Snap Into Marvel: Masters Of The Arcane Casts Its Spell
by Austin Gorton
The “New X-Men” season was a bit of a dud, with really only one breakout card leading to a stale metagame that didn’t start to get shaken up until a bunch of cards changes rolled out in the season’s final week. Those changes — combined with the start of the “Masters of the Arcane” season — have led to a much more diverse and theoretically exciting metagame at present. But where does that leave the “New X-Men” cards?
- Surge (1) – In terms of ranking the “New X-Men” cards, there’s Surge, and then there’s everybody else. Helped along by some balance patches that incentivized playing lower cost cards (making it easier to ramp them out once Sure affects them), Surge can be found in a variety of different archetypes as a solid 2 cost. Given how strong that cost point is at that moment, that’s fairly impressive for a new card.
- Esme Cuckoo (2) – Stats-wise, Esme looks to be a card that does better in lower collection levels, when played by newer players than those closer to the top of the infinite ladder. That creates some skewed results, wherein statistically, the card is doing well, but is largely ignored by most of the best players (which seems apt, given the White Queen is another card more favored in the early game.
- Xorn (4) – The rest of the “New X-Men” cards are largely “fun” cards that doing something interesting but only work in limited roles. Of them all, Xorn is the closest to breaking out, enabling Move synergies (including Scream-based decks that target your opponent) while also carrying an element of disruption (such as keeping a Cosmo or a late game Red Guardian away from Surge). It just hasn’t reached the point where it’s useful enough to earn a place outside Move.
- Prodigy (3) – A bit like Captain Carter, Prodigy is a finicky card that pays off when it lands, but takes a fair amount of work to get there. And like Captain Carter, its best slot is probably in a Silver Surfer deck – a deck with no shortage of options.
- Elixir (5) – Pretty much a dud card, Elixir is more or less a less effective Fenris that requires you to destroy your own card (fine) at just the right time (not so fine), which too often is more hassle than its worth.
The “Masters of the Arcane” season is the second season in a row without any direct MCU tie-in. It’s also a bit of weird season in terms of card releases, dropping a couple of New X-Men hangers-on into the mix along with the magic-focused characters. Given the fact that several of those magic cards come with additional spell cards or drop other new cards into your hand, there’s technically a TON of new cards to learn this season. Here’s how I think they stack up.
1. Merlin (Season Pass)
Merlin has already taken the metagame by storm, a kind of low-cost Agamotto/Nico Minoru mash-up (with the added benefit over Nico of having more control over when specific spells are played), and has furthered the work of the recent balance updates to bring a mix of low-cost cards (the better to leave room for spells) back into the meta.
2. Mercury
I’m ranking a bit on personal preference here – I’ve wanted a “stop Move” tech card since the nerf to Professor X, and this does that, while also returning the synergy that led to the nerfing of Professor X in the first place: pairing up with Cannonball to make it easier for Cannonball to destroy the highest power card in a lane instead of just moving it. I suspect we’ll get a Mercury nerf before the end of the season; in the meantime, I’m riding the high for as long as I can.
3. Kid Omega
The card Elixir likely needs to become relevant, Kid Omega seems poised to become a key element of Destroy decks.
4. Dormammu
It’s been awhile since we’ve seen a new Big Bad enter the game (depending on whether or not you think Infinity Ultron fits that category). On those terms, Dormammu likely won’t be as good as, say, Thanos (with Thanos, the stones themselves add so much value, whereas Dormammu’s spells are more limited and finicky), but will probably be better than Kang, at least.
5. Nightmare
Nightmare’s strength is its unpredictability, which is also it’s downside. But with the right deck, it could be a bonkers card.
6. Morgan Le Fay
A little clunky in terms of play as a 4-cost, but the way it slots into both Destroy and Discard decks gives it some versatility.
7. The Ancient One
This is one of those cards where playing it just gives you another card to play that’s better. That second card, the ability to copy an Ongoing ability to the other cards at that location, is a strong one, but Peni Parker is a good example of how these multi-part cards can be clunky — and being a 3/5 might not be enough to make it worthwhile.
8. Hellion
Hellion is basically Cloak, except only YOU get to move your cards. Is that worth three cost (and an extra 4 four power)? Maybe, but Cloak is hardly a staple of the Move archetype as is, and it’s not because he lets everyone move their cards.
9. Nicholas Scratch
Batroc but for spells instead of movement, but for one less power per spell than Batroc gets.
10. Clea
Like a lot of other cards this season, Clea feels clunky (because like other cards, Clea’s card just creates ANOTHER card that does the cool stuff). The cost might earn the card a spot in Affliction decks, but that’s about it.
11. Jennifer Kale
A perfectly fine card, Jennifer Kale is Psylocke but you get to trigger when the extra power comes. That’s a useful card, but not really a necessary one.
12. Cobra
Obviously, this feels like a season of created cards (though a lot of them are spells that disappear), so maybe Cobra can find a place. But it’s not clear what created cards you’d want on your side (aside from something huge created by the Raft or something like that, but that’s way too random). As a result, Cobra looks like a tech card targeting too narrow a slice of the meta to have much value.
