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48: Not Trying to Seduce Galactus
227 Plays12 days ago
♟️ The SOT!! cohosts gather this week for an episode positively dripping with game design discussion (and some unsolicited Community love ofc). 🎲
For our esteemed listeners’ consideration:
- 🎶🎵 Give me some rope, tie me to dream, give me some WEEKS IN SNAP before I run out steam 🎵🎶
- 🎈 Mister Fantastic First Steps 🤖 H.E.R.B.I.E. 🚙 Fantasticar 🔦 Human Torch First Steps 🪨 The Thing First Steps
- 🧟🧟 The hosts’ first look at data-mined zombie cards from the patch
- OTA (mild) outrage and optimism ⚖️
- 🤫 Secret Homework: Design a mini-game location 🎳
Follow us on Twitter/Bluesky:
Check out the other great shows in the Snap Judgments Network:
- Snap Decisions
- Snap Judgments
- The InfiNOT
Join us on Discord! 👾
- Join the server
- Head into the channel "welcome-rules-and-tickets"
- Find the "SJPN Podcast Fans" message, and press the button for Snap On This!!
Featured decks:
- Ben - Prodigyheart
- Ben - Cool-Dougscard
- Rie - July Infinite Surfer
- Rie - Ya Basic!
- Ben - Golden Move
- Smlz - Hand of Ultron (Lauren learned about it via HuskyPuppies)
Credits:
- Cover art by Lauren
- Snap On This!! Theme by Ben
- YouTube thumbnail by Lauren’s kid, Reggi
Timestamps:
- 0:00:00 Intro / Our Week in Snap
- 0:33:44 Mr. Fantastic FS / Fantasticar / H.E.R.B.I.E. / Kid Omega / Cobra
- 0:49:11 Human Torch: First Steps
- 0:53:03 The Thing: First Steps
- 0:55:41 Patch Discussion
- 1:21:25 OTA Discussion
- 1:37:52 Secret Homework: Design a Minigame Location
- 1:45:18 Next Week's Secret Homework
- 1:46:40 Housekeeping / Closing Remarks
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Weekly Highlights
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 48 of Snap on This, a Marvel Snap podcast. This week's secret homework to design a minigame location. I'm your host Lauren Whadevs here with my usual amazing co-hosts.
00:00:14
Speaker
First up, Ben, how was your week in Snap? And keep it snappy. My weekend snap was ah pretty good. um I played some decks. I was going to try to talk about them, but it's going to take a second to make that appear.
00:00:29
Speaker
So in the meantime in the meantime, let me give a very special shout out to Wombat Combat, the original Good Egg, and Hot Tug Tony, another of our listeners, both of whom turned up to hang out while I muttered and played Hades 2 this week during...
00:00:44
Speaker
early times when the sun and everything um i have a lot of fun even when nobody's watching and i'm always you know talking to myself about these the relative merits of the the boons those olympian gods keep foisting upon my girl mel and you know yeah i just and like i'm always having fun even by myself but i was honestly surprised at how nice it was to be ah talking about this stuff with other people i got to answer some questions and things got to give good advice that i didn't always follow um i should mention that i'm still perfectly happy to talk about card games including the marvel snap i had just been playing off stream um i'm not saying i would never stream marvel snap but right now i'm doing hades 2 trying to kill chronos on fresh file three like three runs or less
00:01:34
Speaker
Personal best is four. I got that almost a year ago today. And i would just I would love to beat it before the year is up. um Anywho, after that, I'll probably start doing some high-fier stuff with a zillion burdens and penalties and things, because I do miss all these late-game gods that you just don't get to meet if you're doing fresh-file early runs, like you're never going to run into Hera or Ares or DeFestis or even Zeusy Magusi.
00:01:56
Speaker
anyhow Anywho, there are some other games I think could be fun to stream, including Marvel's Midnight Suns. and another Marvel-y card game that I have fond feelings for. and Yeah, who knows what the the future holds. Probably more Hades, too, because I love that shit.
00:02:11
Speaker
But let me tell you about these decks I've been playing. These Marvel Snap decks. Ooh. I also, i dropped some some spoilers on the podcast. i' but I've been keeping some secrets that only Wombat Combat and Hot Tub Tony know.
00:02:26
Speaker
There was a card that released recently that I was very wrong about, and it's not one of the ones you would think.
Deck Strategies and Gameplay Experiences
00:02:32
Speaker
I bet ah bet you would never in a zillion years guess this card that I was super wrong about. And if there were a thumbnail for my wrongness, my eyes would be like bugging out and I'd be like...
00:02:43
Speaker
But anywho, so here's the card. It's Prodigy. I fucking love Prodigy now. I'm a number one Prodigy gamer. Ooh. You know, I thought he would be a little clunkier to use to set up fun things in the front row and then get the payoff again in the back row.
00:03:02
Speaker
not that hard oh my gosh you know the funniest thing in the world is doing it with captain carter where the other card in the back row is lasher and then you just afflict something like super negative and it's very funny it's like not necessarily the most practical thing to do with your prodigy but like oh like you end up with some like negative 17 power things on the other side. And it's very goofy.
00:03:32
Speaker
I've got some beautiful screenshots. um So I guess the, the prodigy deck that I've been playing the most, I've, I've had different versions and things going and progressing and parallel development and stuff.
00:03:48
Speaker
Anywho, the one that I'm going to talk about is very similar to the iron heart deck that I played last week. ah I guess this is the this is the version that has the new Human Torch, Tumen Torch, I think is the best ah fun nickname for him. um America Chavez, Nico Minoru, Lasher, Surge, Ironheart, Brood, Captain Carter, Tumen Torch, Silver Surfer, Prodigy, Absorbing Man, and Gwenpool. That's a fun deck. It's been winning plenty.
00:04:17
Speaker
But you know what's really been doing all right for me? A much older deck. I've been playing some Dracula Discard this week because I took a bounty that made me play Proxima Midnight.
00:04:28
Speaker
And Proxima Midnight is a card that doesn't go in my other discard deck, which is a Morgan Le Fay deck, because Proxima Midnight and Morgan Le Fay are not friends. You wish they would be, but they aren't.
00:04:41
Speaker
Um... So i went I went all the way back in the files to a deck I called Cool Doug's Card, named after a song by Sammy Ray and the Friends. That one's got Meek, Scorn, Blade, Morbius, Swarm, Colleen Wing, Gambit, Lady Sif, Dracula, Proxima Midnight, MODOK, and Apocalypse.
00:04:57
Speaker
And I had so much fun getting those four Proxima Midnight wins, and it was happening so... easily that I just kept playing it and kept winning and it just felt like a fun time to be playing Dracula Discard. very solid. and Deck is never really all that bad.
00:05:15
Speaker
um In fact, I would say it's always good. Yeah, I'll go i'll go out there. um I'd agree. Yeah, i um Wow, I've got so many different variations on this Prodigy deck. They're not that interesting. Yeah, just play Prodigy. he's super cool. He does cool stuff. You know what's really fun? Playing Surfer on 5.
00:05:35
Speaker
Uh, playing surfer on five is always like a thing that you should be thinking about whether or not you're going to do, because it's very often correct. Especially if you can follow it up with, say, ah a surged absorbing man and ah prodigy the next turn for, you know, like more.
00:05:55
Speaker
me So yeah, I don't know. I've been having a lot of fun with that. What else has been going on in my weekend snap? Uh, so far I've not played any high voltage. It's only been, you know, a day so far, but, um, I'm having a great time not playing high voltage and I really appreciate having the option to do that. So I've just been laddering and having fun.
00:06:15
Speaker
i I'm not sure how many people are playing because i don't have a ton of SP yet this season, but I did get quite a few from 4Cuber against...
00:06:27
Speaker
Honeifer, the second ranked person who I don't think I should have been playing probably at my current SP level, but whatever. I suppose the matches have to get made. And if that's how many people are in the in the pool, then that's how many people are in the pool, I suppose.
00:06:46
Speaker
And ah again, won. It was fine. But yeah, yeah. yeah Good weekend and snap for me personally. I'm glad to hear it. I've been playing a little bit of Prodigy lately, and my my favorite trick that I haven't actually put into a clip yet, but I've tried it a few times, is the card you're going to copy, and then on the next turn you play Agony Prodigy.
00:07:09
Speaker
you get two of them and only two of them at that location. I'm like, got to figure out what to do with that. zola And you're sure that either prodigy or the card he copied are the ones that get spread out or just take advantage of the fact that there's still two spaces left after prodigy. I don't know. I don't know what it is, but I've really enjoyed doing it lately.
00:07:29
Speaker
ah re our third cohost i think last, but not least. at And only because it's an even numbered episode. How was your week in snap and keep it snappy. Okay.
00:07:41
Speaker
um For you, this week, i have a small collection of topics. I did... Like, when we recorded last week, I had, like... several I just took several days ah Snap.
00:07:54
Speaker
And then came back hard, sort of. So um I did to Infinite um over the weekend. And um it started with it was supposed to be then Surfer Heart Deck, but then I changed half the cards in it.
00:08:14
Speaker
It's not really that anymore. It started with the simple cascade, as as a deck change often does, of um Lauren who gave me a code for the season pass.
00:08:27
Speaker
She's like our star and she gets all the, you know... the freebie bags that pass out at VIP events. And um so i was like, hells yeah, I'll take this OP Pedro.
00:08:38
Speaker
And so I put him in the deck and I put him in for Dasher. And that cascaded into like Esme Kukuku no longer being good because you don't want a street for and Pedro as much as you want a, say, that is Mr. Fantastic First Steps. They've shortened it to the actor's first name. So then it's just way faster. I've seen a lot of that.
00:08:56
Speaker
i will I will take your word for it as I am the the last remaining non-season pass co-host of Snap on This. yeah For the record, I offered it and Ben declined.
00:09:08
Speaker
Yes. Ben is um the most righteous of us. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. I might accept next month. I wanted their numbers to reflect that I did not get one this month.
00:09:24
Speaker
yeah Sorry, continue. No, no, so I was just saying at Cascade, it just led into all of these changes in the deck. I changed like half the cards, and honestly, felt like, as opposed to some other runs, for me, when I came in this weekend, was like kind of a really easy...
00:09:42
Speaker
Relatively speaking, like, I just, I feel I don't know, this is anecdotal because I don't really track my games, but it felt like, like, you know, a good, and like, 15% of my games were against bots. So, like, that helps.
00:09:55
Speaker
Like, thank you, bots. I love you. It helps a ton. of stay Yeah, so, like, I, you know, making up for those times that I, like, lost a bad eight cubes because, you know, sometimes I just refuse to quit.
00:10:08
Speaker
um And, yeah, so then we got there, and it's like, oh, yay! Like, that's why, it's like, that's the only reason I feel like to get to Infinite early. Like, I want to be one of those chill people that's like, I'll just do the whole month. But it's like, it feels like you can't fun because you just got to wait and I'm like, I'm going to climb. So, like, Once you're done, you're like, I'm free. Because I'm not someone who cares. I'm like constantly.
00:10:32
Speaker
Like, ah yeah when I hit infinite, I was ranked 4,000 something. And I quickly, because I stopped playing ladder completely then, just like dropped and dropped and dropped. And then even every time I get ladder, though, I'm always facing someone who's like 1,000 or 2,000. it's like, when do I play the other people who don't give a shit? Okay. Okay.
00:10:53
Speaker
that's cool i like when i beat a try hard i'm like you're trying to rank up here i am some no ranker some no ranker because you don't see below 5 000 right this is how i'm a toxic gamer is whenever i i imagine anybody who's rank 5 000 or better ah honest snap turn one right i don't know it tickles me great because I'll beat them with their like super like you know meta deck with you know my little bonkers silly deck I'm like especially when they snapped me it's just like I wasn't even gonna snap because I even care I'm just like cooking my deck so I'm just trying to see what works and doesn't and so it actually helps that I'm playing their stupid meta decks so I'm so uh we can talk about it later because it's like OTA relevant if I can hate bullseye anyway so
00:11:42
Speaker
So, okay, but I came up with, like, the most bonkers deck this week, and I did already show it to and Ben. You guys have seen it, but it is so, it is so insane. Okay, this deck is born of a, both a desire to play Ms. Marvel and a recognition, like, this, like, Lauren is like, I've got this, like, agony trick that I have to figure out to use. I'm like, Rhino is a Ms. Marvel card. What?
00:12:12
Speaker
And I must build the deck for that. Because that's all I wanted to do with Rhino. Because I'm like, it's just perfect. ah Because when playing, when I'm playing Ms. Marvel, I don't like oh like a small Ms. Marvel. You know what i mean? If we are going to like fucking embiggen, it's going to be big. So if I'm playing Ms. Marvel, I really do kind of want to be playing an onslaught or a mystique or something. you know um So, ah and this deck.
00:12:42
Speaker
And what's great about this, too, is, like, this is a pretty budget deck. It does have Herbie. Can you believe it? I'm playing activate card. Every card that Ben thinks. Is he working for you? Like, he's the most replaceable card in the deck, I think. No, but is he working for you? Is he functioning? Yes.
00:12:58
Speaker
Yeah. You are able to activate it. Have you been able to use the Mr. Fantastic one? Okay, no. It's bugged. Sometimes I have to, like, I'm like, tap, tap. to I found if you tap really hard enough times, eventually it'll come up.
00:13:12
Speaker
Wow. Really hard. No, I want the 200 next turn. Fucking no. I mean, timer's like roping down, and um yes, Irby's bugged. I have not had that problem with Irby, but I've had that problem with other cards where I'm tapping Furious Seer, like trying to drop them into a location, and like I'm trying every single corner of this location. Like, please. Yeah.
00:13:35
Speaker
i haven't tried to play him since I tried to play him, you know, like for a few days initially. i found that like the rock was the only one that like really worked and the Mr. Fantastic one that gave stats to other locations.
00:13:49
Speaker
That one I could not ever get to activate at all. I wonder if it's the like animation itself, like the overlay. think that's something to do with the layers or something. That's wild. i was I was surprised to learn that persistence got through. okay No, it's like office space. You know, like the fax machine. You just got to like... Is it that you can't expand Herbie?
00:14:12
Speaker
You can't pull him up and he won't like long click. But if you keep tapping, eventually you can pull him up and then you can hit the activate button. I just had a thought. What if you tap one of your other cards and then swipe to Herbie? I think I've heard from from one of our listeners that that works.
00:14:27
Speaker
i I don't know if I know how do that. I mean, like, I know how to find the tokens that a card generates, or i know how to find the card that a symbiote from Kiln used to be or whatever. Yeah, if you're examining either your card or your opponent's cards, you can just swipe sideways and it'll go to the next card on that side of the board.
00:14:46
Speaker
Hmm. Well, I guess that's a way to do it. i I kind of think they should maybe just ship cards that work, but yeah we that sounds good, too. It's so weird. It worked for the first few days I played it and then just suddenly started doing this and now it does it like half the time. is Yeah, it's obnoxious. So anyway, hurry! not a patch, so I don't think it's getting better.
00:15:10
Speaker
Sorry, continue. It's okay. Herbie is the most replaceable card in the deck. um So, like like, the rest of it is pretty budget. Because, okay, if you're putting an onslaught in a deck, right, you need to make a a couple other big swings.
00:15:27
Speaker
i Some cards that also happen been to work well with Ms. Marvel is I put Patriot in here. Mr. Fantastic. I can see maybe... No, it's so good sometimes. Sometimes it's too good. Okay.
00:15:39
Speaker
And um because, like, here's what you're hitting with Patriot also for Ms. Marvel. One... Okay, this did come about because I was looking at Rhino Ms. Marvel. And I'm like, but what if we have some juicy rocks?
00:15:52
Speaker
Because when I was thinking last week when we were talking about Irby, I'm like, I'll be excited to play Irby when I'm building a rock deck. When have all those, like, rock cards, I'm like, I'll put Rhino and Irby together, and I'll beef up some rocks. That sounds fun to me.
00:16:07
Speaker
already did it. This is... um It's so surprising. It's won me so so many games. You do have some anti-synergy with Squirrel Girl, but believe me, I've tried a lot of things. She's still the best card for there.
00:16:21
Speaker
What helps in this deck is because you have all these ongoings, of course, you have a Cosmo to protect. When you're stacking a bunch of ongoings in a lane and like that's a big plan of yours, you you got have Cosmo.
00:16:32
Speaker
And Cosmo's like your one... tech card in the deck. So you know what i mean? I can't play with like... It's really hard for me to play with no tech cards. And at least like Cosmo... There's been plenty of times I took this into Conquest where it's like a lot of times early on I was holding Squirrel Girl back in case I wanted to play a Rhino or stuff.
00:16:51
Speaker
But Squirrel Girl is a great prio tool when you want to get a Cosmo early on someone. When you're in Conquest and you know they're playing Discord they're playing Destroy or something... And a lot of times you can guess what location they're playing on based on the locations that are out there and what decks you're playing and stuff. So um she can help you get that Cosmo ahead to block their shenanigans.
00:17:17
Speaker
um So... ah You know, also, Doctor Doom, White Tiger, because you have this, and with Rhino making the rock, Irby can make a rock.
00:17:29
Speaker
Irby giving you the extra energy, that's kind of what I always want. I have a lot of big stacked cards in this deck, so I'm always like, please feed me. Um... But Mockingbird, she's so great and so unexpected because you're not playing Thanos. And that's like kind of just what everyone plays Mockingbird. it feels like unless they're playing like a Loki or something.
00:17:49
Speaker
And um you have so many extra cards out there, you know, and it's like at the end of the game, you can totally throw down like a three nine Mockingbird with a three Patriot in the right lane to complete a Miss Marvel stack.
00:18:04
Speaker
Okay. the the last um The last card, I think I've mentioned all the other ones that really ah like puts the like bow on this deck is Astral Projection.
00:18:18
Speaker
It came to it last. was way to make my cards cheaper. I was like, does Surge go here? Does Pedro go here? Astral Projection. ah three cost Doom?
00:18:29
Speaker
Played early, played late. Whenever you're playing a three cost Doom, it's a good time to play a three cost Doom in a Ms. Marvel deck. With that has Patriot in it, it's like, mm, it's so good.
00:18:40
Speaker
And then sometimes you just have tons of Doom bot. Just Doom bots everywhere, you know? Sometimes Doom wins and like the robots rule. So, um...
00:18:51
Speaker
Or White Tiger, right? And that's where... And it's like, how did I ever think to
Hypothetical Scenarios and Pop Culture
00:18:54
Speaker
put White Tiger in before this? Do you have 2099 in there? No.
00:19:02
Speaker
No, because it's a Miss Marvel deck. But it's got Onslaught in it.
00:19:08
Speaker
Yeah, but you have no control where the Doom bots go. like I got you. And they're the same cost. And then it's like, why put Ms. Marvel in it? And if I'm putting Doom in it, I would put Doom in for Ms. Marvel.
00:19:19
Speaker
And like, you're missing the point. The dream of the deck. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I did look at Doom because I have a lot of high cost cards, but I do end up playing like a late Squirrel Girl. ah A lot of times I'm playing more than one card to hit the Miss Marvel, right?
00:19:35
Speaker
Or to like, just because I have a three, so like usually Mockingbird, sometimes she definitely, I've definitely got her down to some zero cost sometimes, but a lot of times she's like three or four So you're playing her earlier, you're playing her late with something else with a Cosmo at the right time when you know where they're going to put their Surfer, that's the time to do it.
00:19:54
Speaker
I love that astral projection doom and for for Mockingbird. I love that. Right? ah It's so good. mean, and hitting a white tiger is great, too. I'll take it. It's perfect.
00:20:06
Speaker
And that's why Shadow King, I did trial Shadow King in this deck, because I'm like, I'm not buffing my cards, right? And there's so much rampant, like, card buffing. um But Shadow King ruins astral projection.
00:20:20
Speaker
It's just like, you do not want hit Shadow King instead of your doom. Yeah. Yeah, and I've gambled and lost there. So, like, um so Shadow King doesn't belong in the deck, but there's so... But, like, this where the tech in this deck comes in, the tools you have to, like, gain and lose pride. And I guess that could be said um of any deck, but it's, like, when people are, like, how, you know...
00:20:43
Speaker
What's the deck you took? And like, this is why you can climb with any deck when you can, or you can win conquest with decks that that are stacked against you is a lot of times I knew like one, beat in conquest, um, a, uh, an ongoing deck that had super scroll.
00:21:02
Speaker
that's super squirrel. And you how beat it is I just didn't play. Like they kept expecting me to play my Miss once they saw I had the Miss Martin once they saw I had the Mr. Fantastic. but I lost the the first game to it.
00:21:15
Speaker
But then i just I just played my Patriot stacked, right? Because they can copy my Patriot, but it's not doing anything for him. So it's just like... There's so many ways you got to look at your deck and what they're playing. And when you need to gain loose, like that's how I would beat Surfer decks is right. You know, like I need to gain Prioso and save my Cosmo so I can hit it at the right moment. Right. And then that means you have to plan the rest of your turns around.
00:21:41
Speaker
the thing you gotta do to beat the meta deck. And that's how you take bonkers. And they don't know what you're fucking doing. They don't know Mockingbirds here. Hopefully, every time I drop down that astral projection, you know, and threw in the dooms, I'm like, say it. Say it's cool. but Anyway, I've already muted them all.
00:22:00
Speaker
I've been forgetting last lately because people have been nasty muting. Nasty emoting s demoinging left and right. It's been bad this way. Yeah. I want to see it. The deck is... That's why the deck is called Basic.
00:22:13
Speaker
Mostly after The Good Place. I'm thinking of Kristen Bell, the way she says it. You know, she's like, Ya Basic. Because, one, there's some basic cards in this deck. Michael snaps there.
00:22:28
Speaker
Yeah. So, you know, it's... It makes, you know, the basic cards in your deck special. And every time I'm playing someone else, I'm playing their stupid bullseye. Okay, sorry.
00:22:40
Speaker
You're not stupid if you play bullseye. I'm just angry at the card. um You know, every time I'm playing against them with my deck, I'm like, you're basic for playing your deck. Look what I got. Look what I'm doing.
00:22:51
Speaker
Look at those shenanigans. You don't even know. Anyway, so... um Oh, I forgot. I had a plan. I was going to open with this. This was the most important part of my week in Snap. Okay.
00:23:05
Speaker
and Because it's ah tangentially related to Snap via Marvel. All right. Now, this is very important because I'm going to ask you both a question. You have 10 seconds to think about it, and then you must answer. All right. And it's based Sorry. Sorry. It's based on a Reddit post I saw.
00:23:24
Speaker
Okay. Okay. The question is, okay, Galactus is here to destroy the world. You can show him one thing to convince him to save all of humanity. You have 10 seconds. What are you going to show him?
00:23:38
Speaker
It's the first thing that pops in your head.
00:23:41
Speaker
What's going to do? What's going to save humanity? I don't think I can show him anything that would, mean, he needs to eat. I assume he's chosen Earth because, like, he needs to eat Earth, and, like, he's got needs.
00:23:54
Speaker
Okay, then if Ben's, if our fate is in Ben's hands, we're all dead. The Earth is destroyed. Lauren, what are you showing Galactus? And my first thought was playing Claire DeLune.
00:24:05
Speaker
um But, you know, he probably sees music all all over the place. So maybe I would go for some other some other beautiful cartoon. What for you is the same thing?
00:24:19
Speaker
I thought you were going to drop in a different WCP. I'm going to make him watch K-pop Demon Hunters with me. Oh, that movie rips. I love that movie.
00:24:33
Speaker
haven't watched it yet. So much fun. Very fun. The songs got stuck in my head. liked that the hateful song was the least catchy one.
00:24:45
Speaker
Okay. For me, it was when I saw this, I immediately thought, because of course, it's like, it was such clickbait. I have to go in and see what the top answer is and, you know, how I feel about that.
00:24:56
Speaker
And then, but before that, I was like, what is it for me? And for me, it immediately popped in my head because I recently, my background TV, I don't know if you're as messed up a person as I am, but I constantly have the TV running at all times, even though I'm not paying attention to some TV. And usually it's a comfort show that I've played at like Parks and Rec or The Good Place or, except for the very ending, because that'll make me cry.
00:25:15
Speaker
But I've been watching Community. And recently, and I did watch this, sometimes it catches me in for a whole episode. um There's an episode where they basically combine the show that I haven't seen, I'm referencing Glee, about show choir-ness.
00:25:34
Speaker
And, like, the movie, the faculty slash the sci-fi trope of, like, alien possession slowly taking over people, you know, like the thing kind of. but like you know, more like, uh, you low key anyway.
00:25:51
Speaker
So they combine those two things where it's like, they're ah convincing members of the group to join the show choir through like insane songs. It's really like yeah amazing cinema, honestly, and very good. I just want to say songs from that episode. because they also got stuck in my head. And I know them than the ones from K-pop demon hunters.
00:26:13
Speaker
These episodes, it's like, these are worth it. Humanity is worth it because we have achieved the combination of cultural references that will forever be a cult classic in our hearts. Anyway. Teach me how to understand Christmas. I think that's maybe the cleverest one, but I love the the Donald Glover and Danny Pudi one.
00:26:33
Speaker
Oh. Baby Boomer Santa. Oh my God. Baby Boomer Santa. I give the gifts book of the world. yeah then oh my yeah That episode is very good.
Game Mechanics and Card Discussions
00:26:46
Speaker
I love it a lot. Exactly. Ben, see, now not only have I saved humanity, I've restored Ben's face in it because we can make shows up. I would show Galactus the musical episode of Community. Or...
00:26:58
Speaker
One of them. I'm in all of Community, and I had no memory of a musical episode, so it might be time to rewatch it You should definitely rewatch it. It's one of those, okay, sorry, if you're listening and never seen a show Community, it's one where, I am sorry, it is one of those shows where kind of a lot of the first season is israel like, yeah, it's it's fun, it's fine, you know, kind of like Parks and Rec how it started where you're like, it's fine, it's sitcom but then, you know, and they eventually they start bending it into all these weird, twisted kind of like sketches of various like pop culture things and it is like incredible, anyway and highly recommended by all of us I confidently speak on behalf of us as a trio is is ah it's a formulation of when we combine into like our Voltron-esque you know
00:27:47
Speaker
Anyway, okay. So, but then when I clicked in, the top answer, okay, I swear this is going to be the new Rick Roll. top answer was someone who had a little video of Reagan, the break dancer from the Olympics.
00:28:04
Speaker
let's say
00:28:07
Speaker
Okay, sorry. If you know, you know. um And it was hilarious. And I'm like, this is good. I hope it does turn into the new Rick Ball. Awesome! Can you imagine?
00:28:19
Speaker
I'm like, this, this Galactus is why humanities are saving. Have you seen this kangaroo move? Okay, anyway. you think Galactus would be persuaded by, like, good breakdancing?
00:28:31
Speaker
We don't know. This is the problem. It's like, okay, for Gwaltus' taste, it's like, think about, like, if you read a description of anime, it'll make no sense. You have no idea what the plot is from reading the synopsis and no idea whether you'll like it or not.
00:28:45
Speaker
Like, right? Zero percent. You just have to watch it.
00:28:49
Speaker
And that's how it is with trying to guess what Galactus is going to like or not. It's like, I don't know. Maybe he's a furry. We don't know. We don't know. Also, are we trying to titillate Galactus?
00:29:02
Speaker
You're taking this too far. Tempt him with better planet. We're not trying to seduce Galactus here. okay are we?
00:29:18
Speaker
Okay. That was my mini... Like bla a shady street vendor from a video game. That's my collection of snapping, you know, this weekend's snap topics. say feel like... I do you feel like that. Are you one of the weird merchants at the Moonflower who smells strange pieces of equipment in Final Fantasy X that have ah on unusual abilities? like the Wait, like... Oh, like Ares? Yeah.
00:29:45
Speaker
Sorry, did you say like a flower? I missed the first part of what you said. i was I was asking. you you it sounded like you were like not like the standard video game merchant, but you were like a weird one, like the the weird merchants at the Moonflow who sell unusual equipment and and in Final Fantasy X. They sell like the Wakka weapon that has stone touch, and they've got the Lulu weapon that has death touch, and like they they have other weird pieces of equipment like that. I played 10, but i didn't do i didn't get any of the super special weapons. I looked up a guide, and it was like, get hit by 3,000 lightnings in the lightning field. And i'm like, we are past that time in our lives, are kidding? It's 200, and you have to not get hit by them, but yes.
00:30:34
Speaker
Okay. have great comprehension as well, so, you know. Okay. that right I'll do a quick quick and snap. Talk about my my agony prodigy shenanigans.
00:30:46
Speaker
um Finally got Kid Omega, who solves a problem that comes up a lot when I'm trying to come up with a cool clip. It's like, oh, but there's not five spots in a location. And and he kind of solves that problem. So I'm excited. I haven't done anything with him yet, but I'm excited to do things with him.
00:31:04
Speaker
A hit infinite. Only saw one bot the entire way. Might have mentioned that last week. I don't know. um You did, and that's so weird, but I've had months where I feel like I did i was very very rarely, almost never hitting a butt, and this time it was like, what? Is it when I started playing?
00:31:21
Speaker
Because I skipped a few days? My last few seasons have been very body, but this one has not been. ah Somebody in the speakeasy said that the ah patch seems to have fixed the CL matching.
00:31:33
Speaker
bug so it'll be harder to spot bots going forward yeah i i'll have to see what my eyes really be sure but our listeners are usually right about things is my feeling so yeah They're also very attractive and charming people. Very intelligent.
00:31:51
Speaker
oh I mean, we we jest, but like I do trust them more than the average Marvel Snap player. I'm like, well, they listen to Snap on this, they probably know what's going on. Absolute Rizzlers, all of them. All right.
00:32:05
Speaker
i Yeah, there's two different types of bots, right? There's the kinds that are like they're injecting cubes into the system. They they throw the game. you can You can play very badly and they will still play to lose if possible.
00:32:18
Speaker
And then there's the kind that are there to help with queue times and they are supposed to be good and player-like. And I think that, you know, those are the bots. A couple of those have fooled me. Yeah, those are the bots that are beating people.
00:32:29
Speaker
Yeah. Which I believe are the same bots as the ones that are from Deadpool's Diner, that debuted in Deadpool's Diner. i was trying to like find the answers about this today for, I can't remember why, for some reason.
00:32:41
Speaker
um Because Glen has talked about those bots and said they don't cheat. They don't look at your plays. They don't look at RNG outcomes. And like I'm assuming those are the same like bots. But he only said it about the Deadpool's Diner bots. But I'm assuming they're the same bots have since. so he says wrong stuff about bots.
00:32:56
Speaker
Like he's not, he's not the source on bots. and They insist that like bots are consistent and haven't changed. and it's like, well, um clearly they're very different from player to player and season to season. Anyway.
00:33:08
Speaker
ah You know, I didn't i didn't actually upload any clips to YouTube yet, like I promised last week. I'm sorry. It'll it'll happen. You know, shit's busy around here. Absolutely. No rush. I don't have and a good excuse like a wedding anymore for being busy outside of... No, but you got like real life. You got a family and responsibilities and just like other stuff on your plate.
00:33:30
Speaker
I'm going to blame the HOA. My yard's a mess and it takes constant work and and yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'll blame the HOA.
00:33:40
Speaker
Fuck them. um
00:33:45
Speaker
Any new thoughts about our cards? Oh, here we go. Fantastic card. I did end up getting the super premium season pass. I was planning on being somebody who only gets it when it's a card that is desirable to me.
00:33:57
Speaker
um Like a card that looks like a fun card. Uh, but my gold pass ran out and I've, have been a routine gold pass buyer since its inauguration.
00:34:08
Speaker
Um, and I was like, you know what? i what if I just don't buy the gold pass and I buy the super premium pass, like $10 for 3000 tokens. Seems like it's a pretty good deal. Uh, so, so I did that impulsively cause I'm an impulsive person. I have not played fantastic car single time and I don't plan to cause it doesn't look especially fun to me.
00:34:26
Speaker
Um, is it true that it doesn't have any variants? Uh, It does not have variants. That's correct. That wouldn't bother me, but I think that would bother some people, probably. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised to see future iterations of the Super Premium Season Pass, including the variant.
00:34:42
Speaker
Like, if it was a variant... am trying to say? Because now that we have the patch, that if you have a variant for a card that you're missing the base card, you get the base card. So like to me, it makes sense to make the Super Premium Season Pass be a fantastic card variant.
00:34:55
Speaker
And if you buy it while it's in the pass, you get the variant yeah and the base card. That seems smart to me. or you wait a month and buy it in Snap Packs, but you don't get the cool variant. Yeah, ah I'm all for the monetizing cosmetics. I'm not especially variant-y person.
00:35:13
Speaker
I say that, but I do blow my gold on variants. I got that. was going to say, if you aren't a variant-y person, Lauren, then I don't know. like i I like the base art in the game. I know people who will like, they'll buy a variant just because they hate the base art.
00:35:28
Speaker
Like the agony that just came out. It's a cool agony, but I know people who are, who are going to grab that agony just because it's the first variant for agony and they can finally stop running the base art. And I'm like, I don't, I like most of the base art.
00:35:41
Speaker
There's some that I can't say white widow, but mostly I like it.
00:35:46
Speaker
Yeah. yeah New thoughts on Mr. Fantastic First Steps, Fantasticar, Herbie, or Kid Omega, or Cobra.
00:35:59
Speaker
Well, and I picked up Kid Omega, haven't played it. I don't know why I picked up Kid Omega, honestly. I sort of regret it. I'm like, I don't know. I just sort of did it without thinking. I was like, oh, Kid Omega is available. I should drop the the collector's tokens.
00:36:16
Speaker
And i'm I'm like, why? as As soon as I'd done it, I was like, what was that about? I don't know. But um yeah, Fantastic card still seems like a great card. Pretty strong. Seems like it does a lot for four energy.
00:36:30
Speaker
Mr. Fantastic still seems pretty strong. These are just cards that I'm playing against a lot that, you know... I wish Herbie worked still. that's That's still where I am with Herbie.
00:36:42
Speaker
I still believe it's a good card. I still would like to be able to test it without learning weird sideways workarounds for people that play the card normally.
00:36:53
Speaker
Yeah, literally. Like, what even is that? I'm really disappointed that a Herbie fix was not listed in the patch notes. Kind of seems like they just... They're releasing too many cards to worry about, you know, testing them to make sure they work. um Yeah, that's my thought.
00:37:13
Speaker
Okay. Rhi? Any of those five? Poor Cobra. It's just like, none of us were even like, I go, did you get Cobra? Like, no. I actually have Cobra thoughts, but I'm going last.
00:37:25
Speaker
Okay. Oh, i'm interested in your cover thoughts. Okay. um I already, you know, and talked about playing Irby. I think Fantastic Heart is probably a bit better than my estimation of it, but still not like...
00:37:38
Speaker
You know, right? And because I have played against a decent number of Fantasticars. I was listening to the InfaNaut podcast and Kieran Nimbus seemed very impressed with the Fantasticar and says that its untapped stats are apparently bonkers, which I would not have guessed myself either.
00:37:58
Speaker
But also when there's like small, like popular, right? Like there's probably a small portion of the player base that has Fantasticar. And I think like sometimes that kind of skews like stats in favor.
00:38:10
Speaker
Because a lot of times the people who have it too are people who play a lot more, right? And then so like they might be, and I'm not saying, I'm just speculating because it's right, but I'm just saying it's like It's probably very small... It's like self-selecting. I'm not saying I'm not... All of thetime stuff is like all of it is like bad yeah me only players who are who opt into it yeah it's selfselecting
00:38:39
Speaker
um Okay, so I did think, though, about Mr. Fantastic. um yeah I you know, have like some conversations with some friends and I've been noticing this myself.
00:38:51
Speaker
I do think he is very powerful. I don't know what the general population of Snap is saying it. But I do think so. And I think part of it is just the additional hidden information you have.
00:39:03
Speaker
um usually because a lot of times Mr. Fantastic First Steps is being paired with Gwenpool and stuff like that. And then you stop being able to have any sense of what kind of output they're going to have cause you don't know what's in their hand.
00:39:18
Speaker
You know what i mean? Are they going to put down like the most giant brood ever? Did it all hit like a Sebastian Shaw? Did it hit it right here? You know mean? And it starts like the math gets too And this is like an interesting thing for me because it's like when when is like hidden information too much for a card game? Because think of a card game, right, like on one end of games, we have games like chess, where like all the information is open to everyone. Right. And I fucking hate chess. I do not have the patience. Like I'm into my third variation of like the way I can think about things. I'm just like, oh, fuck it. You know what i mean?
00:39:54
Speaker
Anyway, I had more patience for chess when I was like eight years old than I do today. I get it. Yeah. Right? And for video games in general. Like, my, like, old PCs would, like, stutter on a game like this, and I would still play the game slowly over, like, 2X. It was, like, the game I had. So, anyway.
00:40:11
Speaker
Now i'm like, no. No! Must all be the most convenient and thing for me ever. Okay. um But would say games like chess, right, you have and it's all open for there to see. And then there's basically like gambling games where it's just like it's all luck. It's all roll of the dice.
00:40:32
Speaker
And cards should be probably closer to to chess. Pure dice. But like... But know what mean? There's somewhere in between because it's like you there's a broad set. You broadly know all the cards someone can have. You know, you have your knowledge of the meta, right? You have... And it's like early game. we could... You could, you know, fear it. Like, this is a surfer deck. I can know what the output is or whatever this is.
00:40:56
Speaker
And um to this, there's even a second component of it being a digital card game. So, like... In a game where we have cards that are getting, where we have like 336 broods or whatever, if this was a paper card game, I'd be like, this card game is getting near the end of its life, which I've seen many print card games die.
00:41:16
Speaker
I still have a lot of those in my basement. and um And part of it, it's just like where MTG has gotten where it's just there's like so many things are so complex. The math has gotten so extreme that like people have to calculate right in that game that when you have games that are too hard for people to keep track of, then it's like it's gotten too complex.
00:41:35
Speaker
It's gone. But a digital card game tracks a lot of stuff for you. It doesn't have that... paper problem where they need to keep the math to what people can kind of feasibly do at the table and not like have arguments over, you know what mean?
00:41:49
Speaker
And it's like, no, the card, the digital card game can do all that math view. But then we get into this problem. where players are getting frustrated because they feel like they have no conception of whether to snap or retreat anymore because they have no concept with all this.
00:42:04
Speaker
So how much information, hidden information, is too much in ah in a card game of like both power and cost reduction with Pedro, right? It's both how powerful is it getting, how cheap is it getting, how much stuff can they play out, how powerful it is.
00:42:21
Speaker
where Where's that line for you guys? Yeah. I think it was Gwenpool and everything they've done since then has been over it. i mean, Gwenpool herself is, yeah, she's a big problem. But she was okay, right? When it was just Gwenpool?
00:42:34
Speaker
When it was just Gwenpool. But when they when they print a second copy of Gwenpool, then you're in trouble. but Yeah, it makes me really appreciate Surge's design, actually, because it's not just that Surge slows you down by having this drawback where like you have to play you have to play the card you topdeck in order to continue the effect. You have to surrender that hidden information to get a new one.
00:42:56
Speaker
But it's also the hidden information. like Your opponent never has to keep track of how many Surge cards you have in hand. It's one or zero. you know One per Surge. Weird situations, there are exceptions. But mostly...
00:43:10
Speaker
It's one one card or zero in your hand that are surged. And yeah, I just... It's ah it's too much. I agree. it It makes it really, really hard to play against these cards.
00:43:21
Speaker
Right? Because this is why I don't like Settlers, like, of Catan, right? the Like, as someone who plays a lot of board games, because I want to, like, i we may have talked about this a bit before, I want a bit of randomization, right? Because you want that to be part of your strategy that you have to account for.
00:43:37
Speaker
But when it feels like it's just, like, all, like, dice rules with very little, you know, like, it's all just slick, then it's no fun for me. Because how do I prove that I'm smarter and I figured out the strategy better than everyone, you know? Like, where's the joy in that?
00:43:49
Speaker
So like, what, to just sit with your friends and have a good time without showing them how you attack them in a field of battle? Okay. We've talked about like the party game thing before too, right? Like with Smash. Okay, but party games can be fun.
00:44:01
Speaker
I don't want to play Smash in party mode, which is, you know, hazards on items. Like I don't want to play it that way. Some people love playing it that way. But I like playing... Items off, no stage hazards. It's a much more strategic. And you feel good about your win like you earned it. And there are still RNG elements. There are some characters who have random like abilities. like there's There are still some RNG elements, but I like it to be somewhat controlled so that the better player wins 80% of the time, something like that.
00:44:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's not a fighting game where it's just super dumb. No, it reminds so there's these board games. If you play lot of board games, I'm going to butcher this name. Like, Cole Worley is a of, it's considered, I think,
00:44:43
Speaker
and of i Generally considered one of the lead board game designers. He's some games like Root, which I think I've shown you guys. That's one I've like 3D printed and like painted and crafted like all these individual pieces.
00:44:54
Speaker
It's very impressive. And he shows stuff and I just quit. Anytime I can show off my like Root pieces and get accolades for anyone who might even tangentially appreciate them in that. you know I would love to see those.
00:45:06
Speaker
Nerdify me. yeah I think I have, but it's been years. It was early on. Anyway, so Root the Board Game, ARX, and there are these games that are able to get such narrative feeling and do all these cool things, but they all kind of suffer from...
00:45:23
Speaker
So what you could call like the Munchkin problem, if you've played ah that old card, it's one of the older card games, Munchkin, that it came out with a bunch of expansions for, where you're just trying to like level up a character to like level 15 or something. I don't know.
00:45:39
Speaker
But when you get a bunch of really good players playing a game like that, then the game suddenly becomes about, like, who's the first player when all the other players have run out of counters? Because the game is built around, like, you know, counter and counter and counter.
00:45:54
Speaker
And this is our problem with, like, all of his games that we've played, including ARK's most recent. And feels like it's just kind of random luck when everyone's going to run out of their counters. And then that last player wins, and it feels like it was less...
00:46:08
Speaker
like strategy, hmm? and um And then, so then it becomes like the only way to then win it would be like someone would king make to intentionally let, and it just didn't feel a real, and it's like there's so much promise in these games and so much fun in them, right?
00:46:27
Speaker
But this is where I'm saying with the hidden information and snap, it's not that like snap's not fun anymore, but snapping, knowing when to snap, knowing when to retreat, having some kind of theoretical idea. as I was saying to a friend, I think I put it like, they want to make liken Snap increasingly more exciting, increasingly more big and expected. The big commercials were like, Galactus!
00:46:51
Speaker
comes down and like half the board game's gone. Don't you want to play this game? you Yeah, kind of, you know, and they want more and more of these. It's like the Epic Creek problem, you know, like we got to get bigger and bigger and more exciting.
00:47:03
Speaker
But it's like and there's a point where there's going to there's too much. There's no ability to math. the output, the power of cards or to be able to track, you know, least what the scope is. Where on turn six, when you lose to a big surprise, yeah you want it to be because like, oh, I missed that they would shang there. You want to be able to see what they did there. You know what I mean? Like, oh, I see what they did there.
00:47:31
Speaker
And like, that's pretty cool. I love when someone beats me in a super clever and expected way, right? I can respect that. But it's like every turn six shouldn't feel like that. Like you have no ability to determine what they are. And when I'm playing against people, we're playing Serge and Pedro and Gwenpool.
00:47:47
Speaker
Then it's just like, I don't know. Do I do I just retreat? What can they do? Anyway. yeah Yeah. No, I think you're right. It really hurts the skill expression of the game. Yep.
00:47:59
Speaker
Okay. my Cobra thought. as It's actually, I'm just going to give accolades to the original Good Egg combat. Wombat combat. Yeah.
00:48:11
Speaker
yeah He had the idea to play Cobra Viper in a Nimrod deck. Just like, yeah, that's another synergy that you can force with Cobra. So you blow up your Nimrod.
00:48:23
Speaker
The new Nimrods are created cards. Viper over the Cobra. It explodes your Nimrod. You know, that's cute. It's probably not the best way to play Nimrod. That's what your Wombat con You activate Cobra after... like that that That's a part that like maybe the listener did not catch. oh yes.
00:48:42
Speaker
yeah you So you you cue Viper and then activate Cobra. And then the Cobra will activate once it's on the opponent's side. tricke You might have seen clips of people doing this with Fenris Wolf to generate a Destroyer on your opponent's side of the board. It's a cute little combo.
00:49:00
Speaker
Does not the Cannonball Mercury-Fenris Wolf combo infuriate you? andnnare I mean, it's a very good combo. Okay. Okay. This week's card, Tomb and Torch.
00:49:14
Speaker
ah steps. End of turn. Plus one power. Once per game. If your site here is full, double this card's power instead. Did you get it? And what do you think about it?
00:49:27
Speaker
I did get it. I don't really like the design very much. I think it's just aesthetically no good. um like i Yeah, I just i don't...
00:49:41
Speaker
I wish, i don't know. It seems like it's not like dominating in in a way that I was afraid it would, but like, i don't think it's a well-designed card and I don't, yeah, I just don't like it very much. I've i've been playing it to like get to know it and stuff, but I don't like it.
00:50:02
Speaker
kind of felt like you had to get this one because it's a very surfery card. um And maybe that's why you don't like it is because you feel like you had to get it. Do you think it's strong though? Is that the problem?
00:50:17
Speaker
Yeah. It's boring though, kind of, right? Extremely.
00:50:25
Speaker
fun. Like, I it to... I'm like, let me... I wasn't... I'd already been playing a lot of Surfer. You know, I get lot of deck boredom. like I get really obsessed, say, lake with my basic deck for... Especially as I'm cooking and trying to like fix it up.
00:50:41
Speaker
I'll be obsessed with the deck for maybe like a week or two, but it's just like... I can't. Since they took my comfort discard away. I've been forever without a home searching.
00:50:52
Speaker
Okay. um So I tried it and it was like, yeah, it's a surfer card. You know, it's fine. Super. But what I want to do with it, once again, I've also been playing a ton of against surfer because of this card and because just surfer's done really good with like Gwenpool and Pedro and like all of that stuff.
00:51:10
Speaker
I'm like, I just can't. I cannot. I cannot go act as surfer anymore. um Sorry, not combining the two, just in my head space because of comics. Okay. ah What I want to do is put them with some Elsa stuff because I do i do love me smelling. I'm going to get a finisher, a little cheap three cast that you can pair with like a tight card or something ah to finish off an Elsa lane.
00:51:34
Speaker
That's what I want to do with it when i'm when I'm not, you know, when I can stand to see its face. i think that speaks to how little of its usefulness comes from the plus one it gets at the end of turns.
00:51:45
Speaker
And, you know, like, it's just really about hand buffing. Oh, yeah, I did forget about that. Throwing bonus stats on it, and then you double it. You know, it's... That's why I think Herbie's a good card, and that's why that's why Black Panther costs five.
00:52:01
Speaker
It's also kind of like it's contributing to... And I don't know if it's hit critical mass yet or not, but cards that you want to hand buff, right? Like you have brood, you have sinister, you have human torch, you have lasher. Like you're just getting this pile of cards that like, doesn't matter who, who Gwenpool hits. I'm at least doubling whatever she hits and possibly tripling it.
00:52:20
Speaker
And so many of those cards are recent. Like this is like a design direction that they started going down around the time that Gwenpool came out and they've just kept hitting it harder and harder. and it's not as interesting as they think.
00:52:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I have fun with my, remember it, like my America, Okoye, Nakia, and then Ben would always be like, like one of those cards is good.
00:52:44
Speaker
And, you know, I'd be like that. But it was like fun memories. And now it's like not, and now everyone's playing all the buff decks all the time because they're like way too OP. And it's like, it's really messy. I'm glad to see so much America Chavez. She's finally getting a little recognition. yeah But other than that, no, I'm um i'm not not a fan.
00:53:03
Speaker
Yeah, not a fan. Vibe check on next week's card, The Thing. He's, what, 5, 6, and he gets plus 2 power each turn. And at the end of the game, he if your site is full, he instead destroys... Sorry, not at the end of the game. Once per game, if your site is full, he destroys ah an enemy card with less power than him.
00:53:27
Speaker
We've already talked about him few times. yeah Easy skip for personally. More fun than Human Torch at least. I don't know. Maybe. It's weird. He's super Spider-Man 209090, but I think he's a little better because it's easier to fill a location than it is to to move a card.
00:53:45
Speaker
we Speaking of locations and also these cards, these new Fantastic Four cards that gain plus one power at the end of turn, um how about that that rocket pad or whatever, that that launch pad thing that was the hot location yesterday? Has there ever been less of a location? yeah Or what? If you're winning on turn four, you're getting...
00:54:10
Speaker
yes If you're winning at the end of turn four, each of your cards there get plus one power. It is nothing. It's okay to have locations that are mostly not a big deal, I think.
00:54:21
Speaker
um but I like it, though. I can usually... see I've been winning it with my, like, Squirrel Girl. I'm like, haha, power forever! Is it worth trying to win? Because that's the thing. I kind of think it's not worth trying to win. I think you shouldn't even let it affect your, like...
00:54:34
Speaker
I like it because I know they're going to play there. I'm like, this is where put my Cosmo. like But if I know where they're playing, you forget how much I like to tech and interact with my opponent.
00:54:49
Speaker
I think you're on a something like, yeah, let them over invest in that location. I think that's a perfectly viable strategy. it's It's like half a Stark Tower.
00:55:01
Speaker
It's a full Stark Tower if you put it on Human Torch. mean, Tumen Torch. Yeah, but Stark Tower is double Stark Tower if you put it on Tumen Torch. So... I like that.
00:55:13
Speaker
And I like that it's a hot location. It what didn't like mean I had to like fuck off someone else. It was a hot location that was very easy to play through because it does nothing. Which I like.
00:55:24
Speaker
I'm into that. And I like, you know, a lot of times there are big impactful locations.
00:55:33
Speaker
but So you know, you know. Yeah. you know A healthy mix. Although it does make for duller games when you get three locations that are like all nothing.
Patch Updates and New Features
00:55:41
Speaker
Okay, we had a patch this week. It had a few changes in it. Like, if you get a snap pack and it has boosters in it, the boosters will match the cards you got.
00:55:52
Speaker
And also some ah some protection on getting bonus cards from the Snap Pack, like a pity timer, which is good because I've never gotten anything big from the Snap Packs. um But ah main the main appeal, as usual, is datamines. We get to see some new cards coming up. Wait a minute. We skipped over something else in the features. They improved the red pips. The red pips in the card shop should be clearable and working more.
00:56:14
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. Yeah, they improved them. Uh-huh. They fixed It's all better, guys. Did they fix it? I haven't, like... No?
00:56:26
Speaker
No? They didn't even... course not. I was so excited when I saw that note, but I haven't been in... I cleared everything. I cleared everything in the shop, and I still had a red dot there. So, yeah.
00:56:39
Speaker
um Do either of you know what this missing entry title reward that I got three weeks, two weeks ago is? Yes, I believe that's related to the Golden Gauntlet. Oh, yeah. I also got that.
00:56:53
Speaker
So. Well, I think they were trying to get the thought that counts. Yeah, they were trying to get out the title and it got messed up somehow. And you should have a good title in there for the Golden Gauntlet. I think it was like anybody who made top 64 or something.
00:57:08
Speaker
well don't think it It appears to be missing a train to me. Maybe it was a higher cutoff then, or maybe it was everybody. um Okay. Anyway, the main draw of a patch these days is data mine cards. we get it we get ah We got text for some of the October cards, not all of them.
00:57:29
Speaker
Okay. It was we we did already see the zombie names in last patch, but now we get to see what some of the zombies do. um a bunch of them use the keyword horde.
00:57:41
Speaker
ah The very first one we'll talk about does the season pass, which is zombie Scarlet Witch. She's a three two After you play a card here, horde two.
00:57:53
Speaker
And according to Snapfan, the first time Horde is procced, it generates a zombie horde token with that much power. So, you know, Zombie Scarlet Witch, the first time you proc her, it makes a two-power zombie horde at a random location. And then every other time Horde is procced, it just makes the existing horde stronger.
00:58:11
Speaker
um So, thoughts on Zombie Scarlet Witch?
00:58:18
Speaker
I've got thoughts about the horde keyword, which is that it seems to be a mass from Magic the Gathering. It's exactly the same. When I played, I mentioned this on the podcast, but about a month ago, I visited my hometown, played some Lord of the Rings commander with the hometown homies, and Sauron amasses an orc army that works exactly like these zombie hordes.
00:58:44
Speaker
um So that's cool. At first I didn't like it because it doesn't feel very like Marvel or Snap kind of of a and keyword to me.
00:58:57
Speaker
But what I does, think, is it does make it more likely that you're just going to play all the zombies together rather than sprinkle them throughout a pack. And that feels more thematic that we shouldn't have just zombies randomly.
00:59:13
Speaker
running around everywhere because that's not how zombies work they have to like take over everything like what are are they even really zombies you know the other thing i'll say about zombie scarlet witch is that zombie scarlet witch seems to have been designed with knowledge of what the horde keyword does there are a couple later cards in this patch that seem like they were designed by someone who wasn't sure what horde actually does because they are a little counterproductive so scarlet witch looks like a really good card relatively speaking um
00:59:44
Speaker
she yeah i she's kind of Angela, right? like Play a card here, get plus two. The good version But at a three cost. so That is a significant drawback. I don't think she's good enough to play by herself.
01:00:02
Speaker
I think you have to have other horde, like something to take advantage of the horde that you're building, maybe. um Or to take advantage of don't know.
01:00:14
Speaker
I also don't. Maybe the Horde is a Patriot card. Like something to make it so there's increased synergy. Yeah. Most tokens are. i Anyway. Yeah. Horde. I'm like, i like them adding new mechanics to the game and even new keywords. Like I would love to see more archetypes come.
01:00:32
Speaker
And I think that's hard for them. I think it's hard for them to do with the release schedule that Snap has. Right. Like one card a week. Yeah. Right? Yeah.
01:00:44
Speaker
I'm not against, like, the, like, having the zombies, you know, obviously. It's an event. never been, like, that super into it. It's a recurring comics event and everything.
01:00:56
Speaker
But I think it was... I'd rather see more characters we don't have in the game in the game than like zombie versions. So I think it would have been cooler if the zombie thing was like a cool Halloween event that came around only at Halloween.
01:01:09
Speaker
And it had these like zombie all zombie locations and maybe some of these bonker cards. And then you don't have to balance them as key because it's just for like this Halloween mode.
01:01:22
Speaker
Yeah. So that's what I would rather see. yeah People do like love those Marvel Zombies things. like they like They are quite popular, right? They've done it several times. I remember the first time they did it, I was an active comics reader, and I enjoyed that.
01:01:38
Speaker
I know they've gone back to the well many times. And like Marvel Zombies is like an established thing that people care about, so I don't want to... like I guess I understand why these things are getting cards.
01:01:51
Speaker
But it's still like multiple. This is our third Mr. Fantastic. and we so Yes, it is, isn't it? That does seem like a bit much. like They should do four of them because Fantastic Four. Four Mr. Fantastics.
01:02:04
Speaker
That's good game design. As a Marvel fan, I want to see more characters. too. I'm sure the main reason Zombies is happening this year is there's a Zombies animated series coming to Disney Plus in October. Yeah, I believe it's a spinoff of the What If episode. um Yeah, it makes sense.
01:02:23
Speaker
So there's that. i I feel like, how do they keep, are they going to continue to support Horde if these are cards that are in the regular game and not event cards? Like... Does Horde only come out every October? And if that's the case, I don't want Octobers to only be about zombies. Like, one October about zombies is fine, but like, you know, I want others put that into the game. Why is this keyword?
01:02:46
Speaker
I don't know. It's probably just easier to write that way. and would think that that's the primary reason.
01:02:54
Speaker
I suppose so. Yeah. I guess that's anyone that's what keywords are for. It's just, I don't know. I don't know. She seems all right. It feels like Sorry, go ahead. You guys are going to wrap up and go to the next card.
01:03:08
Speaker
I mean, that's just strengthening the argument that this feels like a seasonal event cards. Because it's like, you're right, this is going to probably shake out to like a zombie deck, it feels like. And then, like, you know, how often are they going to add more zombie cards? So, like, I don't know.
01:03:24
Speaker
Yeah. ah She seems okay, but and there's a few of the zombie cards we don't have text for, and I'll have to, like... I think three cost is too expensive unless there's some really good things you can do with the Horde. It doesn't look like... ah I think a lot of these zombie cards are likely to change significantly before they're released.
01:03:43
Speaker
but Yeah, we're seeing them. The ones that make sense, and then there are going to be some that don't make sense that we're going to talk about, and those are definitely going to change. Yeah, this is like three months out, so yeah, there's definitely time for these to change, and it seems like they're not even done implementing all of them yet.
01:03:56
Speaker
um The Super Premium Season Pass card, probably... just it looks the same as Fantastic Car and Silver Surfer First Steps, is Headpool, the flying Deadpool head.
01:04:08
Speaker
ah He's a one one When this is destroyed, return it to your hand, then give cards there plus one power. Very similar to original Deadpool card. Mm-hmm.
01:04:24
Speaker
Yeah. yes I like Deadpool. I play a good one with Deadpool, and I would definitely put this in there. I actually kind of like it a little bit better than normal Deadpool, just like as far as cards that I would be excited to play personally. but Not that I have anything against Deadpool, I just i don't like his play pattern as much as this.
01:04:46
Speaker
and i for For all our complaining about hand buffing, I do still like to engage in a little bit of hand buffing from time to time. He buffs himself, right? Return it to your hand, then give cards their plus one power? No, I don't think so. I think it just buffs the cards there. No, I think the way it's written makes it pretty clear that he buffs himself.
01:05:05
Speaker
It says return it to your hand, then cards there plus one power. but Return it to your hand, then give cards there. But the card yeah that you had, he's now returned to your hand. He's not there. reading there as your hand. Yeah, there is your hand. He just put himself there.
01:05:23
Speaker
He's hand buff. Oh! It's actually explicitly saying the order in which these things happen. It's all good. This is why we discuss these cards. No, I thought you guys were saying, like, he... Okay. yeah I think he buffs your hand.
01:05:39
Speaker
I was thinking it was at the location. I just totally lack of reading that much. It's kind of a card. I mean, I don't know if you can justify running Sabretooth. Oh, you're right. This is good. Like regular Deadpool, you can play...
01:05:55
Speaker
Deadpool, then headpool, destroy them both. Deadpool doubles yeah and then gets the plus one. Do that a few times. nothing about You always want to get all the pools together. It's always good time.
01:06:08
Speaker
Cool. i wonder if I wonder if this ever makes like a ah Black Swan destroy deck. Do you hit a critical mass? I want you to have a Black Swan dream, Lauren. That's what I want for you.
01:06:19
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:22
Speaker
And then the first week's season series five card is Colonel America. but Zombie Captain in America does not have anything about him yet. No so no stats, no ability.
01:06:34
Speaker
um ah Next one. trying to figure out the order of these cards. Next one is Zombie Mr. Fantastic, who is 2-1 on reveal Horde 2.
01:06:49
Speaker
Activate. Give four of your created cards plus one power.
01:06:55
Speaker
This is one of the ones that seemed like it was designed without knowledge of what Horde does. See, I disagree, because your zombie Horde is a created card, right? Yeah, but the whole point of the horde keyword is that it reduces the number of tokens you're creating. It's like, what if you wanted to make a bunch of tokens, but they were only one token?
01:07:15
Speaker
Fair. It's counterintuitive. He's the bridge ah with ah with another archetype. I don't know what that archetype is. um Victoria Hand. agree they're not necessarily synergistic, but like, yeah. That's where you'd combine it with some mirage synergy.
01:07:32
Speaker
Would you play a... i don't like It's not that bad. like Would you play a what is he ah two warren that ends up being that ends up adding 3 power to the board for sure?
01:07:44
Speaker
Well, he's a 2-3, right? Because he's making a 2-power zombie horde. And then if you activate on top of that, he's as many as a 2-7. But Herbie's not good enough for anyone but me. So I don't think zombie Fantastic is going to blow the doors off anything.
01:08:02
Speaker
I think that card is going to do something completely different by the time we see This is a worse card than Herbie.
01:08:09
Speaker
um And then the next week, zombie captain Marvel, who is a four, four. Activate. Destroy your other cards here and get plus three power for each.
01:08:20
Speaker
Move to a location you're losing. That card seems a little a little too strong to me. Yep.
01:08:30
Speaker
Yep. That's like what I'd rather play than Dormammu.
01:08:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's like it's a good destroy card and you get a good payoff for what it does. Yeah.
01:08:44
Speaker
I don't love the four cost activate thing, but it's a better like it's a better deal than Carnage. And then it does a smart move. kind of better than regular captain marvel too ah almost certainly well the end of the game thing about captain marvel is pretty cool whereas that's true a tinying marvel yeah the smart move is not as smart but with her i can see you playing her both on like turn five if you're trying to like get some momentum going and you don't get another round of destroys in or waiting until the end of the game where her move is going to be more effective
01:09:19
Speaker
I mean, I guess it is awkward where you're not going to Venom that location, right? Like, and stuff, because it's activate, so you're putting it with more, like, fire hair stuff, maybe? Maybe.
01:09:31
Speaker
the The fun thing that I'm seeing to do with Captain Marvel is play Captain Marvel on a location with two other cards, so you've got one spot left open. Then on turn five, activate of Captain Marvel and play some big thing in the remaining spot.
01:09:45
Speaker
so that she eats the two revealed cards and then moves and then you anchor the lane with whatever your big thing is.
01:09:57
Speaker
I don't know. that's That's how I would want to play this card. Activate on six and like leave something behind. I don't know. Yeah. Or just abandon that lane.
01:10:09
Speaker
Or abandon that lane. That's fine, too. you'll Totally just move to the net to the other two. um it's It's interesting design, at least. And I also like... I feel like zombies came up ah with secret homework before and maybe it wasn't us, but it was the listeners in the speakeasy. They were talking about like, oh, what if all the zombie abilities were just twists on the existing abilities? And I like that Captain Marvel's is like that.
01:10:33
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. and Mr. Fantastics is kind of like that reaches into other locations. But I think it's fun, at least. um And then zombie galacti, which I just think is a bizarre word.
01:10:50
Speaker
But I looked it up and it's it's ah it's a team of zombies, including the Hulk and Wolverine and luke Cage and Spider-Man. There's a few others who ate Galactus and they share the power cosmic, which is just very silly. Anyway, we don't have stats for that card yet, but that's the one that comes out after that.
01:11:09
Speaker
um There's a handful of other zombie cards, some of which we do have text for, but we don't know what their release date is like. Are they event cards? Probably event cards. There's zombie power man, which is Luke Cage.
01:11:21
Speaker
Zombie century. No stats, no ability yet. Zombie century, a three, four on reveal horde one for each of your cards at the right location. Another one that kind of ties into the existing century.
01:11:35
Speaker
I think it's cute and cool. Yeah. I think he could count as one of your on reveal or one of your cards in the right location. Yes. That's my reading of it as well.
01:11:49
Speaker
Man, you know, about this season, though, I feel like if you're getting into these, you you really want to get them all, right? Like, it's really gonna suck to try on a Zombies deck. think so.
01:12:01
Speaker
It's kind how the Fantastic Four season has been, too, with the end-of-turn synergies. I'm not entirely sold on the Horde synergy. You're right. Like, Zombie Scarlet Witch is just Angela. You're right. Like, you don't really need to pair it with other Horde stuff.
01:12:19
Speaker
There's like one synergy horde card that we're going to talk about and also i think it's weird and the wording of it. The wording is a little weird. The ability is fine.
01:12:29
Speaker
makes Makes me think that like it's going to change and maybe they don't what horde was. He's the next card. Zombie Giant Man. 5-3. on reveal horde 1.
01:12:41
Speaker
Add the power of your highest power zombie horde to this.
01:12:47
Speaker
I understand why you think the wording is weird, but I think it's probably just like preventative against cases where you've somehow ended up with more than one sinister London, sinister London wouldn't generate multiple hordes though.
01:13:00
Speaker
Um, Zola or like bounce Frigga, like some weird situation where you have multiple hordes. I wonder if you do get multiple hordes, if the horde ability will buff both of them.
01:13:13
Speaker
Um, yeah Probably. i think it should, right? like if That would be my guess. That would be my guess. Thanoses or other like you know named cards that care about that stuff. that's Yeah, if you have multiple Beta Ray Bills, Stormbreaker buffs, all of them.
01:13:32
Speaker
Yeah. But it also does seem to like undercut like the the key thing about Horde is that like you have one. It all gloms to one. i So, I mean, okay, say you proc Scarlet Witch twice and you play Mr. Fantastic, you have a six-power horde, you play as a giant man, seven-power horde, he's a five ten Like, that's okay. No, it's not. You need it to be bigger than that.
01:13:59
Speaker
A 5'10 is not okay. Like, Agamotto does things. He puts spells in. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, Zombie Sentry 2. You max that. You get four extra horde.
01:14:12
Speaker
Now it's a 514. You'd play a 514, right?
01:14:19
Speaker
maybe a 514 where I have to draw literally every other card that has the keyword yeah how I don't I don't see like the horde is not end of turn Hydra Bob and Thena haven't been sitting around secretly being horde cards this whole time like to synergize with Fantastikar whatever like it's I yeah there's gonna be other horde cards though you could have three procs on Scarlet Witch or even more if you're playing like next October or something that's That's when we're getting more Horde cards, right? Well, yes, but I meant Colonel America and and Zombie Power Man. These ones that we don't have any of. that's true. There are two unrevealed. Okay, we also have The Hunger, which is skill card...
01:15:04
Speaker
probably i mean it would either be tied to one of the cards we haven't seen text for yet or it would be a card like astral projection that you can put the skill in your deck it's a one cost skill that does horde three on reveal i think it's just you put it in your deck yeah and I like it. I play it.
01:15:23
Speaker
I love stuff that doesn't take up board space, right? That's very nice. A one-cost skill has all kinds of advantages. Werewolf trigger. I don't love it. I don't think that... I mean, if we're going to be making skill cards that aren't generated by character cards, I don't think we want them to cost one.
01:15:43
Speaker
Hmm. Well... That's just a gut feeling I have. Um, but maybe I'm wrong. You know, who knows? Maybe hunger is tied to zombie galacti or something. Maybe it is. Maybe it's a Colonel America thing. Who knows?
01:15:56
Speaker
I, as is with the set we have, I don't think there's enough payoff for hoarding, right? Like, um mean you can do some silly cute things. You can do grandmaster or Wong or whatever to on reveal these multiple times and grow your hoard significantly.
01:16:08
Speaker
Uh, of course it's vulnerable to shadow King and Sean, uh, But yeah, it doesn't seem like that there's... I'm expecting that the ones we haven't seen yet are going to have more payoff for building up your horde. Probably. You know, maybe your horde will destroy something smaller than it. Step on the thing for steps to it.
01:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, just one more one more bite at the Spider-Man 2099, Apple. That's destroying random things.
01:16:38
Speaker
Any other thoughts on the zombies? I think they're all going to change.
01:16:44
Speaker
Yeah. No, I think these, I think the ones we're, we've seen are going to stay pretty similar. i think Maybe a couple of them will be recognizable. I bet captain Marvel will do something like she does now. I bet century will do more or less what he does now.
01:16:58
Speaker
There'll be some stat. Which stays the same though. She's not exciting enough to be a season pass card right now. They're going figure out how to make her a two cost. Yep. Or at least I think they should.
01:17:11
Speaker
Yeah, I think in conclusion, i feel like I was wrong about these. You know, you're right, like what you're saying, Ben. They're not like necessarily synergistic with each other You know what i mean? Like their ability is fine alone with other their cards in the deck.
01:17:25
Speaker
Interesting, because when I thought about it, I was like, oh, but like, feels tribal, but it's really like not. It's just like generate a token. it's Well, it kind of is. Like Giant Man wants he could work to pay off the the whole thing.
01:17:39
Speaker
I mean, I don't know. I'm still making up my minds about my mind singular about these cards, which I only read for the first time like an hour. Yeah, today. They just came out. Yeah, they just barely came out. This is our first look. We'll review them in depth in September. think, yeah, I like what you're talking about, Rhi, where it's just like
01:18:02
Speaker
You want some to be synergistic with each other. Like if we're making a new new keyword and all that, we want we want there to be interaction. We want it to be cool that there's a zombie deck. But also like the realities of card acquisition is most players cannot get every single card in a season. And so how do you have so cards that are desirable or that are plug and play into other decks?
01:18:23
Speaker
you have to You have to hit the balance for both. Yeah, this seems like a very easy month to skip. Yeah, if you just want to skip a whole month, none of these are super duper strong, and you know, if you're not going to get the synergy anyway.
01:18:39
Speaker
In much the same way that I'm skipping the Fantastic Four mostly. Yeah, i I would have if my token balance was smaller. It's not a super exciting season. That's why I probably got Human or Tumen Torch rather is just because like, yeah you know, they burn a hole in
Card Acquisition and Strategy
01:18:57
Speaker
your pocket. You look at the the large number with all the digits and you're like, well, I. So is your plan to buy like individual cards at 6K that you want? cause I don't have like a hole. That's what I've been doing.
01:19:10
Speaker
Because otherwise I'm going to run out and then I won't be able to get cards I actually want. right, this will be a good experiment because I'm trying to just keep at getting things the cheapest.
01:19:21
Speaker
And remind how long do things stay in seasonal? It's a set amount of time, right? Series five is the current month and the previous month. Series 4 is an extra month on top of that. Okay.
01:19:34
Speaker
So, like, two months. So, yeah. So, it's like, I thought I was going run out. So, yeah. I don't have a good new strat. But it's like, I still don't want to pay the extra tokens. So, let's see. It's more fun to open a pack and get some goodies and stuff, even if the value is not super duper high.
01:19:50
Speaker
But on the other hand, I only have to wait another 18 days before Clea, Dormammu, and Nightmare disappear. And then i can start opening packs again. and i Yeah. okay Oh, yeah. Also the ancient one.
01:20:04
Speaker
yeah I think you've touched on There are four turns I skipped. Yeah, I think you've touched on good strategy as like skipping, what, one out of three months? or Or every other month. I don't know, but, like, I will... Snap packs will become something I'll be thinking about once those cards disappear.
01:20:22
Speaker
And, yeah like, maybe then it's time to start buying Seasonal Series 5 packs again instead of doing the thing that I have been doing, which is piecemealing the the cards that I really, really want from... what What did come out last season that I wanted? I don't remember. Yeah.
01:20:39
Speaker
I played a lot of Merlin, but he was the season first. I love Merlin so much. I'm still playing Merlin. I forgot to mention it in my weekend snap, but I went back to playing that golden move deck that I said I was all done with.
01:20:51
Speaker
I'm still getting juice out of it. yumy Yum, yum, yum. Yeah, this is a great card. Another strategy, if you're trying to be like budget conscious but also get a lot of cards, is is to focus on being collectors complete.
01:21:04
Speaker
You do have to be patient. You have to wait you know two full months for every card to enter collectors or three months for the Series 4 cards. But cheaper to buy everything at the collector's price.
01:21:18
Speaker
lot of the cards will be nerfed by then. but Yeah, you don't ever get to play with the broken toys. Yeah. OK, we also had an OTA this week. In fact, the same day as the patch. Who knows why? We had a Thursday patch this week.
Bullseye Card Impact and Counterplay
01:21:32
Speaker
ah I think it was moving up next week's patch, not pushing back this one. Not that it makes a difference. First up, Zabu goes from one two to one one
01:21:46
Speaker
Totally agree with this. Good change that I don't think will solve many problems. Yeah, I don't think it's enough. But that's where they definitely should do it. Where it's like, why does it have this power then? if you know start here.
01:22:01
Speaker
See where it goes. maybe it will be a Maybe it will be enough. Speaking of not enough, Bullseye goes to 3-2. Oh, what a womp womp. I hate Bullseye so much.
01:22:16
Speaker
This is nothing. How is the first thing they tried not afflict minus one? yeah And even that is still ridiculous because the main thing Bullseye is doing massive Morbi. A whole ton of Dawkins or Morbiuses, yeah.
01:22:31
Speaker
While increasing collector. Well, because, okay. One, it's just like, I hate, this is why i hate Bullseye so much, is that, like, discard, even when they got rid of my, like, my ultimate, you know.
01:22:44
Speaker
Now in nostalgia, it'll always be better than anything else ever could. It represents time and snap. We can never return to We'll always be rosier in my vision of Nebula. ah When Nebula was new and there was, like, Storm Nebula, discard was the thing where you, like, Storm Drac.
01:23:01
Speaker
in the lane. It was so comforting. It was like rain and you know i'm drinking tea. okay Anyway, this used to be a podcast where we respected a Drac. I still played a ton of Discard since Bullseye has released and taken... I know that he still exists. I he was just talking about how much I love Discard Dracula did in my weekend snap this very day know but like bullseye is just ruined discard for me and i can't enjoy it anymore part of it is that like i can't like it's so hard for me i refuse to math do bullseye math you know what mean like it's like they have it and it's like i have beat bullseyes occasionally in power but it's so hard for me to calculate and now just the point where it's like
01:23:47
Speaker
Well, I guess if they bullseye and DeKenn you know, collect it, I should just fucking retreat. Like, I can't, I'm not going to sit here and try and figure out. That's like too much. This is what we were kind of talking about at the beginning of the episode. Yeah, it goes back the same combo. Where digital stuff can do all the math for you, but then it gets to a point where you can't, like, predict and therefore make good decisions differently.
01:24:10
Speaker
in a card game, which starts turning it into a dice game instead of a card game. And this is it for me, bullseye. I'm like, sometimes I'm pretty sure I'm like, don't know, surely this beats all that bullshittery. And then it doesn't. And it's like, well, you know, who's going say, I know people who go shit there and mass it out. If you wanted to start doing the math, it's kind of hard because you would do that by watching it happen. And then like, you know, getting sense what's going on.
01:24:38
Speaker
Whereas it's all inspired by the fast forward. yeah Yep, the fast forward is a problem. Even if you've tracked every single like Scorn and Swarm and Daken, everything that you could be tracking, even if you've tracked all that, you still don't know if their last turn is going to be Zola Daken or if it's going to be a MODOK or if you know if they're going to drop a Morbius that is you know already holding 10 power and then it's going to gain a bunch more.
01:25:02
Speaker
You don't know, so it's it's kind of impossible to calculate even if you take the time to have like an approximate range or ah or a minimum. Yeah. So really I'm already not playing Bullseye just because I don't like the card and I only play cards that I like mostly.
01:25:18
Speaker
But this isn't going to make anyone else stop playing the card. No, it's not. It's nothing. It's not going to hurt at all. I don't think there are like any games. I guess sometimes you win a Bullseye game by one point of power, but that's not usually how Bullseye games end. Right. Right.
01:25:39
Speaker
I gotta play, will Mobius stop it? What do I, is there one card that just will beat Bullseye
Card Balancing and Power Creep
01:25:45
Speaker
decks for me? That's all. There are two. What is it? I will do it. Mobius will help with swarms. You have to play Mobius and Sandman. the only way you can stop every flavor of Bullseye. All right. yeah I guess I gotta work on a new Spectrum Counter deck. That's how much you hate Bullseye.
01:26:00
Speaker
Hmm. ah okay Okay. Negasonic Teenage Warhead. Really simple change. Just changes that it doesn't work on skills. Meaning if you play a skill on her and then a character, she'll still blow up the character.
01:26:15
Speaker
I think that's a good change. Merlin made her. Weakened her quite a bit. I it fine was just Agamotto, you know, like that made it cool. But then now there's just, you know, you got just got magicians everywhere.
01:26:29
Speaker
Too many skills, too easy to dodge. I think it's fine that there are locations where skills let you dodge it. You know, Vormir and Castle Zemo. I think that's fine.
01:26:40
Speaker
I mean, I don't think it's necessarily good. like I kind of think it might be better if those didn't work that way, but like yeah's not it's not so big a deal that I'm like sure that I feel that strongly about it, although I do kind of think maybe you shouldn't be able to play a skill to do Vormir or to do... like i I agree would be better it'd be better if those were for characters only, but it's fine that skills let you get around them, whereas Negasonic Teenage Warhead, you're just like invalidating a card that somebody brought on purpose.
01:27:12
Speaker
It didn't show up by R&D. They dedicated a deck slot to it, and that, I think, is makes it more clear-cut. And she's almost entirely about her ability. heard yeah She doesn't have that much power.
01:27:29
Speaker
Mirage gets a power. And also a small functionality change. yeah Also won't target skills, which is good. she like Because can't give them power. It makes me want to play Mirage again. She's kind of a two five if you squint. She's way more playable now.
01:27:45
Speaker
Right? I love it. This is the most exciting change And she's been a very fun... She's always been a very fun card. um She's actually been played in... I think it's Husky Puppies has a deck that's that's using her right now.
01:27:57
Speaker
It's like an Infinity Ultron Victoria Hand deck. It's really cool. Oh, oh. Just absolutely abusing the Mirage. Oh, this deck is really sick. Okay, you'll have to share it.
01:28:08
Speaker
It's a special podcast deck. Yep. The Thing. ah Vanilla goes from 4.6 to 4.7. think... Good for Evo.
01:28:20
Speaker
good for yeah right na evo with little What they said is right. They've totally, they've recognized they've totally left their vanilla cards behind in Power Creep. And it would be my preference. I wish they would tone down the new stuff instead of needing to bring up the old stuff.
01:28:38
Speaker
But I get that's way harder to do. get that's way harder to do, but this is all contributing to the increased mathiness of it all. I don't know. Glenn has talked about the vanilla cards of being commonly misunderstood to be the baseline curve. I've heard that argument. And he says that they should actually be like, they are the examples of what the worst cards are.
01:29:03
Speaker
And so, yeah, but... I don't know. It's fine. I still don't think he is a good card. You don't put him in Patriot. You barely put him in high evo. It's just still not great.
01:29:18
Speaker
There was a time did, though. that's not true. had the Abomination. haven't played Evolved Thing in an Affliction deck where the only Evolved cards were Thing and Abomination.
01:29:28
Speaker
That's the last time I played Thing. And that was a while ago. It's been a while. Marvel Boy, I believe this is a return to release Marvel Boy. goes from 3.1 to 3.2. Yeah. yeah i'm not I'm seeing hardly any Marvel Boy these days. don't think, i you know, they could have just kept it the same the whole time and it would have been fine, I think.
01:29:50
Speaker
I feel like part of it is that Killmonger is a lot in the meta, you know what I mean? Like... let's see what's that yeah say i don't know that's what stopped me i guess little killmonger fluctuates but ah is definitely like always present um it's just like i know there's kyara and stuff but like zoo's still a pain if you're running into a killmonger meta yeah yeah there's only a chance that you get your kyara out in time and she also feels like such bad tempo don't know
01:30:22
Speaker
I'm really allergic to low power three cost cards. Like I, I never play Cosmo and I know he's a good card. I just, it just feels wrong to me to play a three, three. I have the same thing, but I did, I was so proud of myself a couple weeks ago for, for playing rogue in, uh, one of my surfer decks.
01:30:42
Speaker
i am Wow. I've really grown as a person playing a three, two doesn't make two copies of itself. Wow. Wow. Oh, I love low cards. That's always fault. Those are also 3-2s. I guess I play a lot of 3-2s, but like all of them are... they They tell you that they are making more numbers on them.
01:31:04
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Oh, I had Storm in my surfer deck that I crossed infinite with. Because there's so much magic. There's a lot of limbo running around while I was climbing. So, you know, he had shut that down.
01:31:16
Speaker
So it was just nice to see, like, oh, Storm's a surfer card again. Welcome back to the family story. So glad they made her a three again. Welcome home. it's just general but Jennifer Kale gets a power to I still don't think she's great.
01:31:33
Speaker
she doesn't i'll say that she doesn't have enough identity i saw a few people say she should be a one cost niger i think that's how you give her a unique identity compared to other ramp cards i think that probably is too good though agree with everything you said but now i'm thinking about how good everything else is and i'm like yeah that would have been too good maybe but i don't think it would be today i think today she could be one cost right
01:31:59
Speaker
Am I wild or like there there was a time that that would have been a wild suggestion like that. If she's like a one one, like, I don't know what the power is to match, but I think you can easily make a one.
01:32:11
Speaker
yeah I think you can make a one cost center for Kale just fine. Well, I think there's a reason we never saw a one cost Psylocke. Hmm.
01:32:20
Speaker
I agree. I think it would be upping her a lot to move her to one. I don't know if it's OP, p but it would be a giant buff. Like, I would be playing her a lot more. Yeah, it's a huge buff. I don't think it's modern OP, but I think it's, like, classic snap OP. p I enjoyed, though, when I was saying they were, like, we're trying to work on, like, the the five cost card issue problem, which, like, I enjoyed. I don't want an era where five costs are too powerful, like, when that happened with four costs. Like, I mean, four costs are still more powerful than the fives, but when, like, they were Max's Abu era. um So I don't want that with the fives, but I do. I'm glad that they're, like, yes, we know the problem with fives, and we're working on it, and it's just, like, really hard to play five cost card like
01:33:11
Speaker
true yeah i was glad to hear that that's uh on their radar because fives in general are i try a lot and i still do i play infinity ultron and stuff in namora but they're cheeky yeah there are some that are playable uh you know ajax sarah jane foster They exist.
01:33:31
Speaker
They're mostly weird. Green Goblin, don't know how to say this, gains a negative one. It's good for it. It goes from negative three to negative four. You could call it a nerf if you really wanted.
01:33:45
Speaker
I mean, it's it's definitely a buff. No, it's a buff, but if you wanted to be pedantic, be like, well, it lost a power. It's been nerfed, you know? It lost a power in its favor.
01:33:57
Speaker
Um... And they had a note about not wanting to make Galactus or Clog too prevalent. And I'm like, yeah you know, i do play Clog. It's already really prevalent.
01:34:08
Speaker
I think it's fine. Green Goblin is not a super good card. It came out a long time ago and has been making Green Goblin look like shit ever since. i who came out sorry i missed oh yeah okay yeah true but like a lot of people play them together lot of times i'm seeing green goblin now or people are playing those two cards together i'm definitely playing kate bishop I already see this card plenty, right? Which maybe it doesn't mean that it's overpowered, but it means that it's still playing. And now that it's even better that just like once again, just that like seeing it, seeing a change to it, people are going to be playing it even more again.
01:34:48
Speaker
please i mean yeah Like I've been playing Ms. Marvel and shit. You think I like all these like arrows and green goblins and stuff coming over? No, those are terrible for Ms. Marvel.
01:34:59
Speaker
I've played, like I said, I played in Conquest and I had to get my Cosmo. I had to like work so hard to get the Pryo and guess where they were going to drop the Green Goblin. Do you know how much I don't want to do that when I'm playing late at night? It's okay if there's something that beats Ms. Marvel though.
01:35:19
Speaker
I think this is a pretty exciting little buff, and it makes me want to, you know, make a new werewolf deck. I'm like, yeah. I love doing silly goblins and arrows and sending the werewolf all over the place.
01:35:35
Speaker
But that is cool to, you know, do clogs so that it doesn't fill up your spot. It doesn't fill up your spot. What's turn with my basic deck? Back when it was the Young Avengers season. Oh.
01:35:47
Speaker
I was thinking I wanted to go back to like Merlin Agamotto stuff. I'm like, I miss Merlin. Because like Merlin does so many people forgot how much... Cool. i mean, people didn't forget. i just, like, Polymorph Spell?
01:36:00
Speaker
So much I'm seeing that with Cloud because you can transform a Void. You know, send a Void back into your deck. All this. There's just so much variety you can do with Merlin. And I love, like, having the spells that don't take up, like, board space and stuff. Ah, that's good stuff.
01:36:17
Speaker
That's what I want to do next. but The last change of the OTA... Doom 2099 goes from 4.3 to 4.4. I'm kind of surprised they did this one with Fantasticar that just came out.
01:36:32
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Me too.
01:36:36
Speaker
And Invisible Woman coming. I think it's really weird that they buffed him. wouldn't wait until we see what happens there. Yeah, it's really weird. i think i'm not saying I'm not saying this buff is wrong. I'm just saying, like, oddly timed.
01:36:49
Speaker
Right. Without Phantastica and Invisible Woman, I hardly ever see Doom 2099 anymore. It used to be an absolute menace, and I hated the card. um I still kind of do. It's still a point of power, though. and it was already... Once they moved it out of the two range, it already got harder to read so red guardian it and stuff.
01:37:10
Speaker
But now it's really hard, too. Yeah, now it is really hard, too, but that was already not being the way I was stopping a lot of anyway. you know twenty ninety nine s anyway But yeah, i certainly don't want it to be a menace.
01:37:24
Speaker
Yeah, you're going to see a lot more of this card as soon as Invisible Woman comes out. I think that's the larger issue. We'll see. We'll see how it goes maybe Maybe it'll all be fine. maybe Invisible Woman will introduce a bunch of really fun and like interactive and balanced decks, maybe.
Creative Ideas for Game Locations
01:37:44
Speaker
It's possible. um You know, I guess if they break Doom to 2099, they'll nerf them again. Okay, on to our side quests.
01:37:54
Speaker
First up and only secret homework. I assigned it this week. The assignment was to design a minigame location like Sikar Grand Prix or Rocket Pad.
01:38:06
Speaker
um So mine is Roxanne Plaza, which is where Roxanne headquarters is located. If both players play here this turn, both draw two.
01:38:19
Speaker
If only one does, they discard one. I know that's a lot. My goal here was to... I wanted something really... ah really intense mind game type location. And I was thinking... Prisoner's Dilemma.
01:38:33
Speaker
A game of chicken or a Prisoner's Dilemma. And that's what this is. This is Prisoner's Dilemma. If you both do it, you get the benefit. If only one of you does, get shafted. And so I thought that would be interesting.
01:38:45
Speaker
Especially within the first three turns of the game where you don't really know what your opponent's deck is yet. You've only had a little hint of it. That's good. had similar thoughts for mine, but I think you like you got like way closer to that, yeah, the prisoner's dilemma kind of concept.
01:39:05
Speaker
It's very cool. I like it a lot. Thanks. Ben.
01:39:11
Speaker
Well, I came up with... I had a lot of ideas swirling around. ah The limiting reactant was really like... Places. What what are lore-appropriate places that I could slap an effect on?
01:39:24
Speaker
Couldn't really come up with a satisfactory one for the first one that is a little more boring, but like perhaps would be more popular, I think. It's a little play on deep space. I call it the airlock.
01:39:36
Speaker
um And how it works is... Airlock, after turn five, remove the text of all cards controlled by the losing player here. So I just adapted the Hala text and, ah you know, made it ah made it so the loser ends up out in deep space, you know?
01:39:57
Speaker
So, like, that's... That's very cute. That's that one. It's very good thematically, and I like the idea of an asymmetrical deep space. Yeah. I kind of wanted to make it like the star jammers airlock, but like, I don't remember any scenes ever happening specifically in star jammers airlock. So like, yeah, I, I, I was like, I'll just make it a generic airlock.
01:40:21
Speaker
You can put it on whatever spaceship you want. Um, But then the other one, the more interesting one, the one that is a little bit more Prisoner's Dilemma-y in my opinion, ah is Spider HQ, which according to the Into the Spider-Verse fandom wiki is what the Spider Society headquarters is called.
01:40:40
Speaker
But I also think maybe they were just guessing or deciding. I read a comic in which there was like Spider HQ. Okay, so it is Spider HQ. That is what the Spider Society headquarters is called.
01:40:54
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, well then, fandom wiki thing had it right, so... I recall correctly, yes. Close enough for me. If Rhi says it's so, it's so.
01:41:06
Speaker
um After turn four, move cards here until the losing player's side is full. So it's it's another one where like, sure, there's a winner and a loser, except like, what if maybe I want to be the loser? What if I want to get in there with the big old vulture or something? Yeah, let me slide that over there for free. Yeah, yeah.
01:41:28
Speaker
um And i I couldn't decide. I thought about also making it a turn five one, ah like the airlock, but I decided to do turn four um just to make it in some ways a little bit more controllable because like you'll know which cards are going to move there.
01:41:46
Speaker
Whereas if the decision happened after turn five, like there might just be too many things on the board for it to feel like a meaningful decision about whether you want to win or lose Spider HQ. Yeah. Yeah, or how many cards it can move. yeah i like it earlier.
01:42:01
Speaker
I like that the first one is like... they Yeah, Airely is very great seeming, and then your second one is a very great like tension of like not universally good or bad. you know Also, I thought it was a fun way to like allude to the the scene in ah Across the Spider-Verse. or That's the second one, right? Across the Spider-Verse, the second film. Yes.
01:42:26
Speaker
ah you know there's that There's that great part where Miles lures all the the other Spidermans out there and then like he uh fucking he does the shoulder touch on miguel and fucking dips out sneaks back uh gets back to a ah different i don't want to i don't want to ruin the movie tell you which reality he ends up in but uh he escapes to a different universe yeah by by by luring them all to one place and doing the thing and the stuff and yeah yeah okay
01:43:03
Speaker
And Rhi's last because you're assigning next week's homework. Alright, so I I did think of it. I was thinking along the lines Lorne where I wanted it to be like a kind of a um great cooperative or not ah choice. and And I went, so I came up with the location first and I was like, what eventually landed on was if there are no cards here at the end of turn four, both players get plus two energy.
01:43:35
Speaker
So you kind of, each player has the choice. It's like, oh man, like you can certainly get like a head start. You know what i mean? if you Like on turn four, if you play and like psych them out, like you're both not going to play there.
01:43:51
Speaker
and then you do, know what mean? Or it's like, if you don't want the other player, can ruin it for them both. So I kind of like, it's a huge benefit if both players decide to like not touch that location. It's sort of the anti-feast.
01:44:08
Speaker
it Did you say what location it was? Okay, now I will. Sorry, forgot. um Because came with location and then I was thinking, okay, so it needs to be a place where it's just like, fuck off from here.
01:44:20
Speaker
So whenever in the Marvel Universe I think of anyone being like, just fuck off. It's Jessica Jones for sure. So the location is Alias Investigations, which I meant to lead with that see if anyone was cool enough to know what it was from the name. I'm sure some people out there would have got would have known it by the name, yeah.
01:44:38
Speaker
Right, yeah. Because, I mean... That's great. I love it. yeah Yeah, so that's her detective agency. And I kind of like the idea, if you leave her alone, she can like do her detective work and shit. and like you know um they I'm always excited. They're always like, here's Jessica Jones. She weirdly was like hanging out with Gwenpool for a bit. I'm so excited every time I see her.
01:45:01
Speaker
yeah Anyway.
Entertainment and Closing Thoughts
01:45:02
Speaker
Yeah. She does whatever. She's like, well, she's like the mayor's wife right now because she's like Luke Cage is the mayor of New York. Okay. um ah But, you know, she doesn't like public stuff. Yeah.
01:45:19
Speaker
Next week's homework. Okay. So I decided, i was thinking it's like, you know, I mean, in some ways this month was a little bit, I think, rougher for a lot of us. don't know, just in life in general in the world.
01:45:33
Speaker
And also, like, you know, it's just like there's been plenty of things about the game that have been a bummer lately. So I wanted us to take a moment to just do something. This is what I want because I want to hear the experiences.
01:45:48
Speaker
um to do something that you love. And that can definitely be in Snap, just something that you bring that brings you joy and makes you happy. That's the goal. Something that makes you happy. Do that thing in Snap and report back on why it makes you happy and what you did. Wait, does or- Is it supposed to be in Snap?
01:46:09
Speaker
It doesn't have to be, though, because the primary goal is a thing, you know, like a little thing. Is that clicking a new deck? Is that, like, doing a certain thing? Something that you're doing.
01:46:20
Speaker
You're not doing it for a grind. You're not doing it for... it's You're doing it specifically because it makes you happy. And it can be in Snap, and if there's nothing in Snap right now, if there's something else you want to share, it can certainly be outside of Snap.
01:46:31
Speaker
Play a game you love that you haven't played. Whatever. I just want to hear what makes people happy these trying times. it. Yeah. Love the positivity. Well, listener, if you liked what you heard, like, follow, subscribe, rate and review on iTunes or Spotify, leave a comment on you YouTube or Spotify.
01:46:50
Speaker
Or if you want to like, don't know, chat with us or, or other listeners, you can come hang out in the speakeasy, our little corner of discord. It's actually part of the snap judgments league, uh, discord. Cause we're part of the snap judgments network.
01:47:04
Speaker
Um, instructions to get there are in the show notes or video description. ah And you can listen to other great shows from the Snap Judgments Network, like Snap Decisions by Joe, who has recently taken taken it upon himself to give the show, to lean into his experience as an old school radio DJ and to change the format of the show a little bit.
01:47:24
Speaker
So check that out. I believe it's Tuesdays. I have not been told otherwise. Yeah. Anyway, if you want to ah find out what makes us happy, ah tune in next week.
01:47:36
Speaker
Same snap time, same snap channel. Yay.
01:47:45
Speaker
Good job bringing the energy every week at the end. Oh, that's the most fun part. I had, think it was a couple weeks ago that Jess had her had her best friend over. He just moved back from out of state.
01:48:01
Speaker
on that part, I heard her like, i saw her like acting it out. So same snap time, same I was like, oh, didn't know my family knew this. But of course they do. We've done it, don't know, 40 times.
01:48:11
Speaker
Yeah.
01:48:15
Speaker
So, yeah.
01:48:18
Speaker
We're so good at preparing for this section, and it's okay if it's just waiting early. but i I sort of thought that was the point, was that we were not allowed to prepare for this section. Yeah, sometimes it's short.
01:48:29
Speaker
don't know. Sometimes I like when Rhi has something prepared for it, but I don't ever want her to do something. I always have stuff, but I know when I hide it.
01:48:40
Speaker
Did you guys see? Okay. Random thing I've watched. at Like, in in um Marvel recently. There's so many things I need to catch up on and I haven't watched. But randomly I watched that new animated Spider-Man show.
01:48:56
Speaker
Have you guys seen it? I've heard good things. No, but I've heard good things, yeah. It's pretty good. Like, Nico's in it, weirdly. like Nico's his best friend. She's kind of like... Like, if, like, the MJ from the MCU was instead Peter's, like...
01:49:14
Speaker
lesbian best friend instead of like potential girlfriend. That's like her kind of role. There's some like stuff about it that's a They're doing good job like building the I was impressed by it I'm just saying like I thought it would be like I you know like it would be all right um and yeah I'm like I'm tuned in I'm enjoying it Dr. Strange shows up so yeah okay
01:49:45
Speaker
I would like to. Maybe I'll make that a priority to watch with my family sometime. um I'm going to plug K-pop Demon Hunters again because the music is amazing. And if you like, that you don't have to like K-pop. I'm not a K-pop girlie, but I love animation and that's why I wanted to give it a try. It's the same studio that did Lego Movie and the Spider-Verse movies. like It's really good. It's really beautiful. And the music is amazing. So check it out if you like animation at all.
01:50:11
Speaker
Ben, what do you want to plug? ah Me? What have I been enjoying? Well, I've been watching... two Right now, I'm watching Poker Face Season 2 on Peacock.
01:50:25
Speaker
um You know, like, every month I'm, like, on the verge of canceling my Peacock because, like... There's just not that much on there, but like, there's always some new thing that's coming out that I need to be watching. Like I'm going to want to watch season two of twisted metal when that comes out and that's coming out soon. I'm going to want to watch the next season of the traders and I'm having a blast with poker face season two. I'd sort of been saving it.
01:50:47
Speaker
I was really hoping that we could, you know, watch it as a family, yeah, Sometimes you just end up having to watch things on your own time by yourself.
01:50:58
Speaker
And that's okay, too. It's we have plenty of things to watch together. But um yeah, I'm watching Poker Face by myself and having a great time. I hear Patty Harrison shows up at some point soon. I'm like five episodes in and I haven't seen hide nor hair of her.
01:51:15
Speaker
And she is just like of my all time favorites. So I'm really excited for that.