War Machine: The Best Card or Overhyped? | LIVE From Boston | Cannonball In Review | The Snap Chat Ep. 73

Will War Machine be the best card this month? What were the highlights from the latest OTA? What are the final rankings on Cannonball? Join Cozy Snap, Alexander Coccia, and special guest Drewberry as they chat about this and more on this episode of The Snap Chat and every week as they discuss all things Marvel Snap.

Transcript

Cozy Snap: 0:00

What's going on, guys, and welcome back. Hope you're having a good one. Today, we're going to talk about War Machine. Is he overhyped, or is he the best card in March, or maybe even this year? Is he going to break Marvel Snap? Alex, I'm going to talk about the best synergies and everything you need to know about the newest card. On top of that, we're going to talk about the recent OTA. Thanos, can he be stopped? The Guardians of the Galaxy, was it enough? In a special episode of the Snapchat, Live from Boston. In fact you might think I look a little tired. You probably don't think that, but maybe you do. It's 4 a. m. in the morning. I had a nice little 8 hour delay on my flight. So today is gonna be pretty mega different. A little bit of a shorter episode and the audio will be a little different as well. But hopefully you guys enjoy. Do enjoy, but we're going to talk about that all today. More on this episode of the Snapchat and live from Boston, as always, I'm joined by the one and only Mr. Alex Coccia. We're getting to see each other for the first time at three dimensional space. I can confirm guys. He is absolutely more of a dad than I thought. We had fans come up to us and they were like, can you take a photo? And Alex, like had it on the selfie mode and he was like, Oh man. And then he smells like Costco. It's beautiful.

Alexander Coccia: 1:04

Oh, thank you. I smell like Costco. I smell like the Costco hot dog?

Cozy Snap: 1:07

Yeah. Maybe like, you know, maybe like the pizza. Okay, I'll give you the pizza. Okay dude, this is awesome. Like, what, it's 73 plus weeks talking to you almost every day of my life, and we get to see each other, like, finally.

Alexander Coccia: 1:19

I know, it's actually a surreal experience, and I bet you a lot of people online have a similar experience in the sense of like, you know, In gaming, you make friends. You make long lasting friends, and then like, they might live across the world from each other, right? And I think the first time you might experience this is like World of Warcraft, other games, and then for Cozy and I, it's like obviously, Marvel Snap brought us together, our podcast brought us together, our content did, and it literally has been over 70 weeks. We talked literally on a regular basis day to day do this We've never missed a week never never missed a week And to see you in three dimensional space it actually was like mind blowing to me And it took me like hours to get used to it.

Cozy Snap: 1:57

It was it was a weird for looking at someone every day It was weird to like I have this like, unknown feeling of who you are, like, I'm like, whoa, like, I don't know you, I know you, but I've never seen you, but I've seen you, it's a weird concept, it's almost like, listen, we had like, Near a hundred plus people come up to us, which, that, the fan interaction has been mind blowing, I still like, guys, I'm just a dude, right, like, and Alex was like, It's just a dad, you know, we're both dads, but it's crazy to have this interaction of someone that you spend kind of a lot of time with in a sense, right? And so PAX has been awesome. Just the love, just games, people being able to be themselves, man, PAX is a really special event. It's really cool.

Alexander Coccia: 2:34

It is. Like the thing I really love about it is just the freedom to be who you are, like honestly, and if you want to spend seven hours playing card games with your friends and play, Card games for seven hours with your friends. You know what I mean? I mean, we

Cozy Snap: 2:45

sat down and played this, some Star Wars unlimited game. That was a card game. Who, I forgot my memories. Who won that? I think you remember who won. Yeah. I think Alex Darth Vader, Jack Conker guys. It was, it was a good time, but altogether, man, just like really cool to be in person. We've had a lot of tech issues. We're holding a microphone with no stand. As you can see, this is a big time professional. We filmed some yesterday, the Snapchat cake, guess what happened? Audio corrupted dead. So like we. I have gone through the hoops and this is almost just par for the course, I feel like.

Alexander Coccia: 3:13

Yeah, of course. Listen, at the end of the day, all you can do is try your best. We've tried our absolute best and hopefully we can get some fun content out there for you guys. But it's been a wild ride and we're just, I'm just happy to be able to do this live.

Cozy Snap: 3:24

Guys, we've got a, maybe a little bit of a different Snapchat, but we're trying to do much of the same here. And listen, I mean, we've got War Machine coming out Tuesday, again. Is he going to just break snap? Is he a little bit overhyped? Going to break that down. We've got the OTA. Has Thanos finally been, been changed? Has it, what is this attempt number like 20, 25, 20? Yeah, we've lost count at 50. But let's, let's start there. Right? So we had the spotlight week. Okay. And we've got Silk and Silver Samurai. How we feeling about that? I feel it's kind of in the trend of the last couple kind of kind of week with a Potentially pretty good card.

Alexander Coccia: 3:59

Yeah, it's like kind of like the actual spotlight cash when you look at it You want war machine and the other ones are just kind of filler and in the past we have like a card like cannonball That isn't particularly strong, but you want miss Marvel. Yeah It's like there's this balancing act I would prefer that the Spotlight Caches are always really exciting and are always cards you really want to get. In this case here, it looks like War Machine is really the target you're after.

Cozy Snap: 4:22

And if you don't, really, War Machine, if you guys don't know, is a 4 cost, 6 power card. It kind of has Jeff's ability mixed with the next turn. So when you play him, On reveal next turn, all of your cards can break the rules, right? So obviously a lot of power potential there, but not maybe as much synergy as you might think. And we'll get to that when it comes to just star rating out the rip. I think this was my five star going into it. I might go down about 0. 5. I probably land about 4. 5. Where are you at on War Machine?

Alexander Coccia: 4:53

I'm pretty confident in my four. 4 star rating. I think he's a good card. I'm a little concerned of the stats. I think that the stats are starting to get a little, like Listen, 4 costs are so powerful now. You see what Call Obsidian's doing and, 4 6, I, it's just not quite strong enough to give me the full confidence in it. But we've seen Iron Lad at 4 6 do wonders, right? So

Cozy Snap: 5:11

Yeah, and that's what, like, people are saying, okay, is this Jeff and Iron Lad mixed together? Yes, for the most part. I think the biggest con is we've got another card, and this is how they balance, you know, kind of overpowered effects sometimes. On turn six, that's kind of useless, right? You play him, you're not going to have anything really happen for you to turn seven. Maybe we can look at magic and that adds another turn potentially. But Iron Lad, on the other hand, is a card that's tremendous on turn six. You have You know, less cards to be a little bit more or less random. And it's like a 50 50 almost at times to see what scan you get. Whereas, you know, War Machine, you need to rely on that. And then Jeff has the package all in one. He doesn't need other cards played after him, right? So I think it is a good example, but he's going to be different. But with that, there is a lot of synergy. And Alex, I want to first talk about location. And then I want to talk about kind of the cards and locations where I think is the strongest suit, right? A, there's going to be so many locations coming out. We know we have things like Kiln, we've got Morag, we've got these little Sanctum that you can't play into, and these just appear at all these different games that you're playing, especially in a game mode like Conquest. This is where I think he's going to be, have the most utility but then you also have cards that are providing these shutdown locations that also have that. And so, he's going to have this offensive power with a little bit of defense.

Alexander Coccia: 6:28

I really do think that War Machine's capabilities, like From a location perspective are probably being slept on. I think Mockingbird was a good example of like when you're playing a card. And like, I mean, we probably over fixate on Mockingbird on its release week. But when I was testing my Mockingbird stuff and I was playing, you know, Patriot based decks and all those types of things, I was not playing Thanos. I was so depressed that Mockingbird ended up like being shoehorned into Thanos. But I noticed I was like, oh man, look at that. Like every time there's, you know, a Monster Island or a Savage Land or, or even Central Park or whatever, and there's squirrels everywhere. Like Mockingbird just, Goes down like, and it, and like it happens more often than you would think. And I think war machine's gonna be the same.

Cozy Snap: 7:01

I mean, it kind of happened when Jeff came out or Legion even. You know, it's like, wow, these cards matter because of how much locations play importance. I mean, locations are, are such a massive part in SNAP that I think people continue to like, just maybe not give the full respect to some of them. And then. We're going to get more shutdown locations. They scaled them back. Heck, they've taken some out, like Sandbar, there was some, yeah, yeah. And we had there was one with the ship with like the guardians of the galaxy, and then that just disappeared. What was that one? I don't even remember it.

Alexander Coccia: 7:29

What I will say as well is like, when you're playing like competitively, like I remember you were casting you know, the Conqueror's event and someone was playing Cerebro like in the finals and their locations were so detrimental to them competing.

Cozy Snap: 7:41

They would have won those games.

Alexander Coccia: 7:42

So like. It's like, we play so many games in Marble Snap, it's so easy to go in and out, but like, Locations are often slept on as their impact they have on the game, and like, just think about what the most recent patch did, How it pulled back a lot of Destroy centric locations to actually Shadow Nerf Destroy.

Cozy Snap: 7:57

Yeah, and I think, let's start with something like Professor X, right? So, even though he's on a location, he's kind of like making this shutdown location, I don't, as much as I want to see the synergy with him, because Jeff, that's like, that's where you go, You've got a 2 and 4 card. Pro X is a turn 5 card. You need the next turn to be able to play cards into that location. Little wonky. I don't think there's going to be as much synergy there. Again, maybe going back to like the magic thing or if you can cheat out cards with maybe hope or sidewalk post nerf at this point. I'm not crazy about the Professor X kind of thing. I don't know about you. I'm

Alexander Coccia: 8:28

really hesitant on Pro X too, especially offensively because like, I just don't know what that curve looks like. With the amount of power you're putting out, like as a 5 1, Pro X needs that setup, right? Usually in advance, right? Or, of course, you ramp him out and then play your War Machine and then you can kind of offset the power loss that you have there with your turn six play. But like, how many cards are you playing? Do you really want to commit to a Pro X lane while you're probably throwing another lane, right? So, like, it's kind of tricky from a power perspective because War Machine is also a 5 1. And if you're against a Thanos player who just dropped a Cull Obsidian, you are like super behind because they also probably played on 1, 2, 3, and then 4 as well.

Cozy Snap: 9:04

I do see him as a control card in a lot of ways, and I think he's going to be, again, used more offensively. I just don't know if that's going to be the route. And so things like Storm, I, you know, love the potential. We've talked about this in the past where, you know, Storm Legion was the hottest meta for two weeks. And then, you know, People just stopped playing it. It wasn't like it was never bad, it just kind of maybe the gimmick got used up, like people kind of knew what was happening here, where I feel like if you play Storm on 3, War Machine, really any turn after that, you could play Legion And it's done. You shut it down. And I think that's going to be like a great little combo and way less suspecting.

Alexander Coccia: 9:39

Yeah. And the other key thing is that like, it's on curve, Storm on three Warm Machine on four, and then you play Legion into the flooded location, which is not, it's going to shut down the game for turn six, right? Like there is no opportunity to play and you've played perfectly on curve.

Cozy Snap: 9:53

Yep. Yeah. And that's right now, Storm's really like the only outside of Pro X, like way to make one of these locations, which is going to be, I think imperative to Warm Machine's kit. Now, When we talk about synergy, there's like 10 or 13 cards that actually have a direct synergy, but he kind of synergizes with everyone because of those locations. Do you think this is something that you can use offensively with, I don't know, something like Jean Grey?

Alexander Coccia: 10:17

Most certainly. I like, honestly, if you think about it, like, I think cards are at their best when you like have a definite plan for how you're going to use them in your deck. So Jean Grey naturally is going to force someone to play into a given location and give you the like the, Freedom to not like we often kind of work around that by like brooding the location or playing Jeff first and playing somewhere else or whatever Right, like there's tricks around Jean Grey, but the problem is is Jean Grey good enough to even warrant the effort of doing it

Cozy Snap: 10:41

Yeah, yeah, which but what I love is like the cool thing about War Machine is he's gonna have certain card combos that like are instant win conditions and this will Almost never happened. We have to mention it for some of you guys that are just clamoring for it. But like, the Sanctum Galactus play. I mean, like, there's gonna be those one off plays that, you know, you can And that's what's great about them is because like, Iron Lad fits in any deck. What's cool is, I think there's gonna be a place, let's say an Annihilus Galactus deck, right? Sentry, another location card. You can't play him on that right side. That's kind of a very niche use. You're not going to want to play Century really over there anyway. But there are some games that like, you know, some that you maybe could. But then you have Annihilus as an alt when conditioned and then maybe that Galactus play, no?

Alexander Coccia: 11:23

Yeah, well, I guess in theory, right? With with If you play War Machine with Sentry, if you, for instance, don't draw onto your Annihilus and you have Sentry, it's still a 10 power card, you can play him on the right and potentially block off that location with his body first, right? So that could be useful, like you move Jeff over, play the Sentry, then there's no room for the Void to even Oh, for the Void, yeah, yeah. Right? Because you body block it with Sentry yourself, right? So there's potential there for sure.

Cozy Snap: 11:45

So, and then the other card that has been lane restricted forever, and we've Clamor this is probably one of the worst cards in the staff. It doesn't really matter about his power because of what it costs. And then like just the opportunity of where to play is Giganto. And we finally get to have a card that makes Giganto not horrible. I mean, like he's, he's represented as Godzilla, but he's, he's more like a little foot from, I don't know, a little, what was that? What was that land before time?

Alexander Coccia: 12:12

I was thinking about the little deer that gets shot.

Cozy Snap: 12:15

Bambi? But so, okay, those are more of the location cards, right? Giganto. I, again, I think Storm is gonna be more of that kind of big hitter there. Let's kind of shift it to the rule breakers, right? This is what we knew Jeff as, and this is where I think we're gonna have some real kind of like, Upside and deck building potential with him. So War Machine, guys, I got to say right now, if you don't know, Ebony Maw and Infernaut, it's been confirmed by now, if you're watching this and you've seen some other stuff on them, you guys know it allows you to play Ebony Maw at any point in the game, but it also allows you to play Infernaut even if you didn't take a rest the turn before. That one card combo alone is a 26 power play, and because of that potential, I think automatically rises War Machine to a pretty incredible value. Having an Infinite at any time, 20 power is going to be massive.

Alexander Coccia: 13:05

Yeah, and I, it actually goes perfectly with Giganto as well, because if you think about it if you play your War Machine on top of a Hope Summers, That gives you the energy to the next turn to play Giganto. It gives you the energy the next turn to play the Infinite. And what I want to talk about is we always talk about the lines. We talk about how we actually intend to use the card effectively in a game. And the way I see it working is turn two. You got Armor and Goose, right? Protect them both ways, right? Turn three, you have Hope Summers. Turn 4, you have War Machine. Turn 5, you have Giganto or Infinite. Turn 6, you have Taskmaster and Ebony Maw. Like, the deck writes itself, if you think about it. And you're going for, like, a specific combo, sure. But, like, if you think about it, what's that Goose do?

Cozy Snap: 13:44

Okay, so we filmed on the first time we talked about this, we had a lot of Goose conversations. So, we, like, kind of briefed over it. We loved Goose the first time we filmed this, because we were talking about, essentially, how Goose, Yes, the Pro X is a little awkward, but Goose curves into play, and we've had like She Hulk, you can cheat in there, but imagine at this point, and we'll just use Giganto for fun, but you slamming in a Giganto, your opponent at that point is at a massive disadvantage, they're trying to catch up, and there's going to be things like that with even locations, miniaturized lab, it's not open to them, it's open to you, and your opponent's got to play this catch up, Goose might be one of the more better synergized cards, and It's kind of been out of the meta for a long while.

Alexander Coccia: 14:22

Listen, I huff a little hopium with Goose sometimes and throw him in surfer decks, but I will say that the other major thing about that is if they're not running Zabu, they, it also protects against Shawn Chi, because Shawn Chi won't be able to be played in the lane with Goose, preventing the Giganto or Infinite from getting punched up.

Cozy Snap: 14:36

Oh dude, you're right, that's actually, I mean, what decks aren't running Zabu, but if they're not And they didn't draw it, then yeah, you're good to go. That's a great point. Those are the location cards. You have Ebony Maw and Infinite for those rule breakers. Okay, we gotta also bring up though, Crossbones. Okay, we've been waiting for Crossbones. At this point though, he's a 4'8 so the stats, you know, it's not exactly what today's stats are. But dude, it can feel good to play Crossbones. You don't have to worry about Shang Chi. If maybe you did Zabu, you get War Machine out early, you can get then Crossbones that next turn, play him wherever you want, you don't have to be winning the location. Do we think Crossbones has a shot here?

Alexander Coccia: 15:13

I think Crossbones has a shot when he gets OTA'd to a 4 9.

Cozy Snap: 15:16

Dude, if they made him a 4 9, I think he's like a legit card with War Machine, like a usable card.

Alexander Coccia: 15:20

Yeah, he has to be a 4 9, like if he's not, then don't play Crossbones, this is pure copium, but like, I do think that like, this is the moment where Crossbones might have relevancy.

Cozy Snap: 15:29

Yeah, so, okay, you got Crossbones where you can just play this stat stick. Wherever, right? Don't have to worry about it. And why that's important is, okay, you look at Jessica Jones, you look at Rescue. These have to way to turn crossbones. You just get that power right then and there. There are other rule breakers that don't, they're, they're fun to talk about. They're not going to have much importance. I don't think like Electro Sandman. We've seen these decks use Jeff. Is War Machine going to fit in that role at all?

Alexander Coccia: 15:53

You know what, I don't know. I don't know honestly. I don't see it working because like with with Electro the challenge is that like you play Electro on 3, you really want to play a 4 cost on 4. Like, that's not really usually what you're doing. Yeah, you can cheat you know, 6 costs out, but usually you're playing cards that have access. Like you're playing like, Vision anyway, Doctor Doom mode, and like you have these cards that don't really need the ability. So like, I think that's, that's coping maybe. But what I will say though is, I think the power of Electro, of Sandman is so insignificant right now, that if you play Sandman, even with that effect of using War Machine, again, it's a four costed card, and I feel like you never catch up power wise, because like, you're playing Sandman, and they're playing like, Magneto, and it's hard.

Cozy Snap: 16:31

So you've got like, Cool Obsidian, there's a couple rule breakers, but we know we're gonna have future restricting cards, like, that's just, that's how they balance power in the game, and so, he's kind of age proof in that matter, but also, One of the most flexible cards we have, I would say, is going to be this card that can work with just about anyone. You're going to have cards that can come into that. I also like the fact that he's, I don't want to say he's nerf proof, because you could go down in number if he's too good. But at that point, that just means his ability's cracked, and so, there's not a lot they can do with this kit to tame him if he's too good. On the flip side, if he happens to be bad, Then, you know, there's not a lot that they can do or maybe they can maybe make the power up, but I think that's like what's great about him is he's probably a pretty safe card to invest in for the most part.

Alexander Coccia: 17:15

Yeah, I do think the ability is actually not quite as crazy as maybe we're like, you know, I take that back. It is really strong. I just really have concerns about the power level. However, like it also is important to understand that like this is the release valve for control. Right? So, this gives Second Interconfidence to create more interesting control based cards, and use War Machine as the release valve, like, oh, if control's a little too hard, or too high, or too powerful, we can give War Machine more power. We can maybe allow War Machine's effect to last till the end of the game. Maybe it's an ongoing, or whatever. It's an important tool for the future of Snap, in the same way like Leech, as much as we hate Leech, was an important tool for Snap, to some degree.

Cozy Snap: 17:55

What I'm trying to think of is like, Jeff, because we go to Jeff, I think we all go to Jeff for this ability, but then, the reason Jeff is great is because, no matter the game, He allows you to play him. How many times are you actually utilizing that Jeff ability, right? Like, you love him in your hand because you can play him wherever, but how many times are you actually playing him into a location that you can't? Like, that's the stuff I'm thinking about. I think Iron Man's biggest fault, potentially, is overhype. And I don't want to say that he's gonna be bad, Bad. We do feel pretty good about them. Again, Alex and I are going to get videos out. We're going to test them, you know, make sure that you guys see those before you just go in and like, I saw the Snapchat, I want to get them. This is pre testing. Look at anything. Great expectation can become great disappointment, right? Starfield. Great game. Incredible game. Had like 15 years in the making. It was just, there wasn't a huge leap from Skyrim. It was a good game. But it also had huge disappointment. So I think War Machine might be a really good card, but it could come, ultimately with that disappointment. Now, I think Shurilist, I think Zerolist, and Control is going to be its best home. Anywhere else you kind of see it fitting?

Alexander Coccia: 18:55

I think the major thing, just to go back to your prior point, is that like, if you think about when Mobius and Mobius came out, Sarah was so Prevalent. They had all these, like, cheating effects, like Zabu. There was already cards and decks that were really using that ability. So Mobius and Mobius was, like, important and needed at the time. With the nerf to Professor X, who was super problematic with Alioth, right now the need for War Machine doesn't feel as immediate as the need for, like, Mobius and Mobius was, and I think that might damper the expectations for people. But, because it allows for the design landscape for Second Dinner to start producing more control based cards, suddenly I think it gets more interesting in the sense that, like, it's probably one you want to have in your collection because of its defensive ability. But

Cozy Snap: 19:35

dude, there's, and there's so many cards and decks that utilize Storm, and like, even High Evo can utilize Storm, right? And so Silver Surfer, so I do think there's going to be a ton of great testing that can be done here, and again, I think we could Stumble on something immediately or it could take weeks, but either way, I'm excited to shift from War Machine a little bit. Want to talk about the OTA, Guardians of the Galaxy with Jean Grey a little bit. We had some of that. The Guardians, was it enough? Was it what you wanted to see? What were your overall feelings of this recent OTA?

Alexander Coccia: 20:03

You know what? I think it was a good first step, but like, I think the Guardians are probably still bad. Like Mantis's change is still completely useless. Right? I still think that like, there's a lot, like you can high roll, but it's, I tried to make a deck with Jean Grey with the Guardian and stuff like that, and it felt okay. It felt okay, but like in Marvel Snap, if you're trying to rank up, okay is not good enough. You want to feel broken, and that's what Thanos does. That's what Hela's been doing. Like, it just doesn't compete at those levels, and so I think it still needs work.

Cozy Snap: 20:30

Yeah, I said it was too hard for casuals and too risky for competitives. Like, that's the problem with them, and like, I think I said, like, I want them to have another ability. But it's, they're a tough place. And sometimes it's like, as a designer, we've seen Glen and the team, like, let go of a concept that they had for this card. Like they, of a certain card, they wanted to do this one thing and snap. And they kind of had to let that go away. It didn't age with the game. I think we're kind of getting there with the Guardians. It works for something like Gomorrah, but I, they want them all themed out. And I just, it's, Gomorrah can work. I think Gomorrah is fine. It feels okay because it's a late play and it feels it's the cheaper ones to me that feel like they need more love. The Star Lords of it and the Groots and the Drax. You'd either have to really make them overcompensated for that power to kind of associate the risk or bring something else to the table.

Alexander Coccia: 21:16

Yeah, because there's a crapshoot on those early turns where they're gonna play, right? Like, with Gamora, even if you're playing on 5 or 6, like, you Probably have an idea of where they're going, right? Like you usually do. And so that's really beneficial.

Cozy Snap: 21:27

Daredevil.

Alexander Coccia: 21:28

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right. So I do think that the Gardens of the Galaxy, well, I'm glad they're taking a look. Like, I don't think they're playable. Like I really don't.

Cozy Snap: 21:36

So let's talk Thanos. Cause I, dead honest, I thought after the Mind Stone going to Caustic, I was like, this is it. We're going to tame Thanos, major change. There was a tournament, and like, 7 of the 10 decks, again, were Thanos. What do we do at this point? Like, what do you do to truly You don't want to keep on, you know, trying to kill a card. But I also don't want other cards, i. e. Psylocke, who I don't think was deserving at all to lose her power, I think was kind of an ugly change. You don't want those cards to keep, we saw this with Loki, we saw Cable and Mantis, who's still not great. But we saw them go out of just reach for a long time, trying to tame Loki. How do you address that? Yeah,

Alexander Coccia: 22:14

it's weird. And Loki's a perfect example. Like exactly what you said, like it was collectors as well taking strays. And it's like with Thanos, it's like, it's a tricky balance. Cause I think you need Thanos to be a really, it should be a legitimate deck. I think that at any time, any Marvel Snap player should be able to play Thanos and feel like they can legitimately win. It's such a unique card in the game. It's such a unique play style. It's such an iconic character. You need Thanos. But My concern is that you keep attacking these stones, while you're releasing cards that are so, like, synergistic with Thanos, which is crazy, right? That might not even have been intentional. But it's like, as you nerf these cards, does the identity of the Thanos deck start to, kind of, wither away? And, like, no one plays Thanos for the 20 power, no one's playing the 6 infinity stones, like, no one plays that.

Cozy Snap: 22:56

Which I wish that was the base, like, this kind of Mini goal in the goal deck kind of thing.

Alexander Coccia: 23:01

Yeah, it's just basically like a tempo deck where you use the stones to kind of eco like small advantages over the early turns, right? And like we've talked about, I mean, some of the first Snapchats talked about like, you know, make the early turns matter again and stuff like that. Well, Thanos does that and makes it a huge advantage.

Cozy Snap: 23:15

And then you have something like Kaiera that has kind of like real Kaiera was more important to Thanos than people realize. Protecting the ones and the sixes. It was such a massive Because I don't know about you, but it's like when you, when you get Kaiera and there's Blob and there's this magnet. There's nothing you can do at that point. Or you've got the stones that start to rack up the power of the power stones. Three, the soul stone is a pretty big flip. And so it's dude, it's a tough assignment and I don't want them to kill it. It's going to be a careful balance.

Alexander Coccia: 23:41

The other challenge there is that like Chiara was super important in like Thanos lock job, because if you cheat out a six drop and it's just sitting there on turn, well at the time turn. Four, right? You don't want to get punched out, but the other side to that is like, you're right. It's like, what do you even do? Because they, they've, listen, it's way weaker than it was before. The Mind Stone change from a 1 1 to a 2 1 is actually critically important, and I think that actually was more of a targeted nerf to Mockingbird than Thanos, because if you think about it, when you played Mind Stone on one, that allowed you to play two stones on turn two, which already discounted Mockingbird by three.

Cozy Snap: 24:15

Which, months ago, was already the way to win with Thanos. Like if you got Mind Stone turn one, you felt really good. Yeah, you snap, you got your engines going and now it's like more and more cars keep coming out to help them out and there's going to be even more, you know, as we approach even something like, it's a bummer because even something like Red Hulk, you're like, well, I'll just throw him into Thanos. Why would I not? And Thanos, guess what? It's probably really good at capping that energy each turn, right? And so that's, that's where my worry is. Adam Warlock got buffs. You've been playing a lot of him? No. Dude, like, that, how do they, I, I just don't see, I was like, Ah, 5 5, that'll do it. Like, I just, there's, there's, I, I don't see Adam working as a 5 cost. I, I don't think there's anything they can do there, unless they give him like a 5 8, which I, they can't.

Alexander Coccia: 24:55

The hilarious thing about it is we're seeing a C5 deck kind of start to rise a little bit with Cab Marvel and even Omega Red. And ironically, guess who does not make the cut in the new C5 deck?

Cozy Snap: 25:07

Because you look at the fives and you're like, why would I put that in there? Yeah. Yeah. Because then also, even if there is like a one turn advantage you can get on one specific game, they're on aggregate, just better cards to throw in there. It doesn't make sense. I was kind of taken back from Apocalypse. I understand that the discard is, you know, doing what it does, but to me, it's why they don't kill Deadpool in a way. Like, you get to see pretty clearly what's happening. You get to see that, you know, Apocalypse is growing in power. It's kind of telegraphable, and I think Felt like, like Dr. Doom. It's kind of the perfect card, man. I get that they had to take him back. I just wish this card had some other fix to it, not Apoc.

Alexander Coccia: 25:44

Yeah, you're right, because like, it's so transparent what's happening power wise with Apocalypse. Like, it's really hard to lose 8 cubes against Apocalypse. Because you know what's happening, unless you're just not paying attention like I do. But ultimately, like, I agree. I was really surprised to see the 2 power off of Apocalypse. And it actually matters. Like, that 2 power legitimately counts.

Cozy Snap: 26:01

It was only in the meta for like a couple weeks, whereas, you know, we've had Dex for a long time, I feel like we just didn't give, like, we had the dependable discard out of the meta for so long, it, I just wish we weren't immediately targeting it, but, you know, hey, you know, with Obsidian, we've got with Ebony Maw, and with Proxima, we've had a lot of good discard options, but, I just wish there were maybe another way to do it.

Alexander Coccia: 26:23

Yeah, like, at the end of the day, it's, I love Discard. After the Chavez change, like, I was really low on Discard. I was, I was like, the classic dependable Discard was one of my favorite decks in the game. And so when that was kind of taken out I was hoping for some sort of comeback. And we kind of got it, and it's a little more chaotic. Like, Corvus Glaive is not doing what Chavez did. It's still a good card, but it's a very different And I, listen, I didn't feel like discard was a problem. I didn't, like, when I played against discard players, I was less annoyed with a POC discard, more annoyed with, like, a Hela based discard. Like, Hela is, you feel like there's no agency. Like, you kind of just, okay, I'm watching them play and let's let the computer decide what happens, right? But with Apocalypse, it's like, you know what's up, you know what's going on. If you're really that upset, run Lady Deathstrike and kill the Dracula. I don't know, what do you want from me?

Cozy Snap: 27:06

Well, guys, we got another we got really rough week left in the season. Infinity Conquest, War Machine is coming out. We're actually joining you live from our studios because we were filming this right before we had to head on some planes. It's been a crazy week. So we're going to pick up there. We'll see you in a second.

Alexander Coccia: 27:21

We are now going to transition to the second part of the Snapchat. Unfortunately, Cozy's flights were incredibly delayed, but thankfully Drew Barry is here to save the day. Drewberry, how are you today, my friend?

Drewberry: 27:33

Yo, what's up everybody? Alex, I'm doing great. How are you doing, my friend? You were at PAX. It was awesome.

Alexander Coccia: 27:40

It's been a wild ride, my friend. Like, honestly, completely crazy. So, I gotta fill in the the fans there, what's been going on, okay? Because, like, Drew comes in to swoop in and save Cozy and I all the time. We really appreciate you, my man. And basically, what happened was we, This is like the fourth time I've recorded this podcast. Cozy and I tried to do the podcast live multiple times and we had the worst technical issues. I couldn't believe it. We literally had, we recorded like a 45 minute segment and the files were all corrupted at like 1. 30 in the morning and it was like a total disaster. It was absolutely heartbreaking and we recorded as much as we could in the morning and then I had to catch my flight. We literally wrapped up our mics and I ran to my plane. It was crazy how everything worked out, but you know what? The show must go on. And that's why Drew comes in and swoops in to save us. I tell you, it came up in the past, Drew, and I know you're like, come on, man. But seriously, we talked about it in the past. Cozy and I truly believe you are one of the most talented Marvel Snap content creators. The amount of effort, research, and just the quality of the content that you produce. is remarkable. We love you, buddy, and it's a pleasure to have you on.

Drewberry: 28:46

Oh, man, that is huge. High praise coming from you two, who put out, like, the most highest quality content in Marvel Snap, and on top of that the, the effort, the dedication, everybody. I don't think you understand what Alex has been through, intending to go right into another podcast of recording. It's impressive, man. But I, yeah, I'm just super happy to be here, and and to talk some cannonball. This is gonna be exciting.

Alexander Coccia: 29:10

Yeah, we got three topics here today. We do have. Cannonball, which is going to be the obviously card in review from the prior week. We are also going to be talking about our favourite cards at every cost. I know that, listen, it's one of Cozy and I's absolute favourite subjects. So I'm excited to do it with you as well Drew, and we'll have to do it next week with Cozy because he's going to be heartbroken that he's missing out on it. And then we're going to be doing our Snapchat mailbag. We got a couple surprises there because we were at PAX and we just might have a cameo from a couple fans. Regardless, guys, Thank you so much for your viewership, and let's start with Cannonball. Cannonball came out this week, Drew, and I know you do your weekly Snapper Pass segment. And just to give you kind of like a little bit of info. Across all ranks, he's currently wanting a 51 percent win rate, which is not all that impressive. If you change that to infinite only, it goes way down. Way down. He ends up at just breaking 50%, almost 49%. So when you're when you're not even breaking 50%, it kind of starts to showcase that maybe the card is a little under tuned. What were your first impressions when you were evaluating Cannonball as a card worth spending your spotlight keys on?

Drewberry: 30:18

That is very interesting to hear. But I'm not overly surprised at where he's hovering for that win rate, because a lot of people, I think we're comparing this to maybe a Shang Chi. You can have the potential to, you know, Heavily disrupt your opponent, move that high power card away, or in the best case scenario, destroy it outright and put, and put a rock there, which is just great. But I think what's happened a lot is that it is much more difficult than perceived to actually fill up the other two locations that you can actually get the destroy. And the movement, while it can be game winning. It's just a little bit too inconsistent. You might just shove that winning card over to another location where it happens to win. We we've kind of seen that with Stegron, right? And Cannonball, I think he's doing a little better than Stegron was, but he's just not quite living up to what a few people were hoping he was going to be. I

Alexander Coccia: 31:13

mean, the way I was thinking about it was, this meta was one of the ones that he could have potentially shined. Like, you have Thanos still, despite the changes, being a dominant force in the meta. And if Thanos is still good, right, all those stones are taking up space, right? They're putting out lots of stuff. It's very straightforward to have these locked down locations, or these locations that are full. And so Cannonball should be able to favourably trade there, for instance. Thanos tends to have initiative as well, but even in those matchups, he seems like he's not actually worth running at all.

Drewberry: 31:46

You took the words out of my mouth. I can't believe you said that. Cause I was thinking the same thing. If Cannonball was ever to thrive, this is his meta right now. Like this is his time and he's not achieving that. So I feel like he could only go down unless he gets some kind of miraculous buff and on top of just the stones, filling up the locations and whatnot, Mockingbird has made a big splash into the Thanos lists and Mockingbird can't get hit by Shang Chi. So we'd almost seem like that's a prime target for cannonball to hit, but it's still just not coming together. And in fact, I've seen decks running cannonball, Thanos list. That is they're running cannonball probably just because the deck carries itself on its own, right. And can make up for having this card in it. I don't know. It's crazy.

Alexander Coccia: 32:30

It is. And I had this moment, like, listen, when I was testing cannibal, I feel like it had its moments where you're like, you know what? I actually did something that was pretty cool, had this had this game where like someone tried to galati me and I actually out traded them and maintained initiative. And then I was able to just cannonball, generate enough power to kind of just wipe'em out. It was, it was awesome, right? It was, it was a really cool moment, but there are so many other moments where cannonballs just like the worst card you can have in your hand. Like even if you want just the five E Power, like, I'm like, well. They stormed that location and they actually won it. Like he's going to go win that location now and Stegron, right. As a four, is he a four, six or four seven? I don't remember the last time I looked at that card. 4 6. 4 6. Was he a 4 7 like accidentally in an OTA and then they rolled it back? He was 4 7 at some point, wasn't he?

Drewberry: 33:16

Yeah, I think it was a misprint on OTA patch notes.

Alexander Coccia: 33:21

Yes. Oh, that's what it was. That's right. And so anyway, Steggy's still not getting any love. And then like, there's a reason why Stegron doesn't get played, right? And so naturally, Cannonball feels similar. And the Destroy? It was funny because you mentioned a lot of people were treating it as if it was another Shan Chi or another ability to like destroy a card, but to destroy a card, it feels like such a secondary condition. It feels like like a win more condition, not even a win more condition, it feels like a bonus prize. It doesn't feel like the card's primary function, right? You know what I mean?

Drewberry: 33:50

Yeah, I completely agree. It's just kind of a bit of an add on if you can with that upside, right? That you just hope it works out. But man, I got to say it with can when it comes to Cannonball I did not pick up the card to be, to be honest with you. I have played against it several times but I don't think I've lost or not a direct cause because of Cannonball. So I've seen it in action, hasn't really impressed me and I did not pick up the card. I will say one thing really quick though, I think this guy is much better in Conquest than Ladder. It seems a little bit better of a control tool in Conquest. If you know what that highest power card is going to be, then you can kind of plan accordingly. Oh, that's really interesting.

Alexander Coccia: 34:28

But like, I think we need to talk about the fact that you said you passed on a card. You're a content creator. So you didn't pick up this card. I'm sure you could have, and you chose not to. That actually is pretty interesting. Like, do you actually want to walk me through why you decided to pass on a card despite being a content creator in the game?

Drewberry: 34:44

Yeah, sure. I so I've been doing Snapper Pass. It's a weekly series on the new card. I try to get it like three days out before so people can think about it over the weekend if they want to pick up the card or not. And when I say that I'm going to pass on the card, it's not only my verdict for how I feel about it. It's maybe power level or what I think folks should do with their resources in game, but also a representation of what I will be doing when this card does release. So I try to be Fairly honest as possible. If I think it's, you know, maybe just not a card for me, or maybe if I don't think it's going to be very strong, or maybe if it's a wait and see, I think too many people jump the gun and pick up that card. Like the day that it releases when, you know, you got all week, you can just wait it out and see some of the stats and how it does. But yeah, I, I, I'm actually missing quite a few cards. I think I'm missing, I might be close to missing 10 cards, to be honest with you.

Alexander Coccia: 35:34

I actually find this incredibly fascinating. So you legitimately follow your own advice. Yeah, I guess that's one way to put it. Yep. That's super fascinating to me. I really, I think should resonate with the community because as content creators, I think the expectations that we get all the cards, but I really like the idea that you stand behind your verdict and that if you say a card, you know, you don't think a card is going to land and you actually Hold yourself back and you hold yourself to your own verdict. I think that gives people confidence in your content and gives people confidence in your verdict because you're standing by what you said. I honestly full props to you. I think that's an amazing approach. And I think that's really unique in the space. I think you might be one of the only ones that does that. Cause I've not encountered anything else that does. So kudos to you, my man.

Drewberry: 36:21

Thanks. Yeah, it's yeah, I hope it helps folks out, you know, like it's the reason I do it primarily is because if I don't own every single card, if I'm a little tight for the resources, because they're not in abundance, if you're a casual player, you're not playing a whole lot, you probably don't have a whole lot of tokens, a whole lot of spotlight caches, But you still want to get the odd new card when it pops up. So I try to think, well, if I'm closer to that player in terms of my resources and what I can spend then I have a better idea of how to gauge these cards, sort of. So when I do say snap, and I've been wrong, I've been wrong, but at least in my mind, I'm confident that it's going to be a good card. And if it isn't, then you can have. The pleasure knowing that I burned my resources to get the card and I was wrong and vice versa if I said snap to pass on the card rather and it turns out to be an absolute banger Well, i'm losing out just as much as everyone who followed my advice

Alexander Coccia: 37:17

That's a really cool approach And I actually have had this thought i've pitched this before and let me know if you think this is a good idea Like cannibal is a great example of this, right? Like a card that's kind of mid like you're not sure if you want it, but you might want it You might have a really creative idea of how you could use it. But like You really want to commit a series five level of tokens to it or like roll through caches that might be suboptimal. I really think there should be like some sort of thing that when a card is featured in a spotlight cash or whatever, I think you should have like tickets, like you should be getting like five tickets every week and that means you can add it to your deck and every time you play it, you lose a ticket and then like, it's like a, like a demo, right? So once you play Cannonball five times, you either get it. Or you just let it ride. Like you let it go. I think that'd be cool. So people can actually play it and be like, Oh, that's what he does. Okay. I'm going to spend my 6k. And then eventually as they use their tickets, then they have to make their decision.

Drewberry: 38:09

I love that idea. And you know what else, Alex? I remember you talking about something similar to this over a year ago. I watched one of your videos and you were mentioning about no joke about how in the shop there should be like a rotation of demo or something along those lines. And I was like, that is a good idea. And I completely agree a little try before you buy kind of situation. And I like the tickets, like a limited amount of uses per games. So you don't get too much use out of it. And if anything, I. I bet that would promote people to actually pick up the card, more often than not. They get a couple quick wins with the new card. And they're like, Oh, okay. I'm just gonna, I'm just going to go for it. I'm going to roll with this guy. So yeah, I think that's a great idea.

Alexander Coccia: 38:47

I think it benefits second dinner as well, because it helps peep everyone be excited about the launch day. Like, even if you're a free to play player, you get a chance to try the new thing, get in there, play with it, and then make your decision, right? I think that's actually pretty cool. So like a trial ticket, trial ticket, every time you play the card, not just in your deck, every time you play the card, like a ticket comes off of them. Like, you know, anyways. I'm glad you like the idea. Let us know in the comment section what you think as well. And just maybe we can will it into existence. But anyways my verdict on Cannonball is that I think that the card is ultimately a pass. I don't necessarily think that you need to go for it. Unfortunately, Ms. Marvel is also in the spotlight cast. So, while we're talking about Cannonball, I feel like we'd be remiss not to mention Ms. Marvel. Now, I find myself playing Ms. Marvel slightly less than I used to in the past. The condition change is actually pretty notable, especially since you are getting a little more debris and other things that might be disrupting that effect. But ultimately I do think Ms. Marvel should be in people's collections and if you don't have Ms. Marvel and if you get Cannibal it's a nice consolation. Ms. Marvel is probably the real catch to the spotlight cash. Drew, what are your thoughts?

Drewberry: 39:55

I would, I completely agree. Ms. Marvel's been a great card for a very long time. Even since she was changed where you have to kind of double down on her ability, have two cards of varying costs on either side. Yeah, she's just still proven to be what she really is on paper. And that's 14 power in the right scenario, which is just great for a four cost. So yeah, she's she's, Very well worth having in your collection. Which always makes it a bit difficult. I think with the new card, if it's a bit underwhelming, do you make that push? That's where I think just certain people just need to have a look at their collections and just kind of gauge how, how much you're willing to go for Miss Marvel, but she is a great card.

Alexander Coccia: 40:34

Yeah, awesome. And I think that'll take us to the end of our discussion on cannonball. Ultimately a pass here. We'll see if the meta evolves, but honestly, it's probably a confident pass. And that takes us to our next topic of discussion. One of our favorite ones that we do on the Snapchat, and that is our favorite cards at every cost. We go through each cost, one through six, and we elect our card of the current season. And for me, I got to tell you, I'm so excited because I got to play some stuff I hadn't been able to play in the longest time. Now, just so you know, Drew, just so you know. If you have an honorable mention that you just need to add in as a second, we do accept it here. Cozy usually gets upset. I've I've listed like three or four before and like he tries to edit them out because I keep talking to like, I have like seven, three drops I want to talk about. So we do allow for like an honorable mention, but ultimately, let's start at number one, drew. I'll let you kind of lead the way here. One cost. What is your MVP of the month?

Drewberry: 41:33

Okay. This one might shock people. And wait, am I to clarify, is this my favorite card or is this like MVP, like best card of the month or meta right now?

Alexander Coccia: 41:42

Great clarification there. It's your favorite card. It does not necessarily have to be a competitive card. Just the one that you've been playing the most, having the most fun with the one that you're like, you know, this is the card at this cost for this month.

Drewberry: 41:54

Okay, sounds good. So, a bit off the grid, I think, but I think my favorite one cost to play is Blade. I really, really enjoy Blade in the discard archetype. He puts it all together. But just being a cheap discard, targeted discard, on the right side, which is, The most engaging side, because you can, you know, get that Apoc back to hand or that Swarm back to hand. I just find him very smooth, very fun to play in Discard. It's probably my favorite part of the entire Discard deck in general. So yeah, I really like Blade and he's got amazing variants.

Alexander Coccia: 42:28

Can you imagine, like, I don't know, six months ago, us talking about how Blade is a card that you absolutely love? The one that just discards Hela every time, or any card you do Oh, Blade only hits Hela and Dracula, just so you know, right? Now, what an elegant change to Blade, honestly. What a very elegant change, especially considering the interaction you talked about. When discarded cards re enter the hand, it re enters at the right. And it also, it's interesting, if you're holding Blade and you topdeck something big, It goes to the right. That can also be kind of weird too. When you're holding blade, you're like, please top deck something. That's not like, it's something I give you something I want to discard. And you get your Dracula and you don't like, it's, you know, you only have three energy. You're like, I guess I got a Corvus, but I do like that call a lot. That's pretty cool. And I, Blade has been a very consistent performer and still a one three, which is overall premium stat line at the one cost. So.

Drewberry: 43:17

Yeah, he's just, I, I just find it very funny. And of course Discord got a lot of love in February. So it's been, it's been pretty fun. It's been pretty strong. And yeah, he's just, he's just a try and true, but I completely agree. It's funny. This has to be one of the best changes, in my opinion, that they've ever made to a card to bring it to life.

Alexander Coccia: 43:34

Yeah, there's a couple changes that really stand out and because it's like it makes the card relevant again without breaking the meta or without like pushing the envelope too far, so to speak, very, very well done change. Absolutely. Like Wolverine was a great example of that, too. Oh, yeah, another good one. Like just just a perfect, perfect change. So yeah, 100 percent and the one I'm gonna bring up here. My favorite of the month is a card that honestly was one of the best Best in the game the one that like people were like this card. I hate it. I can't believe people play this They're so toxic and then it just fell off the radar completely and then it came back because of the x men event And it is my boy. Iceman Iceman has made a comeback and like there's gonna be a recurring theme here. I loved the x men and avengers event I loved it. I had so much fun and iceman Really benefited from that. Would you believe that a 1 3 Iceman is actually good? Hell, yeah, it is. Iceman was my one drop of the season. I can't tell you how much I love this card.

Drewberry: 44:33

Oh yeah, what a great card, and the disrespect from the community to drop this from a majority of meta decks. I mean, this guy was the staple one drop I feel like six months ago, or maybe even more than that. I know he's got, you know, kinda, it's gotten crowded a bit with those Nebulas and Sunspots, whatever else, but Man, Iceman, he's, he's just a good card. And like you said, perfect event for him, right? Just thriving as a 1 3.

Alexander Coccia: 44:58

Yeah. It's interesting. One drops have like kind of become pretty diverse. Like you have the utility based one drops like Iceman, you have the power based one drops, as you mentioned, like a Nebula Nico this is just pure value, pure versatility. Right. And then you have like the ones like Blade or Yondu. That was an accident. Yondu is just poo poo right now. Wait for Baron to come on. Maybe we'll talk about Yondu, but it seems like the one drops are starting to carve themselves these niches, which are kind of interesting. And I do really like the The effect of Iceman, but I think that because you don't see it hit. Like you don't see the cards you hit. Yeah. You don't get that dopamine hit that you get with like a spider him, even though it could potentially be just as soul crushing for them. Right. Like you hit their Modoc and they're like, great. Or like you hit Sarah or whatever, and it's soul crushing. Right. So very interesting choices there. So let's move on to number two, Drew. You are our guest and I'll give you the dibs on your number two card.

Drewberry: 45:51

All right. This is, this one was easy for me and you're highlighting them right now. Or you were just a moment. It is Daredevil. Dude, it's mine too. No way.

Alexander Coccia: 46:00

Yeah, it's mine too. Okay. Talk to me about Daredevil.

Drewberry: 46:03

Oh, he's just the best man. Whenever this card came out, I loved it. Funny enough. I don't know if people know this, but he was a season pass card. Way back, I think like the third or fourth season pass in Marvel Snap, it was Daredevil. And yeah, he's just a lot of fun. I love knowing where my opponent's going to play. I mean, who wouldn't? But it's just so much fun. I also love a lot of lockdown decks and stuff like that. So pairing this with Professor X, I don't know. He's just a solid car. He's got amazing variants. Just a lot of fun. Unique too. Completely unique.

Alexander Coccia: 46:36

Yeah. I have two thoughts about Daredevil. One is When I play Daredevil, I'm like, oh, this is what stream sniping feels like. And two do you remember when he first got released, that he used to turn the entire screen red? Yes. And you couldn't see anything at all? Like you literally could not even play your cards because you couldn't see them at all. That was something that I think obviously got fixed, but a little fun tidbit for people that might remember those days of Daredevil. And if you don't because you came into the game later, then trust me, you've been spared because it was extremely difficult. Now Daredevil, honestly, it's for everything you said. I love it. And I've been playing, listen, Galactus has kind of fallen out as like a, like a meta deck. And because of that, Like, listen, I feel like I get to play Galactus. Anytime, like, a Toxic style card kind of starts to wane in popularity, I'm like, hey, now I can play it again. Like, I never played Loki when it was hot because I didn't want to tilt people out. Now that Loki's kind of, yeah, he's kind of around still, I feel like I can play Loki, but it's Galactus I've been really enjoying. And I've been playing a Ravonna based deck with the Goblins, and I love Daredevil, because if you don't draw Ravonna, and you got turn five, and you can play your Hob, I mean, it's so good. Like it can be so punishing to just shut down and lock down a lane. So I've been really liking Daredevil cause I turned two is either Daredevil or Ravonna and both of them allow me to either, like, just, they both give me an opportunity to soul crush my opponent and that's what I'm after when I play Marvel Snap.

Drewberry: 47:59

Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree, man. You're making me want to just go play that deck right now. I got a similar deck with the Goblins, Galactus, Daredevil, and it's just fun. That, that turn five Hobgoblin, when you know your opponent's not playing there and it locks up a location. Oh, that's,

Alexander Coccia: 48:14

that's just the best feeling in the whole world. It is a nice feeling. It is a nice feeling. Now, another card I just want to bring some love to here. I got to show some love to Armor too. Of course, Armor during the the X Men event got a plus one. So a two, four Armor. Hell yes. Give me that all day. And I think that Armour single handedly destroyed Destroy, because during the X Men event, one of the top decks of the meta was actually one that I designed, it was the X Men Surfer deck, and that deck ran Armour, and it had a ton of play, a ton of popularity in terms of meta share, and Destroy just plummeted, plummeted in win rate because everyone's dropping Armours on stuff, and then when the X Men event ended, Right? No one's playing Armor because the X Men server deck now sucks, right? Because, hey, plus one power across the board. Would you believe that it's good? Anyways, now, Destroyer's back up! Like, the win rate actually kind of came up because of Armor in and of itself. So I just want to give Armor a shoutout because this card might be one of the least appreciated both offensive and defensive cards in Marvel Stats.

Drewberry: 49:18

It's true, and it's probably because of the thousands amongst thousands of Destroy mains out there because I feel like that's the most popular deck at any given moment until the x men Avengers event, but yeah armor man, what a what an underrated card just a good tech option probably one of my favorite tech options So I definitely agree with you to just just put in a deck just just cuz Yeah, because especially with those locations, maybe that destroy things. And that can be a little surprise play shutting down, destroy. Yeah. I like armor a lot.

Alexander Coccia: 49:51

Yeah. Armor has been phenomenal. And it's one that kind of like slipped out of the metal a little bit. I think Chiara ate some of its lunch a little bit too. That takes us to our three costs and you know, I'll lead us off here. Cause I kind of just hinted at it. My three costs has to absolutely. B, Silver Surfer. I'm pulling a Cozy here. I can't find the card. There he is. Silver Surfer is an absolutely, it's been one of my absolute favorite archetypes since it ever came out in Marvel Snap. I just love the way the deck plays. I love the versatility of all the three drops. They all feel like you can go power, you can go utility, versatility. There's so many three drops and you can design a deck that is Every Surfer deck can feel totally different based on what 3 drops you add. So, I really like the replayability of playing Silver Surfer. And, I think it really did benefit from the X Men event, because we had so many good X Men that were 3 drops. So, for me, it's Silver Surfer.

Drewberry: 50:39

Yeah, that's a great pick. I, you know what, I'm surprised I didn't actually go with Silver Surfer. Because I really enjoy those decklists, I've been playing them ever since he's been out. I agree with you, he's got that variation in his different deck styles, but yet it's still a surfer list. There's no, how, no matter how many cards have changed, it could be like 11 but if surfer's in it, it's a surfer list. And there's very few cards in Marvel Snap that can actually capture the name of a deck so consistently, like Silver Surfer can. Which is awesome. I think it's just awesome, especially for the character, beloved character and whatnot. So yeah, I think that's a really great pick, but for me, I had to stick with my toxic, toxic roots. I'm a, I'm a huge fan of the junk decks and my most played card and my favorite three drop is green goblin. I love the goblins and this is no exception. It's just so satisfying getting a nice goblin in that fourth quadrant at a location. It's my favorite thing.

Alexander Coccia: 51:37

Yeah, I know. It's absolutely unbelievable. And I mean, Green Goblin, Hobgoblin, these are cards that I absolutely love. And I mean, listen, you only have 12 slots, 12 spaces in Marvel Snap. Like space is a commodity. And when you take space away, that's bad. That's bad for your opponent. Now, obviously Green Goblin can be negatively impacted by like Deathlocks, Carnages and others, right? Destroy tends to favorably be able to kind of deal with that. But if they're not playing Destroy, Then there's just like, well, there's a spot that, you know, sucks. Or now I've got to throw initiative so I can annihilist it back or something. Right. The annihilist mirror matches are like some of the most stressful mirror matches in the world, but I love the call on Green Goblin. It's one of my most played cards in snap too, which is crazy. Drew, it's like you and I were like two peas in a pod with our gameplay here. That's awesome. How about that? It's great. Actually, we don't even move that far off, ironically, from Green Goblin, because as we move to our four costs, the one that really stands out for me is another one you're likely to find alongside Green Goblin, and it's Sentry. Sentry has been a card that, for me, has just been unbelievably powerful. It's basically a 420. He's blazing when he comes out. With Annihilus, and I, I love the control element of like your opponent being like, Hold on, we know the Void's coming over, do we stuff the lane? What do we do to deal with this Void? Do we just let it come over and give that lane? I love the mind games part, and I think that Sentry's a really fascinating card.

Drewberry: 53:02

Look at you, Alex. I see you with that Kim Jacinto gold foil. Look, look at that card. That is a beauty. And so, and so is Century. I do love Century. What a, what a great card. And funny enough, would we be saying that a year ago, Alex? I know, eh? What a useless card a year ago.

Alexander Coccia: 53:19

All the, all the Hopium we were huffing, just trying to like Viper, like the Void Over and Carnage it or play Valkyrie on it and stuff.

Drewberry: 53:27

Yeah, what a way too difficult for the for the level of effort that had to go into it. But yeah, now he's just fantastic. He's so much, such a fun card. Even if you can't play it to the right, that's a pretty heavy handed restriction. And I actually don't find myself in a situation where I ever feel like I need sentry on the right. It usually doesn't burn me too bad. And then obviously that stat line is just incredible. 410, always a good time. So I really liked that call out and I rocked the same variant. It looks so good. But for my pick, I actually went with possibly the most played card in Marvel Snap, which might be a little unusual, but. I went with Shang Chi. It's, it's a tough one for me to pass up on in the four drops, because probably the quantity of times that I've actually played the card. But also, I do find it very satisfying getting a nice destroy with Shang Chi. It can swing games. It's fun to play against. You always have to be kind of conscious that your board is vulnerable to a Shang Chi play. And yeah, it's just kind of fun, even if it can feel

Alexander Coccia: 54:34

really bad sometimes. I think Shang Chi is incredibly important to the game. Incredibly important in the game. I was in a tournament where I basically, I banned Shanqi. I banned Shanqi. And then people were like, seriously, like, that's what you're doing. And I'm like, yeah. And then the meta felt so weird in that tournament. Like it was just a vertical tower of power, basically all the time. And it was important that this card exists. It's such an essential release valve. I know it's frustrating, but it's so incredibly important. But what I will tell you is that anytime I see Zabu come out, I'm like, Shanqi's in that deck a hundred percent. It's always, it's such a pair, right? Zabu Shun Chi. However, when Shun Chi, or sorry, when Zabu's not on the board, even I, on occasion, will get caught, like, this Patriot Gamer actually just Shun Chi'd me? Like, what is happening in this world? And so, like, he does come out from surprise every once in a while, but generally speaking, you could assume they have it, because they probably do.

Drewberry: 55:28

Yeah, it's one of the cards you just have to be aware of it if you've got something that has 10 or more power Look out because it could happen and it's too big of a swing not to think about it I've always kind of had the philosophy with snap and I find this card kind of Emphasizes it is that I try to understand my deck, but when I'm in a match, I'm trying to focus on my opponents So knowing what I have going in so I don't have to think about it and then focusing on what my opponent may or might not have. And Shang Chi is just always top of mind. You're always just looking out, do I need to react? Even like something like Monster Island comes out and all of a sudden, that could be a huge swing location because if one player has Shang Chi, that's essentially a 10 power swing. So, yeah, he's, he's a crazy card, but I agree with you that he's vital to the game.

Alexander Coccia: 56:16

Absolutely, and and post Infinite? Post Infinite. He runs a 32 percent meta share, which is probably going to be the highest in the game. As we move into number 5, for me, okay, there was a moment last week where I was playing so much Nimrod. Destroy completely dropped off, right? And I think part of that was because of the popularity of armor and some other stuff countering Destroy, and just overall people experimenting with other decks, right? But with that, I think it kind of gave me some leeway to play Nimrod. Now, Nimrod's hard to play when Destroy is really popular, because if they have Null and you don't have Null, then you just die, right? And if Null's not in the equation and you're just playing regular decks, then all of a sudden Nimrod based decks start to shine. I play like the Nimrod sorry, the Shuri Nimrod Destroyer type stuff, and I love it. So Nimrod makes a surprise appearance for me at number five.

Drewberry: 57:07

That's wild. I did not see this one coming. Nimrod. But I, I understand there are Nimrod lovers. The, the church of Nimrod is real. I have a couple of friends that adore this deck and that's like pretty much all they run. And they're constantly sharing screenshots of just a dozen Nimrods on the board. It is a very cool card. The effect is a lot of fun. Also a season pass card. I don't know if everybody got buffed

Alexander Coccia: 57:30

though. It did get buffed.

Drewberry: 57:32

Yeah. Five, five to a five, six. Was that it?

Alexander Coccia: 57:35

Yeah.

Drewberry: 57:36

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And even better with that Shuri Destroyer play you were just laying out, you go 6 to 12 and then a couple 12s everywhere with 16 power Destroyer back in form. So yeah, I, I completely understand. That's definitely a fun card. I don't play it a whole lot myself though, I must say. So I'm going to have to snag a deck list off of you.

Alexander Coccia: 57:55

Oh, buddy, I would be happy, but I'm interested in hearing your number five.

Drewberry: 57:58

Yeah, so for me, number five, I feel like this one's pretty obvious if anyone knows my channel, but huge junk, favorite, and that is Annihilus. And now this is my guy at five. When this card was released, I had a blast playing the junk deck archetype, even though he got nerfed where he previously, if it was anything under one power, it would get shoveled over or sorry, if zero and less now it's anything less than zero. Yeah. Which, you know, and he's fine. It kind of worked out for Annihilus here, and I honestly, when I think back to new card releases in probably well over a year this is my favorite new release.

Alexander Coccia: 58:38

Oh, 100%. Annihilus. I was just saying, I fell back in love with Galactus, and Annihilus was a huge part of that, because I think it gave those decks a non toxic way. Like, it gave it a secondary win condition that wasn't just, I'm gonna play a toxic deck that like, just ramps out Galactus on me. I'm not going to just wave Galactus and Wolverine on the board and that's my play. And we 50 50 the locations or whatever, right? Like, I like that it's an actual, like, it can be a closer if you junk them down and their location is stuffed solid and they're like a negative one. And you're like, well, I guarantee the victory there and they have to fear the Galactus. Not only that, as I said prior, the mirror matches with Annihilus are really unique to the point where when Annihilus gets really popular, it enters my mind to play Ghost. It really does. Cause the initiative battle becomes so important. But if you play ghost, then you just get stuffed by Alioth. So it's like, you just can't win. Some of the craziest mirror matches you can have in Marvel Snap.

Drewberry: 59:34

Yeah. And I often pair the two together Annihilus and then Alioth are a great five, six combo. So potent. And usually your opponent can't do much, especially if you do just like that card you were talking about earlier, you do that sentry, Annihilus, Alioth, you, Pretty much guaranteed to have initiative on the final turn and Alioth just sweeps it all up. So, yeah, yeah, very frustrating deck type to play against, I'm sure, but a very fun

Alexander Coccia: 1:00:02

one to play. Absolutely, and that takes us to the big chonky boys in six. Drew, I'll give you the floor for your favorite six drop thus far this season.

Drewberry: 1:00:11

Okay, so there's a lot of reasons that I went with this card. It has probably been my favorite six drop for a long time, but we also have X Men 97 rolling out the new animated show. And my favorite is Magneto. I love Magneto

Alexander Coccia: 1:00:26

buddy. We are on the same wavelength. I can't believe

Drewberry: 1:00:31

it. We do not share lists going into this. So no, we didn't share in

Alexander Coccia: 1:00:34

advance. It's too much fun to do it live. Magneto was mine as well. Okay. I'll give you the floor. Why do

Drewberry: 1:00:40

you not love this card? You know, what's crazy cool about this? I was thinking about all the six drops, you know so many have been changed or maybe just were never present in the meta and Magneto has pretty much always had a spot He's always been relevant always been seen as a good card and he's never needed a nerf He's just perfect. Like, he's just a great card for Marvel Snap. And his magnetic effect of pulling over the threes and fours is just a lot of fun. You completely steal those games, you know, that last turn where you actually pull something meaningful away. You're against that, like, Venom that got beefed up. They thought they had that location won. And maybe you don't even win the Magneto location, but the movement is what stole you the match. So, yeah, I'm just really passionate about this one. I love Magneto.

Alexander Coccia: 1:01:26

Magneto is truly remarkable and he really shined during the Miss Marvel heyday as well. Where just the disruption of the positioning of those cards really is impactful. And don't sleep on him against Destroyed players either. Like, Destroyed players can get their cheeks clapped just as hard when that Venom moves before a Zola player or whatever happens to happen, right? Like, it's, it's a really good card. Like, I absolutely love, love Magneto. And I want to just give a special shout out as well. I mean, I know that like, Listen, I think that Tribunal needs some love because Tribunal's been a really interesting deck that tends to trade pretty favorably with Hela. I think it's a fun archetype to play. It's a little bit of a one trick pony a little bit, but I'm glad this card exists. I'm glad that this card gives people an opportunity to experiment with a different playstyle of Marvel Snap. And I think its power level is just right, where it kind of keeps It keeps things in check. So I just want to give a shout out to Tribunal. I think it's a good arcade.

Drewberry: 1:02:21

Yeah, I think that's a great shout out. It's a very unique card when it was released and funny enough, it came out in the same month of high Evo, and that was like a very revolutionary time for Snap, you could almost say with, with the different meta shakeups, the cards that were released. And he has required some buffs. I think he's in a pretty good spot though. I almost wish we maybe built decks different or he wasn't so combo centric. Because it does feel like sometimes if you don't get that combination then it just isn't really worth putting out Living Tribunal. But if you do get that like dream Iron Man combo then it's fantastic. Because if he was at 10 power he'd be in Shang Chi range and that'd be Pretty nasty gets sniped by so yeah, I don't know. I I just I like the card. I like the card I like the archetype that it builds and I think like you said like it's just a healthy spot to be in the game Yeah, I think that's kind of this

Alexander Coccia: 1:03:10

that kind of like keep things in check right and I believe when Tribunal was buffed. No, no, that wasn't it. It was when Shanchi was nerfed to hit only 10 powers, not 9 powers. They actually, in that patch note, shouted out Tribunal and said, we're keeping an eye on Tribunal as one of the examples of a card sitting at 9 that might need to get buffed to 10 so it can get punched in the throat. Right? So like, it's kind of interesting to see that like, they are actually using the Shanchi range as like a buffable mechanic. Like, it's funny to think that going to 10 powers actually Probably a nerf.

Drewberry: 1:03:43

Yeah, Shun Chi is the ultimate moderator of Marvel Snap. He's keeping everybody in check. Oh, no question, and

Alexander Coccia: 1:03:51

it's an important role to play.

Drewberry: 1:03:54

Yeah yeah, it needs to exist in the game, and I think just like a card like Living Tribunal needs to exist in the game, it's great. I wish they'd sometimes be a little bit more ambitious and print cards like this a little bit more frequently rather than stuff that just works in Thanos, if you know what I'm saying.

Alexander Coccia: 1:04:10

Alright, and for our mailbag segment, we have a question from Sam, and it reads, How many of the new emotes do you have? Which are your favourites, and what do they mean to you? Like, what are you trying to express when you Cosmo Emote your opponent?

Drewberry: 1:04:23

That's a great question. What, really I want to start with, I'm so excited that more emotes are being added to the game. I know a lot of people find them toxic, but I think it's pretty fun. But unfortunately I don't own a lot of them. I have yet to complete an album so I only have the Cyclops one, but I do really like it. I think it's fun to use. I don't think anyone's found it to be salty just yet, and I usually just use it when there's just a really exciting moment, or in particular, when me and my opponent snap on the same turn. I like to throw out the Cyclops emote.

Alexander Coccia: 1:04:56

I like that, because that's also one of the only ones that I have as well. I, too, have not completed an album yet. I'm, I almost might open some reserves to feel the finish the dead hit, but I think I'm, like, pretty close. 10 of 12 or something for the Dan Hipp and I got a few others as well But I do have the Cyclops, but I'm not even sure what the Cyclops represents Like every time I see it i'm like i'm not sure what he's doing He's kind of just like going super saiyan a little bit, right? I think it is a there's like a variant of Cyclops. I think it's pulling off of but I also have the group don't push the button emote They they did it was too cute and my whole plan with that even though it was remarkably expensive was Every time I retreat i'm gonna hit that So like I push the button and I'm going to retreat. I feel like it's an ejection button. You know what I mean? That's my move. That's my way to say like GG to my opponent, hit the ejection button, retreat and fist bump. That's kind of like the combination I want for me. Like, I just, I actually really like emoting in Marvel Snap for the simple reason, like when I have a good game with someone and they fist bump me, it gives me faith in humanity again. Like, I'm like, you know what? Like it. I love that type of sportsmanship, and I think that there's room for that in Marvel Snap. There really is, and I think that as much as people want to, like, you know, Thanos snap on people and Miss Marvel, like, you know what, okay, Drew, there's actually people out there that believe that Miss Marveling is not offensive. What are your thoughts?

Drewberry: 1:06:12

Oh, yeah, it's, it's the culture. It's, it's grown to be offensive. Maybe once upon a time it wasn't, but it's absolutely grown to be just a big middle fingers, the opponent across the board.

Alexander Coccia: 1:06:23

They should just change the emo to be the middle finger. Like let's just lean into what it really is. Right. Yeah, man. That's actually hilarious. We have another question here from SuperCowz. SuperCowz is a long time viewer and supporter of the Snapchat and it reads, If your kids started playing Marvel Snap, which archetype would you coach them to play first? What would be the archetype that you would try to steer them away from? And no cop out, I just want them to have fun and play what they want aloud.

Drewberry: 1:06:50

Wow. That's just a very interesting question.

Alexander Coccia: 1:06:53

Yeah, I'll take the first one because I know like you have to like imagine kids and stuff and then like you got some extra work to do. But what I'll say is like for me one of the things that I would do is I want to, I want like my, my daughter, for instance, has been playing the Pokemon TCG and like, I've been showing her a variety of different decks and like, she's been experimenting with different play patterns. And I feel like I would start with Something as straightforward as a ramp deck so that you know, they can kind of get used to the idea of cheating energy and, you know, using large cards with reach and just kind of like different style of like, you know, oh, vision's important because it gives you versatility. Meanwhile, you can play, you know Dr. Doom on turn five. Then Odin, you have that reach. I think that like ramp has a very interesting play pattern. And I also think that like it also is Analogous with other card games like there's ramping effects in so many different card games like we've all ramped in Magic the Gathering with with, you know, mono green stuff So I mean at the end of the day, I think that like ramp would be a very interesting one What would I want to keep them away with from sorry? I'd probably keep them away from bounce to start just because I think bounce is like a very complex one that can feel frustrating to play And I I would want to prioritize them having fun first. And so yeah, honestly, I think that would go with those two

Drewberry: 1:08:04

I think that's a great shout out to avoid bounce or anything overly complex. Even though it can be really fun. I'd probably say avoid move because that's just, that's just requires a few extra planning steps to really get efficient amount of power out on the board, but one, one, I think I would probably guide them towards just because it's so much fun and it teaches fundamentals is a guardians of the galaxy deck, like an honor wheel type of deck. Just trying to get accustomed to knowing. Where cards might be played at any given turn and you get a reward if you hit it. So it's kind of exciting and they can still dish out a lot of power as they just got a bunch of buffs. So yeah, I think that'd be a lot of fun.

Alexander Coccia: 1:08:43

I would, I could see gardens of the galaxy being fun. Cause also it's like, they know those characters and they're probably really into playing them. Right. But I can also see it then like causing them to uninstall the game. Cause it'd be so frustrating to play gardens of the galaxy at the same time. But interesting thought experiment, regardless. And that takes us to the end of this week's Snapchat. Drew, thank you so much for joining us. And as I said before, I'll say it again. He produces some of the absolute best content in Marvel Snap, and you will be well served to give him a subscription. Drew, thanks for joining us.

Drewberry: 1:09:12

Thank you, this was awesome, and I'd happily be back any time. Thank you so much for everyone watching. Definitely subscribe to Alex if you're not already subscribed, because jeez, the determination to get this pod in, it's unreal man. So, thank you for having me.

Cozy Snap: 1:09:27

Hey guys, editor Cozy here, or kind of it's four in the morning. It's it's 7am Alex's time. I'm pretty sure he's like at Costco doing his, like, I don't know, morning trip or teaching. But yeah, this is what happens when your plane breaks down but hopefully you guys have a good time with War Machine. We'll be back to the normal Snapchats next week, and until the next one. Happy snapping, guys!