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80: Very Proper Nouns
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😮💨😔 Everywhere I go, I see his face [pls imagine Star-Lord, Master of the Sun memery 🤭]
For our esteemed listeners’ consideration:Drax, Avatar of Life 🧬
- 🔵 Kraglin
- Jack Flag 🚩
- 🪄 Sanctum Showdown shenanigans ✨
- OTA thoughts 🤔
- March Season Rankings 🎠🎠🎠🎠
- 🫰 Weeks in Snap!!
- Secret Homework 🤫: Snap in a different IP 🤖👽⚔️
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Check out the other great shows in the Snap Judgments Network:
- Snap Decisions
- Snap Judgments
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- Join the server
- Head into the channel "welcome-rules-and-tickets"
- Find the "SJPN Podcast Fans" message, and press the button for Snap On This!!
Featured decks:
Sanctum Showdown decks:
- Rie - Starter Sanctum
- Rie - Sanctum WIP
- Ben - Sanctum Sims
- Lauren - Scott's Bat Around (with Elektra over Foom)
Credits:
- Cover art by Lauren
- Snap On This!! Theme by Ben
- YouTube thumbnail by Lauren’s kid, Reggi
- Thumbnail portraits by Adam Star
Timestamps:
- 0:00:00 Intro / Kraglin
- 0:02:51 Jack Flag
- 0:18:23 Sanctum Showdown
- 0:27:55 OTA
- 0:37:49 March Card Ratings
- 1:37:48 Our Week in Snap
- 1:54:47 Secret Homework: Not-So-Marvel Snap
- 2:16:52 Next Week's Secret Homework
- 2:18:42 Housekeeping / Closing Remarks
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Pizza Preferences
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to Snap on This, a Marvel Snap podcast. This week's secret homework, not so Marvel Snap. I'm Lauren Woodive's here with my usual amazing, delightful co-hosts. First up this week, it's Ben. Ben, what is your favorite pizza topping?
00:00:18
Speaker
Spinach. Also, ah the the Carolina Reaper shredded cheese from the grocery store. um That is not what I expected. ah Neither of those, frankly. And Rhi, our other co-host, what's your favorite pizza topping?
00:00:36
Speaker
um Okay, favorite is a difficult question, but I will go with my go-to, which is mushrooms and onions. Ooh, those are very good picks. Ooh, are good ones. I'm going to go with... Those are definitely top five. Yeah, you picked two.
00:00:49
Speaker
if I picked just one, I think people would hate me because I have the controversial favorite. I have to like drown every frozen pizza in a bunch of Hy-Vee's Carolina Reaper cheese. That's right.
00:01:01
Speaker
i've I've partially doxed myself. I'm somewhere in the Midwest. Ooh. I mentioned Hy-Vee. You're talking too long about pizza. We're moving on. I love pineapple on pizza. I like garlic on pizza.
00:01:16
Speaker
Yeah, brevity is the soul of shit. More like, boom, got him, got him, got him. Goddamn. Okay. New thoughts
Kraglin Card Discussion
00:01:25
Speaker
on last week's card. Kraglin. haven't seen him.
00:01:30
Speaker
You two, anything? Oh, I did. I have him actually a couple times, and it was one of those where it's like, well, when it went off, I mean, i was like, yeah, that two-way energy was real nice for them, but like, you know, when he doesn't, it's just kind of like, you know, three what a three-five or something. You're like, whatevs? Three-seven, if he doesn't get the energy.
00:01:53
Speaker
Very often, words I can at least tell what, you know, what... the other players think maybe the dream of this card is. You know what I mean? Like, I was seeing Moondragon around, and I still kind of see Moondragon around.
00:02:05
Speaker
But, like, I don't even know what people think Craglin is for, because they're not showing me.
00:02:13
Speaker
Which one, Ray? Moondragon is actually 2-2, right? And then there's Moondragon and Dragon of the Moon, Indeed. Although, either one. would have worked with either one. yeah when Dragon is the one that plays with Doom 2099.
00:02:27
Speaker
Moon Dragon is the one that or Dragon of the Moon is the one that plays with Ronan. Anyway, yeah, that's enough about Kraglin. I played him in ramp. It was fine and ah Weekend missions with Kraglin. I only got to play him once because you know what happened the other times? I played Star Lord and my opponent immediately retreated.
00:02:49
Speaker
Oh, those were silly weekend missions. Okay.
Introduction of Jack Flag Card
00:02:52
Speaker
ah Let's talk about this week's new cards. Jack flag, a three, three ongoing. Your cards here with increased power have plus two power.
00:03:00
Speaker
Did you get them? What did you think, Ben? I'm sure you got them. Cause this is a surfer ass card. Yeah. Yeah. um I got him. He's real boring, real good.
00:03:13
Speaker
ah Does the thing. It's pretty cool to, there are a couple of cards that like buffs, receiving buffs more than other cards. And ah Captain Carter and Maverick are kind of at the top of the list and they all like go together. And so it it did not feel very creative, but I put them, you know, in a deck as as I threatened to do the first time I read the card and ah it worked exactly like i thought it would.
00:03:45
Speaker
All right. Super boring. Okay. um So I did. i spent the 6k tokens on jack flag because I knew it was low chance to roll. And it was when I want. I like to play around with ongoing.
00:03:59
Speaker
and And I wanted to preface. So when I was looking at making a deck... All right, here's the thing with Jack Flack. He is good, play this meta, okay? And I was trying to think, like, what is so obnoxious about this meta?
00:04:15
Speaker
And I think Starlord was a tipping point, in um and like combo decks. with like okay if you think like The problem with negative right is like oh negative got really consistent, and that's dangerous because a negative is really big. However, okay with negative, um one, they still need to draw negative. You know what I mean? so like there's at least there's still kind of It's still deck, even if they have
00:04:52
Speaker
Right. But like um and then also it's like, you know, like Mobius usually just takes care of it for you. you know, like you can throw one card in your deck and generally want snap back or whatever against them, you know, um because it's very telegraphed too. Right.
00:05:10
Speaker
And um the problem with Star-Lord, and there is some telegraph, if they're trying to, like, Grandmaster, um or to that's the problem. Are they going to try and Grandmaster? They're going to absorb Big Manit, you know what i mean, in a different lane.
00:05:24
Speaker
So here's here's the problem. He made combo decks, which combo decks were fun, right? When they went off, they were silly, but they weren't threatening because one, they were very telegraphed. Like almost always you'd have a Wong in there, right? Which it's like, okay, you know, Wong is easy beat and read, um you know, when it's out there. And ah two, like it was just like they had to, um it just wasn't as consistent when they hit it.
00:05:56
Speaker
And Award has made it so that you consistently have the energy, and therefore energy means you have everything else you need. Do you need to draw? you have the energy to play a card to let you draw more cards. You know what i mean? Energy is the answer to everything. So now there's enough energy to make the combos so consistent. And the combos themselves have such a variety um that that you can't just one card tech. Like throwing a Mobius in isn't, then you're just solved, right? Because even people are like, well, Cosmo, but like Cosmo, you still have to guess the lane. And most people aren't playing Wongs in their deck, right? And most people are varying it up, whether which way they're copying him or how they're, you know, doubling him up or whatever Star-Lord or, you know, other shenanigans they're doing. Or even if they're not, just the energy to pull off other things, you know, like Zola stuff. And when those combos go off, they're huge, right? So like a nice mid-rangey deck, like say like the deck I built with Jack Flag, it's like oh, we're getting up to 30 power or whatever, which used to be plenty to win a lane, right?
Impact of Combo Decks
00:07:02
Speaker
But like when a combo hits off, no, then like you're in the hundreds or whatever. So when you're playing in this meta, you either need to play a ah You either need to join them and, like, go into this energy hog and play your own and just go that big as well, right?
00:07:21
Speaker
Or you need to have enough tech in your deck to deal with it, not just one card. You know what I mean? Like, you're playing certain decks that have enough tech to try and counter, right?
00:07:33
Speaker
ah what they're doing. So these kind of fun decks that got big just aren't big enough anymore against what used to be harder to pull off combos. And I know we had a problem for a while where it's like five cost cards never get played, six cost cards never get played. But like when they're all that gets played because people have the power for that, it's like the little add-ups of stuff, you know, just doesn't It doesn't cut it. Anyway, do you guys feel at all? Before I move on to my Jack Flag deck, I was curious if you had thoughts on what I was saying about the matter. if you don ah the No, just strong agreement.
00:08:11
Speaker
Also, i also have a Jack Flag deck, but I i can maybe talk about it later.
00:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think meta definitely is ah and the game. The game feels different now. And I think you do need tech to compete. Whereas, you know, more more diverse metas where good cards can good cards and good play can do well.
00:08:38
Speaker
You can be a little more creative and and compete differently. But and we just ah just barely, I think just today it came out on Fourth Location YouTube. We talked with Butt, who's a high infinite player.
00:08:51
Speaker
They don't really see Star-Lord in high infinite anymore because they've kind of chased it out with with tech. And they're doing things like Daredevil, Cosmo, Supergiant.
00:09:03
Speaker
And then the one thing that that's beating Star-Lord in height is Batroc. That deck
High Infinite Meta Analysis
00:09:08
Speaker
just goes big. um So if you're interested in hearing about that, but Butt, who's a player like me who wants to be doing fun, silly things, he's like even in his creative deck, he's having to you know make concessions and throw in two or three tech cards to deal with the meta.
00:09:27
Speaker
um Yeah, right. More, there's not one answers, like one card answers to these. um Okay, like there's a lot of other decks. A lot of other decks have like a one card, like look at Helen's Stardust, you know what i mean Like,
00:09:42
Speaker
Things that get big, but you can shut it down with one card if you're playing that one card. Anyway. um Okay, so my Jack Flag had to take all of that, Deck had to take all of that into consideration. I still want to do something fun. No, I honestly really, like he just came out and I haven't really looked. I don't know if what I'm doing is similar to what other people are doing. i assume people have made, i went, I wanted to do what I liked and that was fun. so i assume it's not the most powerful.
00:10:07
Speaker
thing out there. But apologies if this runs really close to what someone else did because I don't know what other people did. But wanted to put him with Surfer in an ongoing deck with Ravonna. I thought it was fun because I'm like, you know, it was a good mix to me because there are plenty of ongoing threes.
00:10:29
Speaker
And if you boost them all up with Surfer, you know, they're they're added cards. um And Moonstone can, you know, obviously is a great pairing with Jack Flagg. um So, ah you know, Captain Carter for sure is in here, but I put in Ravonna to make um some of these cards cheaper. So Mr. Fantastic, Mystique, um I was keeping an eye to like to Moonstone, right? She's like the power here. Captain America, um which I'm currently... i used to run the old... I liked the Crackle, the old film Crackle and that one Captain America. That's the one I've got. You what I'm talking about? That's what I was usually running. i just switched to Disco Captain America. I know Ben just got that. Hell yeah.
00:11:14
Speaker
You know, we're twinsies there. Okay. um And ah then because I've got so much ongoing and it goes with Moonstone and it's not bad to copy with Mystique if you don't have better things to play in your hand, Goliath is there.
00:11:30
Speaker
um and Ant-Man. Now the two, here's the thing. So like all of this can get big, like I said, like, you know, 20, 30, whatever lanes, but we got to look at these combo decks, right? Like I was saying, so here's my answer to that and why I paired it with Surfer. One is Cosmo, right? Three cost card. If you can get them, you know, on where you think they're going to play it, if they have a more telegraph to play, you can prevent um a lot of non-sensory, right? So um Cosmo's great in there. And then our only, we only have two on reveals in this entire deck. So it's easy to play around, you know?
00:12:09
Speaker
Then um Shadow King is the last card because the benefit of this deck is most of your boost is coming from ongoing and then you're adding this. So you can just Shadow King Surfer, right? And protect yourself.
00:12:24
Speaker
completely um and so there's a lot of times i just did you know what i mean yep i got them both that was my turn six shadow king into a lane surfer powers up you know the whole jack flag going thing and it was a lot of fun you know um i haven't seen a lot of jack flag honestly i mean like i said we're recording thursday it just came out tuesday i don't know that i played it all yesterday to be honest but like i have played some but i've still mostly just been seeing star lord combo stuff i haven't actually played against another jack flag but um that's what i've been playing i haven't seen much of them either um how often are you not having prio on turn six and it must be pretty reliable if you're getting shadow king off
00:13:12
Speaker
Okay, there's what you ah constantly I'm not. Because, look, a lot of my stuff, like, can kick off towards the end, right? And I've got Ravonna. I can play things late.
00:13:23
Speaker
I lots of times would hold Mr. Fantastic just so they – because, like, they don't know that I have it. And then I can reach into the sanctum or, you know – You know, the off location that they aren't going to guess that I have. So plenty of, right, once again, just playing cleverly. Yeah. But there was one game. And to be fair, I was multitasking. i was, like, literally doing something else and, like, just looking over and barely paying attention. It was a gold conquest, so I probably should have. Yeah.
00:13:55
Speaker
yeah They were playing an obnoxious combo Galactus deck with a Eliath, right? Which is like, oh, like that was the one thing. I kept like not paying attention and forgetting and then they'd get their Galactus off or um or they'd Eliath me. It was just like, oh I hate this.
00:14:18
Speaker
It was unfun. I could have done better if I was paying more attention. And Cosmo-ing appropriately. Always Cosmo safely. All right. i Ben, do you want to about your Jack Flag deck?
00:14:29
Speaker
You know, I
Jack Flag Deck Strategies
00:14:30
Speaker
think at the very least I'm going to talk about the Jack Flag deck I disassembled this morning to make room for other decks. And ah that was also a Ravonna Surfer deck that I had.
00:14:40
Speaker
um i ah If I recall correctly, it was Surge, Ravonna, Sam Wilson. ah Then it had, you know, a bunch of the usual suspects. Your... your your captain carter i had i had steve in there i said last week i probably wasn't gonna invite steve to the to the jack flag party but nope i was a i was a big stinking pants on fire type liar person um and i did invite steve to the party and it was pretty fun i i went actually a different way i i wanted to go moonstone but like it just felt like a little bit of over commitment to a single lane unless I could get her on my Mr. Fantastic lane. Cause I was also playing Mr. Fantastic.
00:15:25
Speaker
Oh yeah. Classic Mr. Fantastic. What a, what a guy. Uh, any who, uh, but I guess my deck's other defining card was Spider-Man noir. Cause I hadn't, hadn't messed with Spider-Man noir in a while. And so like, I felt like Moonstone was not the most Spider-Man noiry. And, uh, also she didn't go with Iron Man who was, was there. And that deck was fun, and it it was doing all right for me, but it did make me want... I tried that before, the more traditional surfer deck that I will now tell you about, because it's still assembled, because it's what I took to in Infinite. it
00:16:00
Speaker
um And that deck doesn't have a cool name yet, although it may someday in the future. ah The deck, the good, well, I don't know. The other one was fine. The good Jack Flag deck. that area but like Of my two Jack Flag decks, the one that's still assembled is America Chavez, Surge, Merlin, Brood, Captain Carter, Maverick, Silver Surfer, Jack Flag, Hope Summers, Mercury, Absurbing Man, and Show Loud the Undying.
00:16:33
Speaker
So i'm I'm still on that that show train. Oh, my gosh. Just ah friends with Maverick. And if you're friends with Maverick, we're partying, you know. That's sort of the. i think show still very strong.
00:16:44
Speaker
Also, still pretty good with Captain Carter, too. Hmm. Yes, yes. ah these These cards, feeling feeling still very mighty also. I think it's other people's tech. I've refused to incorporate any extra tech to deal with Star-Lord. I guess in a few decks I've been playing it a Stardust that might not have made the cut in some other metas or something, but maybe that's more about Hela. I don't know. Anywho, point is...
00:17:11
Speaker
I'm really grateful for everyone else who's been using their tech to chase away the Starlord decks because I have noticed a marked downturn in his prevalence. And i didn't find him to be like unbeatable or anything before, but I did find him to be obnoxious. So I've had ah a lot of fun. Sometimes it's good to just like let the game solve itself. You know, walk walk away for a minute. Things will be better when you come back.
00:17:39
Speaker
It's not all in your head. Sometimes it's ah a matter of other people playing yeah bullying unfun stuff out with the tech cards that you don't feel like playing yourself.
00:17:50
Speaker
So, yeah, that's my Jack Flag list that I recommend, but also rees list so like sounds like more fun, so you should you should play that one. I wish I had was seeing less Star Lord.
00:18:02
Speaker
like I was still seeing mostly Star Lord. Yeah, I still see tons of it too. Where or my MMR is, my my rank. um Starhawk is available in Sanctum Showdown, but that just started today, so I think we talk about him next week.
00:18:18
Speaker
about that? Yeah. Okay. i mean yeah But now we're talking about Sanctum, right? Well, normally this is where we would talk about next week's cards, but this is this is the last week of the season, so we will be ranking them alongside their season compatriots.
00:18:35
Speaker
in a little bit. Yeah, we can talk about Sanctum. I don't have a lot to say. I've played it a little bit and move felt um good overall, but weak against ramp. How about you?
00:18:45
Speaker
Okay. um I know Ben did's host before. He hasn't really played yet. But i did actually was able to get some in for once. I pulled um a fourth location deck made by Scott, but I modded it.
00:19:01
Speaker
um Partially because I didn't have the cards and partially because I would have anyway. So do what I want, Scott. All right. Anyway. But I love this deck. Discourage that. Yeah.
00:19:13
Speaker
I do love a Batroc. Sorry, go ahead. What you saying? Oh, no, I was just seconding what you said about telling Scott to go, you know, take that and accept the fact that his decks are going to get modified by the co-hosts of Snap on This.
00:19:30
Speaker
Yeah, we'll borrow him, but going to and screw it. That's it, we can run past. Yeah. um Because I do, was thinking when I go in in, I'm like, I kind want make my own deck when I'm too lazy.
00:19:44
Speaker
um Which usually means I can mod scot. yeah Or a safety deck. Okay. um And this one i Kitty, and I miss playing Kitty and Sanctum. I think the last time was playing Sanctum, I was doing a lot of, like, Silk, Batroc, Hydro Stomp, Shenanigans, which are...
00:20:01
Speaker
No, endlessly fun. But I miss i missed doing the Kitty Pride. Like, it's so fun at the end of these to be like, 122 Kitty Pride. You know what i mean? Just every lane. It's like when you're playing Kitty Pride and you get to a certain point, you it you win every single lane because Kitty Pride, just play you're that lane, you know? And that's fun for me. Okay.
00:20:24
Speaker
What? um In the list of, Scott had like so many. He he he listed like 14 decks for Sanctum or something ridiculous like that. I don't know. It was too many for me. and like i have It's like Lauren being like, what's your favorite thing? Or someone being like, what's your favorite band or something? And I'm just one of those people. I'm like, there are many things and I have different moods and times and phases. you know, like the moon. So, like, picking one thing um is pretty high. am getting distracted. Okay. um
00:20:56
Speaker
This deck has Angela, of course, because Kitty Pryde is in it and gets a bigger Elsa. um Oh, that's why. I was talking about Scott's deck lists. There's too many of them. I couldn't pick. I went with the very last one. He pointed out that since apparently Last Sanctum, I guess, or I don't know how long they've been out. I feel like zombies been out forever. But he's like zombies. Zombies are a new, you know, a new force to be contended with in a new way. Because right, a lot of times you're you're using move to get stuff into that lane without touching it. We're all like, how do we avoid guardians? I've noticed a lot less guardians.
00:21:31
Speaker
um Still some guardians, but a lot less the sanctum. Like there's starting to be a lot more move and stuff. and People are getting around. People are getting around the guardians.
00:21:43
Speaker
um But, you know, zombies are another way to do that, right? to put power into another lane um without playing in it. And so this one has Scarlet Zombie Witch. If you were playing this and you had Zombie Giant Man, I do think he would go in this deck. i tragically do not have him. And ah I've been winning a lot with without him, you know.
00:22:08
Speaker
Maybe I'm just that good. Maybe it's me. That's my explanation for it.
00:22:14
Speaker
Sorry, what? Oh, no. it that's funny pla like like i keep not hearing...
00:22:22
Speaker
Okay, I am changing this. Anything else? Sorry, I was saying, this deck has, oh, Drax is a powerhouse in Sanctum, for real. Whatever deck you're playing, put Drax in it.
00:22:34
Speaker
Drax is, like, it's just too good, right? Like, ah sorry, not not regular, sorry, the new Drax, not the Drax that only gets played in Sanctum. Okay, Drax Avatar of Life.
00:22:47
Speaker
Yes. he This is one of those where it's just like, he's great. Maybe they'll ban him. Maybe they'll let him run free because, you know, it's good time for him. um And Batroc is in this.
00:23:01
Speaker
Another good mover. A lot of people are playing move. And it's fun for them to move my Batroc around for me. Nightcrawler, Jeff. Lockheed. um He had Grandmaster in the deck and I replaced it with Lockheed, which is actually he worked out pretty well for me because Grandmaster too many early with nothing to play because there are only two targets for him here. Shang and Sholao.
00:23:23
Speaker
And double Shang-ing is pretty nice, but ah not worth an awkward early hand. Sholao. man i forgot to say it showout sholo shooutlo Sholao. Sholao is in it because you are doing... you know It's a kitty deck and Sholao is great. It works.
00:23:44
Speaker
and ah Did I mention everything? I think so. The Hunger, right? Disappears. Bonuses for Angel Scar. It felt like a newer updated version of my old kitty nonsense. you know because It's just like just stuff that gets big. They can only Shadow King you once.
00:24:03
Speaker
Okay. And... um Ooh, can I jump in with a Shadow King thought that I meant to mention earlier? Yes. Oh my gosh. I had a full lane. Sometimes when I'm playing surfer, I'll fill lanes before turn six. It's controversial, but I'll do it. um Oh my gosh. So this person saw how much power was in the lane. They fucking Shadow King'd it on six. They did not realize how much of the power was Jack Flag and like...
00:24:30
Speaker
captain carter and stuff and like you can change all the numbers back to their base values and it's still gonna be fucking 25 dog sorry you're gonna you're gonna need to like put a little more on that lane shadow king did not solve that for you i've got a beautiful screenshot of an aqber of somebody with a little bit of egg on shadow king's face oh man what a time nice continue Oh, you know, no, no, you're good.
00:24:53
Speaker
was pretty much done. just wanted to randomly think, like, don't you think, like, fastball special would be good in Sanctum? i don't know. Like, I feel like in Sanctum, if you're going along, you want to free up lanes. yeah.
00:25:06
Speaker
Because you want to free
Batroc in Sanctum Mode
00:25:07
Speaker
up lanes for yourself, right? Like, that's, this is my part, like, my very first game of Sanctum, which I still won, but it was Squirrels. It was Central Park, which is, like, not what I wanted for my Angela. Like, for my deck of little, you know, of this.
00:25:21
Speaker
ah Anyway. um Yeah, so I've been playing It's been rocking um for me. And I think, if you know, when you're heading out there, ah still guardians, but fewer guardians, lots more move.
00:25:37
Speaker
ah Just get people to do your work for you. Let them move around your bat rock, you know, all that stuff. Yeah. Let them move around your Drax. Drax might give me hope against all the ramp that I'm seeing. I remember it was either the first or second Sanctum that you made like a Galacta kitty deck and it was so fun and i eventually made my own version of it. But yes, I miss playing that.
00:26:01
Speaker
um I feel like I'll adjust this deck probably if I keep playing, but like this is where started. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. If Ben and I in the coming days, like before we ah before this goes live, if we have sanctum decks we like, they'll be in the show notes. I realized I didn't talk about Jack Flag at all. And I just wanted to say just one small thing that I was doing with Jack Flag. I was playing c three and you're like, what? That doesn't make any sense. Wait.
00:26:28
Speaker
Jack Flag is in the same timing window as Cerebro and Captain Carter. So as long as he's right of Cerebro, he still works in C3. And I was very much surprising people with how much how big my lanes were getting.
00:26:41
Speaker
I don't know why it's left to right. It's super weird. It should be in reveal order, but it's left to right. And this is the the ongoing cards where their power depends on other cards' power.
00:26:54
Speaker
When you say left to right, does that... like if If you had things in the front row and the back row, would it just go left to right? Or is it like left to right in the front row, left to right in the back row? it's It's like position 1, 2, 3, 4 on the left lane. And then position 1, 2, 3, 4 in the middle lane. so it's not But it's not reveal order. You can do Cerebro Mystique on the left lane on the last turn. And they will like retroactively apply... I don't know. Just the way that it calculates...
00:27:23
Speaker
Granted, Carter is not a three, and so I was trying to you know make her three with like Valkyrie. But you know Valkyrie's fine in c three There's probably a better way to do this. Bast was in there too.
00:27:35
Speaker
But it was fun playing with that mechanic. um There are other cards in that timing window that I don't know would benefit the deck. like There's Ajax and Diamondback and Omega ah omega Red.
00:27:47
Speaker
yeah But like I'm just like, I don't know. You need like one or two more of those and maybe you could do something real sneaky. ah Okay. Let's talk about the OTA.
00:27:59
Speaker
We don't need to go through the entire thing, but Star-Lord's deck got hit three ways. Star-Lord goes to 4-3. Alioth goes to 6-7. And Fin-Fing-Foom goes 7-10.
00:28:11
Speaker
and finfeng fum goes seven twelve to seven ten If you've heard anybody else talk about this yet, surely somebody else has pointed out that Star-Lord's losing two power is actually four power less on the people who are doing Zola stuff.
00:28:26
Speaker
Ditto with Fin Fang Foom. Although, honestly, if you Zola Fin Fang Foom and lose, there's something wrong. That's the thing. This Fin Fang Foom nerf is nothing. Yeah.
00:28:39
Speaker
I mean, that's I kind of already gave my thoughts on this ah earlier, which is where I'm at, which is the problem is it's like these are significant power decrease. You know, two is a big slop off. But at the same time, which will, you know, change some games, change some statistics. But I still think overall is the amount of energy you have to pull stuff off. So that's where I think the problem is.
00:29:05
Speaker
Also, the Star-Lord decks that are being punished most by the Star-Lord nerf are, like, the least greedy and, like, you know, degenerate, if you ask me.
00:29:16
Speaker
Like, the the taking two power off him only hurts people who are doing fair things with Star-Lord. Like, that's that's the the kind of Star-Lord deck that gets hit the hardest, is the one that's just being honest and playing Star-Lord once for good value. yeah.
00:29:34
Speaker
Well, yeah, i mean, the Absman Grandmaster stuff's not affected, but the Zola stuff is a little bit. um i I doubt this is enough, but this is like the soft midseason change while Star-Lord's still our season pass character, and then he'll get get hit harder again later. Just more than I was expecting. Yeah.
00:29:52
Speaker
yeah and well i don't know about sooner i think i think there was enough noise about how miserable star lord is that i was expecting him doing it just so to get hit yeah um i don't know uh don't think it addresses the things that people don't like about playing against star lord but you know maybe it makes him weak enough that his meta presence decreases The thing is, okay, interesting side thought with board games. A lot of board games you play, the bigger complicated ones, um you know, that are like turn- like It's like points, games where you're just trying to get the most points, point salad games, and ah they last a certain amount of rounds or whatever. And a lot of times what happens is you're like, oh, I almost got the perfect engine together with just another couple of rounds. I would have been like, whoo, you know?
00:30:44
Speaker
what like, They game tested it. And it's this way because when everyone hits their engines, it's not fun. It's too crazy. And making it that tight and confined and difficult to, like, try and build some kind of engine in such a tight space is, like...
00:31:01
Speaker
the game, right? and And I feel like with Snap, like they're just starting with all the energy they're giving. It's like the confinement of energy. It stops you from doing you know like everything you want to do. And now they've just lit that cap off and everyone's like, oh, I can build my engines. But then they found out like there's a reason why they don't do that in board games where they cut it down the number of rounds where you can't do that. It's not fun for everyone.
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:32
Speaker
I do usually consider a a quality of a well-designed game that I feel like my engine is finally going right as the game ends. um
Magus Card Buff Debate
00:31:41
Speaker
Okay. The other notable change, that the big change, maybe. i don't know. i don't think it's actually that big of a deal. Magus goes 3-5 to 2-3.
00:31:49
Speaker
It's a buff, but you still can't use on reveals. And... I don't know. the the ota The OTA notes said that they like they know people want to do it, but they still stand by that he can't do it.
00:32:02
Speaker
Yeah, and I think they might be right about that. I think this was a good compromise. I'm excited to see if there's anything here. What do you think, Rhi? Yeah, that's where I'm at. I feel like Lauren's still like, eh, sex. And I'm like, but maybe. And she's like, no. And I'm like, but maybe.
00:32:21
Speaker
want to play with I haven't played with it at all yet. I could. i hit infinite. in it Like, i you know, i just haven't i haven't gotten around to it yet. Too much Star Lord nonsense going on for like magis to have, for magises to have a chance against Star Lord Masters of the Sun. you know? That's fair.
00:32:41
Speaker
Yeah, i I really want Megas to be good. I just...
00:32:46
Speaker
is He's just too expensive. Two costs are pretty good. That's like one of the best costs. Yeah, but then you have to pay the extra cost of the card you're copying.
00:32:59
Speaker
That's true. Listen to me and Ben come to the dark side. Two is such a bigger... Like, right three to two is a big drop. it's It's very big. Yeah, so i've like I've been thinking, like, what are threes I want to copy on turn three? Or, like, is this enough, like, time improvement that, like, I want to copy fire hair now? Maybe, but...
00:33:20
Speaker
i don't know i I don't have a lot of hope. Put, like, Hood in your deck or something and just skip a little energy, you know? Hood is a non-reveal. Oh, yeah.
00:33:31
Speaker
Okay. Well, I don't know. I can play with you. Don't come to me with your facts. Against my dreams. Exactly my point. should try to shop it while While we're playing an energy skipping deck, ah maybe maybe the secret move is to play another two cost on turn three and try to find your Star-Lord late in the game. Or not Star-Lord. Sunspot? some Sunspot late in the game.
00:34:01
Speaker
Doesn't that seem like the most efficient thing? to No, it super doesn't. But, you know. It's a thought. It's a thought. Yeah. yeah I was like, I could burn three to like copy Invisible Woman first steps and then trigger with Jocasta. But then like what if he's Jocasta? That's a problem.
00:34:21
Speaker
just don't know. um i there There are some other changes that I do think are a little notable. They they did the thing they should have done. Let's just blow through them. they They gave Rocket and Groot the point that they have deserved for like a year. you know they gave ah jeff the deserved for like two weeks.
00:34:39
Speaker
They gave Sebastian Shaw a point that won't really matter very much because ah his thing isn't is isn't good enough anymore. His text is not no longer gunt um Yeah, he's going to go to plus three, right? When was When was the peak?
00:34:59
Speaker
uh when was high school sebastian shaw the last time you could play sebastian shaw was the week before maverick came out that's the last time you could play sebastian shaw i even bought a gold bundle with a variant of him and everything because i was like well surely i'll still be playing sebastian shaw sometimes but like not really not really you're wrong Also, this Lockjaw change, pretty significant if you ask me, because skills are real good. Lockjaw change did not go live.
00:35:30
Speaker
Oh. Dashauna and Lockjaw changes did not go live. They got delayed for the next OTA. well, then it's going to be important then. Okay. All right. Well then can't talk about it. We can still talk about them. We got, creators got permission to talk about it because of how late it got delayed.
00:35:47
Speaker
So if you want to talk about that, then I can't generate skills anymore and Lockjaw doesn't swap. In fact, I'll put them back into the show notes. I had cut them, but I'll put them right back. I love that Shauna does not generate skills because there's what, three or four one cost skills? Yeah.
00:36:04
Speaker
that, yeah, they always go bad to hits. So I'm glad that Shauna came to the team. Sometimes I'm glad to see him because she gets things so crowded. Maybe I'm doing Shauna wrong if I'm upset when she's crowding, but I don't know.
00:36:21
Speaker
She's fun in some decks, for sure. um And then Lockjaw, they're changing it so that after you play the next card, swap it with one from your deck, to after you play your next character, swap it with one from your deck.
00:36:32
Speaker
Which I'm guessing means it can only pull out a character. Yes, so how you read that's what that's why how I'm reading it, and that's why I think this is a big improvement. Because it's safe to play with skills That is a huge improvement.
00:36:44
Speaker
Yeah, that also like... Narrows it down. It almost
Lockjaw Changes
00:36:47
Speaker
lets you make Lockjaw more targeted if you have a deck with a bunch of skills. i think this is like a big change. A zombie galactic card or something.
00:36:56
Speaker
hey Also, mean, much fun as... it's i mean as much fun as It's zombie galacti. That was just a thing that someone said wrong in the season video. I know, but other people all say galacti now. It can't live on uncontested. It's zombie galacti, y'all. The plural of cactus is cacti. Octopus is octopi. It's not octopi.
00:37:24
Speaker
That's the ocip but say number one. Octopuses. octipides. I don't know. as ah There's like all of them are valid. I don't know. It's something about like octopuses, Greek, not Latin. And so technically it should be octipides. But mostly I think people just say octopuses. Anyway.
00:37:42
Speaker
um Yeah. Locked on Chana. They should, you know, off all goes well, should go live in the next OTA. But who knows? All right. We are going to rank March's cards.
00:37:54
Speaker
ah Well, not rank. We're going to rate them, which may inherently also rank them. Anyway, if you haven't been with us when we do that before, we give them a one through four. One being bad and four being good. And you can think about it however you want. It could be pizza toppings. um this This season, importantly, has a new keyword, objective.
00:38:19
Speaker
We have some idea how it works from data mines, and we are we are going to rank these under the assumption that objective tracks the whole game, right?
00:38:30
Speaker
And then when the card is on your board, it checks end of turn to do its ability, and it will only do it once. Because otherwise a lot of these cards would be real bad. And I'm pretty sure they're not.
00:38:44
Speaker
I agree. Yeah, no, especially um especially the following season. April season has some objective cards where I'm like, if that doesn't count the whole game, that's not like a real. Yeah, some of those would be clunkers for sure.
00:38:57
Speaker
But also some of them are really strong if they do. So we'll see. yes um First up season pass card. Ben, do you want to take it? Yes, our season pass card is Sabah Noor.
00:39:13
Speaker
ah For those who don't know, that's Apocalypse. four five with an objective. Have a full front row at each location. Transform into Apocalypse, Celestials Chosen.
00:39:26
Speaker
And ah wow, it seems like he was chosen by multiple celestials. Not just one celestial. There was a consensus among multiple celestials that they choose Apocalypse because of where the apostrophe is. um That's cool. ah He's a 4-8. So, on reveal.
00:39:45
Speaker
<unk> ah This is like after the objective gets happened. it you know You'll get the on reveal when it transforms. I mean, like that's probably clear, but you you know if you've polymorphed a thing, you get it. Anywho, on reveal, swap the lowest power card in your front row at any location with a card from your deck.
00:40:04
Speaker
So... That seems a little difficult to control in a couple of different ways in that you don't know which location you're spitting the card out and you don't know which card you're spitting out.
00:40:19
Speaker
I think, I don't think it's your, I don't think it's random location, pick the lowest. I think it's pick the lowest out of your front six. Oh, I see. i see what you mean.
00:40:29
Speaker
Okay. So if it's, you've got a hood out, you know, But still, the swap is interesting in light of the Lockjaw conversation we just had. Yeah, I kind of think maybe I'd rather be playing Lockjaw than this. That's that's sort of what I think.
00:40:45
Speaker
Having a full front row at every location, I mean... Yeah, what what turn do we think we're fulfilling this objective? Are we fulfilling it on turn six? I mean, like, because then you have things the most narrowed down, but it's still not that narrowed down, is it?
00:41:01
Speaker
That's still, like, three cards you might be pulling think that's part of what you're deciding, right? Like, you're just like, am I going to fulfill it this turn, you know? Am I going to wait? Yeah, but I'm. I mean, even if you wait all the way until turn six, that's still a one in three of whatever is left in your deck.
00:41:21
Speaker
I don't know. But it gets rid card. It's probably a good value proposition for a four cost. I mean, it gets rid of a card, but on turn six, you're not going to draw any more.
00:41:36
Speaker
so when you Also, it swaps it swaps them, so you're going to draw the low card again. Or you could, rather. it like once That's never stopped you from playing Once in Future. No, no, it hasn't. But I'm just saying... Hey, buddy. Okay. I'm just saying, like, it seems... I don't know. Like, maybe it's worth it on just raw numbers. Like, you're getting a lot for for energy, right?
00:42:00
Speaker
yeah' You're getting the eight stats of Apocalypse, the the final form, and whatever the improvement is on your lowest power card to whatever the random card is. But I don't think it's...
00:42:13
Speaker
consistently like control like i don't know if you're going to be able to guarantee consistent like serious value or if this is just like kind of a beefy crossbones call obsidian uh like i'm not i'm not really impressed with i don't think there's ah an actionable like plan, you know, like for this card. So I'm going to give it a two. I'm not, I don't know.
00:42:43
Speaker
It might be worth it for raw bodies and stuff, but I don't know. Rhi? All right. I give it a three. i think it's, you know, it's easy to fulfill. Like, what is Jessica Jones now? A four nine? a four ten?
00:43:01
Speaker
Jessica Jones. think she's four ten. Right. And this is a four eight that lets you get rid of a card you don't want to pull out something from your deck, which is going to be better than the hood or if they, you know, maybe Green Goblin you or something.
00:43:20
Speaker
I think, but it is something build around. you know what I mean? But it's so easy to fulfill. Anymore, I'm trying, I'm usually trying not to overfill spaces. You know what I It's just like, it's like one squirrel, like one central park, it's just like, ah, throws everything awry. i don't want a card everywhere. So like, easy to fulfill.
00:43:42
Speaker
Even if you're just using it to get rid of a hood in your Gilgamesh deck, right? Like, i don't know. Seems good. That's what I meant. What about you, Lauren? It's a two for me. I think this card is one of the worst of the season.
00:43:58
Speaker
Part of the reason... I don't think it's it's bad on its own, but I think it has so much competition. Polymorph, Viper, fair just for the sp Carnage, Cersei. There are so many things that are just better to do that are either more reliable or that give you better payoff. Lockjaw, another one.
00:44:21
Speaker
um i don't think... it's like It's a problem that it just swaps with the cards from your deck. like I would be so much more interested in this if it was...
00:44:35
Speaker
I mean, that's a real place people will play it, right? That's a real place people will play this, maybe, is you use Mjolnir to fill your front row. Mjolnir switches back into your deck right away.
00:44:46
Speaker
Sure. Perhaps to intrigued out the same turn. know. I want Hammers to be good. like i mean, for me, don't think it's adorable. Yeah, yeah. I see the the potential, the possibilities, the the games that might be won.
00:45:03
Speaker
If you time it right, like you can use this to get rid of the void as soon as you create the void. But like those are both fours. you just evolve it with Polymorph. i mean like That's that's like the worst thing to do with the void is shuffle it back into your deck.
00:45:15
Speaker
right i can't remember I can't remember if I said this on the things that are better but Misery. like if i'm If I'm getting rid of the hood, I would much rather do Misery, which is, what, the same stat line? Maybe even a 4-9? Is there even still a 4-9?
00:45:29
Speaker
I think she's a 4-9, which is just straight up a better thing to do than than this card. Oh my gosh, all one turn? I don't know what they're thinking. i think like I think the objective is easy to hit. You don't think in like, a zoo deck? In, like, a zoo deck? You might swap a one out for another one.
00:45:47
Speaker
But what if he missed your Kazara or your Blue Marvel? If it did blink, I would be much higher on this card. I still think it would be like just okay. But like if I could get the guarantee it was upgrading the card, I'd be much more interested in it.
00:46:01
Speaker
Sometimes this will be 414 or whatever, but we have other that work every time. we have other four fourteens that work every time yeah Just like, it's not a fun type of... of like I like leaning into RNG, and I just don't think this is a very fun version of that.
00:46:21
Speaker
maybe Maybe in a deck that has like... I don't know, I'm trying to think. like If you have a deck that has lots of good hits in it, it's going to be way harder to fill your front row. you know? Like...
00:46:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yep. That's so true. Like if you are doing high curve things where you could be hoping to do a big swing. Yeah. The condition becomes more difficult. I'm thinking of like old like Lockjaw Casino decks and it's like, no, but the curve is too high. You can't fill your front row fast enough.
00:46:51
Speaker
Maybe maybe it's OK because you can you can just leave him on the board and wait for him to do it on the last turn.
00:47:00
Speaker
Maybe. i don't know. right. Rhi. With the super premium season pass? Oh, it's super premium. Sad. I was like, i love this card. You can buy it for $6,000.
00:47:13
Speaker
Or no, you can't. The super premium is only in packs, huh? Super premium is only in packs until they... That's so goofy. All right.
Apocalypse Card Review
00:47:20
Speaker
did um Okay, so East of the Unbeaten is a fourth three with end of turn. If you're losing this location, double this card's power.
00:47:31
Speaker
And this is a high three for me. I don't know. Kind of want i give it four. I just think it's fun. Once again, we are tired of like these like slop cards with like, i don't know, some random card gets buff somewhere. And this other thing happens that is a thing that happens in Marvel's Night.
00:47:48
Speaker
like a new it's like okay this is something new to toy with um you know i want to get it out early somehow obviously so that it may get it's just a fun it's a fun thing to think about right so um have three for me did you are we about to say something ben
00:48:07
Speaker
I mean, you get it out early I mean, like what, I guess I failed to see like what the advantage of getting it out early. Oh, because eventually you win and it stops doubling power. Yeah, because like it only doubles until you're winning there and then it doesn't until you're losing again. Okay, but what if the fang fume it and then you're doubling again? Okay.
00:48:32
Speaker
okay I don't know. It's a fun to think about. I haven't like thought a lot about how I would use it, which I guess maybe we should have with rankings. Oh, for sure. But feelings-wise, I love this. I don't know if we prefaced.
00:48:45
Speaker
I rather, I don't know if I prefaced, but like, wow, I did not think about these cards before the recording. Usually I've prepared more than this. I'm like, oh is that how Apocalypse works? Oh, that's neat. thanks This is a learning experience for at least me. i don't want to speak for my co-hosts.
00:49:02
Speaker
No, it's okay to get a of perspectives. No, that's how I always do it every time. Right. Ben and Ria are dealing with this fresh. I have already ranked them on Snap Judgments and Fourth Location, so i have I've had time thinking about this. um But often, I also am fresh on these. It's just the way that the timing worked out this season. Iska's a four for me.
00:49:21
Speaker
uh possibly a three maybe she should be a three but but i'm giving her a four um and let me tell you why first of all you play her on four and she gets all three doubles off that's a 24 power card um that's only gonna work in certain metas but like if she only doubles twice she's a 12 like like she's pretty big on her own but the reason that she uh crosses the threshold for me is invisible woman first steps She is just going to win a lane by herself because at the end of the game, you have her go two or four times and she just keeps doubling until she's winning.
00:49:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I like that better than Doom 2099, which is Doom 2099 is the other way. And I think this better than Doom 2099. But it only wins the one lane. and i think this is better than doom twenty ninety nine but it only wins the one lane i mean Yeah, but then you you can play her and Havoc or her and Sina on the last turn. fine.
00:50:19
Speaker
It's the end of turn deck. When you get those off, you're winning. I feel like the end of turn synergy is like the strongest thing this card has going for it.
00:50:31
Speaker
Yes. I feel like without the support of Invisible Woman first steps and... Yeah, mostly just her and probably Jocasta.
00:50:43
Speaker
like I guess you have... like you That's the only way this card comes... yeah like this is It's the only way this card has the element of surprise at all, if in fact it is surprising.
00:50:59
Speaker
If you just play her on turn six with no support, she's a 4-6. Yeah, it's not great. Yeah, i I don't know if I'm a believer in this one. i Maybe I'm super wrong, but I think it's not doing a desirable thing. like this is not a This is not a good mechanism for like gaining power. i I'm giving this one, i guess, a high two. Maybe Guardians three.
00:51:32
Speaker
We're on a Guardians season, yeah. Okay. That's pretty harsh. Did you not believe in the end of turn synergy? No, I guess. yeah I mean, like, it's probably like, I just, is this even the best thing for the end of turn synergy to do?
00:51:49
Speaker
I'm like, I'm It's damn good. feel like it's flash. Yes. Over like, like, there's also like, it's an exciting effect. Four doubles is 48 power. Like, like you have to get You have to be facing a lot of power for multiple doubles to not get used to them. guess it does solo a lane in a way that maybe other end-of-turn cards don't do. Because Havoc, Thena, they don't always solo. Or even together. They don't always duos a lane. But they only scale three at a time. Yeah.
00:52:22
Speaker
All right. I guess i guess i'll admit I'll bump this one up to a real three. A real three, not a Guardians three. ah right. But I still have doubts.
00:52:34
Speaker
It's right there in her name. She's unbeaten. I say that every time I see this card. Okay. Juggernaut, Horseman of War, a tutu Objective, have six different powers among your other cards in play. And in reward, you get six power. So he ends up at 2-8. The objective is kind of hard to do. It kind of it depends on the deck.
00:52:58
Speaker
I think the kind of deck that wants to do this is a rampy deck, and that deck is better off using Chamber or Moondragon and also would struggle to get six different powers anyway.
00:53:10
Speaker
um So I struggle to know what deck this goes in, because if you're playing a small cards deck, you want an engine piece, not a 2-8. And it's a 2-8 you can play on the last turn because of the way objective works. So that's like, that's something.
00:53:23
Speaker
But mostly i think this card is just... It's just not enough. um And so I'm giving this a 1. This is probably my only one this season.
00:53:35
Speaker
Ben? You know...
00:53:40
Speaker
I was going to give it a two, but that was just to be nice. Since since Lauren is, you know, broke the seal. She's blazed this trail for me.
00:53:50
Speaker
Yeah, this this card's a one. what I mean, vanilla 2-8 is not anything. Call me when you can be played on any location like Jeff. You only need to be a 2-4. Just have good text, Juggernaut. Except Juggernaut has no text. Except it doesn't even count as a vanilla card for certain cards that care about having cards with no text. This guy's got text ruining everything about him that was like kind of okay. um Yeah, also, I don't think that condition's going to be he 2-2...
00:54:17
Speaker
Yeah, if he flops, he's a 2-2. And I don't think he's going to flop that often. I think it's pretty easy to get six different powers. I think that, like, we all remember Ms. Marvel, right? And I would, you know...
00:54:29
Speaker
I still play Ms. Marvel occasionally. Yeah, love that you do. She's very fun and cool. And also, basically always gets her effect if if you want it, you know, at least in one lane. But this is how you win Snap. If you can find ways to power up like cards that people don't play and don't expect, right? That's how you get cubes. Yeah.
00:54:52
Speaker
Except there's no way to power this card up you can't You can't play Onslaught on it like you could with Ms. Marvel. You can't like you can't copy the like copying the text. is not There's just nothing to do with this card. it's not right This card might be revitalized when...
00:55:08
Speaker
It might be revitalized when objective objection cast an objective long when that comes out, maybe. But I don't think so. don't even think it hangs with its complete like the other like the cohort of objective cards. This one's still on the weak side. Like, I don't think this card is anything at all. I think Lauren. Wow. This is really like making me.
00:55:30
Speaker
Why did why did I even want to give this card a two I don't know. this are designed but it's It's a one. It's a one. I know that I have a slant to give boring cards low scores. And so it's like, am I being biased or is this actually just bad? Like for, for what deck is this card?
00:55:48
Speaker
That's what I don't know. Where does this go? Everybody else is doing bigger and better things than vanilla two eights that that don't even count as vanilla. Re? Okay, I give this a two. um i think, because a two eight is big, there are worse twos.
00:56:05
Speaker
But it's it is weird because it does, it feels, it's like something you need to build around. It feels like, you know, like what what you both have been saying over and over again is where's the synergy. um And that's correct. But it does feel playable. there's Like I said, I don't think it's terribly hard to pull off um getting different powers.
00:56:28
Speaker
But it's like, yeah, where where are you putting it? I think there are worse cards. yeah But it should go I know we're not probably not going to see it a ton. Well, something else comes along to synergize with it. But ah Mantis exists. Jessica Jones exists. I think these cards will see play before those cards, to be honest. So that's where I'm at with it.
00:56:52
Speaker
That's a that's a strict bar to get something into the one zone. ah Ben Gambit. I mean, what are they then? Zeros? Because like when when are you seeing some of these old cards? That's a good question. many know are totally arbitrary It's our totally arbitrary system, but like if you say that cards need to be divided evenly between the four scores, right? it's like Is it a bottom 25th percentile card?
00:57:19
Speaker
i don't know that's um we've never established that's what a one means where one moves up another must move down right we've never we've never like established exactly what our ranking system or rating system means and that's intentional um but yeah i would say i would rather play jessica jones than this card yeah yeah also mantis mantis is a one three now i would rather play mantis than this card I forgot she's a 1-3 now. I haven't tried to mess with her again recently.
00:57:49
Speaker
she disappointed by the last several times. I was using her in the C3 deck and then I was like, nope, she's she's clocking up my hand. She became a Baku. She was still the dry one, at least when we were playing Major Victory the other. like Mantis. That's like a drinking game for this podcast. How many times do we just bring up Mantis for no reason? We want her to be good so bad. Well, I, yeah you know, who who knows how many times we'll bring up Mantis this episode. Are you ready to hear about my friend Gambit, the Horseman of Death?
00:58:22
Speaker
Yeah. He's Yeah. He's one
Concerns About Gambit Card
00:58:26
Speaker
of these objective cards. One of those ones. Play five total cost of created cards, and your reward for that is to randomly destroy up to four total cost of enemy cards.
00:58:41
Speaker
um I'm giving this one a four. I think it's not cool. I am not looking forward to it at all. i yeah you know You know how like Gambit whiffs sometimes, Gambit classic, he'll hit a rock or a hood or something that doesn't matter?
00:59:00
Speaker
This gambit is always guaranteed to hit something that matters. It's no good. It's bad news. this This card is unfun, and I think it's real unhealthy. I don't like anything about it, and I hope that they reconsider and do a different design. Re- I also give it a four. The thing that Gambit has on this, at least this one, you can't like repeat a million times. like You can't with Gambit. um That's good.
00:59:35
Speaker
it's It's easy to pull off, although it is build around. If you're playing that many created cards, I guess you just play a bunch of swarms. You're probably playing in that style rather than... You know what maybe one of the created cards is? A second copy of Gambit.
00:59:50
Speaker
blowing up eight cost worth of cards. Like, like this is the Victoria hand situation. worse Like you would a bullseye and stuff too. Oh no. Never ever low rolls.
01:00:01
Speaker
oh no never low rolls it never ever low rolls It's not be fun. It says up to four total costs. Up to four total costs. So it's not like you're necessarily always going to take out their Inviswoman first steps or Jocasta, but it can hit those for sure. i mean, it'll take out your Fina and your Havoc in one fell swoop.
01:00:25
Speaker
Yeah. It's devastating for Slummex. We're all saying it's, yeah. I mean, we've seen Gambit. Good Gambit hit wins a lot. And this is... Um, yeah, I mean, like said, I agree. i think it's Shrem. It's four.
01:00:43
Speaker
Here's my problem with this gambit. Besides that, I don't want to play against it. The timing is weird because a lot of the early cards you could hit, like, you know, ah the ones, twos and threes are like your opponent's setup cards where you would mess them up and it would be devastating.
01:01:00
Speaker
But it's really hard to have five cost of created cards down that early. Mysterio is pretty much the only way I can think of to do that. um So you can play him late, but when you play him late and he activates, yeah, he's going to destroy four cost of power, or four cost of cards, and that's probably, like, that's got to be worth at least ten power, right?
01:01:21
Speaker
yeah like I wonder if you're discarding this or if you, like you said, you're trying to take out the early stuff, so maybe you're just, you are like Squirrel Girl-ing and stuff and then you're just planning to like Killmonger that all later or something. Even Squirrel Girl and Shauna, that's only five.
01:01:38
Speaker
It's so easy for us to come up with synergies with this card. It's not going to be fun. hu I really think Mysterio's the only one if you want to play him early. Wait, why does Hewgo go? Squirrel Girl's only two. You need five.
01:01:55
Speaker
How are you getting more than two created cost on the board? You need to get two. So there's two, and so that would be on turn one. and then, i mean, but like...
01:02:07
Speaker
Mr. Sinister is another two. Like, Shauna is another three. brood is six. There are ways to do it. Turn four as opposed to turn three. Like, that's totally fuck I'd be happy for this. When you hit him late, he'll have have more targets, which also means, you know, a higher chance that he hits something that doesn't matter.
01:02:33
Speaker
Four costs a lot of times matter. I think you can't destroy four costs off of someone's board without hitting something that matters, is my feeling. Like either you're hitting a moonstone or you're hitting two, two costs or you're hitting a three into one, like a three cost. Yeah. Real, real cards are going down when this card hits the objective. And it doesn't matter if it's turn six or turn three.
01:02:57
Speaker
Here's the question, though, Ben. Think about this. We don't know. Does it destroy a three cost? Does it pick randomly? And it'll say, OK, destroy the three costs. It picks another random cost. That is a two cost. Now that's above. So it's just done. Or does it then be like, no, I'm going to go to a one cost?
01:03:15
Speaker
It won't destroy something that's protected. Right. Huh. What do you think? like What do you think? I'm sorry. ah can you Were you saying if something is protected, like will he keep going? Okay, no, no, but how does he choose?
01:03:30
Speaker
So, like, some things choose their target, and then if it doesn't hit, it doesn't just go off, right? So is he going to randomly pick something? It's a three cost, and he destroys that. Then now he picks a second target randomly. That's a two cost, but would have that would be more, so then it whiffs.
01:03:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's the question. think he'll probably look for a one.
01:03:54
Speaker
Or a zero. Yeah, if such is around. think basically, yeah, destroys something, and then he sees how much cost he has left to hit. If there's anything on the board that's that cost, he'll randomly pick one of them, check how much cost he still has to destroy, repeat.
01:04:08
Speaker
So zeros are always ones. I mean, hope it works other way, but bet it's smart. But think about Polaris and stuff. They target randomly, and if that thing can't be moved, then that's a whiff, you know?
01:04:20
Speaker
whom yeah I hope it works that way. This thing is different because it's up to four. So I expect he could destroy multiple cards, right? So like, yeah, what if he does whiff? Does that... If he hits armor, does that count as two cost of a destroyed card?
01:04:36
Speaker
Right? That's what I'm bringing up. Is that like, don't know. just Just stuff we won't know until it comes out probably. This is nitpicky and maybe doesn't matter. But it says it says play five cost of created cards. Does that mean things like Brood Squirrel Girl won't work? Because they're not played created cards?
01:04:53
Speaker
Oh! so you You mean, okay, that's why you're saying Mysterio. kept being like, Lauren, what? Mysterio six costs. That's why I said Mysterio. He's a two that gives you six. Are we thinking Merlin friend? Are we thinking Prowler friend? Are we thinking, i mean those two are different.
01:05:12
Speaker
the the first like They seem a cut above some of the other cards we could be mentioning here. But if if they if these do need to be cards played from hand, um that does kind of change things. That makes it a little harder to... Is this a Clea card?
01:05:27
Speaker
m
01:05:30
Speaker
I don't think it is, because I think they kind of clash. is afflicting like You don't want to afflict things before you roll for the destroys. That's true. you Only afflict high-cost things.
01:05:42
Speaker
um I'm just trying to say that I think yeah
01:05:48
Speaker
there are things that could limit it but it's still, I think, going... it That doesn't change that it's a four-star, I think. like Yeah. Regular Gambit. String random enemy cards, just generally obnoxious and good. Yeah.
01:06:06
Speaker
it's Still a three for me. To me, it seems like the kind card that's super flashy and everyone's like, oh, this looks so good. But then and it's like, but you didn't really think through what it does. I could be wrong, though.
01:06:17
Speaker
You know, it's totally possible that it'll be devastating. um I'm sure it will suck just because of the RNG sometimes. Whether you're playing it or playing against Rhi.
01:06:31
Speaker
re Okay, um I have Sandstorm, ah which is going to be a skill. And it costs two. Sorry.
01:06:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Rude. Good stuff. Yeah. On reveal, add two rocks to your hand. Give them plus one power for each of your front row characters.
01:06:56
Speaker
Limited time event. I mean, four star in my heart. because i'm into I'm into the rock deck unless it becomes meta. but Let's say my fun, silly thing that I'll make strong and surprising in my way. But if everyone's playing it.
01:07:09
Speaker
Yeah. It'll be meta for a couple weeks because of this season. Yeah. um Well, who knows if it's just a couple weeks. I i't i think if anything is worth being meta for a couple weeks, it's probably worth playing like all the time.
01:07:25
Speaker
or Or it's it's worth like being in the comfort. I don't know. I think if rocks are real, they'll stay real, damn it.
01:07:35
Speaker
I'm what were you saying. Yeah, that's true. No, no, you're good. I think that's, I mean, right, I don't know. I feel like I've talked, I like it. I think it's easy to, I think in a Rocks deck, you probably are having a lot of, i mean, right, it's all synergistic. There's nothing, like, this works with Rocks. It'll be good.
01:07:54
Speaker
um think, actually, even though I'm, like, excited for it, probably a three. I mean you're definitely building stuff for it. not just throwing it anywhere. um But this is still a great one to throw down on five, right? It's not.
01:08:12
Speaker
Oh, yeah. It's not the worst. If you have to throw it down earlier than that, you could double it up if you wanted. and if you're doing silly stuff with rocks, I don't know. I'm into it. Go.
01:08:24
Speaker
I don't know who up is next in my rotation. I think this card is really, really good. ah There's the other rock card that we'll talk about in a little bit. That's Ozymandias, and he's kind of only a rock card. But this doesn't have to be only a rock card. This could be Zoo. This could be Victoria Hand. Victoria Hand. Yeah, fair. This is a strong card. If you play it late enough, it's giving you two demons in your hand.
01:08:50
Speaker
There's stuff you can do with that. um And you know, like maybe like two costs that doesn't leave a body on the board. like Maybe that sounds like a bad thing for two demons, but like people play Hood and Misery for two demons. um Yeah, I think this is quite strong. And I know they're not always going to be demons. Sometimes they're 1-4s, right? But that's still pretty good.
01:09:14
Speaker
You have a lot more control over this over Mole Man. And I know that's like a low bar to compare to, but then you start combining them together... for now but once you have them together you start doing synergies with victoria hand and patriot and ozymandias and like i think it's gonna be real oh it's definitely gonna be real that's uh it's a four for me but i wish i could go quite that high um i can only give it a three but i can't give it less than a three because i'm so fucking here for the rocks
01:09:46
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I've been waiting for this. I'm very excited did for this. i like fun things and I think rocks are fun things. um I will say one thing that tripped some alarms for me in my mind was, wow, this card seems like something I should play Black Swan with and that's a red flag.
01:10:08
Speaker
I don't know about that. Just the fact that this card makes me think I should be playing Black Swan maybe in the same deck that that tells me. kind of like that though. There's got to be a tipping point where maybe Black Swan is like. It's hit monkey card.
01:10:24
Speaker
Is it? don't know. Is it? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. I'm just saying if a card makes me want to play Black Swan, I'm suspicious. But I still got to give it a three because I love rocks.
01:10:39
Speaker
Okay. That's the reason. I mean, all the other stuff has been said. but I agree with all of it. It's all true. The Victoria Hand stuff and getting two demons and not leaving a body behind. It's all real stuff. And the the rock synergy, I think it's going to be real.
01:10:56
Speaker
I'm excited.
01:10:59
Speaker
Great. Caliban, Horseman of Pestilence. We get a Caliban... Variant card before we get an actual Caliban card. 3-4 objective. Have three cards that are four cost or higher in play.
01:11:15
Speaker
Afflict the highest cost enemy card with seven minus seven power. ah it This is a three for me. And I know that a lot of the things that were said about Juggernaut could be said about this, right? Like a 2-8 versus a 3-11.
01:11:32
Speaker
But this can attack multiple lanes... And I don't know. 311 just feels like a better rate to me. It's not actually a better rate. It's actually a slightly worse rate than 2.8.
01:11:43
Speaker
But ah there's not a lot of threes that can compete with that kind of power. And three is when you're getting to costs where you start. won And Jack Flag is a 311. Yeah. yeah Right.
01:11:55
Speaker
Until you. Right. And then I guess unless you do Captain Carter things. things I'm saying like. Captain Carter has to be after him. Or you need to have played Surfer, or you need a location that buffs everything at that location, which is a lot of locations.
Card Rankings: Caliban and Others
01:12:11
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:13
Speaker
Caliban seems like an easier 311, right? Or like we have Starbrand that's a 310, but you have to deal with his ongoing. I'm never not getting the jackpot This is easier. All right.
01:12:25
Speaker
Are you always getting him going on four cards every single time? Every time I need to. Yeah. I mean, some sometimes you only need to. Sometimes there's a surge in the lane that just stays a two one. And that's fine because Captain Carter and like is there next to her and everything in the back row is enormous.
01:12:45
Speaker
Yeah. ah The main reason I'm higher on this card than Juggernaut or, spoiler, Selene, who is a similar card also, is I know what deck he goes in, and it's Doom 2099, and it's not an especially strong deck, but like he's just a 311 in that deck. It's very easy to have three 4-cost cards there.
01:13:05
Speaker
um Also, Doom and Zola are the two easiest ways to make sure that you meet the requirements. There will possibly be other decks that use this. But I just like i know I know at least one home for him and I don't know a home for Juggernaut.
01:13:22
Speaker
Ben.
01:13:24
Speaker
uh what did we give juggernaut we gave it a all right see i'm looking at my notes where i was prepared to give juggernaut a two and so i was going to give caliban a two but i don't think this card is any better than juggernaut uh think it's a one that's what i think i i was prepared to give it a two also so because i i guess i was feeling really generous in the five minutes before the show when i was throwing this together But I'm no longer feeling as generous.
01:13:49
Speaker
that That was like an hour and a half ago or something. i No. No. Sorry, Caliban. You're you no free rides here. um I don't like afflicting the highest cost enemy card with minus seven power. It's like probably not the one you even want to afflict.
01:14:06
Speaker
I mean, maybe it's Iron Man. It was probably not. And also, you know, why why would they? I don't know. i I just... I mean, i guess it's the highest cost enemy card, not here. So it does hit multiple lanes, but like if you're only hitting the first lane for four, i mean, it's just like, it's like three cost claw sort of. It's not, I just don't.
01:14:33
Speaker
I don't think it's... Yeah. Three cost Claw is a positive thing for me. That sounds like a good to me. three cost Claw that you do ongoing synergy stuff with. like There's no way to like yeah synergize with this
Caliban in Doom 2099 Deck
01:14:45
Speaker
card. and it doesn't Affliction Synergy is all about going wide with the affliction effects. Claw is more controlled also. I know where that power is going.
01:14:54
Speaker
I just think this card is bad. Okay. Rhi? um I disagree. i give it a three because I think that like Doom 2099 is what I thought of as well as the obvious.
01:15:09
Speaker
But the thing is, I don't think this needs to be an afflict deck, which is what makes it good. I mean, I've been hit enough with a what what is it? Omega Sentinel or something like that's obnoxious. And that costs four to play. That's four, three, not a three, four. And um so I think it'll be good. The problem is I don't think it's maybe necessarily great in all ramp decks, which is kind of where you're thinking of it. Because three is usually where you're playing a wave or a um Luna Snow or something. That's where youre usually like ramping. So it, you know, it does feel like something like 2099. But in those decks, I honestly, i think, ah I think it'll be pretty good.
01:15:52
Speaker
And that's why gave it a three.
Introduction to Selene Card
01:15:55
Speaker
Okay, Ben with the next one. All righty. We've got Selene or Selene. I've been playing Hades, too. And so now when I see that name, I think Selene.
01:16:07
Speaker
Anywho, Horseman of Famine. That's that's what she's about in this incarnation. She's a four for this time. That'd be fear. Her objective, as so many of these cards seem to have one, is to have three cards with no abilities in play.
01:16:24
Speaker
They could be rocks. They don't have to be, but they could be, right? Steal five power from an enemy card here. And that's steal. It's not afflict. That's yank. Yank that power.
01:16:35
Speaker
Have it for yourself. um And stealing power pretty good. That's what I think. um And I was sort of fluctuating. and Do I want to three or a four for this card?
01:16:50
Speaker
I think... e I don't know. 414 is pretty good. i was just saying how there are better 414s than the last one we were thinking about.
01:17:04
Speaker
i don't know.
Selene's Synergy Potential
01:17:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Apocalypse. That was it. Yeah. I think this is a much better card than Apocalypse. And sure, I'll give it a I'll give it a three. I don't want to don't want to get too too excited because ah it's very difficult to leverage this with synergy you know of any kind i i mean maybe we copy selene maybe we get two of them if she's good enough to play once she's good enough to play twice that that seems reasonable i don't know i'll give it a three i like this card i think it's the best objective card since gambit that's that's that's what i'm saying rey
01:17:48
Speaker
Also a three. think it's good. I mean, same thing. it's It'll be a powerful card in the decks. You know, you're obviously putting in cards with no abilities. um It's sad because it honestly makes me, I mean, do you think this goes with high evo? I feel like high evo, even just no ability, Patriot, no ability cards,
01:18:12
Speaker
I think it definitely doesn't know When you're playing them, it's always Hood. It's always Demon. It's always like the other ones you generate. Those always just feel like more powerful things to do with it. And I feel like this is another card that will go with those cards more than it'll revive.
01:18:27
Speaker
you know, no ability card. It's like we're not playing Abomination and the thing, you know, base with this, right?
01:18:38
Speaker
I think it literally doesn't work with High Evo. I think that those cards have text now. Like once they get evolved. Oh, yeah, you're right. because they have but You're right. You're right. But I mean, but like, but in that vein, it's like, like, ah you just, it makes me sad that there's like, there's just no reason. Like if you're not playing High Evo, like when you're never going to play Cyclops. You're never going to play. And these new cards still just seem to me like I'm still going to do hood shenanigans with them. I'm still going to do the other ways you get like no ability token cards.
01:19:11
Speaker
just Yeah, this definitely goes with
01:19:18
Speaker
the She's weird for me. First of all, I just want to bitch about the fact that they're introducing a new keyword and three of the cards are the same. They're just dumb statistics. Yep, very boring.
01:19:29
Speaker
That's Juggernaut, Caliban, and Selene. Cool. Look at all the cool things we can do with our new keyword. It's the exact same thing. It's like, oh, I would feel very yucky about the keyword, except we have slightly more interesting ones coming the following season.
01:19:43
Speaker
um She's pretty good. She's she's a two. Like, 414 is big, but I worry about the opportunity cost and also the synergy because... because of what you have to play to enable her um you know something like an ultron will do this right away but like patriot ultron is a you don't see it very much anymore um i think it's a new rocks does she go in the rock deck i don't know like she might go in the rock deck she might be big enough 414 is quite large but that's for energy you're not spending towards your actual strategy
01:20:18
Speaker
And that's my
Ozymandias and Rock Decks
01:20:19
Speaker
concern. So I'm giving her a two ah because I worry about her opportunity cost. But she's she's big there. I I would be surprised if there weren't decks that tried to squeeze her in.
01:20:31
Speaker
But she feels like a plan B to me. You called it, though. That's why Isuka felt so good, because these are all just like, here are things that Marvel Snap does, adding power, taking away power, and moving things. You know what i mean? It doesn't feel like a cool new thing. It's just like flop of things that already exist.
01:20:51
Speaker
That's why Isuka was like, oh, yeah, here's an ability and to read, to think about, like, don't know. It's unfortunate because Gambit's objective is like his ability is pretty cool, but like but I don't want it in the game. and i don't want it to happen to me. like should But it's like it's like the most interesting one.
01:21:10
Speaker
yeah um
01:21:13
Speaker
Rhi, with our other event card? Oh, yes. um So, you know, previously mentioned Osmond Dias. I know a lot of us out there thinking of the Percy by She Shelley poem.
01:21:27
Speaker
Okay, ah it's 5-9. With the ability ongoing, your rocks have plus three power. Oh, man, i used to Osmond Diaz memorized the poem. I used to memorize, like, my favorite poems.
01:21:43
Speaker
And I am, like, now it's been many years since I've, like, tried to recite it memory. could only probably get a couple, the last two lines or something. Okay, anyway. So, ah but do I like this? Yes, I like this. I mean, it's ah it goes only in racks, but it's like rack card. You're not going to play a rack deck.
01:22:01
Speaker
Without Osmond Dias. ah So that puts it between, don't know, like, it's like, do I then give it the four because it's like rock card? You know what I mean?
01:22:16
Speaker
It's kind of archetype defining. like Like, it's like MODOK doesn't go in every deck at all, but like, he honestly doesn't even go in every discard anymore, maybe, but he still goes in a lot.
01:22:28
Speaker
murocch is still in fine that's it I'm giving him a four because he creates he solidifies the rock archetype he really ties the room together
01:22:41
Speaker
yeah it's like you said obviously you play him with rocks and there's no other reason to play him anywhere else Arguably, he's another dumb stat stick, but yeah he can be a bigger stat stick. If you get four rocks or more, he's the biggest of the four we've looked at.
01:22:58
Speaker
And I think getting four rocks is actually pretty reasonable. You know, we have three seven debris that just gives you two for free. We have what is Rhino now, like a two five? Yeah, he gives you a rock for free.
01:23:12
Speaker
Like, there are there are ways to get rocks. And then we have stuff like Sandstorm and Mole Man coming. I think Ozymandias gets big enough. And then he also has things to plug into, like Onslaught or Mystique, if you really want to get kooky with it.
01:23:24
Speaker
um So yeah, he's he's a three for me. Like, I don't think the rock archetype is going to be super crazy good. Like, I think, unfortunately, Sandstorm's probably better with Victoria Hand than with leaning fully into rocks. But like...
01:23:39
Speaker
It looks pretty playable to me. These these are big numbers.
01:23:44
Speaker
You know, here's another one where I was kind of on the fence. Do I want to go three? Do I want to go four? like This card is just like better than Gilgamesh, right? like pretty significant I mean, people aren't playing a ton of Gilgamesh these days, but like wow, this is a big ol' fiber, huh?
01:24:03
Speaker
on like hitting multiple lane very big lanes. like This is like a really big card. it's like It's natural stats are 5-9 before we start looking at the rocks, which you will surely have a lot of, like 4-plus for sure.
01:24:18
Speaker
Like, I don't know. 521 does it for me. um That's... Yeah. Yep. You know, I'll give it a four. Because i I can't give these cards... These rocks cards. I refuse to give them less than a three because I'm just here for the rocks. But, like, I think this one is, like, pretty good.
01:24:37
Speaker
i'm a little worried about this. I think rocks is going to be... i
Location and Card Synergies
01:24:42
Speaker
think I think to use the the parlance of the the Bachelor franchise...
01:24:49
Speaker
I think some of these rocks players aren't here for the right reasons. That's, that's, that's the, that's the thought that I think I'm going to be thinking a lot. I'm going to be like, these, these players are, they're, they don't love rocks for rocks. They, they love rocks for winning bunch of cubes all the time.
01:25:07
Speaker
That's what I think we're going to be thinking. And like, we're going to miss the days when rocks were just for the, the weirdos and the the true believers. Yeah, they're too serious. it's gonna They're going to ruin rocks.
01:25:22
Speaker
ah to be You know, that's very convincing. This whole time I've thought that Sandstorm must be better because of its ties to Victoria Hand. but i think Sandstorm is good because it hangs out with this card.
01:25:36
Speaker
It doesn't take a lot of shenanigans to make this card crazy. like Just Mystique alone is pretty damn big. yep And it could be Mystique Chameleon. Mystique and debris on the last turn. Or Mystique Coddy. The opponent doesn't even see the rocks yet. They don't they don't even believe you have the rocks. but then like Maybe they've only seen like two rocks, but then you add two more rocks and a second copy of the Ozymandias effect. Ooh, baby.
01:26:03
Speaker
um in the same Think of, like, the memery. Like, every time they tear X the tamer you or you hit subterranean, it's like, you've only made me stronger. Like, not really, because you still, like, would rather probably draw your other cards than rocks, but, like, you know.
Rama Tut's Effects
01:26:18
Speaker
Kind of. More than if you didn't. But that collapsed mine, huh? so just i I love a deck where you can keep Collapsed Mine alive. It's not a very easy thing to do, but it's like so fun when you win.
01:26:30
Speaker
one of the It's really fun when you win without ever triggering it. also think that's a really fun puzzle. I'm like, can I keep it? yeah Also, sometimes there's a really urgent thing you need to play on turn two or three. Totally. And you have to skip a later turn.
01:26:47
Speaker
And that's that's always fun to think about. That's an interesting decision. yeah I really like that location. It's a great location. Except against Destroy because suddenly they get a free death. Yeah, they have huge advantage.
01:27:00
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, our last card of the season. i think many people will think of it as a joke card, but it has grown on me a lot. Rama Tut, a Kang variant. 4-5 on reveal. Use three on reveals from cards released before Rama Tut's time.
01:27:18
Speaker
And then I have in our show notes a ah big list of, I don't know, it's probably like 60-ish cards, maybe more than that. 60 to 80 on reveals that are...
01:27:30
Speaker
older on reveals that he can pull from. ah Most of the bad ones are taken out, but there are some bad ones in here, including MODOK and Daken. It's 99. MODOK is, like, actively bad, and Daken is, like, ah useless and does does clog your hand a little bit.
01:27:47
Speaker
What did you say, Ben? It's 99. These are 99 different effects that you might get three of. 99. And this is, like, this was data mined in January, so it might change what the actual final list is. maybe it's not 99. We don't know exactly how it's going to work.
01:28:02
Speaker
But let me tell you the main reason this card has grown on me so much. If you multi-proc I think it's going to pick three new ones every time. And it's going to do each of those ones multiple times. This is a very, very silly card with Wong. think you're guaranteed to get no repeats?
01:28:23
Speaker
i think you could get I think you would get no repeats within a set of three. And then, yeah you know, number four, five, six could be a repeat. Yeah, it could be a repeat. But I don't think that four, five, six will be the same as one, two, three.
01:28:36
Speaker
No, no, that would be very unlikely. Hugely unlikely. Yeah, I don't think it's not it's not changing its text. So I don't think it's locking in. And so then I'm thinking, okay, you have Wong Mystique, which as soon as we're going into that, maybe that's not how we should evaluate a card's strength. But that means this guy's using 12 on reveals four times each. You're going to get something good in there, even if you get a MODOK. Maybe you play on the last turn. Take the shenanigans. I don't think there's many of these effects that don't want on the last turn as much as you want on earlier turns. I think you should play Ramita earlier than the last turn.
01:29:10
Speaker
I agree. Earlier is better because then you can react to the RNG. And if he does something bad for you, it's a retreat. But I think this card is good enough that you can gamble on it and it will very often be an above-rate 4-cost card.
01:29:27
Speaker
So I'm actually going to give it... like I'm like between 2 and 3 for it. Because yes, it's a huge gamble and I know people will underrate this card because of the variance. But like...
01:29:39
Speaker
Even if you get two medium things that like don't really make a big difference and one strong thing, it's like it's not the it's not the worst. you know um But is it part of a game-winning strategy?
01:29:52
Speaker
That's the thing. is The only way that you can synergize with it is just try to use it as many times as possible. Also, one of the cards is Dokken. What are you going to do with that Muramasa shard? I mean, to be fair, three of the other cards are self-disgurring.
01:30:08
Speaker
Symmetrical discard or not even knowing. Man, there are a lot of discard cards on this list. Oh, there is Moon Knight, huh? And Silver Samurai.
01:30:20
Speaker
Also, i i think I was miscounting because I saw Black Bolt first and I was like, how many of these cards are discarding cards from the opponent's hand? That was like the first thing that tipped me off. that This is not a turn six card is, you know, ah yeah. Or Anti-Venom is another. America Chavez. Like these are things that you want to happen later. Yeah.
01:30:39
Speaker
Or ah you want another turn. I like this card. This card reminds me a lot of Circe as a card that can just have high value if it gets a good hit. And then I like the idea of propping it to increase the odds of getting a good hit.
01:30:57
Speaker
I got commit, I guess. um i'll give it a I'll give it a three.
01:31:05
Speaker
Okay, um if it's to me, because you both talked, did you rate it, Ben? and Oh, all right. I'm going to give it a two, because I do think that like there is a certain amount of raw power here.
01:31:19
Speaker
But I think that, honestly, looking at this list, there are a lot of these effects you don't really want.
Randomness in Card Games
01:31:26
Speaker
There's some of these effects that are like a real toss-up, like arrow. Is that going to...
01:31:31
Speaker
do something good for you or is that going to like do something bad for you? And then a lot of these effects kind of like don't matter. like You got like Agent 13 and I don't think that's a thing worth thinking about really. like you are Are you going to lead in a bad location? Because you really might.
01:31:50
Speaker
Are you going Taskmaster low power card that you played previously? Because you can't be bothered to like protect yourself from all of these edge cases. I really don't think... i I don't think this card is going to be consistently good enough to have homes anywhere.
01:32:06
Speaker
That's what I think. i I don't know. it's kind of just Maybe maybe earth like the high rolls will be impressive. like When you get Ares into Blob, that'll be cool. But if you get Blob into Ares, you're probably not getting the Ares effect. like There are like so many ways these things can combine. like Dr. Octopus might screw Man, a lot of these things might screw you.
01:32:29
Speaker
um Even Magneto, if you Magneto, Elaine, you don't want to Magneto. Like, oh, man, man, I don't know about some of these.
01:32:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think this one's a two. Okay. three Okay, um also a two for me, ah because I love randomness, um but ah you know I like it where we mostly like it, which is in hand, where we can decide ah you know whether to play it and where and how it's going to work. um And that's the kind of randomness I usually deal with. I don't like randomness that is completely outside of my control, though I do enjoy Cersei from time to time. Obviously, you know, it'll win some games.
01:33:21
Speaker
um And I would totally play this. Once again, it's a two because, like, you know, yes, it'll Hyrule. would totally play it with, like, a helicarrier nonsense, like, stuff. Sure. Like, hit a MODOK, you know. i don't know. That's the kind of thing I'm playing with it um where it's just kind of silly and nonsensical like that. That's what I want to do with it. um But – and I'd still rather play it than Jessica Jones. So, like, it's a two.
01:33:47
Speaker
i mean that's All the new cards that are coming out, I would still rather play over some Series 3 cards that just suck, that are 1s for me. That's true. Well, Jessica Jones a Series 1. But yeah. Yeah. That's true.
01:34:02
Speaker
But she's a 1. Like, you know? True. She deserves better. really is. Right. But rather than buff her, they're just going to make Jessica Jones...
01:34:15
Speaker
master of the detective how creep just the old cards are no good the new cards are just always gonna be better and it's just a bummer it's just tied in with like random characters i guess yeah um which is like makes it a decent solution to make new versions of the of the characters so that we can get a good version of jessica jones for example But yeah, I definitely would like to see them buff older cards, but I think they want there to be clear upgrades that you can make as your collection grows.
01:34:50
Speaker
I'm like, I'm so tempted to give it two, but like...
01:34:57
Speaker
I think people are underestimating it and I like I want my three to represent like no this card is not as bad as you think it is just because it's random and yeah the output randomness is a lot scarier than input randomness but uh don't know I think I think it's just not the way I like to get it's not like it's just not my play style of randomness I usually go for it's probably not a good card to play if you are trying to win yeah all right I'll give it a two to represent that it's like... I don't think you can.
Exciting Cards of the Season
01:35:29
Speaker
Yeah, you snap after.
01:35:31
Speaker
Which is a... yeah that's a light car It's a yellow card. You know what I mean? you're You're playing King. You're doing the nonsense. you know like that's I feel like that's where this goes. And it'll be fun when you have that attitude. I actually do think it's really strong if you're doing Wong shenanigans, but...
01:35:50
Speaker
Can you reasonable count on a card to do that reliably? I don't know. Probably not. There's tech around always. Okay. Well, which of the cards of this season are you most excited for? There's so many things with Wong You're doing Wong stuff. I think just the fact that he's doing three things twice and then that scales as you get more output. I think that it makes him very silly when you get a lot of procs.
01:36:18
Speaker
i What's your favorite card? what's the what's What's the one you're most excited about? And while you think about it, I'll tell you that I am most excited about...
01:36:31
Speaker
I think I'm probably going to play Iska the most, but the Rock's deck looks really fun. So I'm going to go with Ozymandias.
01:36:43
Speaker
I will also go with Ozymandias. Okay, I'll go. i Oh, yeah. who Okay. I was actually going to with Isuka. I think Osman Dias is what will ruin the rock dream for me. like i You know, I'll have to wait for it to go out of meta again. Like, it just won't be fun when everyone's doing it. You can just do something cute with it. You can still use it, but do it in a different way than everybody else's. Yeah.
01:37:06
Speaker
You know who's going to be playing Killmonger that week?
Personal Gaming Experiences
01:37:09
Speaker
We're going to have to, like, you know, be putting in some Kaeya or some, like, stuff. Is Kaeya coming out ever? i'd Maybe.
01:37:17
Speaker
i don't think so, but maybe. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know.
01:37:27
Speaker
Ben, do you have a most excited of the season? for Ozymandias. Yeah, I said Ozymandias. Ozymandias, or however we emphasize these dang syllables, I don't care. here for rocks, and cheesy pizza's going to be huge. That's a lot of stats. That's a lot of stats. It's too much stats. They're going to be here for the wrong reasons, I tell you.
01:37:48
Speaker
Yeah, usually you're against cards that are so good. All right. Well, thanks for chatting through those with me. On to our side quests.
01:37:59
Speaker
We can snap. Ben, how was your weekend snap? And keep it snappy. Oh, my week in snap endeavoring to keep it snappy. I forgot to get my timer set up. I'll just have to eyeball it.
01:38:09
Speaker
Um, well, anywho, I'll try to keep it, you know, four or five minutes or whatever. I did play some snap. As I mentioned, I finished up the infinite climb. I wasn't really sure it was just going so well. Like, you know, i had to clear dailies and stuff and you clear dailies and then the rank goes up and you just, you know, might as well.
01:38:29
Speaker
Um, And the deck I played, i believe I already told you all about. It was that Jack Flag Surfer.
Impressions of Mugenics Game
01:38:38
Speaker
Although I played a lot of different things on my way to Infinite.
01:38:42
Speaker
A lot of the climbing happened with last week's Secret Homework deck with a Major Victory. um You know, that's... that's But mostly I've been playing Mugenics. Oh my gosh, there is so much game there. Just like too much game. You know, it was ah I think it was like yesterday i found out there are um matching armor sets with with bonuses when you wear enough pieces of the matching armor.
01:39:09
Speaker
And I figured that about like... an embarrassing number of hours into the game. Not, not, not like it's embarrassing that it took me that long to figure out that that was a thing. It's just that like that game is so laden with mechanics and things. And also they roll the stuff out like so slowly, like, man, you will be seeing new stuff for so many hours for so many, so many hours.
01:39:36
Speaker
I have put like, epic JRPG amounts of hours into this game, and there's I'm still at 50% completion. like there's There's so much going on here.
01:39:49
Speaker
um ah Binding of Isaac was very much that way. so It all still remains Is it growing on you? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like I loved it last week. It sounds like it's growing on you, though. Yeah. i The runs, I think, maybe take a little longer than they should. like the The loop of the runs is...
01:40:07
Speaker
maybe a little too long. Like it takes longer to do a single run. Even like there are runs of different lengths you can do. I don't want to like spoil too much stuff, but depending on, i don't know.
01:40:19
Speaker
Um, the music's pretty great. Uh, most of it, there's, there's one track that I turned the volume down all the way on. Cause like, you'll hear these songs a lot. They will loop a lot.
01:40:32
Speaker
Um, Yeah, it for those who are playing, i don't i don't care for the the track that plays when you fight the Throbbing King. So I turned that one off. But like most of the other songs are bangers. ah the The best ones are the first one in the first area, Chasing Rats. that You're going to hear so much of that song and that's great because it's awesome.
01:40:56
Speaker
Tasty legs and crispy thighs on my mind. You you know the one. Anywho, maybe you don't know the one, but it's great. Other great ones include um the the oo the one in the caves. The one in the caves is pretty good about...
01:41:15
Speaker
I don't want to spoil anything. That one's pretty good. though The one in the the the vault from Fallout. Oh my gosh. You get to the second region and they're just like lift and shit. You you basically go to a Fallout vault. It's like pretty specific. I mean like sure it's just a bunker but like it's basically a vault from Fallout and you'll you'll find Fallout type shit in there.
01:41:35
Speaker
Cults and things. That's great. And then oh if if you decide to go to the other place in the in the second act you you take the other branching path. you go to a place that's like just the crater from annihilation down to having the shimmer and everything like is, it's very silly. You go, you go everywhere in this game. You go to space, go to the center of the earth.
01:41:56
Speaker
That also is kind of hell. You know, it's, it's, you know, it's ah there's just a lot, there's a lot to do. i haven't even been all the places I've been to the, been to the ice age. There's, there's a lot going on I've rolled credits once.
01:42:11
Speaker
Um, it was very clearly not the end of the game, but I'm pretty sure they're going to make me roll credits a few more times. Um, ah yeah, great, great time. Oh, I know. i already mentioned that the music is great, but like, so it's real good.
01:42:30
Speaker
Um, I don't know. I've, I've gone over my five minutes and I haven't even been that specific about the things I liked. Um, if yeah If you ever want to know which classes are good, some of the classes are better than others. I got some thoughts about that.
01:42:45
Speaker
um just Just hit me up in the speakeasy if if you want the the pro tips on Mugenics. ah yeah Yeah, that's been my weekend snap. Who's next?
01:42:55
Speaker
Rhi, is it you? Rhi, how was your weekend
Unique Deck Building Strategies
01:42:58
Speaker
snap? And keep it snappy. Um, yeah, I, I actually have been finding more joy in Snap lately. I mean, I started out, i was like, oh, let's give me another week where I'd be like, uh, feel like, but like, how do I do it? think honestly it' just been feeling better and that translates into the game. Um, I am still doing the thing occasionally where I like to just open up, uh, a lot of times just open up a thing and be like, what deck do you give me out of nothing? You know, um still Cerebro too much.
01:43:31
Speaker
But like um the most interesting one. Have you guys seen this deck? It's like a pixie deck with a Valkyrie and a Nihilus and Ultron and Patriot.
01:43:42
Speaker
Gassler?
01:43:45
Speaker
No. Hmm. and Century and Shadow King. It's insane, but I was winning like crazy with it. I think I finally figured it out. ah I think it's a Kraglin deck and I don't have Kraglin, but I think that's where it came from. But I mean, I don't have Kraglin, but I was like winning... i was It's so insane. oh There's so many times that I'm just like, oh yeah, going play Ultron and win. Snap, eight cubes. You what they're just like, they don't even know what they're looking at with my like insane deck.
01:44:17
Speaker
I hate Valkyrie, Ultron, and ah Patriot. I mean, Ultron and Patriot obviously go together. But like in Annihilus, like, it's next crazy. I love it. Anyway, I was just mentioning, I wasn't even going to mention it earlier, but I'm like, you know what?
01:44:32
Speaker
You we'll take you little journey. I feel like some of the feedback we got, people like, um... um I don't know. Maybe not the decks. was thinking that the thought process is behind playing and creating decks.
01:44:43
Speaker
But um I also, just to say what I dabble, I'm not supposed to talk about my failures. i don't talk about my failures. A lot of times, like I said, I slot together a deck. But it's like, you know, maybe why didn't it work? Another thing I tried this week, I did randomly roll. I'm like all out of tokens.
01:44:59
Speaker
After Jack Flag and like randomly rolling some ah packs. I got Dragon of the Moon. and I was like, you know what I want to I want to put it with Moon Knight. I just wanted a deck. I'm like, what if it's a deck with Moon Knight and no even cost cards for me? You know? like ah Because that sounds fun. There is one. It's Surge. So I made like a Toxic Surfer ah with Ajax.
01:45:25
Speaker
As like, you know, sometimes you have your little five costar and a surfer.
Journey to Infinite
01:45:31
Speaker
but like, you know, all of that stuff. um And that didn't, it was fun. won with it sometimes, but it wasn't like, like, I'm not, you know, wasn't one I was going to bring to share. But it's like, it's kind of fun to have all these little ah journeys.
01:45:48
Speaker
um i tried to build a Nomura deck that needed some more work. um But what I crossed infinite with was, it's funny, I know it last week I was like, I'm Cameron Infinite. I got time. It was super easy to get for it.
01:46:01
Speaker
I remember that YouTube series where it was like, ah that's impossible. And it was like, it was super, it was barely an inconvenience.
01:46:11
Speaker
I don't know. This is your secret technique, though. You see declare publicly that you don't care. and then that's when you cross the finish line.
01:46:23
Speaker
Yeah. It was like, what happened was it was Zen law, right? And I was kind of like... I'm just like, oh, what do I... You know, that's not actually... it makes sense. Like, surfer can't go home. But, like, i mean, this is... point It's bad if he goes home. Anyway. But it's like, you don't want to play surfer there because you don't want to pull your surfer early, right? So it's not where you... So I'm like, what three costs am I playing? was looking at my deck, so like, hmm, I do want to pull Moon Knight. I do want it to pull out a Moon Knight.
01:46:55
Speaker
um So I busted out Meekocalypse. Meekocalypse. which I could maybe have changed some, but I honestly love, I have silver sand. I love making people discard their cards. Honestly, I'm so sad that I'm not also putting black bolt in this. You just, smooths it,
01:47:11
Speaker
um But ah I find that's a really great way to counter a lot of decks. Just get rid of their hand. It's lot of something they're not expecting. And people don't respect a Dracula still. Still.
01:47:26
Speaker
Sinister London was built for creatures of the night and travelers of the night. And like, it's just like, you do not. You know I have an apocalypse in hand. You could like easily just like be like, that's going to happen times. times okay um yeah and it was just like i don't know i just went through the 90s with it um pretty easily with my you know i can share the deck but it's just me apocalypse and change let's wait it um and gambit's still here and uh gambit's also obnoxious in the cistern london
01:48:02
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Okay. Um, that's yeah. I had, oh my God, I had a whole other thing, but we've been going way too long and i don't have it in me. Save it for
Reflections on Card Games
01:48:10
Speaker
another time. Okay. and What did you do? Moon Knight seems good for dealing with Star Lord.
01:48:16
Speaker
Um, yeah, I've, uh, been keeping busy with content creation. this i don't know. Start and end of seasons. Keep me busy. New events. Keep me busy. Cause I write economy guides. It's just, you know, but that's, that's a big thing on its own. Um,
01:48:33
Speaker
Kiddo and I have... um don't know if it's it's a formal thing, but we're you know we're trying to ah you know expand his repertoire.
01:48:44
Speaker
He's 14 now. He's a sharp kid and quite mature for his age. And and you know he he wants to watch classics. So we're going through classics of all sorts, you know not just...
01:48:56
Speaker
old ones, but modern ones too. And there's just this past week we watched inception and and he loved it. So that was super fun. It's really fun showing him like what movies can do in a way that he hasn't realized yet.
01:49:08
Speaker
Um, or like, yeah.
01:49:14
Speaker
okay i love kristatin I used to love Christopher Nolan. I have mixed feelings, but like I don't like the ending of like you decide. It's no This is your story. You tell me what happened. It's like the it's it's always my beef with like the ending of the book Fight Club, which is unlike the movie. In the book, it's a real, like, he's an insane asylum. Maybe it's on his head. We'll never know. It's like, no!
01:49:43
Speaker
You are the author. The only time it ever works. I feel like I've already even bitched about this in the podcast. guess Lady and the Tiger story. The only time it's allowed. And that was original. Everything since then.
Movies and Media Preferences
01:49:55
Speaker
Anyway, I'm saying they want you to feel. But that's one of the things we talked about afterwards is that's like that ending pissed a lot of people off. And he was like, really? Yeah, some people do not want do not want it left ambiguous. If it's the first time you've ever seen it, I think then it's like then it's like a thing. But they there's there's a there's a tying out. There's a.
01:50:20
Speaker
um What are you saying about the question of how someone sees it and and what someone thinks about it? it's such an It's such an easy way out of like assigning any kind of of of getting out of assigning morality to an action of getting science. Like, no, it can be whatever the the viewer wants. It's like have a goddamn opinion.
01:50:43
Speaker
Okay, I'm so excited. I get where you're coming from. I'm so fired up about this. I get where you're coming from, but I think it's just like, you know, sometimes the goal is bigger than than the narrative. Like, the goal is something other than narrative. Like, telling a story is part of it, but like, why are we telling the story? And maybe that...
01:51:00
Speaker
Maybe that's the right way to handle it i don't know. Anyway, that was fun. I think it felt pretentious, Christopher Nolan. I thought you could have done a better job like making it more. It does feel pretentious. I'm still loving Dungeon Crawler Carl. I'm probably. stupid. I I was by recommendation. Oh, are you reading it too? Everybody's doing it.
01:51:26
Speaker
Oh no! I picked Water Outlaws for the book club, so that's what I've been reading. I should have gone. Well, good news for you. I haven't started it yet. So I can start it at the same time you do. I just, I had a gift card to Garbage Retailer and I had to use it for Garbage Retailer wins.
01:51:43
Speaker
yeah Wait, Garbage Retailer? Oh, I was going to say, I love my books. It's my joy. okay Boo, Retailer that stinks. We hate him. Sorry. Please continue with you. I'm sorry for interrupting to like rant about random shit. okay No, it's like, i don't know I don't know what else I'm talking about. ah You know, walking the dog a lot.
01:52:07
Speaker
That's nice. He loves that. I like that. I feel better when I'm walking him more often. um I find that having an audiobook I'm really into encourages me to walk him more or do more chores because I can listen to my story more. I've been playing a ton of Picross because of that. Picross might seem like too thinky of a thing to do while an audio book but i have put so many hours into pacross that it is not super duper thinky for me it's kind of automatic um and i just i love the cross with all my heart uh or nonograms you might be familiar with them as that name
Pet Care in Games vs. Real Life
01:52:45
Speaker
um oh but the dog walking thing reminded me
01:52:50
Speaker
Wasabi has been successfully getting extra playtime because it's really hard to be like, no, Wasabi, we shouldn't be running around and playing and stuff. When I'm playing with like fake ass digital kitties, it's like.
01:53:05
Speaker
yeah ah really He really wants to be playing for a lot of hours of the day. And he's getting more of them than usual because I can be more easily guilted when I'm playing with my digital kitty warriors. That's great.
01:53:20
Speaker
that's good And you are so right. There's nothing worse for a pet owner than when you're video gaming and playing with like your digital dog or like petting them and you're like looking over at your real ass dog that's like, we could go for a walk.
01:53:34
Speaker
So that's part of why I tell myself my playtime. My pets are a little tired for it. That's why I've got so many hours of playtime is because I very often have to walk away for several hours to let the kitty chase things.
01:53:48
Speaker
but That's great. e man he wants so he's he's ah He's got a wild personality and he just needs to run around so much of the day. And he can't do it by himself. He needs my attention to make it count. He's still a baby, right? Yeah.
01:54:04
Speaker
Uh, he's, he's an adult. He's a, he's no longer a kitten. He's a, he's a junior cat. Hmm. I thought he would know. He has not. No, no, that's, that's a real, that's a real cat. turn Okay.
01:54:19
Speaker
um yeah um my i'm starting to feel my dog's age uh he's eight now and he's still very energetic sometimes but also he like plays for 20 minutes he's like yeah i'm good that's the thing i don't i don't want to be like ungrateful for his uh his you know vital qualities of wanting to run around all the goddamn time like a like a goofball like i'm i'm grateful that he's in good health and has a lot of energy Yeah, I mean, gosh, it probably took like six years for Remy to slow down at all.
Lord of the Rings-Themed Snap Game
01:54:52
Speaker
um Okay, on to our secret homework. This week's secret homework was assigned by Rhi. Okay, I assigned bringing a Snap ah to a new IP, to an IP you liked. Like, you know, just some of the queer stuff and whatever way you wanted to do that. And I won't lie, when I signed it, I didn't actually know what I was going to do. I'm just like, yeah, like lots of stuff. It'll be easy. And I won't lie, my very first temptation was to do Card Game Dress Go.
01:55:23
Speaker
just to do i have no idea what you just said couldn't hear it either oh oh really okay my first temptation was to do card captor sakura oh yes yeah no but i didn't because i was like no i'm not gonna design this for snap i started thinking about like no because i know like somewhere if i live long enough i'm gonna make a magical girl card game. It's been in my heart for a long time. So like, I mean, you know, just like the desire. So I'm like, no, I'm not going to do this for some.
01:55:54
Speaker
um But I took it somewhere also so that people will know more. I picked Lord of the Rings. I like Not a huge surprise. I do think bringing Snap to Lord of the Rings, some things they would change. One, think it would be cool to have factions um where it's like, I don't know, you have the Rohirrim or, you know, the people of Gondor or something. And it's like you can only have one faction in your deck. But of course there are, like, gray cards, you know, Gandalf the Gray that, like, would go in every single day that could, you know.
01:56:28
Speaker
go through. And I think that would be an interesting way to like ah you know, to balance it out. and then for one thing, because you could just play that in a normal Snaps style with different, like, locations from Lord of the Rings that do things.
01:56:44
Speaker
um And because, like, the factions in Middle-Earth are constantly at conflict with each other or, you know, antagonism, at least hostility. But I thought it would be cool if in this, if in Lord of the Rings,
01:57:01
Speaker
Snap. um Instead versus, was co-op. um Because, first of all, and I will explain this like card ways, because I know for me, too, every time I hear I'm like, come up. But how I improve my dominance in the field of battle?
01:57:17
Speaker
Crushing my enemies under my heels. You know, why we do these things. ah But I will explain. First, though, I think thematically it's great for Lord of the Rings, because the challenge of Lord of Rings, right? Isn't that it's like, isn't that like...
01:57:34
Speaker
You know, Frodo, even the smallest, you know, plainest of the, you know, weakest considered races needs to of Middle Earth, you know, needs to bring the ring all the way to, me to you know, to destroy it. It's the fact that all of these people who are different, all the people's Middle Earth are very different, have to come together to make that happen.
01:57:58
Speaker
Roto could never have done that on his own, Sam. None of these people could have ever done it on their own. None of these factions, Aragorn. And the challenge was getting them to all work together to confront the problem, right? So, like, so like playing co co-op would just, one, be so thematic with Lord of the Rings. And, um you know, I did take some inspiration. I played the Fantasy Flight living card game. I own it. I didn't keep but i haven't kept up with it.
01:58:26
Speaker
But I haven't. And they, it's a, it's like Marvel Champions. It was the prototype. So they it kind of streamlined the system in Marvel Champions. But it started Lord of the Rings as as a co-op ah game.
01:58:39
Speaker
And I found one, obviously it works really well for Lord the Rings, but as a card designer, I think what this would give for card gamers who love card gamers might be like, hmm, co-op is first, it's like, it's such a cool, different challenge. When I started um making things for co-op with the idea I was playing with other players instead of against them, it's ah it's different deck syncing. And that's exciting when you've played a lot of card games you've seen. I feel like Ben has talked before about, like,
01:59:11
Speaker
he He didn't like an ability because he's just it's just this from Hearthstone and this, and at least this feels like a new thing. Some with Snap, some with like the movement stuff like that.
01:59:21
Speaker
It's newer to Snap. And with co-op, you have that. And you can still kind of have some competitive stuff with ah co-op. Like how they did it in the old Lord of the Rings games, or you can in Champions, although in Champions we usually just beat it. i cant You can like score it so you can have a...
01:59:40
Speaker
overall win points. But I was thinking too in this game, you know, you'd have some locations. I didn't do all the design ranks. I just didn't have the time and like, you know, but like, it's like, I'm like, what if there's a mechanic where um like there's a ring card and you have cards that interact with that and stuff. And the goal is to get to move the card um like across the locations in some way or something like that. And then you could have like a competitive team mode, like you and your friends against whoever and their friends. And what if the kind of instead of conquest, like that thing, it was like a ladder thing where you had to keep moving the ring through locations until someone like...
02:00:23
Speaker
you know, got destroyed or something. And that would be like, you know, a fun way to make it competitive. i think special events they could do would be like, okay, you know, you could special events where you have all new cards that are like Silmarillion-like era, you know, stuff that you can only pull out and play. And they have like vastly different, you know, like Ganalf is there, but like different but Full disclosure, I've never made it all the way through the Silmarillion. As someone that was forced to read the Bible many, many times.
02:00:58
Speaker
Oh, I know people who have, or at least on audio. No, i'm shy yeah I also know people who have, but I think it's more fun to believe they haven't.
02:01:08
Speaker
They're all lying. No one's ever made it all the way. Every last one. okay it's It's the infinite gist of epic fantasy. the The book that people lie about reading that would be an option.
02:01:19
Speaker
Um, another event could be, uh, like getting to play monster cards and you could i still have it versus, I thought making two different factions where you'd have to have, you know, an asymmetrical, um, where one side is like more orcs and one side is where it's like that gets into queuing problems and stuff that I didn't want to add.
02:01:41
Speaker
Um, so like, you know, i think, I think that would be cool. You know, i i thought they did a good job of that living card game. And they made a basically a digital version.
02:01:56
Speaker
you could play on like Xbox or something that I like played that was well done. And it's like, you know, it's world a lot of people love. And I think if they did it, though,
02:02:10
Speaker
I mean, don't want to say, like, Second Dinner's done fine in a lot of cases, but it's like, when you do Lord of the Rings, you get the lore right. Like, we're not doing silly stuff here. Like, we're getting our characters, like, thematically, you know. It's got to be good feeling. It's like, one of the people, reasons people love Lord of the Rings online, and it's, like, still kicking around, because they respected their choice. I mean, people who love Tolkien and play this game, like, if they ever made this, they'd have to know. Like, those the kind of, like,
02:02:40
Speaker
Tolkien enjoys or just that way. oh my Okay, random funny story before we move to the next person from my last board game retreat. We were doing like a silly party game at the end of the night and was one, have you guys played this game? It's where someone needs to guess a word and everyone writes like a word to help them guess that word, but if people write the same word, they take it away. Just one, I think.
02:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, okay. On little whiteboards. Yeah. Yeah, and we were doing that, and the thing was Tower, and I was like, Isengard, done. And then hilariously, someone else had written, like, Orthanc. So, like, we had both the Towers from Lord of the Rings. Oh, so close. So close. You don't want to write the same thing.
02:03:28
Speaker
But, like, yeah, this was a close call. We didn't write the same thing. Oh, yeah. I got what you're saying. I wrote Isengard, and he wrote... Yeah,
02:03:41
Speaker
um so we flip our things, and it's like it's just these two and maybe two other people got the same. So he's guessing mostly of of this and maybe one i thing, and he looks at it, and we're
02:03:52
Speaker
And he's just like, he didn't get the word. Sorry. I know. I forget. We're like podcast. You can't see my voice. We're just like, except, you know, like sparkly
Nintendo-Themed Snap Game
02:04:02
Speaker
eyes. And, um, he, and he couldn't get the word.
02:04:08
Speaker
And we're like, do you know? And, um, he's like, oh, this is like, yeah. This happened to so many times.
02:04:19
Speaker
I'm a middle-aged man with a beard and casual cardigan and hoodie style appearance who's at a board gaming retreat. I so frequently assumed that I'm a Lord of the Rings fan. I'm not against it. I don't really know it. I'm not familiar and stuff.
02:04:41
Speaker
It was such a hilarious to me like unimportant, mild, like mistaken identity problem. Like, yeah, people sing that like Lord of the Rings. It's like, yeah. It's not a bad association to have. oh Okay, I'm sorry. I feel like went on way too long about snapping Lord of Rings. I don't know. I was fascinated by it.
02:05:03
Speaker
Okay. I think I'm next. Yeah. OK, so I wanted to go to something that I love. And of course, there's tons of IP I could I could draw from. But my one true love, my biggest fangirl, Lism is Nintendo.
02:05:18
Speaker
And I think Pokemon alone, you could you like that's a very deep well you could draw from for characters and items and stuff. um And there's some cool mechanics you could do with that. you know It's like an evolution or a type matchups. But I want to do all Nintendo. And I know that they don't really interact with each other, right? Like normally Link and Mario aren't hanging out unless it's Mario Kart or Smash brother s snap Brothers. Smash Brothers.
02:05:43
Speaker
Yes. i want I want that. um Because as I do love Smash Bros. I talk about it all the time. It is one of my favorite games of all time. And the gameplay is a big part of it. But another big part of it is that is just a gigantic... Everyone is here.
02:05:59
Speaker
It's a love letter to Nintendo. Yes. And it's not just the fighters. Once you get into the trophies and the stages and the music and the stickers and like, there is so much love packed into it. You can tell Sakurai just loves Nintendo. And, and anyway, that's absolutely delightful. And that's what I want in this snap. Um, and I was trying to think of like, okay, that's fine. We have tons of characters to draw from. How is it different? I think tonally Nintendo is a toy company. They've been making toys for over a hundred years. Um, so I want, I, so I think it would be more like a toy box, which which would maybe make it less appealing of a game to me if it got too far casual or or where things didn't matter. um
02:06:42
Speaker
But I think that they would have... Whether it's in the actual gameplay or just in like the polish, the sound effects, the animations, and everything like that, it would everything would feel awesome to interact with. um The other thought that I had that would be like, oh, this is something that Nintendo could do uniquely is Do something with variants where it's based on like the era of gaming and actually have that be tied in mechanically somehow. So
Sitcom-Inspired Card Games
02:07:13
Speaker
like all the all the 8-bit era ah sprites, cards, whatever, versus 16-bit Nintendo 64 GameCube.
02:07:20
Speaker
inntendo sixty four game cube Etc. Move on to 3D. Like, is there some way that we can tie these different generations together and not just have it be, you know, like a Galactus and the Galactus first step situation where we have seven different Marios, but actually like, I don't know if it's factions. I don't know. I didn't develop the idea that far, but I was like,
02:07:43
Speaker
The different eras of gaming actually like they actually represent something. It's not just different art styles. And i think it would be interesting to figure out how to tie that together. Yeah. Those are my basic broad thoughts.
02:08:01
Speaker
um I'm glad it doesn't exist because it would be bad for my wallet. Ben. Yeah, I'm sure. offensive um these man i i hope i can hang with these ideas i i myself almost went pokemon because like you may know there's already famous pokemon card game in fact probably what uh i i personally think the Pokemon trading card game is probably the reason I'm here on this podcast right now. If you, if you, if you trace it that way, if you, if you, if you want to think of things in those sorts of frames, um, if there's a chance that's true for me as well, I, it was just like such a moment that when when, I saw the Pokemon cards, I, I had like, I, as as was a small child, I had previously been, resistant to the Pokemon fad. I was like,
02:08:55
Speaker
I don't get it. i don't know what this is. i haven't seen the show. i don't have a game boy. i don't get it. my parents still let me play video. I don't see the appeal, but then I see these fucking cards with the numbers and the words and stuff. And I'm just like, oh it's like this, huh?
02:09:10
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, that's a spoiler alert. Yeah. I fucking love card games. Always have, always will. um But I was just like, wow, the Pokemon trading card game in its most recent forms that I've seen, like, you know, the Pocket.
02:09:27
Speaker
I played that for a few weeks, but it just, I, I, I, man, there's not much there in my, in my opinion. And I think it would be cool to bring Pokemon to snap that, that would be like fun and exciting. And like, maybe you do elemental stuff and that, that could be fun and interesting. And also like,
02:09:48
Speaker
Guess what else I played? I played the Lord of the Rings trading card game too, when I could find anybody to play it with, which was not very often. And I was so fascinated to hear Ree's thoughts on like how to represent like some of these ideas and strugs and things in a game, because like how that one worked you both, you and your opponent both had a fellowship side of the game going on and you would try to take the ring across like nine locations or whatever and like get, get it there. And like your opponent and you, you both would have like a, ah fucking bad guy's deck going on at the same time too.
02:10:27
Speaker
Or like, Oh really? Yeah. Like you'd both like, you'd have your fellowship going and you'd be like playing orcs or whatever the fuck. Like, ah you you were like fighting on two fronts sort of. And that that was like interesting ish. I don't know. I don't, I don't think that game was the best designed game. And there were just a lot of, man, there was, there was a lot of crap. Not all, not all of the cards were good. And there were of course a million versions of all the same characters and like, I still don't love it.
02:11:02
Speaker
But anywho, there was a lot of cool stuff, a lot of great stills from the films and all that. And, you know, the films are gorgeous and very carefully crafted. And, yeah, it was it was just fun to fun to build decks that I mostly never got to test against other people because I didn't know very many people who were very excited about playing that game. But...
02:11:28
Speaker
but i did not I did not choose either of those options. Those are just interesting things that I was thinking about when my co-hosts were speaking. So what did I want to bring? i like like a lot of intellectual properties, and I've seen a lot of them translated into card games already, as I mentioned. i'm like, what's never card games?
02:11:51
Speaker
What's never ever card games? And I thought, uh...
02:12:01
Speaker
Half-hour sitcoms with ensemble casts. That's what that's what's never i never is been rings always card games. is always card is always card games.
02:12:19
Speaker
But, you know, I was thinking to myself...
02:12:25
Speaker
yeah' where's Where's the bridge here? how how do i How do I bridge these things? And you know you know what a Marvel movie I was really excited for was?
02:12:36
Speaker
i'd I'd seen Captain America, the first Avenger. And, you know, i liked Captain America and the Avengers and stuff because everyone's likable in the Avengers. Avengers was a very solid film.
02:12:49
Speaker
And that was exciting. But I was like, gosh, I'm excited for this new Captain America, the Winter Soldier, even though I was not excited about the Winter Soldier. And why was I so excited? i was so excited because the Russo brothers had been attached to direct.
02:13:06
Speaker
And I was like, oh, I know them from Arrested Development and also Community. But let's be honest, Arrested Development, they i I think they had a... ah more they They were more at the helm on Arrested Development,
Russo Brothers' Influence on Card Games
02:13:19
Speaker
I think. They directed the pilots of both of these shows, but they directed more episodes of Arrested And I love Arrested Development. I was just talking about it last week.
02:13:29
Speaker
And yeah it's got a ah wide cast of characters and some iconic locations. You could have the banana stand. You could have the model house. You could have Lucille's apartment. There are like lots ah lots ah lots of fun locations you could have. I don't know what the cards would do.
02:13:50
Speaker
i'm not i'm not that worried about it. But they're like... So many characters. Also, I don't know. not Not too many of the same actors as in any of the MCU films. So I don't know. Until until proven otherwise, maybe maybe Arrested Development is in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
02:14:08
Speaker
I don't know. I still hold out hope that like the Russo brothers are going to bring some of their Russo brothers fucking heat to these upcoming Avengers films, even though their recent output and gray man the electric state these are some hugely forgettable films on netflix uh i do not recommend them one bit i found them both to be profoundly stinky but i still think the russo brothers probably have the juice and i'm excited to see what what they're doing but yeah let's let's get the fucking bluths in here that what what what what does job do is he just a re-skinned mysterio it's an illusion michael i mean like i want to see i want to see buster he pops up in his voice line is for sure hey brother like it's i'm i'm i'm excited just for the that would be fun the sound bites yeah yeah yeah okay so your pitch is arrested development snap
02:15:11
Speaker
Is that right? or community Honestly, like my my first thought was like the good place snap, but I don't, i don't want to flatten the good place into game mechanics. The whole point of the good place is that you can't fucking flatten shit into game mechanics. that's A lot of the whole thing.
02:15:29
Speaker
I mean, it's a great idea. It's just the way you sold it at first, you're like 30 minute sitcoms. I'm like sitting here thinking you're pitting like Phoebe Buffay from Friends against Kramer. And I'm like, I'm like, you're doing the big Nintendo crossover, but for all sitcoms. That would be amazing to be honest. Sometimes when I'm updating Marvel Snap and I have to go to the Google Play Store, they're like showing me some sort of animated sitcom card game that like looks kind of crappy but like oh yeah it's got like family guy and yeah and then archers there and i'm excited about archer but i'm like why why you gotta burn archer on that i played that it's just like it's not good enough you know to like keep you in like i played it a bit for a while and like upgrade and then eventually it was just like yeah yeah
02:16:19
Speaker
It wasn't the worst, but it's like you can do stuff like that, you know? i think that's hilarious. i think I like both. I would play an art of sn Snap, and I would i would try like just to like sitcoms, like non-sensory. It's just all like different coffee houses and shit.
02:16:37
Speaker
The characters are beating up. and What about the Golden Girls? I'm sure they're really strong. Right? golden girls Just as a trait. Like, oh no, they got all the Golden Girls. on ah I honestly haven't seen a whole bunch of Golden Girls, to be honest. So, like, I don't even know what their place is But, you know, the Wicker Mansion.
02:16:57
Speaker
i don't know. Okay, sorry. Okay.
Homework: Design New Cards
02:17:02
Speaker
Ben, you're signing new homework. Oh, yes, that's right. all right. I thought I knew.
02:17:08
Speaker
i thought I knew for sure what it was. And in fact, I still do. There there was something else that I thought of mid-episode that, like, seemed interesting or promising. Oh, that's right. I was thinking about changing the subject to be... No, you know what?
02:17:25
Speaker
Sure. I was going to make us all design new mantises. I'm not even in the next! But you know what? In honor of Kristen Ritter returning as Jessica Jones in Daredevil Born Again Season 2, coming soon to Disney Plus.
02:17:43
Speaker
I'm so psyched. We're designing new Jessica Joneses, preferably with an objective. oh Hey, maybe she's solving it. I already did, though. Huh? Huh? Didn't already redesign Jessica Jones? Yeah, think you have recently done a Jessica Jones. yeah Okay, well then, you have to do Mantis.
02:18:02
Speaker
I'll do the upon myself. um And they don't have to have objective, but bonus. Yeah, sure if you want to do rescue, do rescue.
02:18:16
Speaker
that's That's fine, I honestly wasn't familiar with Rescue, i think, that much in the comics because I wasn't big into Iron Man until Gwyneth Paltrow. And now I just, can like, to me, Rescue, like, kind of equals goop in the back of my head. and I can't, like, decouple that. decouple them.
02:18:36
Speaker
Not even a little. It just gives Rescue's value down just a tiny bit for me to be on. hate to say it, but yeah. Oh, poor Pepper. But I want to play her since I got the suit variant that I talked about, so...
02:18:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good variant. All right. Well, listener, viewer, if you like what you heard and you haven't already, please subscribe. We're trying to get to 500 subscribers. That is an important milestone on on YouTube. So if you're listening on audio only, we still like you. But please come give us a little subscribe on YouTube just to help us out.
02:19:07
Speaker
Rate and review, leave comments, etc.
02:19:11
Speaker
What that? I'll find out what we look like. Tell us what you think we look like based on our voices. Make me think that's always. Usually my ear is cleaner than this.
02:19:24
Speaker
ah I look the same as always. um I usually wear black glasses. um Come hang out in the speakeasy. It's our little corner of discord. Instructions to get there are in the show notes or the video description.
02:19:37
Speaker
ah we're probably part of the Snap Judgments Network where you can listen to other great shows like Snap Decisions by Joe every Monday. Yeah. ah You know, if you want to hear more, tune in next week.
02:19:48
Speaker
Same Snap time, same Snap channel. Yeah, I have a note. I got I got a thing I got to get out real quick. this note that I have from you? i I should have mentioned this during my weekend in snap.
02:20:05
Speaker
But oh my gosh, while Mugenics is just rummaging through all sorts of fucking distinct and recognizable intellectual property that they really have no business with. Some of these cats, you don't get to name the cats. All of the cats come with their own names, whether they're strays that wander up to your house or they're fresh kittens.
02:20:23
Speaker
They all get random names from a huge list of names. A list of names that included Xehanort. ah that's That's a pretty fucking distinctive proper noun. That's the big bad of the entire Kingdom Hearts franchise.
02:20:39
Speaker
Oh, it's a very, very recognizable and unique name. It starts with an X. It's not. And another cat that I had named Silphscope, a key item from Pokemon Red and Blue that lets you see ghosts. To help you see the Cubone's mother. yeah Exactly. and I'm like.
02:20:58
Speaker
Okay, Mugenics. And, ah yeah, I mean, I've seen some other recognizable names. but I've seen Yuffie, you know, from Final Fantasy VII. But, like, you know, that that could just be a cat name, you know? Like, you could be like, well, I named this cat Yuffie because she looks like a Yuffie. But, like, but, like,
02:21:18
Speaker
Silphscope? that That's some Pokemon shit right there. There's only one Silphscope. yeah and it's It's not spelled like it's not like they didn't change the spelling. It's the spelling from the game, which is also pretty distinct. you know Anywho, that was just a fucking wacky thing that I thought was remarkable. If you're playing Mugenics and you find any very proper downs that seem out of place, do let me know in the comments.
02:21:46
Speaker
What were saying? Okay, that is remarkable, but I just think it's like, it's like ah name generators are so fun to make, though. that like Just putting in like random like pop culture stuff. Sorry, this is another like rant against Inception kind of rant where it's just like, but it's fun!
02:22:05
Speaker
Christopher Nolan has had it too easy for too long! Like, I made, I was working for my big space game. Like, I made, i did make a name, we made a name generator and it was so fun to like, uh, to like pull up the...
02:22:27
Speaker
Yeah, because so wait because like it's so, you know, it's it's a really easy coding thing to do to build like word banks and and then just, yeah, like have like syllables, syllables. And I put a few simple rules to make sure like if it's like, if the, you know, some things could have done a few fancy stuff. But it's just like, and this is like come up with fun, weird space names.
02:22:50
Speaker
So it's like, like get it. I don't know. This is the I never forget. I had this film professor who is like, you know, he was like, let me tell you the difference between like an homage and like a cheap, like a cheap trick. He's like, OK, but like when I'm.
02:23:10
Speaker
You know, and I forget exactly what he pointed out, but he's like, in this film, when when it's it's, you know, referencing the scene from an early film, here's how it relates to the meaning and what, you know, and it calls back and it's honoring that and it's like got all this stuff. And then you have people like Quentin Tarantino who, like, who it's just like, you recognize it or something, and it's just like, but it's just like, oh, it's just it's just a joke between you, the director, and it goes no farther than that. And he's like, so, it's just so funny. And I feel like this is that level of thing. It's like, and he's i don't know. It's fun, too. I like catching things that I notice. I'm just in the mood tonight, so I'm just devil's advocating everything for no reason.
02:23:57
Speaker
But like, It's just like, yeah, it's like, I don't know. We've gotten so into our own referential, like... stuff, right?
02:24:08
Speaker
Like, where it's like, like, but new stuff is fun too. Like, coming up with a whole new thing. Like, I'm hoping, like, when you play my game and you see a name generated from my game, you recognize that.
02:24:19
Speaker
Just like you would recognize the art. Like, and like, sure, sure, I'm gonna have a cute little, like, some little references to things I like, um, that are fun, but like, I don't know.
02:24:31
Speaker
I'm just... I get what you're saying. The Silkscope is not inherently like a very meaningful reference, but it's just like, yeah, you know, Pokemon, right?
02:24:44
Speaker
I did. Yeah. Oh, also had a moment with, with Edmund McMillan. There was one honorable mention intellectual property that I thought about suggesting that for secret homework.
02:24:58
Speaker
And that's Detroiters. One of my favorite half hour sitcoms. So go watch Detroiters. If you, if you like that kind of thing.