Podcast Introduction and Taskmaster Comparison
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 21 of Snap on This. I have tried to avoid the hello and welcome intro because to me it's the Snap judgments intro. But lately I've been watching Taskmaster and that's how Greg devvis Davis opens Taskmaster. So I'm copying Taskmaster and I'm sure there are other shows that do that too.
00:00:20
Speaker
Their music is even better than our music, and our music is pretty good. oh The Taskmaster theme is just such a bop. It is a banger. If you haven't seen Taskmaster, watch it. It's fantastic. British reality TV at its finest.
Marvel Snap Meta and Card Highlights
00:00:37
Speaker
Lauren Whatevs, here with my usual co-host to talk about Marvel Snap, not British reality TV. It is an odd numbered episode, so we're starting with odd numbered Reed. There's only one of her. ah How was your week in Snap? And keep it snappy.
00:00:53
Speaker
a oh really from the flu, actually, mostly now, as of if yeah now. But even more said to me, Victoria, you betrayed me, in that um I forgot, I got really excited for her, and I even like prepped some decks for her. I got some Helicary Nonsense, you know just some good old Shield Nonsense, and then I forgot that cards sometimes are no fun. The week they came out, like when I started playing after I got it, it was just like specifically my collector a lot. and it's like
00:01:38
Speaker
Yeah. That's not fun. You can still win, but like like it's not just about winning for me. It's about
Guardians of the Galaxy Deck Discussion
00:01:47
Speaker
how fun I have on the journey. When your collector is red guardianed and you don't get the helicarrier, you did a really good job clearing out your whole hand so that helicarrier is going to fill it all up and you get to see collector like, ding, ding,
00:02:04
Speaker
and um And, like, and it just kept happening. I get it. I play Red Guardian. It's great tech. So it's like, I can't fault people. And it's like, so this meta, especially like in what people are playing for Doom, um people are playing, like, there's a lot of affliction and clog. And you know what that's also great against? Dex replaying a bunch of little tiny cards, like Kate Bishop, and rehab, and cable, and like stuff like that. Affliction and clog both suck.
00:02:34
Speaker
So it just was no fun. um ah So it didn't like, it did the lore appropriate thing when ah a Marvel character is lost without a title. And nowhere to go, no room in the meta verse for them.
00:02:52
Speaker
um They run away and join the Guardians of the Galaxy. I guess if you read the comics, this often and frequently happens. that Guardians of the Galaxy are dumping ground for characters that like don't have the title. nothing to do it ah so um i it was ah rocket for co and and and du I think like that I had an auto deck builder put together for week admissions a while back. And I swapped out U.S. Agent for Iron Patriot because the Guardians are awesome. The Guardians are good now for the first time ever in my time playing. I know they've had brief surges before.
00:03:35
Speaker
The guardians that are good are good, yes. The ones that are good. Drax? Yeah, wanted to be excited because I was like, this deck has literally all of the guardians. And it does, except it doesn't have Mantis. Mantis is still terrible. Second dinner refuses to fix her. Does this deck have Groot Classic in it?
00:04:01
Speaker
Yes. It doesn't have group classic. Oh dear. Um, no. Okay. But speaking of Mantis, that reminded me, I saw it the other day, I knew it was a bot deck because like, uh, they, they threw down a Mantis. I'm like, okay, sniff. This is a box. That's how bad Mantis is. And not only that, it was like,
00:04:23
Speaker
Um, it was, you know, like the split on this Mantis. It was like, if you were baller enough to be running Mantis in this day and age, you were not running base prism. You know what I mean? So it was like, oh, that is like a crime against coolness. So like, I was like, but for sure, poor Mantis, like even Wombat combat was trying to build a deck with her recently. And normally he's like, hey, ray you know, like Mantis stuck, Mantis stuck. And usually that's kind of like, for me, that's like kind of a, like that'll get my kitty ears like, because I'm like, oh, Mantis, I've wanted so hard to have a good deck for, but I knew I'm like, I've tried.
Deck Building Strategies and Fun
00:05:06
Speaker
not like a James Franco gif with the like first time. First time trying to make this. I don't think I know that one. It's not his first time either, but like, yeah, it's funny because he came back like two hours late and he's like, no.
00:05:20
Speaker
I'm dead, I'm dead. Okay, sorry, this deck though, the Guardians, ah, normally, okay, I don't even, I'm only now getting all of my Guardians split for the first time, because that's how little I've played Guardians. Because like, I just don't like, if I can't like, have a very good reason to guess where they are, I don't like straight guessing.
00:05:44
Speaker
um But now that we have like Nebula and Daredevil and like, and Jean Grant, you know what I mean? All these tools and like that combined with locations and stuff. And Iron Patriot, right? Now you're like, you know, you can, you have a much better chance at what they say. And they've buffed all of the Guardians. So that they're, they're more power than they used to be. um So, like, you know, if you get that nebula down, right? Like, you know, because, like, I would always hold it. It's got Rocket, obviously, um which is really fun. Oh, man. A Rocket on Jean Grey. Jean Grey is awesome on this deck. It's so fun to, like, ping a little. It's like, Rocket, you hang out with Jean Grey over here and then drop, like, on turn five because you daredeviled and you just get all the places they played with Guardians in that turn. or you just drop a big Gamora. I'm so excited to get to play Gamora. This deck literally has ah Nebula, Rocket, all of all of um the Guardians minus Mantis, Groot, Rocket, Raccoon, and Groot, Drax, and Gamora.
00:06:55
Speaker
And okay, but here's the cards that help it, uh, you know, fill around Negasonic, right? Cause you're going to get, you know, you have a lot of low cards that get big. So Negasonic and with Jean Grey, right? And I love Negasonic too, because the fun of her is to get to show how smart you are. Cause like, you know, like it's like, I mean, it's like, cause you have to, well, okay. If it's turn five and you daredevil, you just like, you just toast. You just didn't know I had the Negasonic, but like, um,
00:07:25
Speaker
The other times when you can read their deck and you're like, this is the turn they're going to play the Doom in 2099, and this is where they're going to play it. Okay. Maybe you know that's where they're going to play it because of Jean, but still, it feels really smart and me like like like asonic du
Gameplay Mindset and Learning
00:07:42
Speaker
um you're You're Doom 2099. So also, Elias, right? Oh, Ben.
00:07:49
Speaker
May I interject with two quick things? for For the true believers, we solved Mantis back in episode four, Respect to Dracula. So go check that out if you want to know all the ways that Mantis could be better and more interesting and still relevant and playable and stuff. And also, i I just wanted to say that I turn out to have made the unfun, not Guardians themed version of the Decree is describing and I'll be coming.
00:08:13
Speaker
in my weekend snap, and you got to the Negasonic part and I'm like, oh, Ree just made the fun version of my deck with like, flavor and themes and stuff. Yeah, that sounds like normal to me, though. The risk and reward, yeah. and Your decks are too sinky. We'll see about that.
00:08:33
Speaker
Yeah, so like a life, it's fun to like get people with guardians because not a lot of people, that's when things are most fun for me when I can do things that other people aren't expecting. And like when you come and it's like, you know, you show up with your start and you're like, got them, you know? It's fun. And and groot.
00:08:54
Speaker
um Uh, still suck against Luke Cage, but there's less of that now. And it's just like, you know, like even if it only gets to three, seven or three, eight, you know how, you know how many people.
00:09:08
Speaker
yeah Yeah. How do I creep on cards, right? I mean, next seven is kind of an only that i mean i mean if it's a 3-7, that means it's really a 3-11. Because look at what Negasonic is when you play it right. Oh, yeah. I'm just saying a 3-7 is like not that much to write home about. If if you're only getting 3-7 value out of rocket Raccoon and Groot, I don't know. Maybe try. 3-7 that can move is pretty fun, though.
00:09:35
Speaker
No, it's very fun. Honestly, it's not really a 3.7. If you've kinged off, then it's really a 3.11 or something, because you just don't get it. Yeah, that's 3.11. If the body is 3.7, that means there's four more floating around.
00:09:51
Speaker
And it's really obnoxious to people. I know, I know when I'm a playing opponent and I don't know if they're muted cause I already auto muted them. But it's like, I know they're mad when I have Rocket and Raccoon and then they have to reveal all their little tiny like Victoria hand cable, like Kate Bishop cards and like ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. And then it's like, and then, and you can fill the lane, the Jean Grey lane. It's another, it's a car cause before you needed,
00:10:18
Speaker
Jean Grey was more awkward because it's like you needed more cards to like fill and move out of her lane, but you with the Guardians, you needed stuff that worked. And now there's more cards that move on their own. So it's like some of these weird nooks, like the Guardians have kind of like gotten beefy. I mean, I'll still, you know, a Shadow a shadow King still hurts. It's still straight to the gut. But one, you're still like beefing up multiple lanes. um And two, like playing, a lot of the times I've lost, it's like, I should have seen, I should have known that they were going to play. I lied it's the wrong lane, and I see how I should have known I should have gotten the other one. I just didn't want to take the 30 seconds to think it through. I just wanted to take the five to take my turn. But like, I love that in a deck. I love when I lost in a deck,
Gamora and Guardians Deck Exploration
00:11:09
Speaker
and I see where it's my fault that I lost, because i'm like then I know that I feel like the deck's still tight.
00:11:16
Speaker
Yeah, and you can like tell where the room for improvement is and stuff that's i don't know but Like that that's like a personal thing when I can identify that like oh I could have won that if I had like done it better Then I'm like, oh you'll do it better in the future and it'll be great and you'll win or you'll make the same mistake over and over Yeah, but then you know the mistake was yours not your decks like you're actually you get it run yes exactly No, and eventually you learn. So yeah, this stack has been fun. That's what I've been playing so far um on ladder and stuff. It's been fun. Oh, I never talk much about my rank because like I don't.
00:11:56
Speaker
like super care, but I will say I made a change in the way I played from like, say my earlier months where it was like, I get to infinite and it's like, oh, good, I can turn it off. I'm just going to see out every game. I'm going to not care. And then at some point I was like, it's aggravating to then have to try and turn on the good mindset again. And it gets exhausting. And then if you start doing conquest, you just like need to have that brain land.
00:12:22
Speaker
So I'm just always going to play like that and unless I'm making like a conscious decision because I want to see something. And since then, I've always been in the top 10K, usually hovering around top five like over or less, depending how much conquest versus that I'm playing. blue one layer And there. I still kind of do what I want. I don't do super stupid stuff usually unless I'm tilted to super tank my rank. But it's like, you can still be like, you know, not like super high up there, but reasonably high up there without like super caring, just always, you know, mostly mostly snapping, retreating like you should. Anyway, um, so that's, that's about where I go. Although I, I like, I haven't for the last couple of months gone, I think gone for like a day one. It's the night cause it's just time. I don't i have on Tuesdays. Uh, that's my week. Um,
00:13:20
Speaker
I'm going to talk about my Gamora before Ben's week because Gamora is a card I played a lot. And it's a card that I've paid 5000 tokens for the ultimate. And it's a card that I have in ink with Rainbow Crackle. It didn't matter, at least don't beat me when we faced off and I had that beautiful Gamora. But there she is. And I don't know.
00:13:42
Speaker
I also, I feel like I'm one of the few players who likes Drax, mostly because I played him with Storm and Professor X, and he was the sweet spot that could work for both, whereas Rescue was better with Professor X, and Jessica Jones was better with Storm. He worked with both of them. um Anyway. No, Drax is good. oh man I also have a great knowledge of Storm's lead.
00:14:08
Speaker
I don't know. I mean, some of it is just like, if you're better at reading decks and stuff, then you're... It's Drax in your deck. Yeah, Drax is in this deck. Oh, wow. I guess you said it's all of them. I thought it was all the Guardians, but Mantis. Yeah, no, and Gamora, I love Gamora. And the last time I'd really played her um was like old, old clog. And you were ending it with like,
00:14:35
Speaker
You know, a good one. Anyway, um, I think I did cover. I am good
Rankings and Strategy Adjustments in Marvel Snap
00:14:41
Speaker
for me. So I covered all the cards in the deck. Okay. yeah didnt I Go on to our other co-host Ben. How was your weekend snap and keep it snappy.
00:14:52
Speaker
It was a pretty good weekend snap for the most part. I did, oh my goodness. So I was comfortably within those top 1000 for hashtag pod goals. But then I just had to, I had to mess with it on Tuesday morning before reset and like i I lost some games and I got a little flustered. And then I realized that I hadn't claimed my conquest rewards and also I hadn't done the weekend mission. And so I screwed up to conquest and I ah did an infinity conquest and now I've got sushi modok. So that's nice. But I knocked myself out of the top 1000. I did take
00:15:37
Speaker
Once it became clear that I was tanking it, I i took a screenshot just to prove it. But yeah, you know sure enough, I ah collapsed that whole that whole dream. But I'll get it this month. I think I'm going to try this month because I found it very frustrating. And it just like it was it was such like a bad decision. It was so undisciplined of me just like Intemperate and not it's so hard to stop when you're like on that losing streak and you should stop whether it's The matchmaking or your mindset or it's so hard to stop. But yeah, I've been having like such a good month I think it was like my all-time best month in terms of like snap points up for like time invested I was like only playing when I was feeling clever and stuff and like
00:16:27
Speaker
I don't know. i i I don't take it that seriously. I so i still like do all my bounty stuff on the ladder and all my cooking and brewing and ah crafting, invention, other other artisanal words. I don't know.
00:16:45
Speaker
Anywho, speaking of which, I built a new deck today, just this very morning, and ah it is kind of a lot like Ree's deck, except without any of the charm. It's called Codependence Day, because Iron Patriot and Fourth of July, it's like Independence Day, but like, what if what if what if it was funny and a little twisted? You you know me and my zany viewer. Anywho,
00:17:13
Speaker
The only Guardians in this deck are Nebula and Rocket Raccoon and Groot. But yeah let let me let me tell you about their co-stars. Nebula, here's the interesting card. America Chavez, i was I was trying to play Martyr in this deck. I just, I couldn't. America is a really good card. Safetyblades AI tool, his snap bot thing. I think he mentioned that it thinks that New America, the one cost version of America Chavez is a really good card. And I'm like, well, maybe maybe it's onto something. Because I happen to agree. I think nobody nobody gives her the credit.
00:17:51
Speaker
So yeah, i'm I'm just playing her as a very, very good one drop in this particular deck because it needs it. And then, of course, speaking of really good one drops, our boy, Idra Bob. I ran into him in Marvel's Midnight Suns, which I've been playing a lot of, and I took ah took a screenshot of that. I was like, I cannot get away from this dude. He's apparently the star of the entire Marvel collection of universes and franchises and things. Anywho, so those are only the first three cards I need to pick up the pace. We got Hawkeye. That's Kate Bishop Hawkeye, by the way, not Clint Barton. Get out of here with that. Ira Patriot. Penny Parker. Juggernaut.
00:18:31
Speaker
Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Red Guardian, Rocket Raccoon and Groot, Galacta, and Wiccan. That's right, Safety Blade's got me on the Wiccan train now. so good It's just, what what am I doing now? Who am I? Ramping? No, Wiccan is just a card that's good at his job.
00:18:52
Speaker
Excuse me. And I love that. And it's okay if you miss, right? Like a four seven's like, you don't love it, but it's fine. Yeah. But then when it hits, it's like, it's a win condition. It is so, it's a lot of extra energy. Also, you may have noticed the deck tops out at four there with Wiccan. So like, if you don't get your Wiccan going, it's fine.
00:19:13
Speaker
You're still doing like relatively low-curve things, but like it has cards to play like with the generation of ah Hawkeye, Kate Bishop, and ah Penny Parker, and Iron Patriot. like you You have cards to play.
00:19:27
Speaker
and um yeah i just ah I don't usually build decks like this that like really do play for the priority and stuff. But my you know you always have to have like sort of like a a mission or a goal like when you're building a deck. And my thought was, like how can I make a deck where it's correct that I don't have Victoria Hand? Because I didn't get Victoria Hand yet, but I'm going to get Victoria Hand, but only after there's a chance of getting those 2,000 tokens instead of 1,000 tokens because I didn't get where I am by not doing that.
00:20:00
Speaker
you know and i mean so on brand ah yeah Oh, speaking of which, the ridiculous token Tuesday happened. There might be another one in two weeks on, what is it, like the 21st or the 23rd? Let me double check that. I knew it was a good bundle. So 700 gold for 1200 tokens. I knew it was a good bundle, but when I saw Kirillist on Twitter say it's the best gold bundle that has You ever know what I been. Yeah, mean? it's ridiculous. I didn't know it was that good. It's so on brand. It is that good.
Token Tuesday Offers: Value and Reactions
00:20:31
Speaker
ah And ah yeah, there'll be another one on the 21st. But only if they let it happen. This was a copy paste mistake. Like somebody was having like a ah number swapping moment on like a spreadsheet or something because this is the the 1,200 tokens from a strong token Tuesday with the 700 gold from a weak token Tuesday. And like it's clear they just got like mashed up. you know like that This was a whoopsie. So like if it happens again on the 21st, as has been data mined, that's nice. But like we shouldn't necessarily take it for granted that it will happen. because It's possible if they have their shit together, like if they can lift a finger to fix the simplest problem.
00:21:20
Speaker
They would set it to be like a regular strong token Tuesday as they clearly intended. But the thing is- They know people would riot if they changed it while it was live. Well, it's not live yet. This is like the time to fix it. Well, I meant the one that's live right now. Oh, no. That one's not live anymore. It's already gone. Today is Wednesday. Oh, goodness. I forget that family last for a day. It is a day.
00:21:45
Speaker
I can't advise people to get it anymore. get it oh man this is yeah This is what the forecast is for. I told them last week that that was that was there one morning. um No, I was so glad you pointed it out. I never look at token Tuesdays because I save all my gold for the varying gold bundles usually. you know and so i you know I too have seen the light and the value of the token Tuesday forecast.
00:22:14
Speaker
Well, yeah, the whole point of my deck was to, um oh, Lauren, did you have something? I was going to say, while we're on and Watch, can you explain what you were saying about Victoria Hand, too? Oh, yeah. I'm waiting to open for her because there's going to be a patch that changes the ah the fourth reward in Spotlight Caches, the one that may be a random unowned card or may be a duplicate that gets converted into tokens. It's currently ah duplicate gets converted into 1000 tokens, but there is a soon ah yeah that like a patch that's coming on Tuesday, like on Tuesday, right? yeah At some point, probably earlier in the day before reset, that will change that rate to 2000 tokens. So I'm waiting in
Innovative Deck Building: 'Codependence Day'
00:23:00
Speaker
case I roll a duplicate, which is a fairly likely outcome. And I would just like to get 2000 tokens instead of, ah you know,
00:23:12
Speaker
1,000. That's me. that's That's my life. I don't know what you're talking about. They're permanently changing the dupe value to 2,000. permanently. It's it's like semi-permanent. It's a bandage fix until they rework the economy. At that point, who knows if there will even be spotlights anymore. Yeah. So I think it's always just best to make good decisions when they are available to you and obvious like this. So I'm going to do the good decisions. So that's why I haven't acquired Victoria Hand yet. So that's why like the the sort of mission statement for co-dependence day here is we want it to be about iron patriot and
00:23:53
Speaker
Somehow it has to be correct to be doing Iron Patriot stuff without Victoria Hand stuff, which means we're not leaning hard into the the card generation. But also, we do need to kind of have some card generation because leaning like so hard into this like early priority, like this this aggressive push, like this does take us in a Wiccan direction, I feel.
00:24:14
Speaker
if if we're like you know really sticking to our curve like with that kind of commitment. So like you do need some card generation, but I needed to like get a small amount of card generation that was like just right where I didn't want to be playing Victoria Hand and I didn't feel like I was going to be like missing out on anything by not playing Victoria Hand. So that's why we're doing stuff like Negasonic Teenage Warhead and ah Rocket and Groot.
00:24:39
Speaker
I just love them with Nebula and with Iron Patriot. like All of these things to just like nudge them about where to play and stuff. I've got Galacta in here. I had Gwenpool for a while. I really have like improved the deck by... ah Because it's such an unfamiliar archetype for me, I started with like ah some different cards and I had to like work my way to this set of 12 and i I think it's working pretty well for me right now um in this current form and I'm pretty proud of it and I recommend people play it.
00:25:11
Speaker
ah as As I said, I was taking some inspiration from like safety blade lists that I played recently. ah when When I realized that I needed to do the weekend mission and play some Rocket Raccoon in Groot, I grabbed the Cobra from Safety's Blue Sky, and that's what I ah won the Infinity Conquest with, and that's what got me my Sushi Modok.
00:25:32
Speaker
I will forever think fondly of safety when I scroll through that in my thing, although I usually just play default to avatars, so I don't think about my Infinity avatars very often. But yeah, that's that's been my weekend snap. um So, yeah. i
Deck Strategies and Surprising Plays
00:25:49
Speaker
I really like that deck, and I encourage you to play my deck, or or that Safety Blade deck that will be in the show notes. I don't know. for somebody somebody take the Somebody take the mic.
00:26:02
Speaker
both your sounds fun I look forward to trying it. Let me record safety. It's the Cobra one. Yeah bla so like if If you want to play my deck and you think it should have a life in it I get it put a life in there Alliance
00:26:21
Speaker
i'm I'm also like testing is like a second mission mission statement like what if it's correct to not play a lieth in this one but the thing is it probably is still correct to play a lieth in this one so like it feels for to data but especially in a deck with Wiccan when you can play a lieth and something else that's it's very strong But the thing is, I never run out of stuff to play I've noticed. like i always even Even when I get the Wiccan stuff off, and even if I get the also like get the discount on the Iron Patriot thing, like I still have so many like arrows and spider and like whatever else gets generated. I don't know. i i just i'm I'm leery of these these big cards. You know me. I'm team Small Cards for life. But no, I am going to test a version with life, for sure.
00:27:05
Speaker
I have such a journey with Elias because I hated Elias when he came out and eight cards whole hated that card. I thought it was so bad for the game. I thought it was so bad that now it's a 50-50 if you should go for a priority or not. When before there was like a snowball effect or a rubber banding effect where if you're losing, that's a stronger position to be in. I think that makes for a more interesting game. But ah I don't know. they find I think they finally have Elias in a place where he's He's very, very strong, but he's not so decisively strong that it, yeah, I don't know. If somebody is clearly playing for Prio, you can expect a life to be coming, and I just, it's probably one of the six cost cards I play most. Not that I play a ton of them. It's like a shang now, you know? It's just one of the big tech cards you always have to be thinking about if it it's something that might fit in the deck.
00:28:01
Speaker
Right, but you can play around it. Oh, that's another card that I thought about again, but avoided. Sean, yeah. Yeah. My weekend snap. My week started great. I found a deck on, oh gosh, I think it was Blue Sky, but it might have been Twitter, is from Frank Puddle and is a clogged deck. And I had so much fun with this deck. I got, I know, right? I got two infinity avatars with it.
00:28:28
Speaker
Um, because while Khlog eats Doom Doom 2099 has been driving me crazy. So I was so pleased to find something that and made me happy, uh, or that, that dealt with it and was fun to play because like Rhee was saying, I'm, I think I'm pretty good at the game, but I have to be having fun when I'm playing too. And, uh,
00:28:53
Speaker
Yeah, so I'll do all kinds of silly things ah that that hurt my rank. But this deck was working great for me in ranked mode too. And I think I had the highest or the best rank I've had in like three or four months ah since I totally tanked my rank clip hunting a few times. I made i peaked around 5k. I finished the season around 8k because like Ben, I went on a terrible little spiral and right at the very end where I was doing bad and I kept playing and kept doing bad.
00:29:22
Speaker
um But still, I climbed like 800 SP, and i just yeah I had a great season, um or at least a good wrap up to the season. I got, ah who who did I get? I got Dan Hip, Agent 13, and Noir White Queen. Those are my avatars that I infinitized.
00:29:43
Speaker
I'm jealous. I'm very happy with the nor white queen for when I'm rocking the kind of a jerk title with a, with a clogged deck. I hate that title. Always an auto-mute for me. I know you do. I would never auto-mute you, Lauren, though. You would get the gander, hard eyes. You would auto-mute me and then you'd see my name and unmute me. Yeah. Yeah, maybe.
00:30:09
Speaker
um let me Let me read it off. This is gonna be my one deck that I read it. you know The others can just be in the show notes. Hood.
00:30:20
Speaker
One of my favorite cards. Titania, Daredevil, Hawkeye, Kate Bishop, US Agent, Green Goblin, Magic, who's not a card I've seen in a lot of clog decks. But let me tell you, when you fill their board on turn five and there are two more turns to play, ah you win. ah Viper, Doc Ock, Hobgoblin, Cannonball, and Gore. ah Gore also i not a card I would have put in clog myself, but he definitely wins some games.
00:30:47
Speaker
ah If you haven't played a deck like this before, you use ah you either use luck or Daredevil to get a Titania onto their side and clog a location. And then at the end of the game, you just play a one cost there. And all of a sudden, that five powers switching over, and it adds 10 power to your one cost card. It is decisive. And you still have five energy left to cannonball. ah Don't do it in that order, though. Cannonball first, and then bring Titania home.
00:31:16
Speaker
It's just it's very fun. It's very mean like I am aware of this like It is a sand castle kicker, and that's not why I like it So I kind of feel bad the whole time. I'm playing it like I'm having so much fun, but I'm aware. I'm ruining everybody else's um But it's a fun deck to play I like the rushy and and you know clog kind of works like a lockdown or rushdown deck um Yeah Uh, rest of my week was trying out our new cards. So let's talk about them. Season pass.
New Cards: Iron Patriot and Victoria Hand
00:31:51
Speaker
Iron Patriot. I don't have his stats. I Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't give you the stats. Yeah, he's such a great for sure though.
00:32:01
Speaker
I can't read off his ability for Batem. The whole week is full of two threes. He creates a four, five, or six cost card in your hand. And then if you're still winning that location where he was played um at the end of the following turn, then you get a four cost discount to that card. Holy moly.
00:32:22
Speaker
um ah He's as I expected. 4-cost is just a gigantic discount. Yeah, wow. Yeah, it's huge. I've never played so many 6-cost cards in my life as I have in the past 24 hours. Jeezy Pete's. I mean, like, if you if you don't count Magneto and Heimdall. Wow. this this This gore card that came out recently, quite strong, huh? Especially when it costs 2. Oh my goodness. Wow.
00:32:49
Speaker
ah Yeah i picture it hell of a card Wow, I mean All the season pass cards have felt very I mean, I feel like we've said here the last couple months like yeah, so pee Like I don't hate this one. I don't think this one's like I don't think this one horrible i think this one's innocent. It's you know, we're not hurting anybody.
00:33:12
Speaker
But wait, don't you want to put it in every single deck? Because it feels like feel like it's just worth it to have a super cheap four or five or six goes crazy. I don't think so. Oh, I actually I've come to agree. with you I've mostly played him in in Victoria Hand decks, but he I think out of every card this season, he doesn't need support. He's just a standalone good card. Yeah.
00:33:38
Speaker
i I mean, yeah, it is a very good card. Because he has two cards! You can play him situationally all the way up to turn... I mean, turn, even if you play him turn five, that still gives you a free card, you know what I mean? Like, even if you're not going to get the discount. Yeah, I've played someone without a discount just because he happened to generate get a good card. You've got to play him on turn four if you want the the free card.
00:34:01
Speaker
The discount is what I'm saying, but I'm saying at worst, you still got a card, you know? Oh, that's true. That's true. Yeah, you can play for a non-discounted card if if you want on turn five. That's true.
00:34:12
Speaker
I mean, because maybe maybe that six, maybe that gore is still your best play, even in six power. He is very big. I i just, i I don't notice so much when he's on the other side of the board, but when he's like in my hand, staring me down with the the big gore. You're like, I can swing an entire lane with one card. I do see the appeal. That's what I'm saying.
00:34:33
Speaker
And you know what the advantage is? They don't know what you have because you could have gotten a four, five, or six cost card. You know what I mean? So you also have an information advantage, even if you don't have the discount. Do we really think that it's an auto-include? And at worst, you played a two, three. That was a little cheap. In every deck, I don't think that.
00:34:54
Speaker
I don't know. Warren's right where he's his own package. Usually we're talking about two or three card packages. You got to put in a deck, you know? And he's just a little one piece. If you really wanted to make him a two a two card package, you could do Bob or Juggernaut, like cards that are almost certainly going to swing it. Rocket and Groot.
00:35:17
Speaker
yeah Five i points on like i that like those are the cards he goes with but like is he that scary like is he a problem like is like know are you guys gift with some from him already I have not but I think he's the most likely to get nerfed out of the entire season the forecast is just yeah big discount also the more I think about Aries the more I think that card might not be any good at all Oh, really? I ultimately put it at number two on my final ranking. I'm like, does anybody need this card? No, nobody needs it. It's boring as hell. But in Surtur, which is already a good deck, he just makes Surtur better. But it's also a card that doesn't hit every time. And if he's high Evo, that's like, oof. He doesn't proc Surtur. He doesn't proc Scar. He's just nothing.
00:36:12
Speaker
Nothing if you get the four-six. I don't know. You're doing something wrong if you're playing Surtur and your Aries isn't becoming a four-twelve. Yeah, but you can't just win every time. Sometimes the heart of the cards is on your opponent's side. Enemy Hela or Arsham has an Infinaut in your deck. Yeah, I just don't think you can count. Oh my gosh. I played an Infinaut earlier today. It was no exciting. I never ever played.
00:36:42
Speaker
It was a 220. That's a Valentino one, yeah. But I skipped the turn for it and everything, and it it worked. I was like, wow, people must have a lot of fun with this card. I i never played, because like you generate it, and it's never part of your plan. and yeah So I don't know. I still think that...
00:37:03
Speaker
Iron Patriot is a fun, exciting card that lets me sample all these expensive delights that I would never play otherwise. And I think he's good, clean American fun. Haven't you seen his costume? It's red, white, and blue. He's apple pie. He's baseball. If you don't like Iron Patriot, I don't know. if If you got a problem with Iron Patriot, you got a problem with America, and I suggest you at that marriage. I got with America?
00:37:31
Speaker
Don't we all? Oh my goodness. Oh. um but But Iron Patriot is the best of us, is he not? Norman Osborn, for you, for me, for now, for always. I always recommend getting the season pass because of the very high value, but also just Iron Patriot's very fun.
Building Decks Around Victoria Hand: Strategies
00:37:52
Speaker
Worth it if you're on the fence.
00:37:54
Speaker
um Victoria Hand, 2-3 ongoing ah cards that are created in your hand. Get plus 2 power, more or less right. um
00:38:08
Speaker
Did you get her? We know Ben. Ben didn't get her because he's waiting for a chance at a thousand extra tokens. three Yeah, it took me two keys. I got tokens and Victorians, so not the beefier tokens. What I mostly ah played her in ah was when that combat tempted me. It was a very fun looking deck.
00:38:35
Speaker
Um, I used to play a lot of an old, uh, moon knight helicarrier, more of, you know, collector deck that I call the random bullshit go cause it's based on the like moon knight meme. Um,
00:38:52
Speaker
where So, you know, random bullshit go. Okay, if you've seen that. But, um, and, you know, like, well, it made his own. So I play this kind of decks, they're really fun. And the key to this one, so it does have the classic, right? If you're building one of these decks, it's got all the cards you'd expect.
00:39:09
Speaker
like um collector in mooc and and helicarrier and i just said moon i obviously swarm and this is a victorian hand deck because i was you know that's what we're talking about right now and um blade and colloween wing for the swarms but and corvus glaive right good for hitting helicarrier swarm um But what's fun about this too, that like Victoria Hand kind of enables, is it's got Mystique. Because your targets for Mystique are Morbius, right? You can get big in this if you're casting a Modok down, especially after you Helicarried a full hand, right? So you can copy Morbius, you can copy Victoria Hand.
00:39:53
Speaker
Cause you maybe have some, ah I've made some giant ass swarms. Like a bunch of zero seven zero nine swarms are like really fun. How could you be upset about that?
00:40:05
Speaker
So yeah, and a strong guy, because I haven't mentioned him yet. He's, of course, here. So I definitely copied some strong guys for like, you know, like three sixes, sometimes above that, because I was getting buffs to Mystique somehow.
00:40:23
Speaker
um So that's what I was playing. Like I said, people were like red guarding my collector and that didn't necessarily mean I would lose, but it did mean I didn't have fun. um So I eventually put it down, but this deck is, it was fun. On my version, I probably like, this is probably the better version. I probably lean more into the random bullshit go, putting a bunch of like nonsense shield cards or whatever, but,
00:40:52
Speaker
ah This was a good time. That's what I was doing with Victoria Hand. Helicarrier. I have a great split on Helicarrier. Helicarrier is one of those cards like Arisham where you want a great split, so all your cards like... Everything it makes, yeah. yeah i I got her with tokens, surpassing the token issue. All my future keys will be worth 2,000 tokens on dupes. I did really like the Kate Bishop, it's super cute, but I really love the Flaviano one, so... yeah It's very good.
00:41:25
Speaker
i i don't I don't know how to evaluate her because she disappointed me, but also she's very strong. um And it's not that I thought she'd be ridiculously strong because in my final ranking, my just the thing I posted on Twitter, I put her at three. um I think she's easy to compare to Patriot, right? Because she's dropping plus two power everywhere.
00:41:50
Speaker
And she has more power than Patriot, and she's lower cost than Patriot, and that's huge. It's a huge edge to be a two cost instead of a three cost. um But Patriot has Brood, Squirrel Girl, Ultron, Doom, these things that can generate a bunch of targets all at once. Victoria Hand doesn't have that. like You can do, say, Kate Bishop or Helicarrier to get a bunch of targets in your hand, but then you still have to pay for them.
00:42:18
Speaker
um Anyway, it's been very fun to have things like Devil Dino and Collector and Quinjet kind of revived. um Shield's a very fun a thing. I've tried many content creators' decks. I am sorry to say I did not like Scots, and I did not like Safety Blades, even though I normally love their decks. Their Victoria Hand decks did not work for me. My favorite one so far is Ikka's, which is a Devil Dino one.
00:42:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's my favorite one so far. um I did a lot of just goofing off on my own, iterating around her. And my favorite thing with her so far that I haven't, I'm sure somebody else has done it, but I haven't seen anybody else do it, is Moon Girl. Like, you have to set it up, right? But Moon Girl just, and you have Quinjet and Victoria Hand, and you could just dump so much power on the last turn.
00:43:07
Speaker
um I, I still, she's- Sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, she's still going to be a blast once Bullseye comes out and you can do swarm nanigans. like I'm here for that. I'm very glad I got her. she's She's a fun card that enables cards that haven't worked before, but also I just... um I don't think she's as good as Patriot. Oh, I don't think so either, but I would still like to own this card eventually.
00:43:35
Speaker
Sure. She can be fun though. But that's why, like I said, it's been a long time actually ah since I had been building decks for cards before they came out, just because I'm not usually excited when to play when they release. And I did for her. And my problem was, like the decks are doing well. like i built my own Helicarrier deck with this Edwin Jett and stuff that was a little more into the random bullshit go um aspect well because Helicarrier with Morbius and Collector and stuff, that just goes on its own and does well.
Managing Board Space with Venom and Carnage
00:44:16
Speaker
more I tried to lean decks to be for Victoria Hand, the worse they got. And the more it's like, it won't be good till she's in it. And that's not good for me in the way I like to play decks. I never want to lean so hard on a card that it feels like the deck can't win without that card. And that's the feeling I was getting when I was trying to build decks for her. Because that's what you do. You build the deck, you put in a a swap card, and you just act like you didn't draw her the whole time. And you see how the deck performs, right?
00:44:44
Speaker
And when I was testing like that, it's like, it's only going to be good if she's in it and there's not like other, you know, then I'm not building a deck for her. So like, I don't know. Yeah, that's, that's kind of was part of my disappointment. and that's so yeah I think that's a really good evaluation of her.
00:45:04
Speaker
um oh Shoot, I i had had another thing. um Oh, she can be played on curve. We love the two costs that you can play on curve, but she has a lot more power if you play her at the end of the game, because then all of a sudden there's surprise power everywhere. um So, you know, that's just like something to keep in mind while you're playing her. ah There is plenty of other stuff you can be playing on two instead, right? Like you could be playing around Azure or... i ah Keep this up. ra Oh, the other thing that I did when I was just iterating on my own that I loved, I kept running out of board space. I had way more cards in my hand than on my board. um you know This is when you really want the Acid Arrow. ah I added Venom to my decks. And i you know i kind of for a while, I think that Carnage and Venom are underused outside of Destroy. But this is a great place for him, because if you have Veronica on the board, Victoria on the board, he gets all the power from her from the cards that that ah
00:46:06
Speaker
he eats and then you have space for a bunch more cards. The other thing that I found ah Venom is good for is if you have an iron patriot lane that's full, people don't expect you to fill it the rest of the way and Venom lets you fill it the rest of the way and still have more space to use afterwards.
00:46:25
Speaker
no Oh, that's another thing. Oh, shoot. Rock, paper, scissors. I'm jumping in. All right. and Go for it. One cool thing about Iron Patriot, very friendly to the merge mechanic, because you really want to force you're winning that lane and stuff. And so it's great to have merge cards to keep adding power there or put power there that like doesn't shut the door for your future plans. OK, boom. just Just another endorsement of Iron Patriot, Ben's new favorite card.
00:46:56
Speaker
It is a very fun card, to be honest. I am surprised I've been playing it way more than Victoria Hand lately, although talking about her makes me want to play her. No, I was say, with Lorenz, you mentioned that once like a long time ago, using it. And i it's always in the back of my brain. I thought about it with these decks, too. Because when you're playing Mirage and Cable and all these little cards to get you other cards that are going to be more power, it's so easy to get clogged up, especially with other people and their acid arrows and all that stuff.
00:47:25
Speaker
um Although, but I have found Raccoon and Gru are kind of where I think I want to put Venom. and it kind of in the In the decks I've been playing, it also has that ability to fill lane for Patriot and move and and stuff like that. but um um Yeah, I think you're totally right about it. As the game has gone on, we've gotten more and more likely that you're going to fill the board by the end of the game, which used to not be the case in the early days of the game. And sometimes
Merge Mechanic in Marvel Snap
00:47:59
Speaker
you like it's like a venom or a carnage completely out of destroy just to like, you know, ah kill some ninjas. Oh, you take out somebody's goblin with a carnage?
00:48:13
Speaker
and I haven't done that. I want to do that now. okay In the Young Avengers season before like the first version of the Heimdall deck that I ended up with that finished in the top 1000 and that I still sort of play sometimes to this day, yeah the first version of that deck, it had been a minute for ah purposes because like Kate Bishop really does just like makes a lot of lot of cards. huh you know and yeah she She does go well with Venom and like ultimately Venom got cut because 12 cards is 12 cards and it's it's hard it's hard out here. But ah he is a very useful tool that I wish there were better reasons. to
00:48:55
Speaker
like the He's almost correct in a lot of places, you know what I mean? And it doesn't quite feel like all the way there, but like promising, right? Yeah, two-cost Venom would be all over the place. And ah you absolutely can't do two-cost Venom because of Destroy. But if Destroy didn't exist, two-cost Venom would would be yeah how like kind of like a self-tech car. that. car Yeah. um And I know there's carnage, and carnage is fine. In fact, carnage is great. But it's not the same thing as keeping your you know the gigantic power that you already built up there. Do you think maybe the reason they've been pushing merge so much lately is because it and opens up board space and also like literal design space. like They can keep like making more card generation cards and stuff because they're also making more merge cards to push up the board state. you know
00:49:49
Speaker
Merge is totally like an answer to how cramped the board is. Yeah. Yeah. Also, sorry, we keep like coming back to Venom, but it's like protecting one cast cards from Killmonger by just eating up the power of Venom is always so good.
00:50:08
Speaker
My favorite banjers move, this it's just a really cool deck called Moneyball that just has a bunch of ideas I've never seen used anywhere else. But Venom into Ghost Fighter, you could just be like, eh, I don't want the power in that lane. Eat everything in that lane, move it somewhere else. That is one of the things in that Heimdall deck I was talking about from the Young Avengers season. That was one of the tricks, the the Venom Ghost yeah Spider thing. It's such a cool move. I mean, yeah you could also do it with Heimdall.
00:50:33
Speaker
i Because Heimdall, is a you know ah he has limitations based on board space. Anyway, ah so there you have it. ah Merge, move, or destroy to make room on your board while you're playing ah Iron Patriot. Onto the side quests. First and only this week, Secret Homework. This was assigned by Ben, so take it away.
00:51:00
Speaker
All right, secret homework. The secret homework this week was to design a duo card. And I think I foolishly made the extra credit, and you can only do one. And sure enough, I was like, oh, but there are so many that one could do. There were some that I thought about doing, but I was like, I definitely don't want to overlap. So I picked a duo that I thought wasn't going to be too near and dear to either of your hearts.
00:51:25
Speaker
I was like, maybe somebody's going to do cloak and dagger because that one seems obvious. And in fact, I did take a wonderful screenshot while I was playing ah Marvel's Midnight Suns. There's a ah tarot card of cloak and dagger, so there's there would be a a Midnight Suns variant for that card. You could put it in there.
00:51:43
Speaker
a whole new album or whatever. I don't know. People care about that stuff. But who? Any who? Any who? Any who? Who? Who are these characters on this duo card? And if they're not near and dear to to Lauren or Ree's heart, are they that near and dear to your heart band? And I'm like, yeah, these these are medium okay characters. I like them just fine. I decided that like sometimes it's a lot of pressure if you're trying to design a card for a character that you actually like care about deeply and stuff. And you really want to like capture their essence. So I picked some characters where I feel like I've got a nice safe clinical distance. I don't know. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Three, five. You always draw this card on turn three and not before. On reveal, replace this location to the location with the location to its left if there is one. What's up? What's up? whoa What's up? What's up? Control Scarlet Witch.
00:52:35
Speaker
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And you always draw this card on turn three. This is for people who do not like leaving things to chance. Anywho, it's a three, five. It's got both of their stats all mashed together, you know? A one cost and a two cost. You know, one, two, and a two, three. It's a three, five, if ever I heard one. Yeah, and I realized that... Do you think you can't change the left location? Is that how that would work?
00:53:03
Speaker
That is how that would work. Okay. That's like that's a slight nerf to the Scarlet Witch. like you If there's a bad location there, tough luck. And like i I also feel a little bad because technically this first line of text is stolen from Domino, not from Quicksilver, who starts in your opening hand. You always draw this card on turn three and not before nonsense. I'm like i'm sort of bending the rules, but like I feel like nobody would have noticed if I hadn't pointed it out, right? I don't know. Anyhow. It's the spirit.
00:53:37
Speaker
Yeah, but that that's my defense. I thought that would be super fun. And you know, like, we we all we all like Scarlet Witch. we all i don't I personally like Quicksilver. I used to used play his hero Clicks figure a lot. It had the Hypersonic Speed ability, quite broken. um Quicksilver was not the best piece with Hypersonic Speed, but it was ah cheap and available. I think we need a lot of them.
00:54:01
Speaker
their comics lately. They actually just recently had one that was Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver was like the title name. I feel like yeah they're like in the conversation because people just love that Evan Peters fella and you know that Ralph Boner and stuff and the WandaVision and the Agatha all along. We all we all loved when Ralph Boner showed up, didn't we? Didn't we? didn't we i Yeah, it was fine.
Duo Card Ideas and Character Pairings
00:54:29
Speaker
I liked that they yeah they reprised the the theme from WandaVision in that scene very subtly in the background. I don't know. It was the music from the end credits of WandaVision, just in case you weren't paying attention. Anywho, anywho, that was Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. ah And I would play that card. um I have fun usually try to design cards for other people to enjoy. But that one, that one's just for me. That's ahs that's the card I would play. It goes in surfer. Yeah, I dig it.
00:54:59
Speaker
It is. I'm pretty proud of it. It's very Ben Duo card. Yeah, I'm proud of you and your card. And it's a surfer card. Thank you, Reed. That means a lot. yeah
00:55:12
Speaker
You need a surfer location changer. Oh, wait, that you have nocturne. OK, Reed. too. Okay, I continued my streak of secret homework rebellion and like slightly cheating. How dare you? All the rules of secret homework. And this week when I was thinking about this, I was trying to think of duos and what I really wanted to do is I'm still like obsessed Um, with my quest of like how, how tribal tribal decks and which, you know, cause we've all wanted reasons to play the X-Men together. And like, like and should we start calling them kindred? Roy on snap judgments calls them kindred. And it it makes me wonder if like, are we not supposed to be calling them tribal? Is is it hugely problematic in ways that I haven't thought about hard enough?
00:56:02
Speaker
I don't know. I meant to meant to raise this question. I have a lot of old outdated terminology. I think it's fair to discuss.
00:56:13
Speaker
The, like a lot of, you know, terminology could be better, but yes. So I've always thought though about how, ah you know, how that could come into snap and not suck. And I was like, what if there were these like, these team up cards? So instead of just like, it was like a card that was like the X-Men or something that, you know, that brought together some abilities of these different cards, kind of like the, the duos do that would give you a reason to play more of them together, I don't know. Another in my line of like, how can we bring this into Snap? So mine would be the runaways, which I know that they're holding back. The only reason we only have Miko, the only reason must be because they're waiting for a runaway season that they'll do, right? Oh, I will buy every card that season. Right, please, please give us the rest of the runaways. You have enough for a season, just do it. The season pass card could be the runaways introducing this new mechanic. It would be a, and if you're not familiar with the like, just the base idea of the runaways, they're a bunch of kids, you know, like us who grew up, you know, in, you know, the old Nintendo days, ah who found out their parents were super- They've got normal parents, right?
00:57:34
Speaker
What they thought they did. What they thought! What they thought! You know, I mean, so I guess not like, not like us. I mean, but they were normal kids before they found out their parents were supergirls. Anyway, and they decided to run away. A lot of them with like artifacts of their parents and they kind of formed their own superhero squad and they're kind of, they're a bunch of like,
00:57:54
Speaker
you know, like teenagers, like just fucking up all the time, you know, doing their best, getting screwed over by the system and adults and choices made before their time. So like, that's their whole deal. Is that being persona five Phantom Thieves energy?
00:58:10
Speaker
Yeah, so I wanted to explain, you know, thematically, the card. So the ability would be a 4-2, and I made an activate card. Why? Just because I think it's pretty powerful and it's too powerful to be on reveal. That's honestly why it's activate, not because I like activate cards now. Activate, absorb all negative power on your side of this location as positive power.
00:58:39
Speaker
Ooh, oh my goodness. And a sword would be a new keyword, and yes, it would mean like the hobgoblin would disappear and the runaways would get plus eight power. Whoa, for real. You're setting hobgoblins to zero, you're you're merging it in. Right, so if you can get that off on five, you can actually clear space on your board, but it's an activate with a forecast, so you can only play it on two turns to get like,
00:59:06
Speaker
Yeah, oh my gosh. And you tie it in with the other runaways because you're going to give them negative power. Um, okay. I did say it should tie in to the other runaways, but they haven't been made. This would have to connect to some hypothetical parts that we hasn't designed yet. Yeah. I refuse to have remain consistent in my ideas. know they're they're They're turning around the, the, the, the evil and you know,
00:59:39
Speaker
they they do you know like they They take up the the tools of the villainous and turn them towards the... the what's What's the name of their parents' secret society again? It's it's got it's got ah pride yeah ti that's yeah and yeah perfect a Like the void, cause right now it's like Cersei and Valk and stuff. It might be fun to have another tool for that. And another, cause a lot of people are playing clog. Inspired by all the clog. I'm annoyed. facing Yeah, more anti-clog would be nice, huh?
01:00:15
Speaker
me Mostly good anti-clog cards are like, like you're not going to run Annihilus unless you're also playing clog, you know? or previously mentioned carnage uh i i briefly consider doing gertrude and old lace as my duo card but you recently did them and i was also like there's a good chance ree's gonna do runaways so um i don't do you two have have uh oh my goodness honorary mentions ones that you almost did but didn't
01:00:48
Speaker
ah Yeah, I thought about doing Rogue and Gambit. I thought about doing Cloak and Dagger. There were there were like a lot of things where like i i just when ah I thought there was a chance that one of you would pick one of these like pairs, so I just didn't.
01:01:04
Speaker
I was just like, man I also thought, because I was just thinking like classic, I didn't have, I wasn't super inspired. So it's like, what are the classic like Marvel duos that are in the game? And I was just like, meh, meh, meh. I was thinking back to the ice cream you pitched and like yeah you like painted such a picture with your words of of Gambit making these sugar cookies for a road. Because believe your words were because he loves her. I think is what you said.
01:01:34
Speaker
It just stuck with me and I was like, that would be a fun duo to be over. for her yeah I thought of Dico and Carolina and then Squirrel Girl and Tippy Toe. I thought that would be fun and Kate Bishop and Lucky the Pizza Dog.
01:01:53
Speaker
um But I did none of those. I did characters that I didn't know existed because what I wanted, I had an idea for a mechanic and I wanted, are there any characters in Marvel that need to like be in each other's presence to use their abilities? ah Kind of cloak and dagger-y. And I learned about Fenris, which is the name of Baron Von Strucker's twins.
01:02:13
Speaker
um Andreas von Strucker and Andrea von Strucker. And they have flight and lasers and shit, but only when they're touching each other. Which is a little weird. And they got their powers from Arnhem Zola, so yeah, I'm adding- Are they like Wonder Twins activate them? Yeah, I'm adding these to the game, and I'm sorry about that. And you have Red Skull. Yeah, and Arnhem Zola, who gave them their powers in utero. Or hydras, basically.
01:02:43
Speaker
I can just tell you about the theme. There's something that I learned that was, I mean, i everything. I just barely learned about this. They're just called Fenris when they're together. They don't like transform or anything like that. It's just two people holding hands. um They've had some really cool costumes over the years also. There's one point where she- I like the Wham, the duo. Yeah, there's one point where, yes, just like that. There's one point where she dies and he continues using the abilities because he tans her hide and uses it as the hilt for his sword.
01:03:11
Speaker
Oh dear. Whoa. Really messed up, but also kind of cool. Is it more badass if it wasn't tropey with the frigged women thing? like I think it'd be more bad. And plus, women with swords are cooler. like I saw a meme on Reddit that was like, women before sword, women with sword. That's how we all feel. She comes back, of course, because comics. um She's cloned, and then eventually she just comes back properly.
01:03:38
Speaker
They were in the TV show, The Gifted, which I didn't even know was a TV show, but it was a TV show covering units. I it. I know it's not supposed to be good, but I kind of want to watch it just to like find
Creative Card Design Challenge
01:03:50
Speaker
out. you know Well, they're an episode eight. I'm sometimes. Anyway, here's the card. ah Fenris, I kind of cheated too because I made three cards. Fenris, for eight games start, replace this with the Von Strucker twins. So at the beginning of the game, your deck becomes a 13 card deck.
01:04:07
Speaker
um Instead of Fenris, you get Andreas von Strucker and Andrea von Strucker. I'll come back to the rest of Fenris' ability in a sec. Andreas and Andrea have the exact same text. Well, almost. They're both two fours. They both have activate, um but Andreas reads, merge with Andrea to become Fenris. And Andrea has merge with Andreas to become Fenris. who um If you successfully draw both of them and merge them together, Fenris has an on reveal, destroy the highest power enemy card here.
01:04:38
Speaker
um So it's more powerful than cannonball. It's a four, eight. Boy, that's so cool. You added like like, like a real quest card of like the merge, the get these two cards and put them together. How does they have that yet? The yeah ah stats were hard because, you know, two four is a pretty good stat line, but it's a pretty big hit to give yourself a 13 card deck. And I like, of course, I i ran the math.
01:05:09
Speaker
The math of drawing both of them in a six-card game is 46%, and to draw both of them in a seven-card game is 58%. They didn't start in your deck, so you can King Etrian.
01:05:21
Speaker
Oh, very classy. Also, we were thinking like, maybe crystal would be worth it. king eater No, we got tools for that. It would be great. I thought like, Oh, give them an on reveal that like bumps the other twin up one spot in the deck, something like that. But I wanted to keep them simple. Anyway, if you don't do anything fancy like King Atrey, then in a six-turn game, ah your chances of popping them off is similar to skipping Bruce Banner twice. And in a seven-turn game, it's similar to skipping Bruce Banner three times. Is the merge an on-reveal? Like, so if someone played one on the board, someone could Cosmo. The merge isn't activate, but the destroy is an on-reveal. So yeah maybe, I don't know.
01:06:06
Speaker
Maybe maybe cool though that tension of like seeing one of the twins and like they like they're going to draw the other one. I hope there's an animation where, where, where the one gets tanned and hide and you know, I hope there isn't. I'll i'll say it.
01:06:25
Speaker
Sounds like a lost Game of Thrones scene. I think it can stay lost personally. I don't know if I needed it. Yeah, for real. I'm done with like toy shoes. Okay, anyway. I should have finished or should have explained more about the destroying enemy cards here. So they both have bioenergy discharges. That's what it was written in, you know, Marvel Wiki or whatever. Andreas's plasma based concussive force blast could take out ah the entire Manhattan powered grid.
01:07:01
Speaker
and Andrea's energy. What does it, honestly, in comics? This is comics. That's the baseline you take out the Manhattan grid. Otherwise, can you call yourself a supervillain at all? Is it even an energy blast? Andrea's energy blast can disintegrate matter and atomize full-grown humans. So yeah, that's what's going on. They're holding hands, and they do destroy your highest power card.
01:07:29
Speaker
It sounded like some fucked up incestual twins, what it sounds like to be honest. I know. You've got to see, they have this one costume that's like very like... I don't know one if it's retro or futuristic. Like that it's kind of sexy and there's a lot of spandex and it's like... usually look like a couple.
01:07:50
Speaker
I mean, I'm wearing good costumes. Some of them are really lame, like, oh, they're just wearing, like, red coats together, but... Yeah, that's what I'm seeing here. There's one that's really super hero-y. Wow, they're wearing a lot of different stuff. There's one where they're dressed kind of like warbird. Like, what the... Yeah, they have some wild, like, there's a lot of variety. I was surprised. Anyway, that's them. Sorry, I wouldn't have picked Nazis if I could find other characters that held hands for power.
01:08:19
Speaker
No, I have to admit, when we first got this, I was like, it was like late night, I'm like, I'm a doohock and dove. But first I have to look up and remember if they're from DC or Marvel.
01:08:46
Speaker
background of shit. Like, oh, how can Dovey hear? Because everyone is. But they're a known duo. So I was like, that's who I'm going to do. It's true. They are a known duo. Then they they're wrap around the universe.
01:08:59
Speaker
I was surprised how few like explicit duos there were in Marvel when I was somewhere around then. I imagine I missed some, but I was still surprised. I thought that there would be some low hanging fruit there.
01:09:11
Speaker
Well, there were all kinds of do it. You could have like done romantic pairings. or like i I thought about doing Blob and Eunice the Untouchable, because I i think I remember like there's one early X-Men comic where they're like they're they're doing a false flag operation. They're like robbing a bank dressed as the X-Men or something. And there are just two of them. And they're very clearly not the X-Men, because one of them is Blob. And one of them is Eunice the Untouchable.
01:09:37
Speaker
And yeah, I don't know, like there there are duos, duos abound. You could do a cap and any of the characters I listed in the examples last, I think Marvel is is rich with people being friends with each other. But I don't want it to be like, I don't want it to be a duo where it's like, oh yeah, but that's just like one of their six different friends. I want it to be like, no, these two always fight together and they have insane chemistry and they make each other fight better than you. Yeah, exactly.
01:10:06
Speaker
And Hawk and Death, when you say one, you say the end, you know? Well, what about Spider-Man and Black Cat? I feel like that would be a good duo. I kind of thought maybe somebody was going to do Spider-Man and Black Cat, but nobody did that. They do team ups all the time. Because Luke just heard it isn't a thing, Ben. They should be. Someone informed us. They made us a promise that they have never followed up on.
01:10:36
Speaker
yeah yeah ah in then There were so many honorable mentions, I couldn't even think of them when asked. In speakeasy, which is our section of the Snap Judgments League Discord, where you know ah your co-hosts and you can talk to each other on Discord, a bunch of people did the secret homework and it was awesome. and Adam actually did Spider-Man and It was Marvel team up, and it's like Spider-Man and dot, dot, dot. It was really cool. Oh, I don't think I've seen this yet. I saw it. I was like, Adam took my idea. I thought of it first, Adam. I'm just saying. He made so many, honestly. He did Spiral and Mojo. He did, oh, Scott did Nelson and Murdoch. um Anyway, there were a bunch of very good ones that people came up with.
01:11:24
Speaker
So go check them out. But also, while I was there, I solicited homework ideas. And one of the ones that was very popular was, this is next week's homework, design a card of a co-host.
01:11:38
Speaker
oh so So I know we're not superheroes. i would i think that it should be I think there should be some parody involved. right like Don't take it too seriously. don't Lauren Whatevs is not going to be a Marvel Snap card. But if she was, have some fun with it. Do you want to do a rotation, or do you want to make two? One for each co-host. Let's do a rotation. Do two. And that way, we can recycle this on some future occasion. Oh, there you go. OK, we're going to go. Sustainability. We're going to go clockwise first. So from my perspective, I will design for Ben. Ben will design for Reeve. Reeve will design for me.
01:12:19
Speaker
Got it? That's next week's homework. I guess if you're a listener, you can design for whoever you want. um ah Another content creator or one of us. Or ah she somebody who's not a content creator.
01:12:32
Speaker
but Honestly, y'all are free to do whatever creative things you want to do at any time with or without our permission. right But they want constraints, like ah constraints, brief, creative, so that's the challenge is um take a snap on this co-host and make them into us as a Marvel Snap card. No, design design a card based on a person you would like to co-host a podcast with. Make it and make it aspirational.
01:12:58
Speaker
I love that. I design a ah card for your dream podcast co-host for you. Love it. Maybe they already exist in our podcast. And if you're already hosting a Marvel Snap podcast, you have to do a card of your existing co-hosts. Just try to mirror our situation as closely as you can. Superimpose it on your own life. um Just like, yeah. If there's more than one of you, you have to go in clockwise from your perspective. Yep.
01:13:28
Speaker
This is how we do it. These are the rules. Save counterclockwise for next time. If you liked what you heard, follow us. Do all the interaction-y things. Comment, like, subscribe, et cetera. All of the stuff you need to know is in the show notes, of whether you're on YouTube or on an audio platform.
01:13:51
Speaker
i I think it's worth mentioning that we are all capable of morphing back into our regular human non-podcast co-host forums because this was an episode that took less than two hours to record. That one's for my Animorphs listener.
01:14:13
Speaker
I like what I have to like. It's funny because I had no idea where it was going.
01:14:22
Speaker
If you liked that Animorphs reference, let us know. um ah You can email us too, I guess, whatever. i I am going to tease this for the next two weeks.
01:14:35
Speaker
the season two of The Sun Apprentice. I'm just doing this because I love The Sun Apprentice. I
The Sun Apprentice Season 2 Promotion
01:14:40
Speaker
was on the first one. ah Spoilers, I won the first one after being eliminated, reality TV. um But it's modeled after The Apprentice. um Devilish will tell you it's modeled after The British Apprentice because the American one has a guy we don't super like in it.
01:14:57
Speaker
Um, but there are 14 snap content creators who are competing and there are silly challenges every single week and somebody gets fired and there's all kinds of random shenanigans. And anyway, it's very fun. You can find it on devilish's Twitch, which is at devilish underscore play. It debuts on January 17th. Um, be there. I will be there. I will be involved because I got hired as the winner of season one. I am this an apprentice. Um,
01:15:27
Speaker
Anyway, I loved it. It was a wonderful time. Get in there. um Support devilish, because it is like is one of the most ambitious things that happens in the world of Marvel Snap content creation. Anyway, we're part of the Snap Judgment Network, where you can listen to great shows such as Snap Decisions from ah your host with the most, Snap DJ Joe, on Mondays and Tuesdays and on other days as ah prompted by news.
01:15:57
Speaker
Uh, yeah. If you want to hear a fourth Animorphs reference ah in a future episode, tune in next week. Same snap time, same
01:16:43
Speaker
four we each had to make teams of three and play against another one of the teams