Snap into Marvel! — The Amazing Spider-Season Swings In With A New Effect
by Austin Gorton
It’s the beginning of a month, which means it’s time for the Marvel Snap season to change over once again. So let’s take a look at the season that was – “Young Avengers” – and the season to come – “The Amazing Spider-Season!”
“Young Avengers”
All in all, this is a season with a really high floor but a rather low ceiling. That is, none of these cards are, say, Hydra Bob-level bad. But also, only one of them has really found a place in multiple different deck archetypes, while the rest fall somewhere between “they have their use” and “I guess they won’t hurt you…”.
- Kate Bishop (Season Pass)
It’s always nice when the Season Pass card is the best card of the season. The low cost and versatility (thanks to the arrows she shoots into your hand) quickly launched her into the ranks of “Good Cards” that can find a place in multiple different kinds of decks.
Marvel Boy has proven a boon to Zoo decks, giving that archetype the ability to go wide as well as tall. Unfortunately, it hasn’t really proved to be the most versatile card, struggling to make inroads into non-Zoo decks.
A fun card more than a necessary one, Wiccan can be slotted into a few different decks. An extra two points of energy is usually a boon, and his trigger conditions are not as onerous as they seemed before launch (plus, they can sometimes add a bit of unpredictability to a deck). That said, he’s not a necessary card to any deck, and like so many others in this season, is easily skippable.
Like his brother Wiccan, Speed isn’t a bad card — without too much work, he can turn into one of the stronger three drops. But he’s also not a necessary one, proving an easy swap out.
Continuing the theme, the worst card of the “Young Avengers” season isn’t terrible. His biggest problem is that it usually makes more sense to use his spot in decks on one of the six cost cards he might randomly copy than to roll the dice with Hulking.
“The Amazing Spider Season”
The next season of Marvel Snap, looks at first glance to be an absolutely stacked season. In addition to introducing an entirely new gameplay mechanic — activation, basically cards with an On Reveal availability that activates at your command — several cards simply provide good, solid stats and/or ways to contest lanes. Of course, being a Spider-Man-themed season, they are also poised to reinvigorate the Move archetype. Hopefully, you’ve been stocking up on keys.
- Madame Web – Ongoing: You can move one of your other cards away from here each turn.
Madame Web is basically a 2 cost move engine. Allowing cards to freely move out of her lane, when combined with Move staples like Ghost-Spider, Iron Fist or this season’s Arana, she can enable some tremendous high-powered cards. Plus, as a 2 cost, even though she can be countered by Enchantress (her ability is Ongoing), she’ll hopefully be able to enable at least one solid Move-boost before getting zapped.
Plus, even outside a straight move deck, she basically turns any card played into her lane into Vision, which can add a whole nother layer of unpredictability to any deck.
- Arana – Activate: Give the next card you play +2 Power and move it to the right.
The vehicle for the new Activation effect, Arana not only further buffs Move decks by adding 2 points to a card AND moving them, but she can also simply act like the old 1-cost Forge, adding two points to Brood or Sinister (or Scarlet Spider), with the added bonus of moving them into a closed lane like the Sanctum Sanctorum. That’s enough versatility to give her home outside Move decks, even before considering the fact that, at this time, we’re not aware of any existing counter to the Activate effect (ie there’s no Cosmo for Activate).
- Scarlet Spider – Activate: Add an exact clone of this to another location.
This is where the season goes from offering a potentially game-defying new card to simply a very good one. On his own, Scarlet Spider is basically a higher cost, higher powered Mister Sinister who, with the right manipulation of your board space (which is added by the fact that this is another Activate card and not an On Reveal), can reach into unplayable lanes. That’s nothing to sneeze at, even before you start thinking about ways to buff the card so its clone is even larger (like with Arana).
- Silver Sable – On Reveal: Steal 2 Power from the top card of your opponent’s deck.
Silver Sable has a ton of upside for a 1-cost, but is vulnerable to some key counter cards. Played on her own, she’s effectively a 1/3. If your opponent plays the card she stole power from, she becomes a 1/5. That’s a Hydra Bob/Martyr-level cost/power ratio with none of their downside, and that’s before you start taking into account archetypes like Bounce. That said, she’s an easy mark for Luke Cage (which locks her in as a 1/3) and Shadow King (which drops her back to a 1/1).
- Symbiote Spider-Man (Season Pass) – Activate: Merge your lowest-Cost card here with this. Copy its text like it just revealed.
The “Amazing Spider-Season” season pass card may not be as bad as I’m ranking it, but I’m hedging my bets a bit because it seems a little finicky. It seems like a kind of higher cost/higher powered reverse Hulkbuster, in which it absorbs a card instead of being absorbed by one. The effect is targeted (unlike Hulkbuster), so on the surface, this seems like a boon to, say, Deadpool or Human Torch. But whereas Hulkbuster is more of an early game play, the 4 cost makes it more of a later game play. The end result could be a card that becomes the Hulkbuster of Move decks, or just more of a novelty card that is a little too futzy to play. Either way, it likely won’t be the best card of the season.
All in all, “Amazing Spider-Season” seems poised to be a big one, even if a specific archetype (Move) seems the most likely to get a boost. That said, look to see Enchantress and Shadow King rise in prominence as the tech cards du jour, with the Clog archetype, which limits the space Move needs to do its thing, continuing its ascendancy.
