87: The Card that Gets Me

Transcript

Speaker: Welcome back to Snap on This, a Marvel Snap podcast. This week's secret homework, play a card that passed you by. I'm your host, Lauren Wodevs, here with my amazing, delightful co-hosts.

Speaker: First up this week, it's Ben. Ben, the ever generous but impatient fairy, pops up and offers to remove your need to sleep. What will you be doing with that time?

Speaker: Oh, geez. I mean, sleep is sort of its own reward in a way, but I do i do confess I sometimes wish I could be rid of it. um Dang. Dang. I don't know.

Speaker: Probably... I don't know. More... Gosh, this really hard. I'm sorry. The fairy done stumped me. Wait, what was the question again? Yeah.

Speaker: She offers to remove your need for sleep, but you have to tell her how you're going to spend that time. Reading, reading. That's a very good answer. Okay. I've got like a backlog of books that I really need to, yeah really need to catch up on. All right. Wish granted.

Speaker: Rhi, our other co-host, Ferry asks you the very same question she offers. You don't need to sleep anymore, but you've you've got to commit. What are you going to do with that extra time?

Speaker: Um, also reading, to be honest. I finally caught up on book club stuff, which was like, I'm glad I read it. But like, like I'm mad at the ending anyway. So I got to once again, read something want. I started reading the Apothecary Diaries ah light novels, apparently, because they were like, oh, like the old times they had like serials, like in magazines of stories. And then the success, it's like Charles Dickens. I'm like, this still exists.

Speaker: nobody values writing where i live you know what i mean so like um i was just i thought that was really like cool and i found out and i'm like it's like it's a detective and she's like an it's just like and and in the past and she the most annoying part is like this kind of like like love story set up that's like okay whatever but like there's so much to love about it like Am I correct in thinking that I've seen ah an Apothecary Diaries on Netflix? Is that? Okay, yes. I was thinking that. It an anime, and i did i got the light novel because I started watching the anime, and i love it, and it's really cool, but I haven't finished watching it because I'm like, I want to pay full attention, and I've just been less choosing to watch TV. Yeah.

Speaker: and i know how that goes i'm like two episodes in the dungeon because like i want to pay all the attention but it's hard sometimes and i've had like the movie challenge and like other stuff so it kind of fell on the back so i haven't i'm not all the way up on the anime but i clearly love it also i love um the light novel and i would like to spend on a reading that like the good old day. Like when I was a kid, I would hide, you know, with the flashlights reading. Absolutely. now people Kids do it with electronics. But yeah, I would always stay up late reading. And it was like your way to to disobey because they were just like, oh, look, our kids reading like that's great. And it's just like, ah this is all this shit I would if this was in a movie, they would know not to let me have this. You're just like, oh, I can get away with everything in books because like, ah okay. Anyway, I'm sorry. I know people who are like that and and their parents were like, you're reading too much. You have to go do things that aren't books.

Speaker: Yeah. um Fairy turns to me and I say, this is a flawed premise and she doesn't give a shit. And so ah I'm going to spend that time drawing. Okay, that's a skill I would really like to develop further, but I don't put the time in. And so it ends up just always being fun doodles, which I do enjoy doing, but I would like to actively get better anyway.

Speaker: We're going to talk about this week's new cards. First up, Ascani-sun who is available in Diner. He's a with the text activate to create a one cost card at another location.

Speaker: That cost goes up by one each time you're winning here at the start of the turn. Did you get him? We'll go in in episode order. re

Speaker: um I did. i guess first this episode We swapped it up. I know. That's why I didn't hear the question. Because I was like, wait, is it not my turn? Which led into a series of thoughts about like my turn kind of like video game references. And then I realized I'd miss the question. I just forgot what an odd number is.

Speaker: Yeah. No, no, but, like, it was fine. I was just like, maybe we're just be tricky to suss which one's which. Right. Thank you for your understanding.

Speaker: Okay. Wait, but am I going first? What's happening? Yeah. Yeah, it sees control. Okay. Um... Are we... So we'll talk... Let's have a little we'll talk about Deadpool's diner later, so I'll just focus on the card.

Speaker: yeah ah Yeah, after we talk about the new card. So I'll just talk about the actual card right now. I have seen him. I did get him, but I haven't been, like, excited yet to try anything with him. I have seen him a lot, though. Like, people are trying stuff. Yeah, it's hard people like.

Speaker: Yeah, and you know what I was trying to remember? I'm like, what have I been seeing him in? I think I saw him in a techno-organic virus deck. What, like Doom 2099 maybe? It's like, I know I've seen him everywhere, but like the decks he's been in have not been sticking in my mind. It's just like, did I beat him though?

Speaker: You know? Okay. ah How about you guys? Oh, Ben? I got him. I played enough Diner to to do that.

Speaker: um And I have seen him around. I've had some difficulty gauging whether the card is, like, effective or not because a lot of the games where I was seeing Ascanison were games when I was testing Archangel stuff.

Speaker: And... um I sure was losing a lot of those games for non-Ascani Sun related reasons. So like, it's sort of difficult to isolate the the variables there, you know, uh, when you're playing garbage ass Archangel decks. Um,

Speaker: i i don't I don't mean to say that Archangel is a garbage-ass card, but the the things I was trying with Archangel are garbage. And, ah you know, before the episode is ah over, i may very well call Archangel a garbage-ass card. we'll see We'll see where it goes.

Speaker: ah But, yeah, i I can't tell if Ascanison was beating me or if ah my deck was beating me, you know? Yeah. I got this card. This is a card I was excited to do a single clip with, which was to produce a whole bunch of six costs all over the board.

Speaker: I did it once, and what happened? um One of them was an Ultron. So I generated four six-cost cards, and then Ultron blocked my other four. And i was like, ah screw you, Ultron. And there are so many sixes that could mess that up, you know? a Zola or a i Heimdall, maybe? i don't think so. I think at that point, a Skani-san would be committed, but...

Speaker: No, Heimdall definitely could mess it up. Destroyer, obviously. So, I don't know. It was ambitious. i might need ah I might need to tone it down to like five costs or something. Of course, there's bad hits there too. Anyway, card hit about where I expected. Pretty strong, like playable. Just generic strength, of course, because you can't predict what he's going to do.

Speaker: Mm-hmm. But I have been surprised at how much people are into him. And maybe it's because he surpassed their expert expectations. But I was expecting the card to kind of flop ah in popularity. And, you know, who knows? maybe Maybe in a week or two he'll be gone. But yeah, fun card.

Speaker: Maybe because it was just such an easier card to get. And like so many people can't get as many cards. You know what I mean? like i I get way fewer cards than I used to. I mean, you know. This thing and this one was just like... Deadpool's Diner was was easy enough for everyone to get that. And people are just excited to have a new card. don't Right. yeah I really like when event cards are viable. Like we're looking at... i don't know. Like...

Speaker: hunger and dragon lord as two recent examples like i want event cards to sometimes be good but mostly i think events are a great place to put cards that are fun but not necessarily super strong because then everybody gets to play with the new toy and that fits this really well just what you said yeah like playable and fun but like not even close to game breaking not a card you need All right. and and the other the other new card, our Series 5 this week, Archangel, Horseman of Death, also a two three

Speaker: But with the text objective, your cards are destroyed four times to resurrect one of them here with plus four power. ah Ben first this time?

Speaker: Yeah, I got this card. I wanted to believe. And, you know, the there are things about the card that kind of work.

Speaker: I think like there's a perception that, like, how are you going to destroy four things? And I don't know. I never really struggled with that too much. I could destroy four things. It's just like the part where you have to win the game at the end. You know, i was trying to a lot of stuff. I was, you know, i don't play a ton of Destroy, but, like, every time i build Destroy, I'm like,

Speaker: well, you got to challenge one of the the basic assumptions, like the the conventional wisdom. And like the thing I always want to do, always want to get Deadpool out of there. I'm always trying to cut Deathlock. And like, neither of these is a good idea. You should probably keep Deadpool in there and you should probably keep Deathlock in there.

Speaker: I don't know. So i was I was trying all sorts of things. Um... Eventually what I ended up with this, this, like I, I plummet, I lost so many ranks. I was really trying with Archangel and just, I, I just wanted, i just wanted to see. So like I was playing a lot of games with like the no retreat philosophy. Cause you got to see what happens if you really want to like, you know, sometimes, sometimes you got a ah responsibility to not retreat. If you really want to know what's up with a card. Um,

Speaker: But, wow, wow, I lost a lot of ranks. But I was determined I'm going to find the deck that actually works. And i I mean, does it work? No, not not really. But like the numbers started to go back up again.

Speaker: i went back up a few ranks and I was like, okay, I can declare this one... like i'm not going to I'm not going to fight all the way back up to 94 where I started with this deck. I'm going to use something better. But like at least at least I was climbing back up out of the 80s because, wow, I lost a lot doing doing Archangel stuff. So here's here's what I ended up with. It's called Worthing Tons of Fun.

Speaker: Deadpool, Headpool, X-23, Kid Omega, Carnage, Archangel, Horseman of Death, Wolverine, Killmonger, Venom, Deathlock, Null, and Death. Not that exciting. i try There were a lot of cards I was trying in here. um One card that I was not trying in here was Moira X. I saw a lot of people playing Moira X, and I'm like, I don't want her on the list of things that Archangel would bring back.

Speaker: Archangel does some cool stuff when he when he works. ah He should be bringing back one of the symbiotes, Venom or Carnage or Vintage, if you've got that one unreleased. um Also thoroughly made up.

Speaker: ah I did enjoy playing Kid Omega for pretty much the first time. Kid Omega gets some value here. Yeah. Yeah, so the idea is chelsea mostly mostly you kill things that don't stay in your graveyard. You know, a Deadpool, Headpool, X-23, or Wolverine. And then you have, like, one thing.

Speaker: I mean, oh gosh, Collapsed Mind really fucks things up. But, you know... Yeah. You can, you can like, get... ah Like, when it works, Archangel is, like, a contributing like member of the team. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: But like, gosh, stick in the landing. And like part of the problem was I'm not a destroy player. I had to like relearn so many things about playing destroy. i play against destroy all day long. I'm i'm used to that. But ah ah being the one doing the destroy stuff. Yeah. So I don't know.

Speaker: i like the card is not. The card is not irredeemable garbage, but like it's not as good as Spider-Man Noir was at launch. And that's a card that they had to rework immediately.

Speaker: and i mean Or they felt they had to rework immediately. i will go to my grave saying... Spider-Man Noir at launch was essentially fine. ah But this card is not that good, so maybe it's not fine. Maybe, ah yeah, they're they're goingnna they're going to do something to it, I think, because, wow, ah it's been an uphill battle. I mean, it i don't know. I hope someone else is doing something more successful with it and maybe more interesting, because like I tried to be interesting with it, and I just sort of ended up...

Speaker: going to a relatively boring Deadpool destroy, albeit with no Moira X who seems to be standard these days. um But yeah, the the deck did eventually start winning once I put Deadpool in. It was like ah the the Coco Chanel thing where like i did everything else until I finally had to like take one thing off and put Deadpool back in. it was ah yeah the The card that I cut to put Deadpool back in was Fastball Special, another card that I hadn't really played until now. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. I need to play my fastball special, to be honest. No, it's a good card. I wasn't, like, happy about cutting it, but, like, I had to put Deadpool back in. i had to lose one interesting thing. and Yeah.

Speaker: Well, those those are my Archangel thoughts. Rhi.

Speaker: Oh, I haven't, you know, to be honest, like usually the middle of the week is like my lowest amount of snap time. And I haven't really seen it. Okay, now I realize when you said Moira X, I'm like, that's where i saw. There's sometimes I see that. I remember seeing a deck. I'm like, what are they doing with this? And now I'm like, they were trying to Archangel. didn't work out for them, which is why I never ah realized what their deck was trying to do.

Speaker: um But like, ah yeah, I mean, that's kind of your experience is kind of what I thought. It gets tricky because, you know, it does not destroy or want to be destroyed. you know, I didn't know where it would fit in my kind of destroy. I always have at least one destroy deck put together. Because some days you just feel like it, you know? And then, um and it's like, it wouldn't, it wouldn't go there. i didn't have a cute idea for some kind of Phoenix Forcey, not necessarily with Phoenix Force the card, but that vein of deck, you know? Yeah.

Speaker: Right, yeah. So, ah yeah, so I was i decided to let to let this one pass me by. um but i am, yeah, it was it was interesting to hear your experience, Ben, and I am curious what you did with it.

Speaker: Yeah, I tried playing it in a variety of things. Didn't put a ton of time into any of them, but I felt... And so this may be hasty judgment, but I felt very quickly that Destroy was Archangel's best home, but he's not he's not one of the best 12 cards, which means he's he's homeless.

Speaker: There's no deck that wants him, right? Like, Destroy makes Archangel better, but he doesn't make Destroy better. It's too many times, right, to have to destroy card.

Speaker: Right. And Ben was talking about how do you make, you know, that he thinks it'll need to be buffed. And I think that that would be the buff is your cards are destroyed three times. And I think that that would possibly be enough because that lets him go do stuff outside of core destroy. destroy Yeah, I think you're right.

Speaker: um And it might be two, but two might be too easy. Two would be too easy, I think. You could just splash that with pretty minimal effort. Right. But I think if he goes down to three, he might end up in like the fire hair revival type stuff. um That's what I was trying to do. I was trying to be super cute with it and destroy and revive the same card four times, and that's just it's just too much to ask. You can technically do it, but you need a lot to go right.

Speaker: um Whereas ah it's a lot more practical... ah Go ahead. No, sorry. ahead. No, I answered my own. I was speculating and I shouldn't have because then my brain caught up with me. I was thinking, I'm like, oh, what about like killmongering and stuff? And then it's like, oh, but you want something you actually want to revive as you both have been discussing. So you can't like clog up.

Speaker: Your destroy pool is... It's fine if he brings back a squirrel, right? like The destroyer squirrel did feed your Nolan death, and you bring back a squirrel, and it and it gets the plus four, and it's like, okay, so yeah, it was worth like what? Like a two eight or something like that? like that's That's fine.

Speaker: ah It's not as good as what... It's not as good as what Fastball Special, Kid Omega, Carnage... It's not as good as what they're doing. um Yeah... So I think he just squarely joins the other bad two-cost destroy cards thinking of stuff like Weapon X. I feel like there are others. but I still see Weapon X. People believe. people are they want to They really do. No question. i mean know I don't say that in a mean way because I also am a great believer in many cards. So I respect it when I see it

Speaker: I like the idea, Ben, with with the reviving the reviving one of your destroy cards, ideally Carnage or Venom, because they you know they stack up power. Also, sometimes you can do a cute thing by bringing back a Killmonger after your opponent thinks they're out of the Killmonger woods. They drop all their ones after that, yeah.

Speaker: Also in our Discord chat, I have dropped a fun screenshot of a Cloning Vats game where I did have a lot of Archangels that did get value. and it Oh, four Archangels! Oh, that is cute.

Speaker: Unfortunately, cute is about the best you can do with Archangel right now. Yeah. ah Yeah, super disappointing card. Just reminds me of how much...

Speaker: it's been at least It's been since January, maybe even earlier than that, where we have had a handful of cards that are super duper good. right Your show, Star-Lord, Fin-Fing-Foom, those types of cards.

Speaker: And then so many of the other ones are just... nothing like at least be good in a niche or at least be interesting as i've said tons of times before if you're not going to be good at least be fun and it's just like this card isn't even that it's just it's just bad nobody should buy this card maybe if the game where it turns long but it is not yeah okay ah Next week's card, Polaris, Horseman of Pestilence, a tuoo

Speaker: With the objective, cards in play are afflicted with minus 5 power. She'll pull a card from your hand here.

Speaker: you Are you excited about her? I think, i yeah. I mean, i yeah she's, you know, i like the character. I don't know about this horseman of whatever phase, but um is it Pestilence? I've already forgotten. Pestilence, yep. All right. Well, it's alliterative.

Speaker: Polaris, Pestilence. Oh, yeah. Hmm. I mean, if you don't say any of the other words, that is. ah But, you know, this card seems better than Archangel. I'll i'll put my o i'll plant my flag there. Yep, yep. Better card than Archangel. And i I had so many tokens, I didn't even sweat wasting them on garbage-ass Archangel. So I probably have to get this one, right?

Speaker: I don't think it works that way. Don't do the sunk cost fallacy. oh Well, this card I think is good. So, you know. okay. just saying like if I had 6,000 to throw away on Archangel, I'll i'll throw 6,000 at Polaris. I mean like she does the Dragonlord thing for two. There's a reason Dragonlord doesn't cost two and a five affliction. That that happens by accident all the time. Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, no. Okay. My headphone batteries are low. I may have to switch. Okay.

Speaker: I think that she's interesting enough and decent enough that I will see a lot of Affliction, which I hate. Because now I've got to play like decks that can handle that, and that's annoying to me that I'm constrained in my deck play. But we'll see because I feel like the mirror effect is lessened with the vast amount of cards and the lesser quality of cards.

Speaker: People aren't getting them as much. so um But I do think this is one that people will want. I don't know. And it'll be impulse for me when whether I get it. I'm token flesh again. So sometime they'll be spent. Yeah.

Speaker: I agree that she's better than Archangel. ah she's She's probably just barely on the good side of the good-bad divide. I don't think she's going to be super-duper good, but I think she's definitely like playable, good good on rate.

Speaker: I don't think she looks fun. ah But, you know, that's it's fine. I'm fine if not every card is for me, but some of some of them should be interesting. And this is one of the this is one of the snap sloppiest cards we've seen to date.

Speaker: ah Okay. ah Let's talk about Diner for a little bit because it ran for the first time since like I think September was the last time it ran. um Came back. It was very generous again. Not quite as generous as September, but still remains the most generous event for people who are active players who are going to get to Hellburger and able to play there a lot to build up the nachos.

Speaker: What was your experience in Diner? How far did you go beyond Ascanison? Either one of you. I went all the way. i ain't got to the Wolverine. Yeah, and I wasn't even committed. Like, I was going to get the card. I knew that. and I had plenty of Wolverine variants.

Speaker: It's a decent one, but I was just kind of like, oh, it fits a hassle. But it was like... It was easy enough. And um yeah, Lisa, it was in a good way. Like I could have played less and still feel like I made out like a bandit, you know, with what they offered. i ended up having enough to get a lot of borders because, yeah, I got up to Hellberger and then it was just like and then to me, I just played.

Speaker: I've actually played this the whole way. The whole time that I played, I just... As often as I could remember to snap three times, I would snap three. I was just all every single time, every game. And... um Worked out well enough for me. But, like, this is...

Speaker: I think there's so much they fixed about what everyone hated about the mode and, like, trying to grind it and get, like, the cards and stuff and how stressful it felt and, like, how it felt like you were, you know, the exponential curve.

Speaker: um And they they really did so much better with that. But what they killed was any, like, feeling of meaning behind these three snaps. Like... Oh, yeah. It's just...

Speaker: Right, because it's it really doesn't feel different than wanting to snap none to three times. You know what I mean? like It feels like a regular game. You either think you're going to win or you don't. Go ahead.

Speaker: Yeah, my number one quality of life wish for Deadpool's Diner is just give me a button that will auto-snap for the next three turns. Because I can't be trusted to fucking hit the thing three times. You can't remember. It's such a pain in the ass. keep forgetting. And the snaps don't matter. It's not an interesting thing. There's that one location where you can't play here unless you snapped last turn. Just get rid of that location and give me three snaps button.

Speaker: Yep. ah Largely on the same page. and Go ahead. Sorry, don't want go ahead with your thoughts. just going to say, largely on the same page with snaps, where I have a lot of design thoughts about Deadpool's Diner. There's a lot that I really like about it, but the snaps, I think, are so bad. I think the incentives are so out of whack, right? You get to the point where ah early on, you should be like snapping either zero or three times so that you can climb your way up to Hellburger and have like a decent-sized bankroll. But once you're there, you should just be snapping three times every time. And that means snapping on turn one, two, and three in case your opponent retreats on you. Like, what's the point of snapping if if the thing to do is to always snap? Like, why are they paying me game credits to snap?

Speaker: They should be incentivizing me to snap when it's the right choice, not to always snap. it Like, it removes it as a game mechanic. but Yep, this is why Sanctum Showdown is still the the best limited time game mode because it's the only one with snapping in it, really.

Speaker: It's got so many snaps. sense for the first um for the first iteration, right Because they wanted this feeling of high stakes, but the problem when they made it actual high stakes, it became impossible to grind because it's too high stakes, you know? um And and so but I think they were forced to keep it because the locations are built around like those snaps, right? Like a little special Deadpool locations. I think they could they could change that pretty easily, though.

Speaker: but Could they do it easily? They seem to struggle with a lot of minor things in the game, to be honest. Are you still seeing red dots everywhere? This was a good step, but i hope in there I hope when they get time to revisit Deadpool's diner again in their next iteration, ah they fix that. Because it's like, ah you see how they got there, but it's like, come on, your game developers used see that this isn't... Like, this isn't working anymore. um And it's got to change. So ah but overall, plus overall, they've needed good feeling. They need events that people feel like they can get the card that don't feel punishing, that feel rewarding.

Speaker: Games should feel rewarding. Games should feel rewarding. So like, ah you know, always to be honest with you, unless they're teaching lesson at the moment. If you play other mobile free to play games, their events are huge. They're exciting. They give away lots of free stuff. And yeah, they're also moneymakers. They're asking you to buy bundles to make the event easier or whatever. But they're still like...

Speaker: they feel like an event. And that's, know, I feel like Snap fails to do that often, especially because we're at the point where every event is just a repetition of a game mode we've already seen. So unless it's one that you happen to love, it's not exciting to play in a new way. It's not new anymore.

Speaker: i On the whole, I feel like positive about this version of Deadpool's Diner, but I do have like a couple other quibbles. One thing, limited time modes at the beginning of the season.

Speaker: Just don't do it. Let people climb to infinite. Yeah. like Uninterrupted. Another complaint about this version of Deadpool's Diner. i don't think I'm the only person who feels this way. I think I've seen a couple of other people express this thought. I don't remember who. Otherwise, I would shout them out right now. But like...

Speaker: I think there should have been another table. Cause like finishing out the track, like that's, that's a lot of games to play. Like I wish there was one higher stakes table. Cause I, I got the card and I got all the credits and like, I got a variant that I liked. And i was just like thinking about how much more I would have to play to like finish out the track, even at Hellberger. And I was like, I don't know. I kind of wish there was a higher stakes version of this because like I'm I'm down to to go to a bigger table and, you know, throw bubs around willy nilly or William Nillium, if you prefer.

Speaker: um But yeah, I just that's what made it accessible, right? I don't know. I think that there were so few. I think what if that was the difference to like casual players being shut out, you know, like, I suppose.

Speaker: I think it already shuts casual players out because they're getting 10 nachos at a time at the first table and they're like, Scotty said that's 2,000? Exponents are not something that humans understand like intuitively. and so Especially at that scale. right like Understanding our evolutionary history, is there any reason that we should? Right. Well, it's interesting. I don't want to get too deep into it, but like there are cultures that say three is the number between one and nine, which is an exponential way of looking at it rather than an additive way of looking at it.

Speaker: But that's still like... the One, three, nine is really different from like 500, 24,000. Or even 10 nachos, 150 nachos. you know um or even ten nachos a hundred and fifty nachos I think there are people, and I saw this on Twitter where people were complaining about how slow it is, how grindy it is, how hard it is. And it's like, just wait till you get to Hellburger. It goes really fast. Once you're there, you can get a new emote with like 17 games. There's nowhere else in the game that you can do it that way.

Speaker: um And so I actually think 17 games. Yeah. that's That's a lot of games. It's a lot of games, but how many games you have to play to get an emote anywhere else? Yeah.

Speaker: I mean, I i guess. i that's That's true. i'm Part of it is I'm not that excited about emotes. So, like, I'm i'm just i'm i'm just hearing the the costs, and I'm not really thinking about how great that reward is. but like' Yeah, and most of them cosmetics. Just 17 games is a strange, like, thats that's so that's a lot of games. Okay. Small pitch for emotes.

Speaker: Before we move on, um I do wish... Okay, I also skipped. I had a ton. I had extra. I blew the rest on borders. I didn't close out the shop. i did get all the variants They were selling.

Speaker: But like the looked for the emotes because my thing is auto mute people in the wild because don't want my feelings hurt in the games that I play for fun. So and um but where I do emote is with my if I'm ever playing my friends, which honestly is rare because they don't encourage that. Mm hmm.

Speaker: I wish they would. Okay. But that's where I use emotes. So when i when I look at whether I want an emote, it's like, is it you know usually something positive or cute that I would use with friends? And most of the emotes sarcastic or like they're meant to be like kind of bad manner, you know, like kind of style. Yeah, a lot of them are. So just my plug of like, I would get more emotes, but like, i am just like, I am still just, I look at that emote and I'm like, no, I'm going to use my Gambit Hard Eyes emote.

Speaker: You know, I got, the latest edition was the Domino Lucky Dice roll, because I'm like, i I would do that. That's a good one. I wish I had that one. I would hit Lauren or Ben with a with a Domino die roll, you know? Absolutely. So like,

Speaker: So please, like, you know, one of the ways you could encourage positivity in the game is by giving positive ways for players to express themselves. You've only given us ah mostly sarcastic or presumed nasty ones, right? Yeah, just like pretty much the only positive ones they put out are fist bumps. And they've done three of them. But like, I only I only need one.

Speaker: Yep, I'm still using Fistbump Classic, baby. Me too. Yeah, it's the only one I have, I think. I see a lot of Claw Fistbump and Zombie Fistbump, but yeah I skipped both of those because I already have one.

Speaker: Yep. yeah I have one stray thought about quality of life things where like, you know, i say so many critical things. There's one quality of life change that they implemented recently that I'm loving, and it's that increased cap on credits.

Speaker: Oh my gosh. For my secret homework deck, there were a couple of cards that were not

Speaker: not... You know, I save them up. You were counting your credits? What's wrong with you? Yeah, I was bumping up against the 10,000 thing like all the time. Anywho, so for the deck that I built for secret homework, I don't want to spoil that part of the episode, but... like Most of the cards were already inked out. I had a couple cards that were not inked out.

Speaker: um Spoiler alert. The card I'm talking about is Kitty Pride. I had a million Kitty Pride boosters. don't want the credits, but you could have a million splits. had a million Kitty Pride ink Kitty Pride, which was exactly what I wanted to do.

Speaker: I hit the button again and again and again. and it just ah yeah yeah So you're saying you waited so that when you decided you wanted something, you could have it immediately. Yeah. Sounds impossible to me.

Speaker: What a concept. Oh.

Speaker: We got different philosophies. know, I'm saying this seems like it works out well. I just don't like, it's like, oh, that does sound great. I wish I was capable. When I decide I want to believe in Archangel, even though I suspect he's not a good fit for this game and how the basic rules work, I can throw the tokens because I've saved up so many and said no to so many other things. I get to say yes to Archangel.

Speaker: I get to have it. and I need the little over rewards. The credit cap like accommodates my my style. And ah it didn't used to. And now it does. And I like that.

Speaker: Yeah. i I do think $10,000 was too low of a credit cap. But also I hit it like once ever. And I can't remember why i hit it. Yeah. I hardly ever am over 5,000. I'm hardly ever over 3,000.

Speaker: I am only now reaching the point where I am actually stacking up credits because all the things I want to split are out of boosters. And so I'm limited by how fast the bonus booster shop will rotate. that that's the I have one card in my secret homework deck that is not inked and it is sort of the star of the dish. And I'm like, now it seems, I guess I can tell myself it's a statement that this is the one card with color on it. Yeah.

Speaker: Man, I sure wish I had just had them all inked out. Oh, well. Someday this card will be inked out because I will play it that much. Yeah. Before we blow past Diner, I know that there were some ways I'm critical of the design. I actually don't think it's casual friendly at a glance. And think that the incentives for snapping completely perfect. not casual at glance. It's not casual friendly. Right. Nobody's going to invest long enough to realize that it is.

Speaker: But I love the gameplay. I love asymmetric snapping that... With a little tweaking, snapping would actually matter. It does matter while you're trying to climb to Hellburger, and then once you have a stash, it kind of doesn't matter anymore. But so, like, there's a way to make it so that snapping does matter, but also there's not a penalty, a huge penalty for retreating.

Speaker: And, or sorry, a huge incentive for retreating, which is not true. On ladder, there's a huge incentive for retreating, and I think it's why casual players are bad at the game. And also, I just don't think it serves most players for the game itself.

Speaker: to so rarely play out the final turn. And in ah in Deadpool's Diner, the final turn plays out even in games where I've snapped three times and my opponent hasn't snapped once. They often stay. And that's so much more fun to actually get to play it out. And sometimes they win and I'm like, well, you probably should have snapped, but you know, good job.

Speaker: um So it's like Diner gets the closest to the unranked mode I want to see in the game eventually. I'm sure I've talked about it before, but I just, I would love...

Speaker: to see i don't know that the asymmetrical snapping needs to come to the ranked mode, but I would love to see a permanent mode, unranked mode with asymmetrical snapping. And...

Speaker: I don't know. Like, like the other thing that I want about unranked mode is it will automatically cue me with other players who are also opting into unranked mode. We are here to play for fun, not for glory using Smash Brothers terms.

Speaker: And that just like, i don't know, just changes things. Of course, there will be people who are sweaty. If you've hang if you've hung out in Proving Grounds, you know there are people playing meta decks aggressively in the Proving Grounds. So it's not like unranked filters out the sweatiest players, but it still is just like, I don't know. There's just a different vibe when everybody is opting into we're playing for fun. And I would, I want, I want more snap. That's just for fun.

Speaker: I played a lot of diner and it came, you know, Ben, you highlighted that this problem with it overlapping with the first week of the season. It's like, yeah, I would have played a lot less diner if I hadn't hit infinite already. If I was still feeling the pressure to climb, i would have been prioritizing my time that way. But because I did already hit infinite, all of my snap games this week were in diner.

Speaker: Even when I was just going in for fun and not trying to win, I would load up silly decks or bounty decks and just play in diner because why not grab a few extra nachos?

Speaker: Indeed. You know, I really thought about doing a diner for my Archangel testing, but the locations were like, that was the thing I wanted to play on real locations and not on a silly temp locations. But man, I should, I should have done it on diner. My rank would have thanked me. Maybe I dug a hole. I'm not worried about it, but like, you know, yeah I think, yeah, yeah, it'll be fine.

Speaker: I like, I kind of like don't give myself permission to have fun and snap until I hit infinite. And that's why its just like, it's the worst part of every season is getting there. I would love to see them. i would love to see them. interesting you know I don't know. Maybe, maybe I can make myself think that way at some point, but mostly I just like, I just want to get there so that I can relax and be silly.

Speaker: Um, I have more difficulty cooking post-infinite than like pre-infinite. Interesting. You feel like the sticks are in there? The snap points are different from the rank. Even though when you cook on the climb and maybe tank your pre-infinite rank, that will affect your snap points, but it doesn't feel as real or whatever. I don't know. It's just goofy human perception stuff.

Speaker: Right. and unlike People who do care about snap points, they're always cooking on the climb. Well, I mean, I guess some of them probably go to Conquest, but I bet most of them just just cook in ranked and deal with, you know, 100 points of SP loss if that's what it takes to experiment with something.

Speaker: I would like to see more game modes that are not limited to eight tickets, you know. Or whatever tickets that aren't limited by tickets. I would like to see more of that. That's something that's fun about diner also.

Speaker: We're going to talk about this week's ota First up, two cards that came out this week are already being, or last week, are already being buffed. First up, Wolverine, Horseman of War. The objective now gives plus four power in each lane.

Speaker: Potentially, this is a plus three power buff if you hit all three lanes. Is it enough for three plus four in each line? as you Ben, I mean, it might. I mean, like, it's kind of like it's kind of telling of how like.

Speaker: bad that like it's it's the thing that i've been harping on since we like read the card like it's just a bad shape bad mechanism like it it's really telling that they have to make it a 415 to like get people to i mean if if this even will get people to like i i don't think it solves what's bad about this card i mean but raw numbers do win games and earn deck slots and stuff but like Jeez, that just that just tells you what a bad thing it is to give three things on already on the board. Like the the way it works is bad is is is still the problem.

Speaker: Yeah, ah of just going wide is just not as strong as going tall. Right. Also going specific, also going in hand. These are these are good things to go. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. It's it's the problem of, as someone who loves the buff decks and looked at this, and by the way, I hereby declare we should only call Wolverine, as someone in the comments called it. That is so good.

Speaker: It's very early buff. But then I realized it's the same as why you just you don't see Ironheart so much anymore. like You don't see all these other cards. You see Gwenpool, you're buffing cards in your hand, cards in your deck. because it's just gotten It used to be king to buff what's already on the board, what you already have in play. But now you're it's just stronger to set up combos, you know, in your hand. It's just all the other stuff is so it's less, it's more protected when you put it on later. It's just, there's so many reasons why. um that's just, it's just not how we buff our cards anymore. so like Wolverine's kind of grandpa.

Speaker: Wolverine coming in and it's like, no, we're go we're going to get an old man Logan at some point. We'll have a grandpa Wolverine.

Speaker: Mostly I don't... Oh, sorry. I thought you were done. ah Mostly I think Wolverine is still not good enough, but I think... Extra pluses are good and they add up. If you can get Warverine off multiple times, I'm getting more interested in this card, right? If you had Zola him and you end up getting three hits on him or upcoming Mother Ascani, think he's actually a really great hit on Mother Ascani. Yep.

Speaker: But not Zola, right? It just feels like there's so there's better things to do with the Zola and you're only Zola-ing. Oh, man. People doing Zola abs, man, is so obnoxious. Why is that a thing now? Zola Strife is really big right now. Zola Strife is what I'm seeing. hits Foom and then they Zola it and he gets Foom two more times. It's very silly.

Speaker: i it used to be people could only Zola once, like right? And now it's like, ah now we gotta got deal with two Zolas? you uh techno organic virus i believe i said this on last week's yes you did podcast that it's changing so that the copies that it creates in your hand go up by one cost instead of two which is a very big buff huge um makes it so way more doable to play it three times, which I think is the magic number to get enough power. It really makes you wonder why they thought it was okay in the first place.

Speaker: Like if they were so willing to like do the right thing. here I feel that way too. Yeah. It's and like are they balancing for an old version of the game or like, it's just, it's strange. Do they test these? Like how much do they test these cards? Cause I suspect it's not very much.

Speaker: Yeah, and the main thing they're testing is probably is probably like an overall feel, and then is it completely like broken, like doesn't work with the game? or Yeah, I i wonder. Anyway, Rhi, thoughts on Virus? i definitely expect to see it a lot more, because I was already already seeing it plenty. and No, it definitely is better, right? And there's like there's a lot of cards with high power to like strip... um you know, to strip bad abilities from.

Speaker: and yeah i just, I expect to see that. I kind of expect it to be good because it's like Shang only only hits one target. You can get a lot of high value. look Look how many one fives that, you know, there's martyr. There's all these ways you can get power. That's not like Shang-able or a shadow King-able and what like Enchantress thing one lane isn't going to maybe shut down the whole thing. Or even if they do, you could re-technovirus those cards. So ah i was rude i I wanted this card, um and i don't have it, but i would be playing it I would be playing it a lot if I had it. I think this is good. i think this change makes it quite a bit better.

Speaker: Yeah. I think you'll still be able to do cute things with Mobius and Black Swan, which is letting you play extra viruses um by making them cheaper. But I think like the huge thing with this is you don't need to. like Investing that extra energy into Black Swan or Mobius, you might as well just be playing an extra virus. like they You get three of them for six total costs. That's dramatically less than before. 1, 2, and 3 is so much easier to play than 1, 3, 5.

Speaker: so

Speaker: I'm still not sure this is enough, but like I'm happy for the people who are excited about this card. Because they are numerous. I know this is a card people want to be playing.

Speaker: Is the power output enough? don't not sure it goes high enough to compete with, you know, Strife Fooms and such. Yeah. But it's less messable with, right? Which is, like, an advantage.

Speaker: Yeah. i mean You just get to make it stronger. like Playing one more like really adds a lot of power. I'm excited just to see what happens with this card.

Speaker: Yeah, i I think this is this is perhaps the most meaningful change in this set. um Moondragon and Chamber, both common in the Doom 2099 deck, which was listed in the OTA notes as one of the strongest across the game right now.

Speaker: Moondragon and Chamber both going 2-2 to 2-1.

Speaker: It makes sense to me. I see a lot of Doom 2099, and they're the two costs that live in that deck. And also, kind of the only deck that plays them, Chamber also has seen ramp decks. But Chamber gets huge ramp decks, too. so um yeah I'm still so amazed that Moondragon is hanging in there in that deck. I mean, like I guess I understand why they're taking power away, because when you do get it down on two, it does get big and stuff. But like...

Speaker: wow when you don't get it down on two what it like i'm I'm shocked that this yeah you told me that they were going to nerf Moondragon when we looked at it I'd be like no way I'm kind of with you on that one actually I'm surprised ah much more surprised about her than chamber but maybe it's just maybe it's not that Moondragon is the problem but that that's where they want to hit the doom 2099 deck yeah I think that's it just weird any other thoughts you two um No, I agree. I think they they could be nerfed. I was just considering, I'm like, oh, that's sad. If you're right, there's, don't know, I feel like you've seen Chamber kind of in several different, at least high power, you know, combo-y decks, but um yeah, think I've seen Moon Dragon.

Speaker: yeah And then I was like considering if I could play her in Wiccan, but it's like in this world, can we really, it used to be fine. You'd like in your Wiccan deck, you'd be like, okay, no domino, but we have like Kate Bishop and enough twos and like to play around with also the three. like, I don't at this point now, it's like you don't want to it's like you have so few deck slots. Yeah. For me, it's just hard. It's like, yeah, we just we have the one and the two, and then we're all threes and up, baby. you know we We pack it. like i love packing it with like trying to make sure I have tech to take down every style, almost every style major deck that's out, and then play Galactus First Steps or you know whatever to like finish it out. It's the way to get power. yeah if you've got both domino and quicksilver it saves room for you to have a higher curve overall so yeah so it's just like i feel sad then because it's like i i don't know i really wanted to like and play moon dragon but if she is confined to another one home yeah that's sad all right i don't have her yet so i

Speaker: Yeah. I mean, it's it's like Ben said, though. you've You've really got to get her down on two. And even then, you get her down on two, but then you don't have a three to play on three or a five to play on five. like Sometimes she just doesn't hit.

Speaker: Sometimes she gets huge, but it's only when things align perfectly. um Although... Arguably, it's a snap condition when you do see that your hand is aligning to the curve. oppos to That does matter. Then we have four old cards all getting one power buffs. Kazar for five to four six.

Speaker: Odin, six nine to six ten. Bucky, two one to two two. Black Bolt, five seven to five eight. Yeah, Bucky doesn't affect much except maybe Venom. i guess i don't like uh it affects me like every point of power that you feed into the destroyed like thresher you know i guess it matters for you know nulls get bigger venoms get bigger but like really really really as ah specifically mentioned with bucky about morgan lefay style decks yes yes they they do uh

Speaker: i I don't know. I'm i'm a big Morgan Le Fay fan, but I've never felt compelled to put Bucky in in her deck. But whatever. maybe maybe Maybe there's something there that I'm not fully appreciating.

Speaker: I do like the black ball. I have tried. i So, I mean, i have been playing Odin recently, and it's just like, I'm glad for the power because he feels ah less... You know what I mean. You're you're playing... Because you youre put you are putting him in, and there's ways to duplicate power now. So you're... That's not true. You're pretty much only playing Wong, right?

Speaker: Odin anymore, right? If you're playing Wong to get that, like, major effect between the two, right? That's the only time I play Odin anymore. um Unless I'm playing Hammers and I want to be cute and do, a like, you know. Yeah, but even then Hammers often runs Wong, like... Yeah, exactly. So it's just, like, he's kind of trapped with Wong and that's sad. I don't know if this gives him enough power to be more viable outside of, like, the interaction with Wong that you're looking for with this Odin. But i I wanted to say have been I've been wanting to play Black Bolt.

Speaker: When I get annoyed at the meta, I just want to like Moon Knight and Black Bolt. just want to like make people get, you know, ruin their plans. I miss playing old friend Silver Samurai.

Speaker: Yeah, I still play a lot, actually. I still play a lot of Moon Knight and Silver. They're in my, like, discard deck. You know, that I i play probably the genre I, like, dip into most from, like, whatever main thing I'm going.

Speaker: um Even if it's not my main thing. But, like... it's this easy It's like the third card that will force your opponent to discard a card, right? Moon Knight, Silver Samurai, Black Bolt. um and i've been wanting I've been wanting to play it, and it is so hard to get him in a deck, you know? and it's just like And to be meaningful, because there's so many times like his ability means nothing. You're just discarding... like a mind stone late in the game something they didn't you know like a little card that they probably had too much in their hand to play anyway and um it just unless you're doubling it up or whatever it's not meaningful enough so do you think they can take them down to four

Speaker: yeah Here's the problem, though. Like they I believe they mentioned the notes, he gets even a little bit good. And I hate I hate when everyone else is playing. I'm like, right. And everyone else will, too. People don't like it.

Speaker: People hate it. And I also is an unfun card to have like as a, you know, a presence, like a serious presence. There have been times when Black Bolt was around and he was annoying. I recall their story is so interesting. Black Bolt and Stature.

Speaker: Where they like they were cards when they were both out in their current, you know, in their original states and people hadn't discovered them yet. And then I want to say it was some tournament or something. But, yeah, some player made Black Bolt stature popular. And all of a sudden it was like all the top decks were running Black Bolt stature and they both both had to get nerfed. And their story is interesting, but and they're being rebuffed because they don't keep up with the current meta.

Speaker: No, they do not. Speaking of not keeping up with the current meta, it's so weird that like I'm not blown away by 610 Odin, because like on paper, 610 Odin should be nuts, right? like In so many eras of the game, 610 Odin would be unthinkable.

Speaker: But leg yeah wait think about it now. like When you're buffing... But now it's nothing. But Ben, think about Because before it's like your but you're you're repeating your Ironheart, you're doing that. But now the cards you're putting out are like America Chavez. There's stuff that you're setting up for later. And you don't want to copy those cards now unless you know you've set up a little light combo you know monstrosity somewhere.

Speaker: I think it's got to be that the cards that can attack multiple lanes... haven't kept up, right? Because Odin is like investing heavily in a lane you have already invested into. And so you need things like Ironheart and White Tiger that can attack multiple lanes when you're doing the Odin, like the the opportunity cost of what you're not playing.

Speaker: you remember when a plan was to get one extra energy so that you could play Doctor Doom on five and Odin on six? Does that sound familiar? Yeah. Isn't that quaint? Yeah.

Speaker: yeah Right now, if you get if you get Doom off four times, you fill a lane with Doom bots. It's still probably not going to be enough. Can't win with 20 power.

Speaker: No, I creep. Bless your heart. I do see a decent amount of white tiger since they took the tiger spirit up to 10. Yeah. agree yeah

Speaker: Very polymorphable at white tiger. right yeah so i was thinking like polymorph or blink there's like there's things that you can do because the tiger spirit is weak um okay yeah the others whatever kizar is fine yeah Yeah, exactly. Sure. You know, maybe I spoke too soon when I said that Techno Organic Virus was the biggest change of the OTA because another thing is cards that target that used to reference 1, 2, and 3 cost cards now reference 3 cost or less, meaning that they include 0 cost cards.

Speaker: Cards that used to reference 4, 5, and 6 cost cards now reference 4 cost or higher. which is And that part I love. Yeah. i Which is huge.

Speaker: um Four cost or more. um Yeah, great for Goose to be stopping Fin Fang Foom. It's very silly that it doesn't... Fin Fang Foom does not deserve to get exceptions and sneak into places it shouldn't. That's nonsense.

Speaker: But the inability to play zero costs on Crimson Cosmos is infuriating to me. Goddammit, if I reduced a card to zero, it should be able to sneak into Crimson Cosmos.

Speaker: that's That's just a thing I feel deep down in my heart and my soul. and I will hear, yeah, I don't know. yeah Maybe I could be convinced otherwise, but I don't think so. and How about this? What if they made Crimson Cosmos less common? It is literally in the most common tier of locations right now.

Speaker: Yeah, I think it should exist, but I agree. I don't think it should be a common location. Warren, I know for fact you think Crimson Cosmos is like the worst location. You despise Crimson Cosmos. It is the worst location in the game.

Speaker: Correct. a surfer main who needs to find tricky ways and like i need I need to play to my outs with Crimson Cosmos and like figure out how I'm going to get in there with a deck that's predominantly three cost...

Speaker: I think it's a great skill testing location that's really interesting and I'm glad it's so common. i think it's I think it's a great location until now. think it's good? It's so common?

Speaker: Yeah, i think I think it's, I think, you know, you know what should be more common? in White Hot Room. That's, that's another skill tester I'd love to see more of. Yeah. You know, personally, I would take Crimson Cosmos. I would I would make Crimson Cosmos too rare. I would take it too rare. But even if it were just uncommon, I would be happy. Like I just they have big house and Crimson Cosmos both common, like they're equally influential effects and they just aren't.

Speaker: They aren't. It's true. Crimson Cosmos is much more restricting than big houses. And not just because I play small deck or is like small card decks predominantly.

Speaker: Ooh, but with these common locations, do you know what one combination that I like to see? Because it's like an interesting thing to play with. I love it when there's Crimson Cosmos and the raft. Because like, then I'm thinking like, ooh, I got to play that brood on the raft. Make sure I get my zero cost, six cost so that I can get into Crimson Cosmos. I love games like that where I'm like weighing the options. I'm like, yeah am i screwing myself in the future if I overcommit? so early but like oh man it's just interesting most satisfying use of silver samurai is when you know like you let them get that on the turn that you drop the ceiling get it in turn four and you're like ha gotcha okay

Speaker: on the inverse when you finish the raft with blade which i've done a few times yeah yeah or colleen wing colleen we is where yeah you just can your opponent of a zero cost six it's more thing if you planned ahead but it's another thing entirely if you're just like oops um i think i'm with you interesting like Big house you can sneak into with a single discount, right? Like you're playing your, your Zabu or your Sarah or whatever. And now your fives can get into the big house. And it is kind of interesting.

Speaker: It was kind of interesting that Crimson Cosmos could let zeros in. There's a bunch of ways to get zeros nowadays. It's not super common, but like, it's a thing. ah But the other thing is hitting zeros. Man thing.

Speaker: i don't I don't know. I feel neutral about Man-Thing hitting zeros. I like that Moonstone can hit zeros, although Sam's Shield is the only zero ongoing I can think of right now. Yeah. But maybe maybe you're playing zeros and virus now.

Speaker: Maybe. That's a good point. Now that Moonstone can copy them. Yeah, that that would never have occurred to me, but that is interesting.

Speaker: Do you think U.S. Agent is... is doing enough affliction to matter even now that he can hit seven costs i mean he does three right yeah i've already been seeing him around more lately he did four on release and i kind of think he should do four again you know i wouldn't i wouldn't be mad at that i gotta say i would not be mad at that yeah yeah yeah make us s agent gnarly again

Speaker: I bet we're already seeing more of US s Agent with Polaris coming out. Polaris of Pestilence. How are we supposed to say it? Pestilence.

Speaker: yeah Alright, one more. helloa gets a change. She picks out of the discard list as she goes. But that doesn't mean that she like rechecks the discard list if new things have been discarded. So really the the main scenario that it affects is if she revives Ghost Rider and he revives one of your six costs, she will definitely be able to revive your other six cost. before she was picking Before she was picking ahead of time. So if Ghost Rider revived the six she had picked, she just wouldn't revive a six.

Speaker: Okay, so super ignorant hella question. Does she go from, like, low cost to high cost? No, but she only does one of each cost. Okay. because like Order is random. feel like that would be more consistently important if, like, you knew that Ghost Rider was getting called before the sixes.

Speaker: So this is, like, so edge casey, but guess that's not idea. pretty rare, but it is a buff. Yeah. It makes Hela a lot better. And it's not that... When you play a lot of Hela, it's honestly not that... Casey, it's happened to me plenty of times.

Speaker: Oh, I just meant the order of, like, high to low, or... that's That's the thing I was wondering i think part of it is you don't... The other discard revivers, you don't really play with Hela, right? Like, Khonshu, you don't discard him enough for him to be in your discard pile. And...

Speaker: and Who else is there? Like Fire Lord? Like you're not playing a Fire Lord to get an extra three discard back. It's just Ghost Raider usually. I'm playing Fire Lord, but not in Hella. That's true.

Speaker: All right. That's the OTA. On to our side quests. First Weekend Snap. ah let me Let me do this right, even if I messed up the intro. It's episode 87. Rhi, how was your Weekend s Snap?

Speaker: And keep it snappy. Okay. um Yeah, pretty snappy this week. I thought I would just mention I got to Infinite on Saturday. And, like, even more satisfyingly, I realized just today that, like, I've, like, reached, like, kind of, I think, much closer to the healthy balance I was looking at. good.

Speaker: Good. You know, for in the game, I don't feel like I have to get to infinite every month if they don't want to. um If they don't like the deck back, that's usually the driving factor. Like I haven't gotten every single conquest variant. I do get most of them, but it's like, oh, I like this more. So I'm putting time now that I'm out of infinite.

Speaker: um or Now that I got infinite and putting the time conquest to get that. So I use my time wisely, but it's like, oh, I kind of like I can miss a day of missions if I'm not feeling it. But I usually pop in And if I realize I'm just tilted, I'll just, you know, i don't just keep coming back. I keep it like... Anyway, that's that felt good. i just I don't know. I felt ah felt like ah getting to infinite. and i was just I was just climbing that fast. I'm like, yeah, let's do it. and i went through um

Speaker: the ah up 90 with mostly my ah my Marvelous deck that i had shared a long time ago. The one that uses M'Baku and Shadow King and Lockjaw.

Speaker: Yeah. like um And Moonstone. And it's like, i someone in our, some friend of the pun and her mentions had discussed that they had like, I think they used it to get to 90 or something. They talked about it. And i was like, so, um i don't know, was so touched that they play. I was so glad that they like,

Speaker: you know, mentioned to me that they were still playing it. And I busted it out because I still i still loved it um and kept it together and, like, occasionally played it. But, like, you know, I went and um played it until, like, I was running into too many end-of-turn decks where Shadow King doesn't, like...

Speaker: Do what you need them to do. even if you have all the rest of the setup. Yeah. And it's like, it's, it's like things have to be going really well for me to beat out like an end of turn that's hit at sauce. And I was running into a lot of that. So that's when I ended up switching.

Speaker: um but yeah, no, I, uh, thank you so much. I meant to go look up who it was. Um, that pointed out to me cause I'd remembered, um, at one point and,

Speaker: ah You know, it's just like it feels it feels really good that someone else had fun with this and like the validation to like my perspective on Dex. It's what is this thing like for me, I feel like probably other people out there have experience where because of other things about my identity, um like i get underestimated a lot initially, you know, And a lot of times I'll go into a space that I am familiar with, like board games or card games, and I'll get treated like a newcomer, like in a friendly way, but in a way that assumes that I didn't belong here and I'm coming in the first way and i need explanations.

Speaker: and And you're like an expert. You invented board games. But it's like, yeah. And that's like this is where it's like gratifying, too, because like I have one friend, super great guy. But we've been friends long enough. He's seen it. He's actually like I've never like met I don't think I don't think I've mentioned it to him. But he like had started picking up just around me so so many times that once someone was like, oh, and here's like you know like some basic stuff. you know And he's like, no, she like she's great. She wants poor games all the time. You don't need to like you know treat her like she's new. But I am used to that. I'm used to going into a new place and having to build respect for myself. Um, and, you know, and I just don't even coming into this podcast.

Speaker: Um, a lot of times I share like half cooked decks because I, you know, I'm not like a full time snap player. I don't have time to fully launch everything. But sometimes I come across a deck like my marvelous deck or a couple other decks I've hadn't passed that it's just like, I really feel like. This is fun and wins and like, you know, it's really like I'm bringing something and it's just really gratifying to me that someone else like got joy and was able to climb with it. And it's validating to me and my perspective in a way that is like more so maybe it wouldn't be for other people. So thank you. And then once I had to switch decks, I climbed the rest the way with Arishem. Yes, I'm an Arishem enjoyer. I love Arishem.

Speaker: randomness um like i can share the deck it's it's guy it's you know i think i've even already changed a few cards i think i crossed line with iron patriot in the deck but like cable in the deck i really cable is so good i used to resent playing cable so much no business being a two four it's really silly He was a 2-2.

Speaker: I didn't have a good variant of him. i wanted to play Mirage. You know what i mean? I just did everything I could. And eventually got, like, a decent variant I liked of Cable. He's a 2-4. He gives you data on their deck early on, usually, or even late.

Speaker: He's a 2-4. And, like, and he gives you a card. And it's one of their cards that now they don't have. It's just, like, how is he? So, like, you no, Iron Patriot. Like, you know.

Speaker: yeah I don't know. i don't owe Iron Patriot any respect. No, you don't. I did put Cable in. Hey, I'll say it. Go kick rocks, Iron Patriot.

Speaker: you know was too OP when he came out it was obnoxious he was in everything else he live him um but Valentina is fun and I finally got a variant for her and then I'm playing a lot of other stuff you'd expect right now Blob is just like classic lane winner you know Fin Fang Fung cause you got that 7 energy why not summon a giant dragon why indeed right Elias because like it's really mean to do to people

Speaker: They're going to pick for what they think they're going to win. And ah Legion always. Legion is just, he is Legion is my favorite way to surprise change locations. I don't know. There's just something about it that's just like ultra satisfying. That's a lot of impact for a five energy investment, especially since you've got one spare being Arashem and all that. Like,

Speaker: Legion, it's hard. Right? Yeah, such a cool card. um ah So, Mockingbird, obviously. I wasn't even going to go through all the cards, but I've almost done all of them, so I might as you with well.

Speaker: Quindret, right? Because, like, let's face it, it's always sad now. Because, like, usually I've been playing a lot of decks lately where Mobius doesn't hurt me. You know, they drop it down. Like, ah, you spent your turn three, you know? like well, I did something cool. Yeah. And now I'm like, oh, why could kill my buzz like that? I have a Quinjet out. Okay. But like, um and then lastly, ah if I didn't say Cosmic Ghost Rider, duh, Cosmic Ghost Rider is in here. It's like pretty much usually not my Irish M decks anymore. And um I think the real nod to the meta right now is Stardust, right? Stardust is so good and ah against enough a variety of decks that he gets that, Stardust gets that tech slot. That like, if i think about it,

Speaker: It used to be Enchantress, right? Enchantress stacks down, Stidus stacks up. That's where we're at. Arshem land. um So that was my weekend and snap. I feel like it now is less snappy and than i originally thought it would be. Oh, I thought that was blistering. I thought that was one of the snappiest weeks anyone's ever had.

Speaker: oh good. Okay. I don't know what, you know, time is. that Okay, go ahead. I admire how much both of you play your own decks. I... I obviously play a lot of my own decks when I'm clip hunting, but, but when I'm climbing, like if I'm playing an event or if I'm climbing an infinite, I'm often net decking and I don't think there's anything wrong with net decking, but deck building is a part of the game that I really love.

Speaker: Uh, and you know, sometimes inspiration strikes. Like I think last season I took an end of turn deck and made like three swaps and, and that was enough to make it feel like mine, even if it was pretty meta still. Um,

Speaker: I will mention something, Lauren. Part of it, I used to net deck a lot more because I would get lazy and I'd just be like, safety cooked up whatever I need. exactly Right? And I would really just, oftentimes I would just grab whatever whatever safety was playing I knew would get me to where I wanted to go fast. You know what i mean? If I'm trying to get, an if I really want to get an infinite ticket that season, if I really wanted to climb to infinite fast, safety deck.

Speaker: here's what changed. I don't have a full enough collection anymore. you know I mean? You can't follow our safety leads. Yeah. i have fallen i have fallen behind. You know? i am like, go on without me.

Speaker: My life is broken put me down okay no so but like so i don't want to be like all hype i do love i get a lot of joy out of playing my own decks but i did want to point out that like you know it's not all my hipster you know pretentiousness

Speaker: i got you yeah all right well ben how was your week in snap and keep it snappy Oh, golly. Well, in the interest of keeping it snappy, I'm starting the five minute timer. Oh, yeah. um Well, it was a pretty good weekend snap, even though, golly gosh, I sure did lose a lot of games with ah my friend Archangel.

Speaker: um Are you going to tell us how bad it is? What? I i already do have referenced many times how how bad it hit you, and I just wondering if you're going to tell us how bad is. Oh, yeah. I went from, like, 94 to, like, 86. That's rough. I was shedding shedding those cubes. Ooh, baby.

Speaker: um But, you know, then then I did, like, I put Deadpool in, and I started retreating when appropriate. And, you know, you can you can climb with Archangel if you have a mind to do so, and you're not, you know, throwing games for science, basically. Yeah.

Speaker: um But other than that, you know, i revisited 200 guys with swords because as I've mentioned, Morgan Le Fay is my official cool card to watch in 2026. And I'm already thinking forward to 300 bad guys with swords.

Speaker: Also, fucking love Fire Lord. Cool card. fun yeah fun time. Fire Lord. um But I've never played him in any other deck, so I can't really like say what else you should be doing with him. Just play 200 bad guys with swords. It'll be in the ah the episode description.

Speaker: um But... I also had a great time playing my Secret Homework deck, which I can't tell you about yet. um That deck, much better than the Archangel deck that I mentioned earlier. And I'm excited to get to that in Secret Homework. But you know what else happened in my weekend snap?

Speaker: um I rolled the third credits in Mugenics. I bet there's one more. I bet there's one more. But like the story seems to be done ah until the DLC. I'm pretty upfront about that. um It will be continued in the DLC.

Speaker: ah Shocking things happened. um i don't know, man. there's There's so much to say about Mugenics. It's a game with just so much going on. I'm still seeing abilities I hadn't seen before. Still unlocking more stuff.

Speaker: got robust difficulty options. I'm going to be going to be ah throwing still more hours into that at some point, but I'm busy doing a closed beta Montabi thing. I can't.

Speaker: I mean, if I could disclose anything, it would all be very nice, but I can't disclose anything. So I won't. So purely hypothetical. Yeah, but I'm, I'm, if i If I could tell you i was loving it, I'd probably tell you I was loving or whatever. But anywho, new Hades content, new Hades 2 content. There's a whole new game mode I've learned. I still have game stuff to finish up from the 1.0 release because, you know, I've been on my fresh file mission to, i mean, i could so i could stop fresh filing and still be proud of what I've accomplished. You know, I'm on the, I'm on the,

Speaker: speedrun.com leaderboards and stuff, but like I'd like to be a little higher up ah personally, um even with my self-imposed restrictions about Beach Ball and ah Breaker Rush.

Speaker: Another interesting thing about this ah this this perhaps final content update for Hades 2, they found a way to... Rework title ring one more time. I've already mentioned on this podcast the the various versions of title ring that have come and gone. Some of them pretty fun, pretty cool, felt pretty good to use, but they changed it one more time. I haven't i't played it yet, but I'm excited to see how that feels. One one last title ring for...

Speaker: S's and G's. I don't know. Um, so I'm really excited to dip back in there, but I have not yet. Um, also new Slay the Spire stuff. Some of the stuff that's been tested on the beta branch is apparently coming to the main branch and i still, uh, need to finish up Ascensions 9 and 10 with a couple of characters.

Speaker: But, uh, yeah, mostly I was playing Snap and Mugenics this week and, uh, wow, I'm so excited to tell you all about that secret homework deck. Um, Is the timer coming to, you know, I've got 40 seconds left and I'm calling it here.

Speaker: Oh, wow. You have a new time. Snap adjacent things. I'm sure I'll think of something I want to blurt out later and we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Lauren, I would just love to know about your weekend snap.

Speaker: Yeah, I think I'm going to keep it short and sweet like usual. um i tried. i was trying so hard to do an Archangel clip. i already mentioned that when we talked about Archangel.

Speaker: And I don't even know how cute it's going to be, but like it just it just seems fun. Destroy something four times and revive it four times. like My final turn is add a manatee infusion to double its power and then fastball special to destroy it. And then Archangel brings it back at the very end. like That just seems cool.

Speaker: um i i think I just like i couldn't do it. i My notes usually take up two or three of these little these little square papers that I take notes on.

Speaker: i I was up to like seven, and I still just like couldn't find a path that was remotely reasonable. Uh, but this Sunday is altar of death, hot location.

Speaker: Maybe, maybe I'm just going make an altar of death, like clip deck. Maybe maybe that's okay. I usually try not to depend on them, but like, if that's what I'm doing, going in is intentionally looking for, like I built this for altar of death. I'm more okay with that.

Speaker: Um, altar of death is actually normally a really fun day. It's a really fun day to play Uatu and Galactus. Um,

Speaker: That is cool. I've been wanting to play you ah to you should i't I'm trying to remember if Safety Blade has made this deck public. I'm sure he has on past ah Alter term of Death days. Uatu Day, as known by Safety Blade. It's very fun. There are a handful of locations that I think i just they are just fun days to play.

Speaker: i Usually counter deck rather than a deck that takes advantage of the location, but both are fun. ah very good days to climb. If you're somebody who values that, uh, what else? i I, started last night with my wife. I started Blanc, which is a cute little three d platformer with a wolf and a deer that have to be cooperative. I love couch co-op, uh, especially if it's a game that's meant to be like, it's built to do co-op, you know, it's not thrown in thrown in co-op is fine too, but like built for co-op is ideal.

Speaker: Um, would love recommendations in that even though i have probably played almost all of them because i love couch co-op so much uh switch or switch have you played moon hunters i have not that's been on my list for forever and so i like really perked up when you brought it up i think you brought it up for a secret homework once yeah you need to get reggie in on that too like because it's up to four three player right yeah yeah okay I will.

Speaker: um Three player co-op is also nice. Yeah,

Speaker: I'd have to look it up. There was this really cute Wii U. three-player co-op game. like that's what it It was three-player co-op specifically. And maybe it went up to four. Anyway, you were like a vacation company. And one of the very few games that ever... ah Like a vacation company in space. Sorry, that's an important detail. And so you're each operating different parts of the spaceship. Kind of like Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time, but um less cute and more...

Speaker: Oh, sad. Exploring. Like one of the jobs is like flashlight, right? Like you're in the dark. Um, was really whole game only a little.

Speaker: Things jump out at you. I don't, I don't remember. I don't remember it being very scary, but it is like a little bleak. Like you've crashed landed on a planet and you're trying to figure out, you know, how to how to return to safety. Sounds kind of scary. Yeah.

Speaker: him It's such a shame of Wii U. The gamepad was so cool, the way that it could do asymmetrical information from the screen, but hardly any game used it. The Wii U had a lot of problems. People thought it was...

Speaker: an extension of the Wii. And so it didn't sell very well rather than being like a separate standalone new console. You know, if they called it the Wii 2, it probably would have done better. But like even Nintendo, like when they announced it and they showed off the asymmetrical stuff, Nintendo themselves put out very few games that took advantage of the gamepad and it's just a real shame.

Speaker: um Anyway, didn't mean to go off on the Wii U, but I do love Nintendo even when they do goofy ass shit. Sometimes because they do goofy ass shit. All right.

Speaker: Onto our secret homework. Reassigned it this week. Okay, yeah. So, um... I... Was thinking when I came up with this homework that which is to play with a card um that you're excited about, but you didn't get to play with.

Speaker: um yeah You know, yet, because just there's so many cards and it's a little time. And I was going to play with Aurora because I had rolled and been excited to get her ah But then, OK, I realized like.

Speaker: There aren't a lot of cards that have double stuff. And, like, then it's like, oh if I build the kind of deck I was thinking, then I have to start thinking about putting stuff in. She only hits each type of card once in each lane. And then it's like, oh, no, I don't want to be, like, thinking about placing my cards out in that way. So, like, did try and build...

Speaker: uh i was like okay well i'll just lean in to one archetype right with a sprinkle of some other stuff that she'll hit and you know what i just ended up making just end of turn deck just end of turn deck because that's just the and she's second string in that she's clearly not the best thing to do compared to end of turn stuff she's just kind of the backup plan it was sad But that was actually, i spent very little time doing that. um Because what I did was play, this isn't a card I haven't played at all, but definitely card I've been wanting to play more of. It's more time with it, which is Toxie Doxie.

Speaker: don't know. I love Toxie. She's the card that gets me. She's like that, like Wombat Combat has the same thing. You'll just see like a cobra out there, you know, in the tall grass and be like that. who ah I'm going to buy my card park in a deck. I'm really into this card. And Taxi Dax is that for me. And be here's the pom Before before i tried to invite her into my friend group of, you know, of my buff, you know, my classic buff squad of girls, you know, like a America Chavez, Okoye, Nakia, Nakia. And it's just like, oh, that deck had to change so much for Toxidoxi. And it did. i don't know how the dick deck feels about that. changed quite a bit. doesn't play well with others.

Speaker: Yeah, because, right, there's a lot of considerations, but I learned from that. because this So what I had morphed my my buff deck into was, like, a Zabu and four costs with the buffs, you know? Right? Hitting this Captain Marvel kind of stuff, right? Like, uh...

Speaker: That, because Toxie Doxy, it's like you want to hit your four costs because, you know, you're going to turn four anywhere. Especially the ones that you haven't discounted with Zabu, like the ones that are already in your hand. Those are primed to hit with Toxie Doxy. Right. And then, you know, but it's all kind of a mashup. Yeah. It all fits together. I like it.

Speaker: Yeah, it works really well. And honestly, like that's stuck' still to get. That's still my like classic, my party above stack. And, you know, it works when it does its thing. but what I've learned, I wanted to build something more around Toxidoxy of F deck because what I've learned about playing her is that that is proud It is a big problem if you're hoping... If you've planned to hit four... You went in with Zabu, you know, on four costs.

Speaker: And then you didn't... you drew But she's the card to play on three. And now you're like, oh, but now I really have cards I don't want her to hit. And like...

Speaker: That's a feels. die and But then you do it anyway. i do it anyway because I gamble. And then she she just, you know, she told me, like, I knew how she was feeling. So, like, I don't know why I thought she would do what I wanted. But, like, so...

Speaker: Anyway, so I'm like, okay, maybe we were wrong to look at the four costs. Maybe maybe we go to five costs. Because then, right, five costs you're definitely not playing that early in the game. You're not hitting it with Zabu. um you like And you have two turns. If you did buff it right, now it's a four. You're still not playing it from two turns. If you play her on three, you're still going to be able to play that in five. And I combine that thought with the idea. I'm like, okay, I'm getting into five costs with her in buff deck.

Speaker: What if I can guarantee she doesn't hit my low-cost cards and only hits the five-cost cards? Because the low-cost cards aren't characters. I really need to put my lid in this deck. No, I thought about it and I decided it wasn't worth it. You probably had your reasons.

Speaker: Yes. What is in the deck that gives multiple Agamotto. um Infinity Ultron, although you're playing that late. But it's just like, okay, because you have these extra cards, right? Like when she hits, she's definitely just hitting characters in your hand and you can still play the winds of Watum and whatever nonsense. So that was the idea behind this deck. When it works, ah you know, when it works, it works. Yeah.

Speaker: It's different. It's interesting. Okay, here's what I already mentioned Agamotto and Infinity Ultron. ah Here's where I wanted to mess around. This was the second. this is a but Okay, I won't lie. This was this is about Toxidoxy, but bonus, I'd always meant to work more with Fallen One, and I really hadn't.

Speaker: So um Fallen One is here because it's just great to have extra energy for the list turn. Yeah, payoffs if you get a couple buffs on him. Right. Black Panther because... mean, you've got the stuff to spend Yeah.

Speaker: Black Panther is here because he's the... like I feel like it if you're just going for reliable power from buffing it, like that's Black Panther. like um And I've got Viv and Gwenpool in here as backup buffers. Jeff, because Jeff goes with Toxie. I feel like if you're playing Toxie Doxie, you just gotta play Jeff.

Speaker: Because, you know, because Jeff goes where he wants. I just love that combo. I've headcanoned that like like Jeff and Toxie Doxie are friends now.

Speaker: saidle okay You know like the meme where it's like friendship with Gwen pull over? Friends now with Toxie Doxie. Yes. I agree. They're both here, to be honest. This is kind of awkward to me. Okay. But, like, ah surge Surge is just still a great card. She does the other, like, but, you know, like, you can see why she's good. It's not hard. Quinjet. This is the card I've thought about changing.

Speaker: But it is so good if those ah Infinity Ultron Stones are one cost and you can play with another five costs that didn't get reduced or anything like that. um And it works on all your Agamotto spells. and and people snap you when they take it out because they think you're like super reliant on it for some reason. you're like, nah, that's just the icing. i have a whole cake underneath. And then um Majestic Weenbeat is another card. This deck is full of just cards I wanted to play more with. I've got so many five cards!

Speaker: Finally! A great time to play Majestic Weenbeat! I really wanted... I almost put in Joaquin Torres instead of Quinjet. But I'm like, come on now. Be reasonable. Okay. Deafening Chord, because if I don't have more tech, which Agamotto gives me some tech, um but, ah you know, it also, like, I just, it with end of turn, you got to you gotta to ruin you gotta to ruin it early before it gets all set up.

Speaker: Mm-hmm. Okay. um and And I've called it ah Toxic Telekinesis, but originally it was, that's Toxic Telekinesis, Kyle. So I know I've already referenced Wonder Boy before, but not necessary. Okay.

Speaker: Oh, that's a cool deck. you know i actually I actually spent a decent amount of time with this text this week, so that's why I'm not at link with it. What?

Speaker: Yeah. but you hold on i mean it's really cool i'm curious if you i know i know you like agamotto i'm curious if you've played it without agamotto no no hey my so that's the one piece that i'm like yeah but i don't know i'm just feel to not like i'm not brave enough for that level of deck thickening I understand that. I also never play Agamotto for that very reason.

Speaker: But like i I approve of it for you, Reed. And also, I was i was like looking at that deck, and you are so right to not have Merlin in there. You don't have the the targets for Polymorph and Once and Future. that's That's not what we're... Right? Yeah, exactly. I knew I'd consider it as soon as i said it. i It was like, oh yeah, I did consider Merlin, obviously. And yeah, looked at the spells and was like, no.

Speaker: You made very much the right call. Yeah, looks super cool and fun. yeah that is I and am going to try it. I might also try cutting animotives. Let me know how that goes.

Speaker: I'm intrigued. yeah There's a handful of cards in here I've been wanting to play more. i i did go i didn't I wanted it to work, but I leaned hard into like, I want to play Majestic Meep and I want to play certain other cards. Yeah.

Speaker: Majestic Wingbeat is a cool card. it I've said it's exactly fine, but it is like the freestanding skill card I've played the most, for sure. oh yeah? It's fun. It's neat. I like it.

Speaker: probably to that deck. I'm what freestanding skill I've played the most. I think it might be Astral Projection. it Defening Core? It's okay if it's Defening Core. I think it's Astral Projection. Oh, really? That's cool. Oh, true. You are the number one Astral Projector.

Speaker: um But yeah, I just, I don't know. I don't think I use them a lot. It might be Fastball Special where at a manium infusion I don't play a ton of Destroy, but I do like those cards. I'm going play some Rax.

Speaker: sand The Sandstorm is a good time. I mostly was getting an Irish M though, and I'm just like, hee hee hee. They have no idea in turn five I'm going to get like two one-sickling enormous Rax.

Speaker: Okay. thought I thought I would be playing more Web Sling, but I really haven't been. and Okay. Yeah. I oversold that card. I'm pretty sure. I thought it was going to be what? I think we all kind of overused. We were all high on it. little all and Although at this point, I think it's underrated. I do think it's probably a good card.

Speaker: um Anyway. po There's a podcast I listen to. Well, I haven't listened to it for a while, but there's podcast I listen to for a very long time called Dubai Friday that does weekly challenges. ah And they, I don't know how it came up ah because it was 10 years ago, but when they, when they fail to do a challenge, they call it peanut buttering. And I think this may, this was really close to being the first time I peanut buttered on Seeker Homework.

Speaker: I tried to make Elixir work for the third time in this podcast. I'm going to briefly talk about my Archangel combo deck. The thing that I really think is cool with Elixir is because Elixir revives a card that was destroyed last turn, right?

Speaker: He can also revive a card that was destroyed this turn if it was destroyed last turn. Whoa, what? Please explain. He only cares that it was destroyed last turn.

Speaker: But it doesn't matter if it was destroyed, like... So you mean if it was rezzed again and then destroyed again? can all have re-rezzed and re-killed it, but it's still on the list of cards that were destroyed last turn. Exactly. That too cute.

Speaker: It's a really cool thing to do with Elixir, although obviously kind of expensive, right? Like, maybe you do need a Star Lord or something like that to support this. And so that was like that was part of the vision. It's like, ooh, how can I do cute?

Speaker: But I just ah was struggling so hard of with that deck. It was not was not vibing with me. i push it off for another day. And I was like, well, i didn't I didn't find time to do the homework. But it turns out there was a deck that I played a ton this week that met the criteria for the homework by accident. So I will talk about it briefly.

Speaker: Dragon of the Moon is a card that passed me by. i thought it was bad at first, and so I wasn't super interested in it. It was 3-2. Yeah. Right.

Speaker: But then I got buffed and and I think it became a real card at that point, but I have played it almost none not at all. And I took an end of turn deck to my first million bubs in diner, but then I was getting tired of waiting 90 plus seconds for all the animations to play out. So I was like, I need a deck that's faster, even if it's not quite as good. And I i believe I got this from Untappd, but I honestly don't know where I got it from. But it's it's a Ronin deck, and it's been doing very well. Not quite as good as End of Turn, but considering how much faster the animations are, I'm probably getting more nachos per minute.

Speaker: Uh... And it it's a hybrid of Ronin and Rock, so Ozymandias is here too. I'm mixed on the Rocks. I don't know how important they are. Things like Rhino and Debris, like they do put out a good chunk of power when Ozymandias is out too, right? like Debris plus Ozymandias is...

Speaker: is what, 314 and a 5-9? Like, that's not bad. um and And the best thing to do with it is people see the lane is full, and then you're like, but I still can put power on the full lane, and I can swing it at the end. um Dragon of the Moon gets really big.

Speaker: especially with the location, Merc world. I think that bounces back to your hand with double power, a diner only location on turn three. That's been very fun to do. Um, or there's also a Valley of the baby hand that destroys and revives a card. That's another way to get like a double hit pretty quickly.

Speaker: Um, And yeah, paired with Master Mold, like i just this is a really fun package. And also Supergiant plays with it so well because you can either play your Ronin and protect it or you can do things like like put Maximus and Shadow King down and waiting for them to go off at end of turn is like, that's a better thing to do. I don't want my opponent to draw cards or I do want to hit their Foom or their end of turn or whatever with Shadow King. like Love, love Supergiant, but I've had tons of experience with her so really dragon of the moon is the the star that makes this deck technically qualify for the homework um I recommend checking it out i there's there's some things where i like I feel like there's probably another hybrid besides rocks that might be better with Ronan but it's still fun and it ah puts out a lot of prio quickly i mean i feel like I've seen Ronan decks with the other kind of rocks you know your dark hawk type stuff

Speaker: Oh yeah, for sure. So I mean, i'm our I already associate Ronin with rocks. Those are kind of at odds with each other though, because you want the like Maximus, maximum well, Maximus is really the only problem that makes them draw to weaken your deck. But I guess you can make that decision based on whether you draw Darkhawk or Ronin.

Speaker: Anyway, I would love to hear about your secret homework, Ben. Oh, well, my secret homework. I, uh, the card I chose was Ezekiel Sims and I've played a little bit of Ezekiel Sims, but really only in my beloved Sanctum showdown, like the card came out and I built like one deck with it so that I would have an Ezekiel Sims deck to talk about on the podcast. And then I like never played it again.

Speaker: um But the thing is, he's a pretty cool card. He ah does cool stuff. um So I'm just going to tell you all what's in the deck. It's called Secret Homework because we all love a portmanteau.

Speaker: and it's got Kitty Pryde, who I mentioned that I split several times in beautiful three to five minutes. And yeah, and now now she is indeed beautiful. Just matching the rest of the deck except for Ezekiel Sims. But yeah, Kitty Pryde, Batroc the Leaper, Scream. That's right. Scream in 2026. She's back.

Speaker: ah Ezekiel Sims, Kraven, the hunter. ah Spider-Man, the regular Spider-Man. Silk Hydra Stomper Polaris Juggernaut.

Speaker: I didn't really commit there, did I? Polaris Juggernaut. I do hear on Polaris in the... Show out the Undying! Um, and so a lot of these cards are cards that I would be playing in Sanctum Showdown, but, uh, cool thing is they also work in real snap. Oh baby. Um, I've really been enjoying this deck. It feels so much better than the Archangel stuff i've been playing the rest of the week.

Speaker: Uh, but also I think it's like legit good. I love Polaris classic. Um, Ezekiel Sims is really good, specifically with Kitty Pride and Sholau the Undying.

Speaker: I think Safety had a Sanctum deck that had them all together, and I liked that idea so much that I borrowed it for my own Sanctum deck and am now playing it in real snap.

Speaker: ah There are some cool things to be done with those cards. Like, for instance, say you've procked Ezekiel Sims once. He's a 2-4. All right, turn six rolls around. You play Sholau the Undying on him.

Speaker: And also the last card you played on turn five was Kitty Pryde. So remember to make that true. But anyway, you play Sholau on your four strength Ezekiel Sims or four power. I know what the words are. um Anywho, and then maybe you've got a full lane and in the other lane, you play your Kitty Pryde that is soaking up the Sholau buff because you can buff an unrevealed Kitty Pryde in much the same way that you can resurrect... or a card that has already been destroyed and resurrected with Elixir as long as it was on the list of ah cards destroyed last turn. If Kitty Pryde was the last card you played, you can buff an unrevealed Kitty Pryde with Show Low the Undying, so like play it out of order, so to speak.

Speaker: you know You know what I mean? But anyway, that's a great way to trigger an Ezekiel Sims that has been triggered only once. Or, you know, if you've buffed the show loud somehow, you know. The point is, it's it's a pretty cool and consistent way to trigger Ezekiel Sims twice on the last turn if you set it up right. And, like, folks are not ready for that. Also, when you do that, it's going to make your Kraven big and your Hydra Stomper big. So, like, really points are being added all over the place that an an opponent cannot be expected to expect. you know.

Speaker: um And ah Scream stuff is good. Juggernaut's a hell of a card. I really miss my friend Cannonball, who's great in Scream decks, but only 12 cards. He's not as big as he used to be, but like I really would like to make room for him. But you know these 12 are indispensable. you know Polaris locks lanes. Spider-Man is a fantastic... like He's just a premium 2-drop, baby. he's He's so good at so many... He's just...

Speaker: Moving two cards at once is a is a hell of a drug. um Yeah, i highly recommend this deck. I mean, i try to mostly bring to Secret Homework ah decks that are, you know, playable and good. But like this one is especially playable and good. I would play this one if I were you. I'm i'm having a lot of fun with it. I'm going to keep playing it. It feels really good.

Speaker: It's ah juicy. And i've I've missed playing Scream. haven't played her in a while. And she still does the thing.

Speaker: I really enjoyed seeing this deck from you because occasionally there are places where you and I get close on our decks, like mildly, like sometimes with Surfer or it's with like Hydra Stomp or Silk nonsense, you know, but then we take it. It's like interesting the different directions you take it because I have a very similar deck. I hate like, I'm not sure last week or something and forgot. Um, Magic Dragon, because I also was like playing with Ezekiel Sims.

Speaker: And that's where I put it. But I took out the Scream pack, the Scream, all the Scream cards you have in and Kitty Pryde. And I have in a Nicholas Scratch Merlin Werewolf package with Prowler and like um nonsense. Oh, I guess I took out. I used to have Drax in here. No, that's probably what it took out for Ezekiel. Yeah.

Speaker: Anyway, and I don't know. It's cool. It's fun. But was Shaolau, right? Yeah, I mean, sorry. And mine's Agamotto, of course, because it's a magic deck. But like, right?

Speaker: But it's like, it's a great, like Shaolau fits in the little move stuff. Like I see it, like it's really good. Like you took out Cannonball for it because it's that good because these little move style decks do just play a lot of cards like that. You know?

Speaker: i mean, and you have, like, you have Kitty in it. ah that i like yours because I wanted Kitty in mine, and I ended up having to take out her in Lockheed because it was too much with all the other non-sensory. Yeah, Lockheed seems like a little... he's Yeah, it's a struggle to get Lockheed in some things when you're trying to, like... Poor Yeah, especially if you're trying to move. But, yeah. No, i um ah yeah, move with Sholao.

Speaker: I had my own fun with it. As problematic as Sholao is, I do like that like even in this world with fucking Sunlord and, you know, Strife Foom and just like big stuff, Sholao does kind of let other decks sort of penetrate in a way that maybe would be harder without that extra, you know, oomph.

Speaker: uh so yeah i mean show that is still the villain nerf show lao but like yeah it is cool that show lao can like bring in some plus ones or plus however many's yeah there's like there's more flavors of show lao than there are well there's a decent amount of flavors of star lord too strife Oh, Starlord is still a menace, honestly. I know. All the flavors of Starlord are the same. They up big Starlord, and I don't know what's coming. have no idea, because I haven't seen cards from them yet. Yeah, it's problem. They're for Nebula, usually. Yeah, I wish they would hit these cards. Sholau being a terror at the top of the meta, which is...

Speaker: it doesn't affect me i see hardly any show lao uh where i play the game but it does affect me in that like a lot of content creators are top of the meta and they're exhausted by having four months of straight show lao and i you know i wish for that reason second dinner was a little bit faster about addressing the top of the meta Oh, it's nice when you don't have to chain yourself to playing the very best like meta decks and cards. Absolutely. Because you're like trying to stay top. Yeah.

Speaker: and'm It's different for everybody, right? Everybody gets different things out of the game. What's fun for them. But like for me, I've had such a better experience with Snap since kind of intentionally moving away from competitive into silliness.

Speaker: Anyway, Ben, you got new homework for us? I sure do. Also, speaking of competitive, when's when's the next tournament of of any kind? the Like, the Golden Gauntlet one isn't for, like, couple months yet, right?

Speaker: um I think they're doing a Golden Gauntlet per quarter, so there should be something coming soon. right. I'm not sure. Gosh, dang it. I do get excited about those, and I don't know.

Speaker: Regular snap is fine and everything, but I'm just, I, uh, I don't, I don't know. Anywho, that's, that's just where I like to be competitive. I don't like to stress myself on the, on the ladder so much as, uh, as we've learned today, you know, I'm, I'm fine with the whole thing. I'll burn it all down. ah but yo, secret homework.

Speaker: ah It's the one you've been waiting for. if you're certain, certain people in our, in our audience, um, We're going to watch the first two episodes of Avatar The Last Airbender. We've been threatening to do something like this for for months.

Speaker: But I've heard great things. I saw the first three episodes of The Legend of Korra and I thought, what a charming show. And then I never watched any more. And um I think i I watched the live action Avatar The Last Airbender, not the M. Night Shyamalan one, but the Netflix series. And I found it pretty forgettable but inoffensive. But I've been told that's not the real Avatar. None of these are the real Avatar. Only the original cartoon.

Speaker: I dismissed it at the time because I was, you know, i was a teenager and I was like, I know about real anime. I don't have time for this. And um I don't know.

Speaker: i'm I'm more enlightened now, more open-minded. And i think it's a great time to let the little bald child into my heart.

Speaker: So that's... yeah what we're doing it is a very special show so i'm excited for you to start your journey on it uh ditto any listeners who if you can tolerate cartoons and you haven't seen it this is one of the best let's let's jump in together it'll be fun i've heard great things I like good stuff.

Speaker: You like good stuff. I have. I'm not worried at all about you liking it. I'm sure you will. ah Okay. Well, listeners, viewers, if you liked what you heard and you haven't already, please like and subscribe on YouTube. We're trying to hit 500 subscribers arbitrarily. We're getting pretty close to 400.

Speaker: ah You can also rate and review iTunes, Spotify, leave a comment on YouTube or Spotify, or come hang out with us on Discord in the speakeasy. It's our little corner of the Snap Judgments Network Discord. The show notes or video description will have instructions on how to get there.

Speaker: We're part of the Snap Judgments Network where you can listen to other great shows like Snap Judgments, the titular grand pod from Pulse Glazer and Nick Degree Geek every Saturday. got all the game updates all the card reviews all the card rankings you could ever want and uh i don't know you want to you want to see what we think about about avatar or polaris tune in next week same snap time same now that we're on the other side of the guitars

Speaker: I feel like I went on really long last time, so someone else should like have a go. and I do like hearing about Final Fantasy XIV and your adventures there. Oh my gosh, that was so interesting. That was like, yeah.

Speaker: It's another world I don't know about.

Speaker: follow up I did win the house did I already mention this no you did not that's great news I'm so happy for you there was one other bitter but me I won they were sad and surprised to my has a hot tub nice like are you only allowed to have one house in na the la now um you can only have one private house you can also have a free company like a guild and okay so everybody gets two so you could potentially have two yes I see.

Speaker: What is free company guild? I do have free company house. What does that mean? Oh, it's like, ah you know, so in an um MMO, like in World of Warcraft, they call them guilds, but it's a alliance of players. Like you're in like you share, man, oh miss it's like, oh. like ah But you like share a chat and like, you know, you like...

Speaker: you're You're in a group together. d Last MMO I played was Star Wars Galaxies. Oh, I'm so jealous! That's my lost! that's my That's my... No, it's not my Rosebud because I didn't play it. What's my thing that I missed out on? to A white whale?

Speaker: don't know. It's gone, though. I don't want to kill it. Something else killed it. The world I've read much. Is that what you're looking for? It's the one that got away. was a huge MMO junkie. When I, was like, I loved, you know, like, I mean, as someone that didn't like socialize. Well, I loved MMOs and I played, I don't like for a while. I was like a student. Like I think I'm a student, like I was a student of fantasy. Like I like studied like almost MMOs. I downloaded every free to play MMO for many years. Like when I was younger and like played through so much MMO grinding various.

Speaker: And um and so like, yeah, so I actually have a real like i'm I like I'm just really interested in MMOs and their design and stories about the genre. Yes. Star Wars Galaxies is is like the one that has all these like epic stories about it. And like um this that I never got that I never I never got to touch. And I love I love Star Wars. So like, you know, it's the combination of like interest for me. what Sorry. Tell me about your experience. Who did you play?

Speaker: Star Wars Galaxies was very cool. I played Lily Omega, a character who I realized in retrospect had the same initials as me. She was a Twi'lek with red armor. i Started as a creature handler, which is the animal class, you eat the Pokemon trainer class.

Speaker: i i think eventually i went to i i went to bounty hunter eventually that was just just like creature handler wasn't very strong um very cool having like red boba fett armor uh and i was a doctor and i can't remember if that was ah a class or like a job like could i be a doctor being on jobs like you could be like ah you could like dance for money or like stuff like that it was just that's why it was so fascinating they had this whole okay thank good And you had to go through like all the jobs and all the classes to become a Jedi. And that was like arguably one of the good things about the like the big update that killed the game was they made it so that like you could just be a Jedi. right And that's what people want to do. They want to be Jedis. They want lightsabers. It originally wasn't a super random thing. like like You had to kind of rarely... I think they even changed it. i feel like originally had read it was like...

Speaker: basically super ready to become a yeah they made it incredibly difficult to do there were random things involved you had to follow like holocrons and but and master every job in this i think i think in a random could i think the different stars i did have a friend who did it and he ended up selling his jedi account for like i don't know hundreds of dollars um because of how much work went into it. But um yeah, I couldn't play very much because I was on 56k still at the time. so like it was always exciting when you could sleepovers and go play at somebody's house who had... No!

Speaker: i That's funny. Yeah. But, you know, sometimes the internet would work good enough to play on dial-up. It wasn't great, and it didn't have a super great computer, but it was still so fun um being in ah and a universe that I loved and teaming up with friends. I really do think that, like, I totally would have fallen into MMOs if I had the computer and the internet to back it up.

Speaker: um The other one I played, and I'm wondering if if either of you played a City of Heroes and City of Villains. I played that one a bunch. That was really fun. did not play those games, but... if you If you got those games, the the deluxe editions or whatever, they came with some very powerful Heroclix figures. Oh. Yeah. So I'm just saying it was some of the characters. yeah all Yeah. Not all of them were very powerful, but there were a couple that were like tournament staples. Very, very strong Heroclix figures.

Speaker: Were they tied to Marvel or DC or they just generic? They were like set of heroes. They had indie hero clicks ah like, ah you know, the Hellboy hero clicks, that sort of thing. yeah And in later years, they got real loose with it. I think there are Iron Maiden hero clicks where like, i guess you find out what fucking superpowers any zombie mascot has. I have no idea. That was well after my time.

Speaker: i Oh my gosh, Ben. i Okay, is there is there a Looney Tunes Magic the Gathering set? Like, I don't even know fun if I just made that when it's real. no Because it feels like it probably is real. Anything and everything. just But yo, I've got one thing that I... So, Lauren, you were mentioning this red Boba Fett armor.

Speaker: I have this habit of recording weird advertisements that I hear on podcasts. Okay. I have an old phone that I hold up with my new phone and I just record fucking bonkers ads. That's amazing.

Speaker: There's this bonkers... they They were doing these bonkers advertisements for new like Lego Star Wars stuff. And it's like it's clearly targeting dads. And they're like... oh Also, they don't call the starship the Slave I anymore because it's not politically in correct or whatever. Understandable. But they're like...

Speaker: build Jango Fett's starship. and like Do it with it with your son. You'll be just like Jango and Boba. And I'm like, that's the most fucked up thing I've ever heard. I don't know if like I would play it right now. Is it legal to play advertisements on our podcast? Yeah.

Speaker: y'all y'all can walk can hear it no well surely not but let let me see what what did I save it as probably like fucking bonkers oh this is where where where are my my files maybe maybe is that how I would listen to it cheesy pivoting podcasting here I'll tell you about my city of heroes and villains characters too while Ben's doing his thing um In City of Heroes, I played an ice lady whose transportation ability, because there were a bunch of different transportation abilities. Hers was jumping. something City of Heroes and City of Villains had really good character customization for the you know for the era.

Speaker: you could You could simulate pretty much any hero like from the comic books that you wanted to. But yeah, had a lady with ice powers. And then in Villains, I played ah a dude who made like plant zombie minions. That was fun.

Speaker: All right, so I've got three Lego ads. They're called fucking bonkers Lego ad, Star Wars Lego ad, and Lego ad. I mean, i think they were all fucking bonkers, and that's why I recorded them. But let's let's go with that one. What a funny habit.

Speaker: Well, I mean, I'm just interested in interesting things. Anything better Lego and Star Wars? don't will love part

Speaker: a seismic charge dropping function, and wings that rotate with gravity. Plus, it has three many figures. Jango Fett with two blasters and a jet pack, young Boba Fett, and llama suit.

Speaker: Perfect for endless play. Now, for the big fans, there's Jango Fett's fire spray class starship from the Ultimate Packed with details and surprises for fans, this large-scale set is perfect for anyone hunting for a mindful building escape.

Speaker: Plus, you end up with a fantastic display piece. You can build this while your little ones build the kit set. You'll be like Jango and Boba building an adventure. Shop now for Star Wars Lego sets on lego.com or in Lego Retail Store.

Speaker: Is that AI written? Like, what is that? Oh, yeah, it seems that way. There's an I mean in there that has, like, no reason. Like, it's, like, supposed to sound natural, but, like, no.

Speaker: And the other thing that makes me think it's probably AI written is that they're, like... I have three recordings of different Lego ads that are almost the same. They're like very similar, but like in one of them, he says the thing about a mindful building experience, but like, he's like cute about it.

Speaker: He's like a mindful building experience.

Speaker: Like hitting the bullets that Lego asked them to hit. Yeah. They're just like, these toys are good for your kids. Yeah.

Speaker: It's like pizza's a vegetable. Well, I mean, okay, Legos, to be fair. Lego is actually a good toy. Yeah, was like, well, I won't, I won't, won't disperse Lego, but. Yeah, I, I, I'm down, I'm down, I'm down with the blocks.