just saying, I'm just throwing it out there.
Cozy Snap:I think he took the hit for Alioth more than he did Miss Marvel. And I feel like Thanos, where it's at already. It would just go right back to ramping Pro X. Like, they gotta figure that out first, right? Before, that's my, my, and I get it. Like this, but in Thanos, like, she didn't, he didn't want Ms. Marvel. He didn't care about it. He just wanted to ramp that out, lock a location, prevent you from playing. I do get it. I think X is dead almost completely, right? So I do want to see that. You know, conversation for another day, but Ms. Marvel, they were light on her, man. They were pretty light on her overall, we'll have to see kind of where it goes in the future, maybe a PowerPoint change. But who they weren't light on is our next card, and that is Annihilus. Now guys, Alex, I gotta talk about this. So Annihilus is going from, like, if you enjoy Annihilus, if you enjoy Junk Decks, play it while you can, this is his last week of being extremely powerful. He's going from a 5 7 to a 5 5. Dude, I'll let you start.
Alexander Coccia:Pour one out. Like, I'm so, I'm actually so disappointed with this change. I actually don't like it. The only good thing about this change is that it's OTA able. Like, if they're like, Well, we killed a Nihilus a little too hard here. Next couple weeks, we can give him that plus one power. We'll make him a 5 6 or something. Two power off? Come on! Listen, we said it before, Annihilus was going to have a first rough launch week, and then after that he was going to shine, and he did. When you took power off of Werewolf by Night by moving him to 4 costs, you in effect did nerf the Annihilus based shells, right? Realistically, Annihilus has only really being played with Century Hood. And Annihilus itself is like the key component. Now, they are nerfing the ability for you to send over rocks, which is fine. But, I don't think people were really doing that anyway. We weren't really seeing much of the debris play. But ultimately, I think that 2 power actually stings. It really stings, because I think the play pattern of people playing against Sentry and realizing they have to block off that right lane, people are being much more proactive with Preventing those negatively statted cards from coming over that negative two power on Annihilus. You actually needed to swing locations. If your centuries void just got destroyed, for instance, and century still being itself vulnerable to Shawn Chi. I actually, I don't want to say I hate the change, but I don't like it.
Cozy Snap:I hate it for a couple of reasons, two different discussions. One's the junk archetype. The other's just a stat value. Let's start with the junk archetype. It feels like they don't, and I get it to some extent because it's toxic, but they don't want it to be successful, right? Like, Viper's been hit, we have Annihilus getting hit, Selene obviously is not near as good as she was because of these other changes, and it's like it lasted for a month. And the problem I have with it is that there's so many junk inspired cards over the course of the last couple months that junk players wanted to, you know, invest in this, and then they're like, hey, no, we don't want this to be competitive, and they take it out. I think it's fine if they end up nerfing a couple of changes, if they found Viper 2 successful, whatever it might be. My issue is, if you look at the other 5. 5s, dude, or even like things around that stat line, like Claw can give you the potential of, what, 5. 10 with some power in the other lane? And then you have like Ronin. I think those are the two comparisons you can do. Ronin, a lot of these you get to actively continue to A, push more power than Annihilus does. Because best case scenario in perfect world Annihilus, perfect world, where your opponent can also play cards and defend and these other things, that's besides the point. You're getting Hood out, yeah, Sentry, and then you play Annihilus. So you have a 18 power swing now would be the, the, the ultimate if everything goes right. I just feel like it's lackluster. It just feels off. It feels like an off change for that reason and for how much he costs and what you're actually able to do. If they did this in tandem with another negative card release where it's like, okay, that maybe would have pushed him over the, over the limit. I guess it makes sense. It just doesn't settle right for me the junk archetype. I want every archetype to have its place in competition. And it feels like they're directly now multiple weeks going.
Alexander Coccia:I was just surprised because I didn't feel like junk was a problem. I didn't feel like Annihilus was a problem. Like on numbers, maybe it might've been over performing slightly, but I don't think anyone was complaining to me about Annihilus. I wasn't getting YouTube comments like, yo, F Annihilus. I was not seeing any of that. I was getting the Loki comments, right? That's I was getting those. I wasn't getting Annihilus. So when I saw the change, it honestly took me by surprise because. I don't think it needed it. And you're right. It's like, I actually, I feel for the free to play players too, that actually invest in this card. Cause you and I were really high on the card going into the season. Selene coming in as well to kind of really amp up the potential of Annihilus based decks. And then one by one, these cards got knocked off their, their pedestals of power to the point where Selene's coming out and it's like you killed everything around the card, right? So the best Annihilus decks don't even run Selene. They're still trying to run werewolf by night, which you've already nerfed. So it's like, it just felt bad and I mean, again, it is OTA able to fix it. I just, I feel bad and it sucks. I think Annihilus was a really, really good card for Marvel Snap. A really interesting flavor piece that really defined a new archetype and play style for people to not only play, but play against.
Cozy Snap:Maybe data wise, they saw too much Sentry into Annihilus, and then you could put that combo in any deck. Like maybe, and that's kind of what was happening a small, very small bit, right? But like top in place, maybe they have stats there that they didn't like, and then, you know, whatever. And even if, you still have to have the right combinations. I just, I'm not crazy about it. Hopefully we see change there. Alex, we have quickly, we'll just celebrate a quick hurrah, Angel did finally Finally get an adjustment. Instead of just flying out from your deck, he can also fly out from the hands. Listen, bro, like, I think Angel maybe will be played like an ounce bigger. I can barely even find the card. He'll be played like maybe ever so slightly more. But I think the conversation I want to have around this is the starting card protection conversation. I feel like, I just don't care about this whole protecting the starting cards thing. I don't know how, I'm not saying there's not new players coming to the game. I think we're getting plenty of new players coming to Snap. But I don't kNow. feel like it's just kind of dumb and I want to see more from Angel.
Alexander Coccia:Well, I like, come on now, we're protecting it like with Punisher, for instance. There were other cards too, that were like, like Electra hasn't been changed because of it. Like there's a couple major components of it. I think what was it? There was one other card that recently got changed where like the new player experience. Oh, it was a Watu, it was a Watu, right? That seemed like it couldn't get changed because of the new player experience, for instance. So I agree a hundred percent. Of course we are getting new players in the game. Our statistics show that. But I'll, I'll say that like, yeah, like Angel at least is better now, but I think he's still probably sucks. He does represent a thing, a deck thinning opportunity because like with Chavez gone, this is one of the only ones left, but still, it's still going to be, it's, it's going to have the Umbaku effect.
Cozy Snap:It's always going to be in your hand. I, the thing is too, like I just feel like there. We're, we're buffing other cards via OTA. That's what helps the new player experience, right? Like Wolverine sucked and that really helps it now. And so it's like, you know, there's a reason why they're doing what they're doing and maybe I'm way off track. Maybe I'm way off beat. Please let us know what you agree with there. Dracula has been changed ever so slightly. Kinda. Listen, Chava's getting nerfed. Well, speaking of player experience. But Chava's getting nerfed. We saw the death of this card in more ways than one. Dracula now, instead of just gaining a power. So he used to, if it was negative one or if he had plus two from Wakanda Embassy. He would just take the card that he discards power. Now he'll be adding it to himself.
Alexander Coccia:I mean, it's, it's an interesting change. That's going to need some experimentation. I used to love throwing Dracula into like a Jotunheim and just letting them tick down and then letting them just pop back up. That was always cool. But realistically, like it wasn't so long ago that there were collector swarm decks with like Nakia and Okoye that were underperforming admittedly, but there were discard decks that kind of tried to do the thing. You could even have like a Wong Gambit type. We're like, you're just trying to like machine gun while generating these swarms and collector stuff. Like, I think that there's a world, there's a world where this Dracula change actually makes sense. However, with the changes to Chavez, traditional discard is dead and you're seeing the emergence now of Black Knight. And I think that Dracula is going to need a little more than this. In terms of support to make up for what was removed in Chavez, because quite frankly, I don't know about you. I'm not playing Dracula based discard decks. I'm playing Black Knight all day long.
Cozy Snap:Yeah. So you mentioned Jotunheim. There it is guys. There it is. Maybe if he got Celine, there's the other one, but that is it. Like people like to think of the one use case where they have this big, and I go look at my videos. Jotunheim wins with Dracula. This is why it's good. Okay, first of all, there's way more locations that give power than reduce it. So, right off the bat, you can do Quantum Tunnel, or whatever that one is, where it's like, plus two to the base power. You can do Wakanda Embassy. Those are just off the top of the head. I don't know other ones. He gets to keep that power now. But the other thing I like is I love that you can boost him now a little bit, right? So let's say that you have, like, decent cards in your hand, maybe eight, seven power. You can now, like, forge them, right? And give them that little bit of extra boost. And then Dracula's biggest redeeming quality, by far, is that nothing happens till the end of the game. They don't know what's gonna happen in that lane. They don't know how much power is gonna happen, but now you have a way to kind of boost that a little bit. I think this is great. I do think Not now, but I think this will be ultimately good for the future of Dracula.
Alexander Coccia:It's fair, it's fair, and I guess we'll have to just deck build around it, and perhaps this change comes now, it underwhelms, and then like, in April or March or something, we get a discard card. We're actually getting discard cards coming up, like Meek and others, right? So there are some things being synergistic with discard that are coming, and maybe suddenly it'll make sense when a new piece comes out announced that will re enable the Dracula based archetype.
Cozy Snap:Well, buddy, let's go ahead and wrap it up with the last card, and this is the biggest change in my book by a large margin. Quake, guys, is staying as a 2 3. Who I already think is just a good, fun card to use from time to time. Nobody plays her, but, you know, she's fun. Alex, how long have we been talking about this change? What if you could predict the locations that swap? Quake now no longer has to be played in the middle. She can be played wherever, and the other two locations swap. Places. This is now, in my opinion, the most plug and playable, and damn near the best. I'm gonna, I'm gonna say it. Two drop in the game. I think this is great.
Alexander Coccia:That is a hot take. You're saying Quake is better than Jeff Rooney?
Cozy Snap:One of them. I said, I think she's a top five, two costs in the game. Lawyer cozy coming up with qualifying statements. Top three, top three. I'll go top three. You don't think so, do you? There's a cheaper league.
Alexander Coccia:No! I, listen, are you not remembering that one of the most epic plays ever in Twitch history was me quaking you, right, during Conker's or whatever it was, right? It was during one of the Twitch drafts, right? You ultimately won because I played Gladiator and that's emotional damage for another day. But, what I'll say is that Quake has been a card that I've always loved to splash into my decks. And When I was reading the patch notes at first, I got excited. I didn't even realize at first glance that you don't even need to play her in the middle anymore. I'm so used to having to play her in the middle. She's like, when I did, I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. This changes everything.
Cozy Snap:This is so good. This is everything we wanted and more on Quake. And, and people don't realize that people always underestimate locations over and over again. I'm a little worried about Legion. I think this really hurts Legion because why play a five drop? I get that it's all the same location and there's some wacky things you can do. When you can disrupt, which is the biggest thing you want to do with Legion, for two, and now you can even have more synergy with things like Storm and then Flood a location, and then you actually like, build up another location. You just completely remove Onslaught Citadel, the Nexus. This is going to be in almost all of my kind of flex value decks. No question about it. Maybe I'm overhyping it, but I think this is the biggest change by far.
Alexander Coccia:No, you're not overhyping it at all. I think of what happens to storm. Like you got this flooded location. It's like, Nope, now this location's flooded, bro. Good luck getting in here. And then they play their own quick and they flood it back to the other side. But like, it's kind of crazy and locations. Are one of those things in Marvel snap that we often don't pay a lot of attention to. We often talk about this meta deck and this deck and these cards, but locations play such a massive role, right? Like you see it in many competitive arenas of play. Like there's often games that are won and lost championships that are won and lost. Based on location RNG, favoring one deck versus the other choosing when to snap and retreat based on locations is a thing that you have to learn to be successful in this game. Like a hundred percent cozy. I'm not thinking that you're overshooting it. I can't wait to get my hands on the new Quake.
Cozy Snap:You say RNG too. This also removes more RNG in snap, which I think is ultimately good, right? Like you can now have more calculated decisions. Love to see that. Also, I think it's kind of cool to say, I wanted to state this. I think this is awesome. You now have counter play? If you have priority, you now have counter I love this. You have counter play to having the turn seven greedy deck. So let's say you play Magic, you have Limbo out, it's turn six, and you know they got the Reality Stone. You know what they're about to do to get rid of it. Now, Legion won't work, you know, but like, Reality Stone, some of the other methods, Scarlet Witch. You can play Quake and quickly swap the Limbo and that opponent's screwed because they were totally depending on shutting your plan down, right? That is just one instance as well as the flooding one. I think we have a lot of cool capabilities with Quake. Sign me up.
Alexander Coccia:And there's a lot of other decks as well like Silver Surfer, which like you have like Crimson Cosmos and areas where like you can't play cards. Well, now you just play cards, you play your brood into a location, you play Quake, you swap them, and then you're like, okay, perfect. I can keep playing my cards, right? So some of the more restrictive locations for like Zoo decks. You can't play in a certain spots. And again, as I said, Silver Surfer, suddenly you have these options with Quake to fill the location as best you can. And like Sanctorum, for instance, Sanctorum, you just play your stuff, Quake it out, you're filled over there, play more cards. I think it really is a fascinating new mechanic in Snap. I just hope that they don't turn it into like a two zero because it's too good.
Cozy Snap:I do. They might though. They might, I don't even know where they make her a three cost or whatever, because it's like, to your point, exactly the amount of locations that like. Let's even take Big House, for example. Like, you can now sneak in cards back into that location where that opponent was playing cheap cards the whole time. I would near say half the locations, if not more, have an advantage to swapping them, if you know you're gonna swap it, right? The only thing I'm worried about is now Quake is gonna be everywhere, so they're playing Quake, I'm playing Quake, locations are going all over the place. Kind of, I love the chaos. Sign me up for it, man. But we're on our last subject here. That's gonna be it for the leaked patch notes. We'll see if they come true, and that'll come out tomorrow 8 AM, so it'll be very quick. Let's talk about the road ahead. Now, we'll be somewhat quick through these, but we do have a lot of things to discuss. You know, first and foremost, albums are going to be getting a little bit of an upgrade. I think we can both say we're, you know, we're excited to see that not just be a monetization feature, but also something that we can actively, you know, start aggressively obtaining Big W, yeah?
Alexander Coccia:Oh, a hundred percent. I was really disappointed with the original implementation of the albums to see them improving on them. So quickly really does like, give me confidence that they're going to be something worthwhile in the future, because listen, in theory, I mean, Marvel snap is not only a great game to play, but it's also fun from a collection standpoint. I love the collection element of the game. And so when the albums of underwhelmed, I was a little disappointed, but yeah, this is, this is great. It's great news to see that they're putting some legitimate development time into making them better.
Cozy Snap:And then we have changeable card borders. Now I think this is like this is great. I think people are, are crapping on this a little bit because of like the limitations of it. I'm, I'm fine. I'm happy with it. Great example is if I go over to to this Carnage here. I have not upgraded this Carnage variant one time because why would I? It's a red border on the red card. Looks fantastic. But now you're going to be able to upgrade this. I can split for gold or whatever I want. And then also try, I can go back to this border. You can have selectable borders. I think this is definitely something we've been asked for for a long time.
Alexander Coccia:You know what? I know that this might not be a popular take, but I actually agree with their sediment that you know, not making so that you can pick each individual particle effect and mix matching them. Exactly the way you want is beneficial because you're still gonna want that excitement of re splitting cards I think that unlocking specific combinations and be able to apply those to the cards is important But like oh I got Kirby crackle gold on this card I get to just apply Kirby crackle gold into any version I want I think that would have been a little bit of a miss Because listen, I want to play this game for the next decade. I want to keep unlocking new variations of splits that'll get me excited every time I hit that button.
Cozy Snap:And like, I get it in a perfect world. Like, yeah, sure. But also they can't do that to the past player base. Like I know for one, I've, I had to do like 10 splits on my favorite Jane Thor variant. Dude, people would be up, you know, they'd be losing it because they really wanted X, you know, God split or whatever they call it. I do think it's, you know, definitely a step in the right direction here and more importantly the coding is gonna be there so they can add, you know, more to this in the future, which I think is, overall exciting. We have events and the first event we have coming up is called The League. This to me is awesome. I do have some concerns, but I think overall it's stupid cool. The league is the first one. They're gonna pair you up with other players of skill level, and then you guys compete. Overall for something, right? So, the pros, new way to get something. Whether that's gold or credits, economy, anything like that. Just like conquest, that's a win big time. Things I'm worried about is how long is it going to last? Is it a grind fest? You know, what's the matchups look like? All that kind of stuff you can worry about. But I think this is something really cool especially to add to lackluster days like maybe the weekend.
Alexander Coccia:And we talked about the new player experience. We're going to have new player matchmaking in that mode, right? We're similar collection levels, similar skill levels. They'll be having playing as people of similar collections. So it'll be very nice experience for them to help them get the materials and the resources they need to improve their collection. So yeah, I'm excited. But again, like you, I was a little I had some reservations about the potential grindiness of something along those edges, but we'll see how it comes out.
Cozy Snap:Yeah, I have to hold my, you know, I could sit here and just. You know, inspire, like, well, what if it's this? What if it's this? Like, if it's 24 hours, yeah, whoever plays the most is probably gonna win that. Or is there a cap? Is there an amount of time? Is it a different queue than Ladder in Conquest? Probably, probably not. But then if you only get five queues, then probably yes. And then it solves all the problems. And then you also have to have the time zones for the world and all that, you know what I mean? So I think they'll do it right. Either way, I think events have been something we've been wanting better than those early, like, garbage web based, like, 2001 Nickelodeon website game things we were getting. This is definitely much better. Card Mastery was at the top of my most requested things in an early Snapchat. I don't know if you remember this, I brought up Overwatch and Smite, how you would know immediately if somebody played X Hero because they had golden weapons or golden hero or whatever. I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled for this, man. Now, I think the rewards could get cooler over time, but the little reaction emojis are gonna now be, you know, you can get Deadpool reactions, whatever it might be, and they gave an example of Get 10 games where Deadpool gets a hundred power. Yo, I love the idea content wise too, to like chase these and go after these. It's such a fun concept.
Alexander Coccia:I do, I really like the concept as well. And it looks like it took a lot of development effort like to do that with every single card, like it's a lot of work. And so I'm really excited for that implementation. You're right, in other games, it's really fun. Like I remember when I used to play Dota 2, like in the heroes that I would play the most often, like I'd have like Gold decked out like items and stuff. So on that opening splash screen, like I'm intimidating my opponent with, with this beautiful art that I have unlocked and you'd only ever unlocked if I played way too much of the damn game and that specific hero. So when I see your arrow coming out there with like a shimmering cape. Flapping in the wind, moving my card into the kingpin location for a sweet negative two. I'm gonna know it was cozy snap because it just looks too damn good. I'm actually really excited for it to be honest with you.
Cozy Snap:So what I want them to add, and I hope they add, and I get it, they have to be delicate because of the variant split system that they have now. But let's take Smite for example. I haven't played this game forever, but you, dude, you had to dump in months of time into it. Like you really had to zone in on one archetype. I think if they make it hard enough. I do, I think they make it very hard to obtain, okay? But let's say there's like 20 Deadpool things that you have to get done. And some of them are like, play a thousand games. I don't even know, right? You are a Deadpool player. What if instead of just a golden back, the entire card is golden? So like, Deadpool's character, everything, the whole thing's a golden card, right? And then it's just like, instead of an emote, it's a symbol of a card that you have too. Like, I'm a Deadpool player, you know what I mean? I think that could go even further. I'd be excited to see it.
Alexander Coccia:It's I mean, the options are endless. Like, like you have a border that's like on fire or something like like NBA jam. He's on fire. Right. You know what I mean? It's like, there's so many ways you can take it, but like, I agree a hundred percent, I guess this is basically what the prestige system was supposed to be. Or is that supposed to be different?
Cozy Snap:So I think that's what this is supposed to be. And it kind of evolved into it, but maybe not. I can't read into it too much. But I also like was looking back at what they said about it and it's kind of lining up with it overall. I hope that it's retroactive if it's split based. It has to be, like, split Deadpool 50 times. But then it's not retroactive for the stuff like It's not gonna be There's no way they can track if I had Deadpool at 100 power in some of my older games. I don't think that's gonna happen. And that's good, because then we can chase things and that's kind of fun. But if it's split based, that has to be retroactive, is my one caveat.
Alexander Coccia:No, I agree 100%. I, the one thing that was missing from the roadmap, I just want to quickly bring up before we call it, was that I was, I'm really hoping for a spectator mode because I think that the the competitive scene in Marvel Snap could really use it. It's not to say that with this competitive scene doesn't obviously work. I think it's one of the best competitive games out there. Like it's literally the you know, synchronous turns, how fast the games are. The cube mechanics, like it's all so intense when you watch it. I just think a spectator client should have been on the list somewhere to really help the tournament organizers and just the overall competitive scene.
Cozy Snap:What's cool though, is like people often forget, like these change often, these road ahead maps and the first two columns are the most important. And I think things kind of, you know, ebb and flow. It took a year for smart decks, but then we got things sooner that we're on the further, you know whatever, or coming soon, whatever. Now last ones I want to mention, okay, so we've got Booster VATS, so you can target cards to Booster. Probably going to be a way they monetize this a little bit, but I also think it's like, it's nice to be able to do it if you want to really, you know, zone in on Deadpool or whatever that might be. Depending how easy it is, I think that's just like an overall win. I hope they don't spend too much development time on it, but I think it's, you know, definitely a cool thing to have. But dude, let's talk about clans. Dude, I can't wait to tell you my clan name. You ready? I've been thinking about it. I'm ready. I was thinking Elephant Haters or Costco Employee of the Month. What do you think? I love both of them.
Alexander Coccia:I know. They fit you perfectly. I mean, I couldn't, I could not have picked a better you know, better clan name for you, Cozy. It works perfectly.
Cozy Snap:Last Christmas, best song, number one hit. Listen, all I know is if year two, and this is why I wasn't like too disappointed to see new game mode a little further out. If year two is full social based, I'm pumped. I think that is awesome. I think there are some things that people are scared about that come from other games that have clans. Snap is a very casual game in terms of like, you know, commitment wise. Clans can make things a little dicey. You're going on vacation. You're not helping us get x, you know, games in to be able to get, there are games that have done it right. And if they do it right, this is going to be absolutely huge.
Alexander Coccia:I think it has to be one of those things where everyone in the clan just wins. Like, I think like, I know this is totally random, but Destiny, I think did a good job of it where like you contribute to clan's progress. And you just, even if like you were off that week and you're Clan did some good stuff. You got some rewards, but you get more rewards if you're contributing yourself and stuff like that. You're right. I think that like the social elements of games can be some of their best parts, but for some people can be some of the worst parts too, right? And I always bring it back to what my World of Warcraft experience was all so long ago. What kept me playing that game wasn't the grind of hitting mobs. But it was the social side, the social side, the guilds, the raiding together having a role to play in a party and getting it done. I was a healer. I healed everyone. It was beautiful, right? No one died under my watch. Never. But that's not true. A lot of tanks died. I apologize to every tank who, who died under my watch. But at the end of the day, I think that the social elements of these games can be really impactful. We're positive.
Cozy Snap:And I'll know if like, if it's 50 people in a clan, just make it where like if 30 of them, you know, play that week, then you get the rewards. And don't Don't base it off 50, base it off like 30, and then you're gonna have a healthy amount of like, people ping in and things like that. If they get this right, this is gonna be huge. Cause where I think this goes, and I'll kind of take it to the last subjects here, where I think it goes, first clan competitions, hell yeah, that'll be awesome. But more so, is I feel like, I know we want draft mode the most. Like the most, the most, the most. I feel like it could give a roadmap to game modes. Now hear me out. I think you launched draft mode first. Okay, because I've been wanting two V two and if they dolans and social right, then they can do this Social game mode two V two. Only problem is how do you do this? Do you like both bring a deck and then you can play cards the same in one location, and then you have your own locations. That's one way. But if they just add to the drafting league or whatever drafts are. And then you draft as a 2v2, it solves that problem, and then it's like this really unique game mode. So, whatever they might do, I think we could have that for another discussion another time, new game modes that we want. But dude, I'm pumped. I expect to probably like start a summer if I were to take a guess.
Alexander Coccia:You know what? At the end of the day, what really gave me confidence about this roadmap was that when you look in retrospective, they've actually executed a lot of what they've promised. And outside of albums, they have not really whiffed. Smart decks, I think, are a very useful tool. I was talking to a couple of pretty casual players over the break here because I have some friends that play casually and they're like, oh, we like it, man. Like, don't always have a the time to watch your videos. Cause they're too long and there's too many of them or whatever. And so they, so they did just, I hit the auto deck button. It gives me a deck. I'm like, whoa, cool. That's an Agatha Kang deck. That's going to be great. Good job. Get out there. Right, buddy. But at the end of the day, it's actually a really useful tool for a lot of players. Even if at first glance, it didn't seem like it was going to be that impactful. So when I look at the track record of quality improvements, we've gotten to Marvel snap. I'm actually really excited for the future.
Cozy Snap:The only thing I was sad about is that there's so there's, there has been games in the past that That took so long to develop. By the time they finally came, they were so overhyped that they failed, right? Like it just didn't do well. Ultimate variants have now been pushed. Dude, I thought for sure ultimate variants were gonna be one of the first two columns. Because it's been talked about forever. It's in the last album. Dude, I don't know, is my car gonna explode? Am I gonna have Robert Downey Jr. like talking to me on the phone when I play Iron Man? Like that's my expectation at this point. We'll have to see if it's, if I had to guess, they're gonna do something unique for every card with like, custom everything. Like we got with the emotes. You know, cause God knows how long it took to commission how many, you know, emotes for every card. I was cracking up though, that was at the last section.
Alexander Coccia:There's a key thing though. You said ultimate variance. We're actually talking about mythic variance, which now in the language has changed back into ultimate variance. So it looks like the mythic variance and the ultimate variance have been slammed together into one thing.
Cozy Snap:Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is good. We don't need like another subset rarity or whatever, when ultimate is already bad. Dude, lots to go through, lots to be excited about. Maybe in the future we can talk about game modes in more detail. They have new card mechanics on there as well, whatever the heck, you know, I think that's, you know, always interesting. But I love it. Road Ahead maps are awesome for Snap. We got a lot of news in one week. And overall, guys, lots to break down here on the Snapchat.
Alexander Coccia:Cozy, I got an interesting point of discussion. Now we've got two cards going to be talking about today. Scar and Kaiera. Then we're getting into our snapchat mailbag. But before that Cozy, I think there's an important conversation here. Scar and Kaira have come out in the same week. Now, this is the first time in Marvel Snaps history that they're releasing two cards at once. Now, my question to you is, is this straight up inflation in Marvel Snap? Are we seeing resources being stretched ever thinner? Or do you think it's just more excitement to have more cards released at the same time? What are your general thoughts on releasing two cards in one week?
Cozy Snap:Ooh, that's tough because I try to separate myself as a content creator. And then as, like, a player. And funny enough, like, yeah, as a content creator, it's like, more content's great. It's also stressful. There's, like, a lot to, to happen. And I think we said this on my side, where it's like, These two are tame, but if we get two drastically game altering cards, there's a lot going on, right? And then we already have OTAs and whatnot. Ultimately, I land on excitement. I think it's good. I think I, you know, as long as we get more It's not like if we get more cards like Martyr and Hercules, but that definitely makes it easier, too, where it's like, you know, there's weeks that you can pass. There's archetype defining cards, things like that. I land on the camp of pumped. I always like new cards, more cards, and in fact, I think that two cards can really change up the meta. Whereas like this last month has been very stale, we're like waiting on the patch. So I think I land in that case, but it does make you be more selective, and so hopefully In like leagues that are coming out or whatever we get collected, whatever, right? It, the, the economy changes just a touch.
Alexander Coccia:Yeah, I would agree there. Like obviously it generates a lot of excitement. I'm excited for it. I love discussing this game, playing this game. I love experimenting with new cards, but for me, I just, I get concerned about the, the economy, as you mentioned not the general economy of like North America. I'm referring specifically to the Marvel snap economy. I'm concerned that like, you know. Now there's more things to acquire, but the resources haven't changed. So if we're going to have more cards in a given month, perhaps we need to give players more tokens and we need to give players more gold, or we need to give players something to accommodate the requirement to having more cards being released. I just, again, and we, we, I feel like we do this. I feel like we tend to be good, positive voices for the free to play community. And I, when I see this, I see it as like. A hurdle for them to have to overcome, because if they want to stay competitive in the game, or they want to stay on top of things, then suddenly planning becomes even more important. Planning becomes even more difficult because data mines change and all this stuff, change schedules, change spotlight keys are hard to acquire. So, but at the same time though, maybe in these leagues, maybe spotlight keys are part of the reward system. Maybe in the new revamped albums, we get more spotlight keys, right? Cause now we do have spotlight keys in the existing ones. I just wanted to start this conversation off by saying, yes, there's excitement for the two card release. But there's also opportunities to improve. And I think that we need to kind of shine a light on the potential anxieties that could be kind of placed upon the player base.
Cozy Snap:Yeah. I think you nailed it, right? Albums, the leagues, new game modes, we'll have new rewards. As long as they keep the economy like kind of stable. I think it is ultimately good, but you know what I want to see too. Is, less FOMO cards, like, so like Blob's a good example, like you have to get Blob, Ms. Marvel, these are cards that you have to get. Whereas if they're very archety I mean, Hercules is kinda trash, but at least we can like, say, it's move focused. If they have cards that are more targeted per archetype Then I think it's okay more so, because then you target the card and the archetypes that you like, and it doesn't feel like you're missing this plug and play card that will be in every meta deck moving forward. You just target the weeks you want, but, you know, lately, we've had a lot of just kind of catch all things, right? So it's kind of like two birds, one stone.
Alexander Coccia:Absolutely. You're referring to cards like Meek, for instance, is going to be a de stressor for some people. If they don't play this card, just don't get Meek, right? Regardless, a very interesting start to the conversation here today. We're going to be discussing Scar first off. Now, Scar has been a really interesting release in Marvel Snap. I actually was really excited for Scar. A 611 that gets discounted by two for every 10 power card you have on the board, not in your hand, not on your deck, on the board, which is a very important mechanic there. Ultimately, I think it was pretty fun, a good card, maybe personally underwhelmed a little bit, but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts, Cozy.
Cozy Snap:Yeah, so I think Scar in general, we kind of thought he was going to be Yeah, he's like a She Hulk 2. 0 where his flexibility is like a little bit less than that overall. What I think it does though is it adds to the cheating big things out archetype, kind of, right? Like, what did we see? A big Surgeon, Lockjaw, he even had, you know, Jubilee getting played more. These other cards, I could just get these cards out earlier. He kind of needs magic to really excel and or one other card that can extremely help his cheating scenario. I don't know. I think he's kind of getting crapped on a little bit too hard. I think I gave him I think he's like a three and a half star. I put on competitiveness, something like that in my most recent review, which feels about right. I think his better days are ahead in the sense of like what other cards we can get out for 10 power, things like that. But also, he has that huge glaring weakness of Shang Chi. So it now feels like you need to have Kaira and Magic. But that makes sense, you get to shoot out a lot of huge cards, right? You get to be able to do some crazy things and, you know, I think there are more and more spicy decks being made up with him. I think he's he was a good addition to Snap, I think.
Alexander Coccia:Oh, I agree a hundred percent, but I think what's missing is an alternative ramp option. That's not like Electro, because Electro obviously does not work with Scar. So people go in the ramp options, the cheat options with stuff like Lockjaw, which I actually thought was pretty successful. And I mean, we're kind of poo pooing on the car a little bit, but honestly, it's doing well. It's running a 57 percent win rate, a positive 0. 61 cube rate at a 6 percent meta share. Now it's notable that these statistics are still relatively early, and a 6 percent meta share is far below that. Of say something like a Ms. Marvel. Ms. Marvel, Marvel captured the attention of people rather quickly. But her score, I think, has been something people have been a little more tentative of. Now, what I will say as well is that the deck that I've been running is a brew of mine that I absolutely loved. It's currently running a 57 percent win rate. It's Black Knight, Blade, Zabu, Lockjaw. You got Lady Sif, Jubilee, Ghost Rider, Shanqi. Dr. Octopus, Scar, Megiddo, and then the Infinite. Now this is a Black Knight style value deck. What I loved about it though, is you could have all these different attack vectors where, you know, you play Blade into the Lockjaw, you discard your Infinite, you get the massive Ebony Blade, which Honestly, I am such a believer in the new Black Knight cozy. This deck has been so fun to play and I don't care what anyone says. Dr. Octopus is such a troll card. You pull their stuff out of their hand. All of these ongoing cards drop into the wrong location. Oh, wait, what was that? Was that, is that an Orca? Punch him out on turn six or whatever. Beautiful, beautiful. Really had a lot of fun with this deck and I gotta tell ya, I really appreciated that Scar kind of opened up the possibility to bring Lockjaw back, but at the same time, sometimes I feel like Scar is even cuttable from this list. Which brings its star rating down for me.
Cozy Snap:Yeah, so like, Scar ultimately can be cuttable from a lot of these lists. Like, oh wait, I'd rather have this card instead. First of all, yeah, Black Knight, one of the best cards right now. I think we, whenever his update happened, we were like, dude, this guy's about to be cracked. I think the biggest difference in Snap from people that play a lot or casually, if you play casually, you play the cards you like, you maybe try to pay attention to the better cards. When you're playing competitively, you're playing cards to counter what you're seeing out there in the meta, right? So a good example of this is What I love that you had there. Doc Ock, right? Doc Ock, if you're playing Scar, he's like the must play card right now because you're getting 10 power. He's only 5 energy. There's only a couple of 5 ones. But on top of that, everybody's playing these big cards, right? Everybody's got these big cards or tech cards. So the disruption is major. Just an incredible, great card to be having at the moment. Love that deck. Enjoy Black Knight and Scar. He is flexible. He does have a lot of different brews that he can fit in. I still don't think we have the perfect brew for him yet, but we're getting close.
Alexander Coccia:Oh, I agree. A hundred percent. I don't think the best scar deck has been figured out yet. A hundred percent. When you're working with energy cheat or mana cheat or cost reduction or whatever the hell you want to call it, there's always going to be an incredibly powerful synergy. And I don't think we're there yet. We're not seeing a lot of mobis and mobis out there. Cause I don't think scar has shaken things up quite yet enough. But again, maybe in March, there's a new ramp option that comes out that suddenly scar makes perfect sense. Right? So I do think that the the light at the end of the tunnel for scars, I think that if you're buying the season pass, you're getting really good value as it is the season pass as a whole. Tends to be very strong value. And ultimately I think that it's going to, it's going to be fine. And you know what, maybe this is a card that gets buffed. Maybe it goes to a 612. I would, I mean, listen, 612 Hulk is not really what you're looking for. You're not playing no vanilla 612 Hulk. So the numbers are here that can be improved. I don't think it ever kind of discounts itself by three. I don't think that's the dial that gets turned. You're probably going to see a power change. I don't think you see an energy change, but ultimately, I don't know. I like the card ultimately.
Cozy Snap:Yeah, I don't even think he needs change. Like, I think, ultimately, there's gonna be cards that are forecast, that are cheaper, that can be built up. Like, right now you know, I could give you a deck, but I think what I want to just bring up more so is like a different way of thinking with him, right? Like, I've been trying to make Hulkbuster work and Forge work. Forge with Gladiator, Hulkbuster with, you know, something like Lizard, whatever it might be, even Wave. Then you have a chance to use the Wave for ramping, but then you also have a way to get another 10. And you're trying to get him down to two costs, effectively, and not use magic. That's a whole nother, you know, discussion. But I think there's a lot of interesting ways to play and utilize Scar that people aren't exactly trying or testing, and so that's been a big deck that I've been doing myself. You know, on top of that, you know, everything's about Kaeyara. I think Atuma is having a much more play. There's gonna be cards that come out. We're gonna see it with Obsidian Coal that comes out and helps Thanos. Thanos is probably one of his best right now because Thanos is just loving Lockjaw at the moment, and it feels really good. But then also Black Knight's doing good because you got the Ghost Rider. You have other ways to cheat out these cards. I think we're getting there. I think we're getting there, and I think we're not quite quite there for Scar yet. But ultimately, man, he kind of, he checks the boxes that I like in a card. I would say semi underwhelming. But not like Sebastian Shaw limiting.
Alexander Coccia:Yeah. And it's interesting as well to have two months in a row where the cards are slightly underperforming, but it also feels a little good that like, maybe this is a little bit of like a breather for players that are like just trying to keep up with all these insane releases of Miss Marvel and et cetera. Right. So these fair cards I'll never complain about. And again, if, if scar needs to be improved or changed, there's plenty of dials here to work on now. Caiera. Caiera, we came in really hot on. I went, I went absolutely insane last week, giving her five stars. And you know what? I'm not going to say I'm wrong. I think Kiara has found its place in the meta. Perhaps four and a half, four stars. Maybe it didn't quite hit that five star range. It didn't disrupt the way Blob did. It didn't do what Ms. Marvel did, but damn do I think this is a fantastic card. 59 percent win rate, a positive cube rate of 0. 70, 7 percent metashare, and climbing very rapidly. I don't know, Cozy. I love this card. I think it's great. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Cozy Snap:I mean, I love it. I love Kaiera. I would say that I think we were right on her competitiveness. Where I was wrong was maybe a ta a touch of her flexibility, like she does have like certain decks to kind of work in. Which I think is good because then it works with armor. I don't think she's gonna get nerfed really all that much. I I don't. I think, you don't make her the one lane obviously because armor. They both have their place, but I gotta say, man, I don't know what I love it more for. I don't know if I love that six cost cards are protected, or that one cost cards are protected. And the fact that it's either or, both feel so good. Now, obviously, Thanos is in such a good place because he utilizes both of these, but, dude, Zoo decks are crazy cool to do. You can protect Quinjet, Black Knight, being able to get the stones protected like I just referred to. Sheeting out cards with Wave and having a monster 6 cost card that you just don't even have to worry about. You see the shield come up, and you're good to go. She just offers such a unique thing in Snap. Dude, she's a huge hit. I've been loving deck creation with her. I think it's like, brought a new fresh air to deck building.
Alexander Coccia:Oh, 100%. Like, I've absolutely loved Kaira. I've been placing her into a lot of decks, and I almost forgot what it was like to play Zou. I know this is a bit of a tangent, but like, Zou, it was so fun to play it again. Like, it didn't, it just, it's not a combo deck, it's not, I'm not stressing about, do I pull Zabu, do I do this, did I get the card, do I get the Annihilus, do I I wasn't stressing about any of that. I was like, oh, I have Squirrel Girl. Oh, I have this card. Ooh, throw, I'm just throwing cards out everywhere. Blarvel, Ka Kazar, whatever it is. I'm just playing cards! I'm playing cards! And I'm loving life, and Kaira protected them all from that damn Skillmonger. Because at the day, that thing ruins the dreams of Zoo players. But I will say as well, is sometimes, listen, it's a 12 card deck. And sometimes I'm like, man, but I'm really not seeing that much Killmonger. And even if I'm against a Destroy player on Ladder, I'll just give him the cube and move on. So you're teching against, like You're, you're dedicating one card to teching against what might happen. That element of Kaira is what we have to consider as like a push factor that reduces her viability.
Cozy Snap:Yeah, okay, so here's the thing though. Outside of just the Killmonger play, the thing that's I'm just, I thought, we talked about it last week and it's happening. Bro the protection on locations is just so massive. That being able to play into Death's Domain, being able to play into these other locations Has been, so when you're going wide, with cards like Zoo, or 1 drops for that matter, Locations has such a big effect, right? Because if they're like limiting, or if you have destroyed locations, All of a sudden a deck that's very dependable, is completely landlocked to two locations. And then that Death's Domain, you're not able to do what it does well, and that's like spread wide and get power up. Cause you nailed it, you're not doing combos with Zoo, it's just very dependable. May not hit the most like, power, but you're gonna be getting out good stats, right? So Kaeya's use for that has been probably one of my favorite things about the card. And then trying to guesstimate, man. Like, I can't tell you. I have a couple ones out there, they're playing Destroy, and I, like, slam the Kaeya out just to, like, you know, block the bullets from all the Killmonger. It feels good, too. She's a safety gate for a lot of decks that aren't exactly all in on 6 cost cards or 1 cost cards, but just feels like a good tempo play. I love the 4 power, too. I think it's, like, perfect for what she offers. Maybe that comes down. I don't know man, I feel like she's really well made and, and, you know, I think she's only going to add to Snap's future cards as well.
Alexander Coccia:When it comes to like the Zoo, I was actually experimenting with like a Zoo controlled style deck and what I was doing was I was actually playing Storm and Goose to try and make it be like, okay, hey, you're not going to be able to trade with me with your big six drops or big five drops with Goose in that lane. Storm one, try to win the other. But ultimately, it was very tricky, like, with Blobs being what they were, and everything else going on in the meta, Ms. Marvel having that incredible reach. Ms. Marvel's reach is what is so problematic for the for the zoo players, because like, Like, it's hard to compete with 15 power across the board when you're zooing. And you can't play Ms. Marvel yourself, because you got one drops everywhere, you got two drops everywhere, right? It's not the same fair fight. So I think that Ms. Marvel actually less than Killmonger is currently negatively impacting zoo because you just can't compete with that power level. And even if you play something like an echo, right, you just, now you're suddenly you're lacking the verticality. So anyways. Very interesting ideas around how Zoo can be utilized to kind of like be meta relevant But I don't I just don't think it's there yet. I don't know if Kyera is gonna do it.
Cozy Snap:I don't think I actually think that Zoo is another archetype that we have not found the deck with Kyera yet I think people have floated the idea of they've all kind of stuck to a couple of you know We'll talk about them in a second but like the main things that Kyera works for bigger number means better person right like people think I want the big six cost cards I think that Zoo, ultimately, the list is out there. And I'm, you know, we can say this about everything. I do think Ms. Marvel is a great point into what you said, but even being able to play the list that I've been stirring with, that I'm about to have a video out on, is that you go with cheap 1 cost, and then you just have the tech cards. It's like a Serra deck, without the Serra. You have decent power, but then you have the answers to what they're trying to put out on their side, right? Like, that kind of feels like the ultimate place that I would, you know, end up playing Zoo. I had a great Zoo deck maybe two months ago, right? And it was like that it was with Jean Grey. Still kind of can work, you got the Echo in there, and then you try to Shauna, pick your best lane, Pro X. And that was really cool. Times have changed a little bit, Pro X is obviously hurting a tad bit. But I do think that there is going to be a better day and a better Zoo Deck to come. To where at least it's like somewhat competitive.
Alexander Coccia:Now I know this isn't specifically about Cairo, but it brought these two cards into the spotlight. Did you have an opportunity to test Zoo with like Dazzler and Shauna? And what was your experience with those two cards?
Cozy Snap:Yeah dude, it's funny you say that because like it made me reevaluate all the one drops again, right? I was like going through them, I was like who Because it's funny, Zoo lists are actually kind of tight. Like once you go through what you need You know, you definitely want, like, Blue Marvel, Kazaar, and then you have Kaeyra now. And then you're like, okay, so which ones drops? Naturally, you want to try to be like, okay, Sunspot and Nebula have to make the list, right? Like, that's how you think to it. I think with Shauna, you have to utilize her randomness to effect. That's why I loved the Pro X build that I had. Because you would slam these down, and then you could pick a lane to take advantage of. I think Shauna, ultimately, is best with something like Jean Grey or Dazzler. Because What does she do well? What is the one thing she does outside of randomness is that she is effectively the best way to fill your board the fastest, like with decent stats and decent cards. Jean Grey, the way that you play Jean Grey, the way that you make her great, one of my, you know this, one of my favorite cards for so long now is that you fill up your Jean Grey side, but then you have ways to get out of it. Or ways to boost it and have surprise, right? So, Ant Man, Nightcrawler, that exists and I think Shauna's a great way to kind of help this out. And then Dazzler. The issue with Dazzler that I found, and it's great, it works, I think it's cool, is that like you're doing so much for a 3 And 3 8's a good stat line, don't get me wrong. I just feel like, ultimately, she does, she still is getting replaced with like, oh, I'd rather have one other. I'd rather have a sunspot I could sneak out early. I'd rather have one other one job. She, she has worked in the list, but I feel like I also could theoretically replace her, but she's not terrible.
Alexander Coccia:No, she's not terrible, and like, it's been one of those situations where I'm like, do I cut Dazzler in favor of like, even Martyr? Right? But then, like, if I'm playing Martyr and Dazzler together, I'm trying to block up all the lanes, so Martyr can't move, we need that vertical power. You're f It's, it's so right, like, what you said prior was, was correct. Zoolists are surprisingly tight. Mine, I was actually cutting Iceman. I c I couldn't play Iceman, I had to cut him. And but I was running Goose and some of that control element stuff. But, like, Dazzler and Shauna, like, I ultimately ended up cutting, cause, like, even with, like, if you think about it, you play Sha Dazzler on turn 3, turn 4 Kazaar, turn 5 Blue Marvel. When are you zooing? Like, when are you, when are you playing your cards, right? Turn six, that's when you're playing cards, but you haven't drawn anything, right? It's been, it's been really interesting to try and make Zoo work, and I think you're right, I think it's close. I don't want to give up on it yet, because I think it's close.
Cozy Snap:I want, like, wouldn't Tassler's like a 2 7? I know it's more than Maximus, I get that, but like, you're having to, like, fill every lane, like, that's hard, it's a hard thing to do. It's like, is it three, is it the three cost? I, I don't know. I don't know what it is. Cause I used to try to do a lot of cool things with her. Like, I used to try to do Dazzler, Omega Red, Onslaught, and then you like have this Huge, you know, you know, surge in power, and there's some cool things you can do, but again, it's like gimmicks. You're gonna win a couple conquests, maybe, but it's not super competitive. So I'm excited to see the future of Zoo, and I can tell you it'll be coming next month. I think there's a card, Block Swan. I forgot which one has it, but all one cost cards cost zero for the next turn of play, and I think that potentially We could be seen like a Sarah Miracle Zoo kind of thing.
Alexander Coccia:Yeah, absolutely. And that's actually worth noting here. Like we've been focusing so much on zoos. It's so exciting to play that archetype again, not in the beginning stages of the game, but where Chiara has really progressed as a top tier option. Surprise, surprise, it's been Sheenot. Sheenot has genuinely benefited from the addition of Kaiera. You got the deck on the screen here, currently running a 59 percent win rate. Sunspot, Nebula, Misty Night. We're running three, three drops to get protected by Kaiera. You have Shocker. Some people are cutting Shocker in favor of Cosmo. You have Magic, Kaira, Cyclops, High Evolutionary, Leech, She Hulk, the Hulk, and then finally, the Infinite. This deck is one of the decks that's most commonly using Kaira to good effectiveness, and, hey, would you be surprised, NoCozy, that I've been playing a hell of a lot of She Naut lately? And I gotta say, she fits absolutely perfectly. Having that sunspot sitting there with confidence, knowing that it's not gonna get disrupted. Sometimes, you gotta play that She Hulk early when the things don't quite line up their way. You want them to, there's even locations at times, or if your Shocker hits your Hulk, you can play Hulk out on five and not be worried about it getting shanchied. So I think it has been a tremendous addition to the She Naut archetype.
Cozy Snap:Yeah, and I think she's really cool in that archetype because she also limits it as well. Like, I don't think High Evo needed it necessarily, but what I like about it is like, I like the idea that if you play her on three, you're not being able to skip energy. And then it doesn't help out your bigger cards, right? Or, like, your Sunspot. It conflicts with Magic's cost, so then you have, like, that in the equation. Like, I do feel like it's more balanced than people actually think, like, as far as, like, what that deck's trying to do in the Ultimate. The 6 cost protection's great and all, but, dude, it's easily, for me, it's protecting your Nebula and your Sunspot and your Misty Knight is fantastic. It's so good. It feels so good to cut Armor and Cosmo, potentially, two cards with just one replacement. Now, we were experimenting with, like, Scar in there and it can work. But yeah, I think even just keeping Leech at his core too, that's what that deck does well as, you know, in addition to it. Yeah, dude, I, definitely, such a great home for Kaiera. Because it's the ultimate deck that does exactly what she's doing. Six and ones, right? Just really utilizing the best of both. With Thanos. It's kind of the, you know, it's both of those together.
Alexander Coccia:To the dismay though, of many people in the Marvel Snap population High Evolutionary is back. High Evolutionary is coming back. I felt like I was the only one playing it, but it is storming back with the addition of Kaeyara and this deck absolutely showcasing why now before we move on to our next topic, there is one last thing I wanted to talk about Kaeyara, because I've seen this conversation come up quite a bit. That is the comparison between Kaira and Armour. Now Armour is 4. Armour is competitively stated for the 2 cost, Kaira is Like substatted, right? Substatted. What would we say is 3 5 the standard 3 cost?
Cozy Snap:I Think it's, it's like, even if it's 3 4, it's the upside of what it brings typically. So like 3 5 probably though, and then it can get higher. Yeah. 3 4 can get higher. Yeah.
Alexander Coccia:But how do you like draw the line between the use of armor and Kyara?
Cozy Snap:There's a lot more competitively than people might think with armor's advantage of just being able to tempo armor out on two. And the difference of that and being able to protect an entire lane and or counter with it, you know, Kyra, people thought only affecting you could have been bad, but it's actually, you know, you can't stop a destroyed deck if that gets hot. I think right now, Evo and Thanos are all over the place. Because it is Kyre week, like, people are like, really pissed about it, but you gotta, you know, think about it. Annihilus brought junk decks all week. Kyre's gonna bring out one and six Ky you know, it's just gonna happen. And if they're already competitive decks, like, we skipped over Thanos, dude. Thanos is a stupid place right now. Stupid competitive place with insane flexibility and finally utilizing Thanos best kit is Infinity Stones, right? Armor is definitely going to have the place over Kyera in certain decks, right? So a great example of this is in a deck where you're trying to cheat out these bigger cards that aren't the six cost. I don't know about you, man, but I was trying to do like Devil Dino and Thanos, which I still did. But to not have that safety blanket anymore, you're like, oh my god, it could die. You know, it could be extinct again. Whereas like the six cost feel a lot safer. And you get to play Armor for cheaper. Kaira's advantage is that you want to play her, typically, with Scar. And with Scar, you're cheating out big cards via long charge. You know what I mean? So, like, that has its own thing. And then more, like, tempo, value play is Armor.
Alexander Coccia:Absolutely. And I think that it can't be understated how valuable the counterplay that Armor can have against destroyed players against You know, those types of matchups when Destroy can often be like upwards of 9 percent of the meta. So I think that it does shine in those regards, but ultimately, I think Chair has been a very strong addition to snap a cozy first impressions and final first impressions. Star rating from you.
Cozy Snap:Yeah. I think I air I got at a four star rating and I've got scar to three probably three.
Alexander Coccia:Yeah, I, you know what? I can, I agree there. I think Kiara is about four and a half. And I think Scar's probably three and a half. I'm a little higher on both. I think Scar eventually will be a solid four. I think we're missing like one or two cards and that card's going to be flying for sure. And that brings us cozy to one of our absolute favorite things that we do on a weekly basis. And that is. The Snapchat mailbag. And if you're interested in having your question answered by CozySnap and I, whether it be about Marvel Snap or life in general, ask it down below, type mailbag, ask your question and we'll get right to it in the next episode. Now, first one comes from FatalNightmare. What are your thoughts if they reworked Kang to still manipulate time, but instead of rewinding the current turn, make him a 4 cost with some power, both the ability to skip turn 5 and immediately go to turn 6?
Cozy Snap:I love, I feel like there's always a Kang question in here, like I love it. I think Kang, just like in the MCU, is probably dead. I like the idea though, I think that's definitely fun. I've heard so many King ideas, because I think people want him to be relevant in some way, shape, or form. Like, I've started to see him pop up in like, Loki decks or whatever. I just don't know what you end up doing with King, and it's not, it's definitely not a bad idea, man. What are your thoughts?
Alexander Coccia:I mean, I've thought about so many different versions of Kang. Like what if like you play him and you get to pick like one of three random cards, you get to become a variant of a card in their deck. Wouldn't that be kind of cool? Like you get three options. Like, Oh, I can be a Alioth, I can be Maximus or I can be Ronin. Who would I want to be right now? That, that, I think that'd be kind of cool. That was an idea I had. But the other thing I thought about was I've been unironically playing Kang for the last two weeks. Honestly, I was playing this ramp shell and I had put Kang in it to Kang snap and stuff like that. And I honestly. Every single time I won a gang, a game with a Kang Snap, I felt like an absolute Chad. I was like, yeah, you just got beat by a Kang Snap. I was losing. I was, why would you get scared? But yeah, he feels super underwhelming at five costs. I wonder if like even just added the, just let him draw a card anytime he's played. Cause it replaces him. Cause usually you want to play him on the turn. You draw him if it's turn five or six, cause it replenishes himself. Right. But ultimately Kang's been in a really weird spot. If you did not buy Kang with your 6, 000 tokens when he was released, you did a good job and you saved yourself some tokens.
Cozy Snap:Yeah, and I will say this, if draft isn't being a good spot for like resources, and like it's like a competitive mode and like we play it a lot and there's good things to do, Kang is good in draft mode. Like Kang is very good in draft mode because of the, like there's no synergy, right? And he kind of brings this like bluff. You don't have to worry about them having Brood, Silver Surfer, and Draft mode most of the time. And so I do you know, as a person who's played a lot of Draft, UF2, I think Kang would have a spot there. But yeah, you know, I've seen other cases of like, can you make Kang be played really, you know, I don't know the energy cost, but you would get to re So, he re does that last turn. So let's say, and I don't know how you would do with the location, but I like the idea of the final location. If you don't like it, you play Kang. It could change that. Both players get a drawl. If you don't like your drawl, you could also use Kang, and it would do, it just manipulates time, and he gets another drawl. You could end up hurting yourself because your opponent got a bad drawl, and then you give him a good one. I kinda like that aspect. See, there's a million ways to talk about Kang. I expect more in Snapchat mailbag, but I like it.
Alexander Coccia:Our next question comes from The Moving Picture Show. Says, love the show guys and happy new year. One feature I would love to see added is a mode to practice decks against bots. I hate to tell you, buddy, that's ranked mode. I can't tell you how many times I made a new deck to realize a certain combo doesn't work the way I thought it would, and now I'm out two cubes. I think this would be a great addition that could help new players get a hang of the game. What are your thoughts, and what do you think the odds of this being added to the game are?
Cozy Snap:I hate to be the bearer of bad news. I think someone asked this to Glenn, and essentially, Conquest Proving Grounds has kind of been this for, they've stopped testing mode development because this has been a way to test and it's a great way to test. I actually don't think a lot of people utilize it. I know Alex, you do a lot. Like if you're ever trying to a cheeky build out don't get me wrong. I think it'd be great. I just think with the resources available, they're going to probably end up killing that.
Alexander Coccia:I do agree that Proving Grounds is like the correct answer to that question. If you want to test something just purely with no stakes, Proving Grounds where to is where to go, if you can deal with the tilt of people, not snapping back. Like that, that's the one thing about Proving Grounds. Like I often play Proving Grounds where I'll snap, they won't. I'll win, I'll just leave. Like I'll just be like, okay dude, like you can get the ticket. Like I just wanted to play. But at the end of the day, like I do think that what Kozy said is correct. I think that Proving Grounds has ultimately taken the spot of that testing kind of environment. Although like many games do, do testing environments really well. I, this is. Dating me, but when I used to play Dota Underlords and Auto Builders, I used to do that they had a practice mode where you can actually set up board combinations to test the combinations. You see this in Smash Brothers training modes, right? Fighting games often do this kind of stuff. In Snap, is it as required? Probably not, especially when you have a small team with limited development resources. It's probably prudent that they would leave the Proven Grounds to do exactly what you've suggested there.
Cozy Snap:So I've got one on here, question for the mailbag, coming from Mika10. And they asked, Do you just ever throw completely random cards to your deck? To throw off your opponents, especially in the topper, Topper, that's the word there parts of competitive play. I like this. I think this is good. I mean, I think it's you know, I don't know if I'm ever like, you know what, I'm gonna put in an angel. They'll never see what's coming. I think they'll just snap on me and say this fool. But, I think it's, you know, another thing, if you get ahead of the curve on some of this, Like, Alex and I, if we ever discover something, we're usually Snapchat or whatever. But, like, You know, for a week straight I was playing Mobius, and I was really getting that effect, and it's like, okay, you know, I screwed him up there. Pure randomness, Alex? I don't know. You would be, if anyone's doing it, it's you.
Alexander Coccia:Yeah, listen, on my climb towards infinite, I think I'm at like, I was at like 97. We decided to put Kang and Agatha in a deck together and say, auto builder give me the best deck. And let's just say it did not give me the best deck. Best deck. It gave me this Ronin deck with like no synergistic cards, Kang, Agatha. It was so awful. Quinjet for no reason. And I'm like, alright, we're doing it. Turn 1 snap. We're taking it to the taking it to the house here. And no, it, it played horribly. It was awful. But you know what? It was a ton of fun to do and sometimes, yes, my opponents had no idea what was going on. Zero idea going on. When I hit them with the turn 6 Ronin, when I had played Quinjet, Kang, and Agatha and all this other random stuff there. Then yeah, they were surprised, I gotta tell you. They weren't expecting to have to dump their hand on turn six.
Cozy Snap:Yeah, the most I'll get with that is like instead of trying to do like Darkhawk to get Scar out this week I did Medusa with Hulkbuster. And you know, people are like, probably see that play and they're like, I'm gonna snap on this, what the hell is this guy doing? Especially cause it's the first, yeah, two to three turns of the game. They're like, what is this guy doing? And then I have a four Scar that I can play next turn. Like, there's, you can do things like that. That are maybe not like, statistic wise, the best thing to do, but it works with the synergy package you're trying to, you know, accomplish.
Alexander Coccia:And is it crazy to play Marvel Snap for fun? Is it crazy to play the game for fun? If you want to brew some absolutely intoxicated garbage and just take it to the house there, you gotta do it. Take it to Infinity Con, take it to gold. Get her done, man. Brew something crazy. Put Martyr and Kang in a deck and say, auto brew me something and take it. That's it. At the end of the day, isn't that why we're here? We're having fun, right? Absolutely.
Cozy Snap:I think that's often lost, but yeah man, have fun with it. Play, play around a card. Don't put in, you know, the worst card in the game. Like, don't, don't try to make Angel work or whatever. But like, but cards like Embaku with like C2, yeah it's not the best C2 deck, but good god are you having a good time doing it. So yeah, definitely could do that.
Alexander Coccia:The next question comes from a Buckeye and it reads, I feel SecondHander doesn't give enough attention to the quality of life updates. For example, needing to click the favorites button on the mobile device every time to feature your filtered variants. Surprise, it's on PC too and it's been driving me insane. Anyways, instead of focusing on rolling out as many cards as possible, I would be in favor of two new cards a month to focus more on the small stuff that makes things a little less clunky. Curious on your thoughts.
Cozy Snap:Yeah, I like this. I think they wouldn't stack up that much where we'd, like, have to limit, you know, card releases. But, in other games I've played, like, one month out of the year, maybe even two if you need it, it was, like, quality of life month, right? Where, like, they stop production on all the other stuff, and they either made up on past promises, so, like, let's use first edition badges here, whatever. And then, they just stomped all the bugs in a huge bug fix. They do okay with bugs, but there's times where they'll, like, do a couple bugs, and I'm like, I never see that. Whereas, like, the favorites bug is driving me wild. It's just so stupid at this point why haven't we fixed it? So I agree, we need like a quality of life, week, maybe per month, whatever it is. I like it.
Alexander Coccia:Yeah, I mean, I still want the cards to come out, and maybe it's just they just expand their team slightly. It's easy to forget that Second Dinner is a small team. But one thing I will say though, is I'm glad they fixed the Lockjaw bug, because we've been playing a lot of Lockjaw. Remember when Lockjaw cards used to stack and you couldn't even tell what came out?
Cozy Snap:That was like that for like Four months! Forever, to four mon I think it was there for like, a year, man. It was there for like, launch to like, I think July. It was so long, like, extremely long. Very much, you know, I think there are, even though it may not be the most common one, there are visual bugs that like, have to change and they need to get to those first. But yeah, I think this actually coming patch has a good bug list, too.
Alexander Coccia:Alright, and our final question comes from Evil Greg, and it reads, If you were to create snap cards of each other, what would they do?
Cozy Snap:This is what I'm talking about. This is a good, this, this is the questions I live for over here. Great one, Evil Greg. Why, why are you evil? Oh my gosh, did we, I thought we did this before? Or maybe it was like, if we were a snap card what would they do? So definitely Ooh, okay, so here's, here's my thing, right? So we're gonna go, I could go off you know, Canada. I'm gonna go off of Costco instead, right? So what do you get at Costco? You get you get big mass bulk of things, right? So for Alex if you play a deck with only one type of cost in it, The hell, this is ridiculous. You could play Alex at zero cost if you draw him for 20 power. But every single card has to be the exact same cost.
Alexander Coccia:So basically it's a Zudeck with a 0 20 at the end?
Cozy Snap:It's pretty bad, but yeah, I I kinda like the game. So I can't even outpace Blob? Probably not, you're probably gonna suffer. And you know, I could go with Canadians and you just like give them free wins or something. But like, what what do you get?
Alexander Coccia:For Cozy, it's actually DLC. You buy a Cozy pack, and then you when you unlock the pack, it automatically guarantees that your next split will be inked with Crackle.
Cozy Snap:Yeah, that's right. Although I've had a couple bad luck streaks off off stream and stuff. But yeah, that's a That's a damn good question. I'm gonna maybe follow up on that on the next snapchat with even a more not on the spot answer.
Alexander Coccia:There's another good one, too. There's another one. Okay, Kozy is a 3 6 that if you get a haircut by the end of the game, he gets plus four.
Cozy Snap:Okay, okay. How do you get a haircut? Is there another card that is involved in that?
Alexander Coccia:Someone has to have a sword to give you a haircut. So like, I don't know, Meek? Meek holds a sword. Maybe Meek gives you a haircut?
Cozy Snap:When equipment comes out, we can have Alex's glasses. Alex's glasses as equipment. Those gamer glasses. Dude, that's at least like, plus five. Plus five power immediately. And just health. See your opponent's hand. And your doctor's happy about it. Oh, okay, okay. I like it. Hey, write these down, Marvel Snap. Devs, we know you're listening. Dude, that was a good one to end it on. I love that.
Alexander Coccia:That was a good one. Absolutely. And guys, thank you so much for joining us on this week's edition of the Snapchat where we had a great stay with us
Cozy Snap:and until the next one, happy snapping!