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19: Shake the Snow Globe
198 Plays17 days ago
❄️🎄The Snap on This!! cohosts take a break from holiday central to talk cards on that same Snap channel. 📻
For our esteemed listeners’ consideration:
- Lauren, Ben, & Rie have different reactions to the meta for their Week in Snap 🤭
- Bruce Banner is (sometimes) getting angry 😤 about a Doom meta
- 🐙 Lil Lasher 🦝🌳 RR&G 💡 spotlight friends Blob and Selene
- Secret Homework: fantasy Marvel IP crossover seasons ❎
Follow us on Twitter/Bluesky:
Check out the other great shows in the Snap Judgments Network:
- How Can She SNAP?
- Snap Decisions
- Snap Judgments
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:
- WombatCombat - Ah! Gitaroo Man 🎸
- Ben - A Hundred Bad Guys with Swords
- Ben - Myscard
- Ben - Scornmaster
- Ben - Kithout Further Ado
- Ben - I wore my CLOGGING SHOES!
- Ben - Fashionably Late
- W - "Panic Room" (Lauren likes Luke or Red Guardian over MMM)
- Unknown - Lauren's Comfort Negative
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
- 0:31:10 New Card: Bruce Banner
- 0:41:07 New Card: Lasher
- 0:47:15 Next Week's Spotlight: Rocket Raccoon and Groot, Blob, Selene
- 0:57:15 Character Mastery Update
- 0:59:05 High Voltage: Wishes, Hunches, and Feelings
- 1:00:40 Secret Homework: Pitch a Tie-In Season
- 1:35:00 Next Week's Secret Homework
- 1:36:31 Housekeeping / Closing Remarks
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:01
Speaker
Hey there, it's episode 19 of Snap on This, a Marvel Snap podcast, where we talk about Marvel Snap. I'm Lauren Whatevs, here with my co-hosts. We're going to throw it to Ree first, because it's an odd numbered episode.
Ree's Weekend Snap Experience
00:00:14
Speaker
Ree, how was your weekend Snap? And keep it snappy. OK. This week started pretty low energy. I I didn't have, like,
00:00:29
Speaker
an IT deck, you know, like a kind of like an IT girl, you know, just like a a deck you can't like take your eyes off of. It's what you're excited to log in and play. And like a lot of my decks have just kind of like never resettled properly after like adjustments. Like, like my favorite, like my discard deck, it still feels like just mildly clunky with um after the changes to moon knight and sword master and i made those changes so like i swapped out a card there i took out grandmaster and put in blade to see if that helps and my destroyer ramp deck it's like it's always filled a little off since i put in penny and i'm still fair but i took out kilmonger for venom and that's how but everything's it's just like
00:01:16
Speaker
It's just all right. It's just fine. um And I had nothing. I was mostly just swapping between whatever I needed for bounties um that I grabbed when um the turn came about when Wombat Combat made me a present.
00:01:35
Speaker
um It wasn't actually a present, it was just like Wombat doing what Wombat does. I just like to pretend it was for me.
New Deck: Tempo Disrupt
00:01:41
Speaker
But he made this deck called, he called it Tempo Disrupt, um which you know is way too boring of a deck name for me. I've landed on the perfect ah deck name after night because it's a Tempo deck. So after my favorite rhythm game, Guitar Man, PlayStation 2 game,
00:02:05
Speaker
um it's very worth checking out anyway so uh with a with a rock guitar emoji and i think a setback but um okay the stack is so it's like i haven't had so much fun in snap in so long because it's just kind of a different way that i normally play and it's got all these puzzles but okay the idea is it's like uh you know get it get ahead and stay ahead um by fucking up their day it's so good and it's like this offbeat misfit collection of cards that somehow all works perfectly together like okay the deck revolves around um
00:02:47
Speaker
Supergiant, I'm so excited.
Mastering Supergiant
00:02:49
Speaker
I have forgot totally about her since I got her, and she's so good right now. Did you know when you play a Supergiant, the card they play on turn five doesn't count for Doom 2099? Because it doesn't get played, even if they only put one down, right? And I think does it it also fucks up turn six, right? Because then they have two flipping?
00:03:13
Speaker
or um Yes. it will I know but reveals are weird like with dark dimension and yeah like i know it messes up galacta i can't remember if it messes up Doom 2099.
00:03:30
Speaker
I haven't played her so like this is me learning and here's the great thing is like once you learn Supergiant you know what you're gonna know her way better than your opponents do. Watching people trip over themselves is okay I've done it once or twice so I've been learning her but like so much It's so She messes up so many, right? What about that Galacta? That's a whole turn missed on Galacta. If you're mad at the meta right now, Supergiant is like, right? She's the card right now. Fuck off. They turned five. Were you about to say something then?
00:04:09
Speaker
Well, no, I'm just, I'm so upset. You know, I often hear complaints from, well, you frankly, about decks that need to be built because you don't have these cards that I love that are so near and dear to my heart. And now you're making super giant of all cards sound like fun. And I'm left out in the cold. Okay. You know, it's so fun. I thought I could build everything I wanted to build, but no.
00:04:35
Speaker
with Supergiant bringing back Daredevil because you know what's great paired with a Supergiant? It's getting to see what and sometimes multiple cards they play because then you can decide whether they're worth a Liath thing or not. So it's like, oh, did they just thank you because they just played out their surfer early?
Daredevil, Supergiant, and Elieth Strategy
00:04:52
Speaker
Well, guess what? You have a Cosmo to deal with that in this deck. You have an Elias.
00:04:58
Speaker
you have a negasonic also fun with the daredevil and prio um so it's just like oh this is the most this like trifecta of like daredevil supergiant and elieth ah it's so good it's so good and um okay Macari, right? So Lauren, you'd always talked about Macari as a good tool for like dropping for like cleaning up your hand from from moon girl, and Gwen pull targets and stuff and I've I've always gone about like, she's a free card with reach potentially, you know, it's randomized, but totally. that
00:05:35
Speaker
Right? I never really thought about her as like, hey, you just trying to keep Prayo? She's great. The same thing with Squirrel Girl. Squirrel Girl is like another. It's like, do you want to just have two or three? Because then if you don't have anything better to play, you don't save Negasonic. You just slap her down on turn three because you probably can tell where they're going to play. It's fun. Guessing. And this makes Scarlet Witch.
00:06:05
Speaker
Actually, one of your best, like, location change cards, because Scarlet Witch, being, like, so, you know, cheaper and easier to play, she saves the Makari that lands poorly, like, on a murder world. It's like, oh, if if you threw down Squirrel Girl, turn one, because that's what you're trying to do. You need to keep Prio with this deck. And one of those squirrels is in, like, a negative three location, you know? Scarlet Witch to the rescue. um Or, you know, and she's like, nobody thinks you have a Scarlet Witch you're holding on to for like that like turn six, um, negative power location or something where you can just like get out of steel, you know, in a single card.
00:06:49
Speaker
Yeah, okay.
Character Spotlight: Hydra Bob
00:06:51
Speaker
And you'll notice because I posted this deck for you, Hyderabab has officially gone to green because it matches his nameplate only. Yes, because it turns out, okay, I i know I was making fun of him last time, but he he is he is so good because um One, he reminds me of, I know he's like his own person and personality and stuff, but he reminds me of like the Venture Brothers, like the Monarch's henchmen, that's what I always think of when I look at him. Yeah, I feel like that's always been Hydrabob's vibe.
00:07:23
Speaker
I actually, I'm not a huge Deadpool fan, but I was working at a pretzel place in the mall. And on break, I would go to Barnes and Noble and I would browse comic books. And so I was reading Deadpool for a minute there when Hydra Bob was first introduced. And like, that was kind of his vibe, as I recall, was very ah venture brothers henchmen guy, you know. but that That was my take on the character. I don't know, maybe he's developed a different personality since then, years
Game-Changing Play with Lady Deathstrike
00:07:50
Speaker
ago.
00:07:51
Speaker
That is, that is how he is. And I've really grown to love the tension of Hydra Bob, but now often I've played him enough that I'm not just playing in him and trying to like lose his ability. Sometimes it's like, okay, but I want to move you now. And it's that tension of like, you got to snap to move him.
00:08:10
Speaker
So how confident are you in this plan you've made to win, you know? It's kind of fun to debate that. Usually I just snap and move. Like, whatever, it's still a treat. Okay, and, you know, he's still that 1-5 stat stick, but this is literally some, okay, I was playing one of those ah clog decks.
00:08:30
Speaker
you know, that have been popular as a counter to 2019 and it not playing one, but playing against one. Yes. And they tried to pull the old classic Titania goblin on me. And they did, they filled in with their little green goblin, right? And then they had their Titania for free. But I had Hyderabad in that lane. So I was like, Hyderabad, thank you for your work here.
00:08:55
Speaker
It is done. Your powers off needed to another lane. Snapped. All right. And then they never, they never expected this. Okay. How I want like turn six, Lady Deathstrike, also great against Doom 2099 and Dracula, which is, you know, people discard when I'm out there.
00:09:18
Speaker
Yes, right. So it goes in, kills the Green Goblin, kills their Kate Bishop, kills their other whatever little three drop there is there. They've just got a demon, you know, and Lady Dashstrike, you know, looks at their titanium. It's like, hey, you want to come to the winning side? And she's like, yes, please. I'm titanium. It was so beautiful. And like, it's like,
00:09:40
Speaker
I racked a scream deck hard with this deck. In a way, it must have been annoying where it's like, oh, did your scream come out? Boom. No, Negasonic just blew up. Boom. Red Guardian just ruined your, you know what I mean? And they still just like fist bump me. They were just so like, what is this deck with Makari and Supergiant? I missed it. Cole Obsidian is here. Because you know what works with Squirrel Girl well? Cole Obsidian, you know what's great to play?
00:10:05
Speaker
On a turn four when you've played Supergiant, well, on a turn five, I mean, after you've played a turn four Supergiant. Mm-hmm. Co-obscidian is safe power. Ten secret power? Right, ten secret power, because they don't know what you played. A lot of them aren't thinking it's a ten power card, because they have to. They're gonna ally if you're Cole.
00:10:22
Speaker
They don't know what the deck is, right? They've never seen this before. They're not thinking Cool Obsidian, because you're not playing Thanos. You're not playing like kitty stuff. So they don't have any idea. And then what? They Elias it, whatever. You protected it from Shang. You've got Cosmo as a backup if you need. Man, so a great turn five after Supergiant is a Hydra Bob Cool Obsidian. Play him anyway. It's 15 power and a lane hidden.
00:10:49
Speaker
a That you don't care, that's like what, they're gonna lie if you're Hyderabad? Cool obsidian? Ah, it's so good. Okay, and then obviously, I think I've covered every card in the deck. Now, Cosmos here, because that's another great play with the Daredevil, was having prior one people. Everyone's playing a little unreveal stiff. And then yeah, life just brings it home.
00:11:11
Speaker
This deck has been ah such a joy and a delight for me. I'm finding all the little ways
Ben's Weekend Snap Stories
00:11:17
Speaker
to ah eight cube people, or, you know, really fresh. It's just so good. And it's like, I haven't, like, Makari was this stuff, super giant. I just hadn't even wrapped my head around. And it's so good in this meta right now ah with the big turn fives. ah It looks so fun. I am playing this tonight. I love the prio deck. It's it's something that I've played several ah ah ah times before. I don't know. I've made my own versions of it and had a lot of luck with it. But I was always playing big power, not a tech version of holding prio. And that's super interesting. And of course, I love a super giant. That's a great way to hold prio.
00:12:00
Speaker
And punish and then also just that that you were talking about where you get the perfect hits against the scream deck like I've you have those moments where you just have the the answer for every card they play and it just there's nothing know The answer for everything it's just like yep turn after turn I have exactly the right counter for you um I mean that they retreat if they know what they're doing, but still it's a fun moment
00:12:31
Speaker
that well people aren't thinking about lady dash strikes when they're planning um sonic to didn't know so know hey if you and then they retreated. They're like, nah, it's like, you didn't know. You put it in the same child. Is this your first, first time Meg need doing an egg-a-sonic? Don't pull a bottom to you.
00:13:00
Speaker
say a lot of Magneto. I don't think that's ever come up for me. I don't know if that's because I like I usually make a point of tripping off a Negasonic like as soon as possible yeah and drove or something. But yeah, I didn't know about that interaction. Cool. Yeah. So she checks for here after she's moved like she checks at the end of the turn. So so her new here is active for Magneto. It's very strong. Unlike Nebula. Yeah, because right because of the timing of when they check.
00:13:32
Speaker
Okay. You've already heard him. Ben, how was your weekend snap? And please keep it snappy. My weekend snap was pretty good. Most of my snapping, I think, you know, just by volume of games played happened around the 23rd.
00:13:56
Speaker
my alliance well our alliance to be honest we were not doing so great didn't look like we were going to get all the rewards we didn't get all the rewards i'm personally okay with that but i know that other people do care about that so i did make a point of getting more bounty points than anyone else so that no one could say that i don't care because i mean like I can say that I don't care just now because yeah, I've got the big old star next to my name. Y'all know I did the sweating. I put in the work that you might have a good shot of that variant. Anywho, yeah, I was just doing discard bounties. I was playing three different discard decks, each of which I believe has been featured in a past square. I was playing
00:14:39
Speaker
100 bad guys with swords a deck that I keep trying to come up with a better version of but like for some reason Just the the one that I ended up with for secret homework. Like I don't know how many weeks ago now it just ah pops and bops it ah Yeah, it's it's pretty cool. What else was I playing? I was playing my Miss Card deck with Mysterio and Gwenpool and Swarm and stuff. I might need to update that one. like I haven't changed these decks in like... A long time. And of course, I was playing Scorn Master, which I also... Yeah, all of these decks probably deserve updates. For some reason, 100 bad guys with swords, every time I've tried to update it, it just like hasn't worked out. But like it needs to have Scorn in it, right? like the The whole premise of the deck is like you have ways to discard one-cost cards. You're playing Scorn Master. Yeah, that's what we do here, right?
00:15:36
Speaker
Scorn has to be in the best version of this deck. But hey, I i don't know. like Sometimes the 12 cards agree with each other and things are like balanced in whatever weird way. Also, why isn't Blade in that deck? I just don't get it. There are so many things about these 12 cards that I arrived at where every time I look at it, I'm like, what was I thinking? And why does it keep working? Because it does. i't like I would stop playing it if it stopped winning so much.
00:16:03
Speaker
um And sometimes it does, like, you know, sometimes it's like a bad moment for the deck and, you know, you just stop playing and then you take it out and it's good again. But anywho, so those three disc, those three discard decks were putting in some repetitions on the 23rd when I was trying to give us a fighting chance at that mystery variant. um But other than that, I've been playing a super cool Malachith deck with Agent Venom. It's a surfer deck. It was in my square for last week.
00:16:32
Speaker
I only came up with it after we recorded the episode, but it was last week's square. So for anybody who missed that, it's Ant-Man, Zabu, Mysterio, Agent Venom, Ironheart, Sage, Brood, Silver Surfer, Absorbing Man, Galacta, Gwenpool, and Malekith. And the name of that deck is Kithout Further Ado. And I accidentally just took out Malekith from the deck. And you know what?
00:16:58
Speaker
I'll remember to put him back in. His name is in the name of the deck so not I will not correct that error on air even though it happened. And the other deck I've really been enjoying is a deck called I wore my clogging shoes. It's a Righteous Gemstones reference. Reverend Baby Billy. Uncle Baby Billy. Maybe you've heard of him. Walton Goggins. Anyway, great episode, great moment. Misbehaven, classic song. Not going to sing it here. Been too much singing out of my mouth in recent weeks, I would say. Or not enough, depending on who you ask. But the contents of Baby Billy. No, but he would say that. Yeah.
00:17:39
Speaker
That deck is basically just the Young Avengers Heimdall deck that I played to that first top 1000. I think I mentioned this deck last week, but yeah, it's just Luna Snow instead of White Widow. So it's Ghost Spider, Iron Fist, Niko Minoru, Dagger, Kate Bishop, Hawkeye, Craven the Hunter, Green Gorblyn, Werewolf by Night,
00:17:59
Speaker
Vulture, Luna Snow, Heimdall, and the aforementioned Magneto who still has not gotten blown up by an egasonic teenage warhead despite my carelessness and utter ignorance of this very important card interaction. I've been getting away with it and that's pretty cool. But yeah, other than those discard decks and the cloggy Heimdall deck,
00:18:24
Speaker
I did dust off because ah I don't know if y'all were paying close attention. We were supposed to have Tokyo 2099 as our hot location this week. ah Bad location, bad design. Glad they decided that was not smart because it really wasn't.
00:18:44
Speaker
Wow, wow, I can't believe they almost did that, but I can. ah But they didn't, and to be that's to be applauded, you know? We have to give him credit for dodging the obvious bullets. I think just to like clarify, though, because I don't think we said the ability of the location is that players couldn't discard cards, correct? Yeah. tokyo And I get wanting a location like Wakanda is to destroy, like to get that for a discard deck. Yeah. But this is just straight up. You get all your cards like there's nothing you can do about it. Maybe they wanted to reveal cards at this location. Can't cause players to discard cards, but that is a lot more text, isn't it? But like it's also be like a fair location. It's also so similar to ah nowhere. It's like, oh, where it's just the on reveals and just turning off on reveals.
00:19:38
Speaker
period. Just a subset of on-reveals. That is a strange line to draw. I agree. Anywho, so i because Taco Truck was the replacement hot location, yeah I remembered what I did last time Taco Truck was around. i yeah I played my ah Penny Parker Heimdall deck. i I play other kinds of decks. It's not just Discard and Surfer and Heimdall and other combinations of those three things. um But this one is Agony, Ghost Spider, Human Torch, Iron Fist, those four one drops. What a but a whole bunch of them. Actually, that's not even the right deck. Different Penny Parker deck.
00:20:19
Speaker
Similar theme. This one doesn't have Heimdall. I was kidding. um This one is a scream deck and that, man, I had something to say about the scream. and Man, I don't know. It's difficult when you're waiting for your turn for your week in Snap and you're trying to let other people talk about their weeks in Snap and you're like, oh, that reminds me of the thing that happened during my week. I sure hope I remember when people like to so. You to this. It fell right out of my brain. I never go first.
00:20:46
Speaker
Oh, Lauren. I know, we should have a Lauren first day. Yeah, we should make a point of it. But this deck, I called it fashionably late because I was finally building with Scream after the heat had died down. Kitty Pride, Hydrobob, Thena, Craven, Penny Parker, Scream, Juggernaut, Holares, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Galactar, and Arrow.
00:21:11
Speaker
And those are all the decks. Real heavy on decks this week in my room. This is very deck heavy. I have on six written down with your name. But hey, hey, you know what? I haven't forgotten. Token Tuesday forecast. Good one coming up on the 31st. We just had a bad one. I hope you didn't buy it. Or I hope you went in informed and bought it only because it seemed appropriate and you know fitting to your goals and your needs. so Yeah, you needed those extra, what is it, $700 or whatever?
00:21:41
Speaker
when when more rocket raccoon I remember on two different episodes the week before and the week that I actually did it, I knew I would have to buy a bad token Tuesday to get Malekith. And I bought that token Tuesday and I got Malekith and I don't regret a damn thing. It's a weak token Tuesday, remember? Yes, that's right.
00:22:00
Speaker
I wasn't looking at my notes, but I have it in my notes as a week token Tuesday. Yes, I know. if if you If you thought, no, that very focused week in Snap Ben just talked about, that was clearly written like word for word. He was just reading verbatim from his notes, right? No, absolutely not. Just just free hand. Just blindfolded. Doing it off the dome, baby. By the seat of your pants. Yeah, by the seat of my pants, precisely. That was my week, Lauren. I must know about yours now.
00:22:30
Speaker
OK, well. I'm going to I'm going to springboard off of you mentioning how our alliance I don't know if I don't remember if it was the first or second, but basically two weeks in a row we've missed.
Alliance Frustrations and Meta Challenges
00:22:41
Speaker
The final reward. The Grand Prize. Yes. Two weeks in a row and the only two weeks it's ever happened. And I think part of what's happened is everybody's really frustrated with Snap. um There's other things to play, right? And I think that's pulled some people, right? Marvel Rivals, Bizarre, plenty of other things. um But I think also there's just some, just like Snap is frustrating right now. The meta is rough.
00:23:03
Speaker
um And I was in a really low, for like, I don't know, over half the week, I was just like, this Doom 2099 stuff is just taking over the meta. I know it's not literally the best thing to do against it, but it feels like the best thing is to also play Doom 2099 and draw better, right? You get this roller. You get Doom 2099 first, so you get that small edge. So are you sure that's literally the best thing to do? I mean, I don't know.
00:23:26
Speaker
it Mean it might be depending on the meta, right? Um, and I was just sick of it It's really boring even if I'm playing a slightly different version of of doom 2099 Wasn't enough and and I just like it's a struggle to get more than my my 4,000 points um yeah play some super giant yeah We could talk about some bounty design I'm not gonna get into that right now, but like I hate I'm not gonna get it into it more than this. I hate that I have to spend like four deck slots dedicated to clearing bounties. And I do. I do a lot of the destroy bounties. Sammy, what's up with that?
00:24:03
Speaker
i
00:24:06
Speaker
i yeah especially that are like you destroy six or describe this many because that now you've narrowed it's not just discard X number of cards like I'll pick up the move ones because you know me flies around a bit you know but don't make me move five cards in a match it's been working Lauren, feel free to blame me even though I did like get a bunch of bounty points on like the last day because usually i'm I'm in there throughout the week clearing out those discard five in a games and a lot of those move ones. And so like every time I logged in to like do some serious playing, I noticed that like there were a million discard bounties because I hadn't been doing regular maintenance and like, you know, sometimes you have to show up for more than one day of the week.
00:24:51
Speaker
I don't know. It can be a little bit my fill. But I like, I wish they did more that were destroy 40, discard 40. I wish they were more like that instead of do five in a game, do six and a yeah in I have decks that can reliably do either, but then you're locked into the like, you have to do it five games. It's like, what if I want to do Wong shenanigans and get this done in one game where I discard a million things? I don't know. I think that's more fun and more creative. But even then, it's still just like,
00:25:19
Speaker
I want more bounties that that let me play the game how I want to play. um That was more than I meant to talk about them. I was very frustrated with the game and then... I feel the same though. I played a little bit of your Malekith surfer deck. That was fun.
00:25:36
Speaker
And I remembered that I had bookmarked a Doom 2099 deck that was a different Doom 2099 deck. It was from W. It was a Lockdown Spectrum deck. And I love this deck. It is so fun. I have had a lot of fun with Lockdown. Obviously, it's my favorite archetype. And I've had a lot of fun with the Spectrum before. And this did both. And um It struggled sometimes against the scrolls, but other than that, this was slapping face. And I should read it off. Where did my phone go? um Oh, it's in my pocket. Okay. um I named it um Panic Room. He named it something else, but I named it Panic Room because it's a lockdown with doom involved.
00:26:18
Speaker
ah Ant-Man, Ebony Maw, Madam Web, Goose, Cosmo, Red Guardian, Doom 2099, War Machine, Professor X, Claw, Doctor Doom, and Spectrum. It has quite a high curve. um It's actually literally two of every cost point, which is cool. A high curve for my taste.
00:26:40
Speaker
um Madam Web is so fun. like Yeah.
00:26:49
Speaker
I don't play her much. I think part of it is I've tried so much to do lockdown with Valkyrie and I really just need to give up on Valkyrie, my love. um And of also Storm is meh right now, but Goose and Professor X are awesome lockdown cards right now.
00:27:06
Speaker
ah Doom 2099. You haven't seen a lot of War Machine? I've been seeing a lot of War Machine Doom 99 decks. I also have been seeing some War Machine of late. Yeah, I have seen some. And also the scrolls take your War Machine, so you have to be careful with that. Although sometimes it's worth it if it lets you play your Ebony Maw, you know? I am loving all these super scrolls though, just quick aside, because I'm like rarely playing the ongoings they want. Yeah. Whenever they play super scroll, because that's a really bad tempo play.
00:27:37
Speaker
making having them scroll and they copy the goose, copy the Cosmo, copy the um Professor X, they don't realize they've done that. So like that's where I'm like really careful about when I put down War Machine. Or Ebony Ma, another card, you don't want your scroll to copy. And so this deck has actually a lot where it's really fun to have, ah you know they've locked down two lanes that they're their Doombots can't go into or whatever. um Anyway, I think,
00:28:04
Speaker
Madam Web is kind of like a critical mass card with War Machine, where between the two of them, you have a lot of access into ah Professor X and Ebony Ma. um And Goose. They don't both have to show up. Yes, and Goose. Right, you only need one or the other. If I have Ebony Ma down on the board early, I can just play everything on Madam Web and send them over to Ebony Ma when I need to. like yeah I have had so much fun with this deck.
00:28:31
Speaker
um That's awesome. So that that really that revived how I was feeling about the game. and I went to the dark side. I wasn't at any risk of leaving or quitting the podcast yet. you know i wasn't like it wasn't It wasn't close to that, but it was just like, oh, this game, it feels like nothing but a chore right now. And I like it when it's fun sometimes. like Yeah.
00:28:56
Speaker
I think I was I was like on the I was on the brink where I was going to cook. ah But holidays, you know, they took up a lot of time this week for real. So. I feel like we went to the... Oh, sorry, go ahead, Line. No, no, please. I was just saying, it's funny because we we dealt with this meta in different ways. You know, Bend did what Bend is, regardless of the meta. Yeah, he just goes taller. Yeah, just kind of just always go bigger and then, you know, retreat when you're not going to do that. You should get better with that last part, honestly. yeah
00:29:33
Speaker
Yeah. I feel like you gave in to despair and joint and you're like, well, I can't beat Vader. So now, now I shall join the Sith. And I feel like Wombat Kombat introduced me to like, have you met these scrappy rebels that aren't wanted by anyone? Together you could defeat them all. That's great. We had a whole Star Wars-ing.
00:29:54
Speaker
ah okay you and The other thing I did is I went back and went back to my comfort negative, pre-gore negative, and that is an example of a deck that can easily go cook taller than Doom 2099. It just has to do its thing. um That also made me very happy. It's very fun having turns where you can slam six or seven cards. I don't know why there are still people who stay against Jane Foster.
00:30:17
Speaker
like I'm winning. I guarantee I'm winning. I can put down tons of power. um But yeah, I mean, I'm just like, but I probably stay against Jane too often. Yeah. Yes. which i have beaten negative But it is. It's a tall order. um You know, I can easily take a lane from zero to like 60 in a single turn. ah That was not meant to be like an automobile reference, but it kind of turned out that way. OK.
00:30:49
Speaker
Anyway, that made me happy to play a big combo deck. That is the answer. Big combo decks. That's how you beat 2099. But I would be happy for that meta to end. Or a collection of the craziest tech cards you've ever you seen with some tempos. That's another way to do it. um However,
00:31:12
Speaker
The meta did not really shift this week because, well, Bruce Banner was was this week's new card.
Card Analysis: Bruce Banner and Others
00:31:17
Speaker
A 2-1, when you end a turn with unspent energy, 25% chance to Hulk out. Yeah, he turns into a 6-12 Hulk. ah he was We predicted he would be garbage, and I think that is the primary reaction I've seen. I didn't get him, and I've hardly seen him. You two? Reed, did you get him?
00:31:42
Speaker
No. But I did, okay, the first time I saw him though, right? It was like, boom, you know, Bruce Banner, never seen this card before. It goes down, turn immediately, and it's Hulk out! Instantly a Hulk there. The very first time he ever saw me, he popped that turn.
00:32:04
Speaker
But like Anna won them the game. I was like, well, because I retreated like a turn or two later, you know, and turn six. I can't beat him now. That hole's too big. But but no, I didn't. I won him, but I rather have the next two weeks cards. I know you didn't get him, did you Ben? Absolutely not. Oh, my gosh. I mean, like the card it.
00:32:32
Speaker
I can't tell if it's exactly as bad as I thought, or if it's maybe a little better than I thought, but I thought it was so bad, but either way it's pretty bad. um yeah i Although, if you love this card, I apologize. if i I don't know. i want I want to be respectful of the feelings of people who like cards that I don't think are good. I don't know. It's our opinion in on whether a card is good or not. I think that's always true.
00:33:06
Speaker
Bruce Banner does turn into the Hulk, and sometimes that will win you the game, or at the very least make the other person retreat. I sometimes retreated because of a Bruce Banner that Hulk'd out. The other thing is, it usually happens before turn 6, so you usually have an opportunity to retreat after it Hulk's out, um which is maybe not great for winning a whole bunch of cubes. Not not really a quality you want in your card. ah But anywho,
00:33:35
Speaker
Ben, I need you to commit. Would you rather run Emperor Hulkling or Bruce Banner? Emperor Hulkling. I think that's a lot. Although I don't know. I don't know. The thing is, like, it's it's hard to.
00:33:55
Speaker
I don't know. Another thing about Bruce Banner that I will say is that it is cool when he hulks out, but then I look at my opponent's board and I look at what else they have on the board. And it's always shrimpy and like below rate because they've been skipping energy, just hanging, hanging, hanging the budget, like every, like, yeah. And how you can't keep up.
00:34:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's um it's been power crept. I haven't looked up with the what the wind and cube rates are of these these high evo decks with Bruce Banner in them, but I kind of suspect They might not be great. But, you know, also maybe maybe all the good people are playing on their phones and not tracking it because, hey, I don't know, I mostly play on my phone and there are people better than me who probably also play mostly on their phone. So, like, you never know where, like, where the truth of it is. But, yeah, I don't know.
00:34:54
Speaker
This discussion did get me to... Oh, I'm sorry. Were you still... I'm sorry. I'm just trying not to say mean things about this card and admit that it sometimes does things. He deserves it. It's just... Say mean things. It kind of seems like a real stinker. I thought it would be a stinker. I think it was kind of fun. I will say it's probably better than the datamined version of Cobra, but that's... He has agreed. If that's the benchmark, I don't know. I don't know.
00:35:22
Speaker
i think the same thing that makes him weaker is the same thing like look at how like sunspot is just like even in decks that are sometimes that are i mean you you're if you see infinite it's usually because they're playing war machine not because you know because like Energies were so much more now, right? So skipping it to just convert it directly to power is just weaker and weaker and weaker as time goes on. So unless you've got like magic and going and you're doing in Luna Snow and we you know you're doing all this energy cheat stuff where you're going to have all this super energy.
00:36:01
Speaker
Since that's not worth it anymore, maybe eventually more so, but to me, okay, because this did get me to dust off my spider bay, my beloved spider bay deck that I built for Spider Woman. That's a high evo deck with like shurian blank and abomination affliction style. I don't have Ajax and maybe I would try him out, but um I finally figured out, I hadn't played it since they ah destroyed White Widow. And I finally figured the right card named Zabu, of course. I have three forecasts in there, so why wouldn't I have a Zabu where I want to skip energy anyway? And it was fun! Like I said, I'm like, hi, it was fun! It was like fun, but yeah, it didn't feel... super OP p in comparison because once again, it's just that problem where energy that ah you like you can play a Luna snow now for three costs and she's awkward in a deck like this because I want to be playing Cyclops and other stuff on turn three, but like
00:37:05
Speaker
I wish, I mean, it'd be OP if she was two. But yeah, it's just like your value. Almost always you want to be playing cards. It's just worth more than ever skipping energy at at this point right now, right? That's my feeling, but I don't know.
00:37:23
Speaker
I was just checking on ah on untapped and, you know, I don't pay for it or anything. So I was just looking at the rank 10 to 79 or whatever. Apparently Bruce Banner's got a 57 point something percent win rate. But like, I don't know if that's because it's a ton of retreats or if it's inflation ah like I have no idea how I don't usually spend a lot of time looking at the card stats on untapped. So I don't know how to parse that necessarily.
00:37:53
Speaker
But that's my update. Sorry for interrupting with- But I do think, no, I mean, I was pretty much done. I'm just saying, I do think his problem is bigger than himself and there could be a future where, you know, if suddenly skipping energy could be better again, it would thereby increase his value. A different context could make this a different card or maybe they could change something else about it.
00:38:17
Speaker
maybe it could be a ah one cost or something. I don't know. Okay, I have the untapped stats Bruce Banner in top 50% of infinite. That seems pretty broad, right? Like that's different from top 10, where it's very competitive. Top 50%. That's anybody who's who's playing casually and I don't know is it is like core players. Anybody who's listening to this is probably playing enough Snap that they found out. I found out in recent weeks that our listener base is more diverse in terms of player type than I would have anticipated based on our
00:38:59
Speaker
are snobby elitist. and I mean, I saw somebody who had just hit infinite for the first time and and they tagged the whole thing with tokens. and don't come smell Hey, we have fun. Anyway, top 50 percent of infinite. That just seems like a reasonable place to to remove the bot inflation. Average cubes is negative point to two. Win rate is forty seven point five negative point to two. two
00:39:31
Speaker
Mm-hmm. That seems like a real stinkaroo. He's in D tier. I don't really like Untap's tiering system because they put a play rate as ah like, it's a really strong factor, but. That's good for you. That's wow. Yeah, okay. i i can't I can't overstate how silly a choice that is in my estimation. I'm not a fan of it, but anyway, ah that's just that just that one decision of Untap's I'm not a fan of. Otherwise, it's a great site. Okay.
00:40:07
Speaker
Moving on to next week's card. Yeah. Yeah. Next week's card, the ending of the season. Oh, does that mean it's high voltage this coming week? Uh, I guess so. Sounds about right. Oh yeah. I already forgot that was happening. Reed, do you want to add, do you want to add lasher real quick? That feels somewhat. burden ahly I feel like we were just slogging it out in the diner.
00:40:35
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I'm surprised how it it it really does feel too fast. But the long term plan is, as far as I know, one special limited time game mode per season. I mean, yeah once they get the third one, they're going to rotate three of them indefinitely. I suppose you're ready for ready for diner in January or February. OK. Mm hmm. Rocking is. Oh, OK. We can start with Lasher. Lasher is the prize for high voltage.
00:41:06
Speaker
Um, looks like Lasher is a 2-2 with the ability activate. Afflict an enemy card here with negative power equal to this card's power. Hmm. Hmm. So I didn't like, looked at this. I think Lasher is a super fun quest card. Like, yeah. Yeah. A quest card!
00:41:29
Speaker
Like playing Lords of Waterdeep or something. I love that.
00:41:36
Speaker
You might have changed how I feel about activate codes now. He's kind of activate double your power, right? yeah um which basically Yeah. Ben Riley does that too, or a Scarlet Spider, but that takes up space.
00:41:53
Speaker
um
00:41:56
Speaker
i I think it's a fun card, but yeah, i mean it's a 2-4, Vanilla. like If you're playing it in an affliction deck, then then you have other reasons to afflict. But if you build him up, right throw him on an agony, or like ah give him a spider, it could be a pretty high power card. Go on my spider bay deck. ah Okay, I'm excited. I'm glad we're getting this one for free. like hey Yeah. Power-wise, I think, and this is a very broad range, but I think between Atri and Cassandra Nova. Oh, there's agony too. I think better than agony. You know what I think? Cassandra Nova is going to be the best. I'm not saying this is like the practical thing to do with this card.
00:42:43
Speaker
like I think it would be fun to make a big lasher in your hand with, you know, like Gwenpool or whatever, or, you know, even just like play a big lasher with Galacta or whatever. So you've got your big lasher, you activate it, and then like, I don't know, you move it. Slide it down with Heimdall or something. They've got negative power in that lane. You've got positive power in the next lane over. It's like you're doing, yeah, I don't know. Wait, are you saying you want to steal power and then move the card that stole the power?
00:43:12
Speaker
Have I got the card for you? ah Segway. Are you ready for that? We have more to say about Lasher. We don't have a lot more to say about Lasher. It'll be fun. We're all going to get to play. There'll be a lane that has one card in it, and if you just wreck that one card, I don't know. Or even if it's got more than one card. Once upon a time, this is a little...
00:43:40
Speaker
I packaged a little like three-card combo that i that I played with once and I loved it, but I could never flesh out a deck around it. But it was Shuri, Hobgoblin, Ghost Spider. And the whole point was you're throwing a negative 16 Hobgoblin over there, they're abandoning the lane. But then you use Ghost Spider and the negative 16 is going somewhere else. And it was super fun when you pulled it off, but it's like so niche. That happened to me this week, Lauren, and then I got you back. Somebody did this to you?
00:44:08
Speaker
Yeah. Someone did a Shuri Hobgoblin ghost fighter to me, yes. Wow, you really don't see that very often. Right? That's why I was kind of like, I couldn't be mad because I was like, because I immediately wanted to like go put a Shuri Hobgoblin leg back in it.
00:44:25
Speaker
You know? Yeah, it's cool. I It doesn't matter how many cards they have at the location. For some reason, like when I picture it in my head, they have one card at the location that you afflict with a huge amount of negative power. But like even if they have four cards, if you just inflict something in the lane with a huge amount of negative power, or if they've got like three cards, you just want to you just want to convince them to abandon the lane and then move the card. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I realize that I was not explaining myself very clearly.
00:44:56
Speaker
But that's the kind of play you see and you're not even actually like, that looks so fun. I immediately want to do that. yeah It's hard to be mad at something that's clever and or that you don't see hardly ever. It's like, you know what? Good for you. But also in all that cuteness of the thing that I was pitching, I forgot to mention, I just think this card's pretty good, right? Like this card's like real good. is yeah I mean, like I wish it was an unrevealed, but it would be too good if it was an unrevealed. Last turn. Yes.
00:45:27
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. That's a great card. and Pretty good. I think pretty good. And it's so cheap too. like Ooh, you can always squeeze in a two. Yeah. We're going to have so much fun with it, all of us. I don't know how much it and don't know how much it's a two that you want to play on curve. like It's fine if you do. You're not mad about a two, four. No, this is this is a two that you're going to play on turn five, probably. But better if you can drop it with Galacta or some other source of power.
00:45:56
Speaker
I guess agony into lasher is really not that bad. That's a- I get weary when I'm deck building of having too many low cost cards that I'm holding back.
00:46:07
Speaker
I feel like a lot of cards lately have encouraged us to do that, like hold back your low-cost cards to buff them, but then you have nothing to play in curve, and then you go to play your high-cost cards later, and you just end up with too much. and It's just something in deck building I've been looking at. It's something I can play in curve. I mean, Ben's talked about before. Something I can play in curve is delicious. I actually, for our secret homework, one, I did There was a mechanical identity for the season I was going to pitch that was, in fact, play cheap cards after playing expensive cards. But I was thinking about it. And like for the reasons we were just talking or that you were just talking about, like it's not great. And also, it reminded me of mercenaries from Magic the Gathering.
00:46:51
Speaker
And, like, I don't know if you remember mercenaries, but they're the opposite of rebels, and rebels were good because they fetched cards that were bigger than they were, and mercenaries were bad because they fetched cards that were smaller than they were, so, like, you play an expensive mercenary, and you could tutor out a smaller mercenary. It's just not the right s scaling. Yeah, but, like, rebels, it works the other way. You play a small rebel, it would tutor out a bigger rebel, and, like, that's good.
00:47:15
Speaker
You want a card that you can play on curve if I got a card for you. Rocket Raccoon and Groot, a 3-3. You can move this once. After your opponent plays a card here, steal one power from it.
00:47:30
Speaker
Thoughts?
Rocket Raccoon and Groot Comparison
00:47:32
Speaker
It's really good. Yep, agreed. Any card, as we've said before, that you can just move of your own, of its own power on the turn of your deciding. Like it's like what you just, you just gonna, I don't know if it's like, it's like, oh man, remember when Jeff was so amazing and now it's just like so many cards can do it.
00:47:56
Speaker
yeah are You know what this is the first time they've done? ah Like this is the first time they've released one of these at the same energy cost as one that we've already got. Like there's not change there's just vision, there's just Jeff, there's just Nightcrawler.
00:48:14
Speaker
but now it's Nocturne versus Rocket and Groot. And Nocturne has a certain special something that I feel like maybe is worth more than people. I mean, we've had this conversation before, like how much is the Scarlet Witch thing worth? I don't know. I kind of think maybe a lot. I think so too. I think that is probably underrated. However,
00:48:43
Speaker
ah Rocket, Raccoon, and Groot, I think become the good cards three draw. I don't know if they're quite strong enough to just be the ubiquitous thrown in everything 3-drop, which is a good thing you don't want them to hit that point. I think Red Guardian is still maybe the kind of you reach for, I still think. Because Red Guardian solves problems. Rocket and Groot is just a generic threat. It's just numbers. And you don't want your generic threats to be so good that they're getting thrown into your synergy decks, your combo decks, right?
00:49:18
Speaker
Which is not to say you can't do combos with Rocket Raccoon and Groot, right? I think they go great with Nebula, they go great with Jean Grey. Hope. Good enough to make Jean Grey good? I don't know. I mean, like, this card definitely goes in, like, Hope Surfer and other stuff like that. Yeah, definitely Surfer card. That's a good combo, yeah. Probably want to play it in an Angela deck if they ever make Angela good again for, you know, a month or two.
00:49:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:48
Speaker
At least I like the thing. It's silky smooth to come back. Yeah, something in that vein. I don't usually do exactly that, but I do a lot of silky smooth adjacent stuff. And then kind of what you were talking about with Lasher, you can then move after you've you know split up the stolen power. They drop something like a Shadow King. It can only affect half that power. If they drop Luke Cage, it can only affect half that power.
00:50:15
Speaker
That's that's cool. I like that but half of that yeah man is I don't know It's just like the plus one and the minus one they they feel like very small amounts and I know that these things do add up I'm just like I'm not sure I'm quite as high on the card as everybody else's but I'm still pretty high on the card I don't know. Yeah, I think there's gonna be rocket There's you're gonna there's gonna be games where you proc this thing five times like I mean, obviously that's a little bit off. It never hits Shonchi like range, even if you proc it five times. Yeah, I mean, that's a great point. You had to hit it seven times to be shongable. And at that point, it's a 3-17.
00:51:03
Speaker
Yep. Silly. Okay. But there's also the value in just like pushing your opponents to play somewhere or to not play somewhere. you know So you know when you plop it down, they're going to try to avoid playing there, which goes with a lot of it. Sometimes it's just defensive. I just want them to take another location.
00:51:25
Speaker
yeah Yeah, my advice to people playing against this card is just like kind of ignore it That's what I'm gonna do because they might move it and just like don't start making bad moves just because of like I mean, a a two-point swing is significant, but like if it was the right place to play that card, it's probably still the right place to play that card. And hey, maybe they're going to move it out of the way anyway. Maybe maybe you're one step ahead of their mind game. So that's that's my plan when this card drops, is I'm going to try to ignore it. I'm going to pretend it's Echo and just ah completely put it out of my mind.
00:52:06
Speaker
It's always funny watching people play stuff on to echo whenever you're playing in that times of the same game no they yeah um um day i'll become aware of that card I just had a thought This is a I think this is a buff for lizard. Is it good enough that you want to play lizard? No You don't think so No. If they drop four cards in the same lane in order to to hurt Lizard...
00:52:35
Speaker
Then I don't think you can... The thing is they're probably not doing that. I don't i don't think you can affect each their behavior that much to like regularly produce filled lanes that wouldn't be filled lanes anyway just to play a vanilla 2-5 dodging this drawback. You just think five is too low? It probably is. yeah I think that like silk struggles so hard being a 2-5 that Basically doesn't have it. I mean like kind of has a drawback, but like it's not a drawback So like if silk can't hang right now. I don't think lizard can hang right now. That's fair I don't imagine venom is out here. Just like doing things and being to five a good point I think lizard needs something else. I will say yeah
00:53:26
Speaker
I remember when Lizard was the Premier 2 drop, you put him in everything. Yeah. And then they nerfed him and and yeah, but you're probably like if they reverted the nerf, it probably still is just a bad card. Doesn't have high enough power anymore. OK, spotlight friends Blob and Celine cards from last December.
00:53:53
Speaker
Oh, wow. Already that long. I hope we can get that Selene variant. It is a nice variant. My take is that Blob is useful where he is, but very boring. And Selene is incredibly fun, although certainly much more narrow. But hey, do you guys see Blob outside of Irishum anymore? I don't really see it. Blob's time has passed. That's what I think.
00:54:23
Speaker
I mean, i mean like I think that Blob is still going to see play, but Blob is never going to see as much play as Blob did. And like I don't think they're interested in making Blob better than Blob is right now. I think they're interested in making more good six drops. And ah yeah, I don't think that Blob is not a growth industry. You know what I mean? Yeah. Blob could go in Thanos, but if you have Gore, you use Gore instead. Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:53
Speaker
So maybe if you're gaming like fans. I agree, for the big 6-shot, even like Red Hulk, you'd probably rather play as a generic, right? Yes, maybe. Those three are your big 6-shots. We're retreat from Red Hulk. Plus a lion for like a tech.
00:55:07
Speaker
I keep thinking that Blob would be great with Soron now that like the ongoing is lost and Soron has all those big cards, but Soron just hasn't been good. for so There's just better ways to get big that like being a Soron card means you're not playing. But I can see if Soron's time comes back, Blob will be great in that deck. The deck's just bad. Blob would be good in it.
00:55:30
Speaker
in that opinion i'm I'm genuinely disappointed at how long it's taken to get another Sauron card. U.S. agent was about to be one, and then they just haven't done one this entire year. I agree. They need to give more support to that.
00:55:47
Speaker
I mean, we don't want to share Sauron rain to come back, but... and There was an answer recently where Glenn was like, I'm sure we'll make us more Sauron cards, but I'm just like, why? Why has it been this long? And they're still just... They've been too busy putting steel power on like everything.
00:56:05
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Selena, I agree, is is a very fun card. I think slightly slept on, but also just like, Unless you're running goblins or something like that, she's hard to use. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. Someone put you to Celine. an expensive ingredient that you buy to make one thing, you know? She's not meta, but she does a lot. She's like, if you can get that negative three out through a goblin or donated hood or something like that. I happen to need this week as well.
Upcoming Game Updates
00:56:57
Speaker
Three negative six goblins. It was not fun. Great value. If everything fits. If she's a one-five and there's a card in their hand, they're not playing. If they wanted to play it, you have indeed made a big difference. Yeah. OK.
00:57:13
Speaker
There's no, just, you know, just like a heads up. No OTAs or patches till January. They did this week announce Character Mastery. It sounded like it was going to be in in January, but they want to be kind to their employees for holiday time, not have crunch, so, or or not excessive pressure. So Character Mastery is officially announced for February. I'm excited for it. I hope that it's good.
00:57:42
Speaker
I think that there are some mysteries that they need to answer before it comes out. Because if I'm unlocking a bunch of split types, a bunch of finishes and flares that I don't like, I don't want to make it harder to get crackle. You know? You want to dilute your crackle chance? Yeah. I'm really glad I don't care very much about that stuff. When I read that, I was like, wow, that would really upset me if I allowed it to.
00:58:10
Speaker
Yeah, so I was like, are they gonna do a full mix and match? Will they let you turn them off? I don't think it's a good system if people are just intentionally not unlocking the things in Character Mastery. I don't know. I have concerns, but I'm also very excited for this feature. ah We'll talk about it more when there's more to talk about. I hope it's all good news.
00:58:35
Speaker
I mean, specifically for your sake, Lauren. I mean, I hope it's good news for everyone for all things, but I'm especially invested in the happiness of my co-hosts. It's a mode they brought back because of player demand. So, you know, it better be good. For a feature or whatever. Right, not a mode, a feature. Player request. I would have stronger feelings if it were a mode. Oh man, I would have some expectations then.
00:59:03
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Okay. I know we've kind of already moved on, but are they going to do anything different for high voltage? We may have already said this. They don't ban Black Widow this time because she's activating now. So they probably banned something else in the Black Widow spot. Because you could play her on turn one and activate her on turn two and it would still suck. I think it's a little softer though. Hmm. I think I want to see different.
00:59:31
Speaker
I do too. I hope they block some, I don't know, a lieth block. Just block a few more cards. It would be great. It would make it more interesting. I think it's going to be exactly the same. Yes, it was Galactus, Magic, and Black Widow specifically because they slowed down the game and High Voltage is a fast game. I guess that's for those two. Maybe maybe Galactus is just that sucks to have Galactus happen in a three-turn game.
00:59:58
Speaker
um
01:00:01
Speaker
But ban some for fun. Keep those three banned. And more.
01:00:08
Speaker
I know many more. Get him out of here. Oh, yeah he was a menace. Yeah, I mean, he would definitely come back, but you have to wonder if they don't make any changes, if the new cards that have come out have changed, that the meta will be different by virtue.
01:00:27
Speaker
of all the different countries. $2.99 is bad in high voltage. So bad in high voltage. Yeah, exactly. I'm happy now. Yeah. You can get all your missioning done in high voltage. On to the side quests first up and only this week. Secret
Secret Homework Assignment
01:00:46
Speaker
homework. Secret homework, secret homework, secret homework.
01:00:48
Speaker
the Did you hear it? Did it record better this time? Okay, this week's secret homework was to come up with a season crossover, a la Marvel Rivals, with a non-comic Marvel IP. This was assigned by Ben, so we're gonna hear his pitch first. And I don't know that there was something about extra credit, but there was the requirement that you could not design more than two cards. And you didn't have to design any.
01:01:19
Speaker
Right, so I guess that was the extra credit. go Oh, it was? The extra credit was the restraint, honestly. Well, I guess the restraint was mandatory. There was no extra credit. I think we were required to design one card, so I'm just saying. Oh, well, I think we all did anyway, so it's fine. Yeah. All right, so for those who couldn't tell,
01:01:42
Speaker
Was this secret homework? Yeah, it definitely was just an excuse for me to talk more about X-Men Legends 2, one of my favorite Marvel video games. I mean, if it wasn't this, it was gonna be Ultimate Spider-Man. You know what I wish I was talking about? I was kidding, that's what I was expecting. You know what I wish I was talking about? I wish I was talking about Marvel versus Capcom 2. I feel like that's the critic's choice. That's what people want.
01:02:09
Speaker
That's what the most people would be happy if I had pitched for a season of Marvel vs. or Marvel Snap, you know, because like it's it's like the best beloved of all the Marvel video games. I think probably more so than Marvel vs. Capcom three. Those are some great pixel variants. Wouldn't they? The art is incredible. I just here's the thing. I was not raised ah playing a lot of violent video games and ah And ah I just wasn't wasn'm allowed to play no Marvel versus Capcom 2 at the time when it was, you know, in arcades and homes and stuff, especially not in arcades, I mean like this. Do I seem like I i come from people who throw quarters into arcade? No, no. We have whatever we have at home, you know? That's my feeling.
01:03:00
Speaker
our Anywho, and what I did have at home, X-Men Legends 2 Rise of Apocalypse. For those who don't know, it's an action role-playing game developed by Raven Software and public published by Activision. It is the follow-up to 2004's X-Men Legends. I almost did X-Men Legends so that I could put Magma in because Magma is like the ah you know, the the fish out of water, the audience surrogate character in the first X-Men Legends game. So you control Magma when you're walking around the X-Mansion, finding out about all the X-Men stuff, you know. But X-Men Legends 2 is the better of the two games in a variety of ways, partially because it's got this buck wild roster that you would not believe.
01:03:43
Speaker
um So I really had some good options. So I'm just going to tell you about the cards. I think the season pass card would have to be Sunfire. Sunfire is pretty cool. I think it's pretty cool that Sunfire is one of the playable characters in X-Men Legends 2.
01:03:59
Speaker
um ah Shoot, I don't want to go into too much detail. I'll just tell you about the characters. We got Sunfire. We got Marrow. We've got Toad. We've got Archangel, because now every season has to have at least one retread character. And let's say Bastion. Those those are the the five. No, let's let's make it six. This is a six-card season. Destiny. And I have so many backups.
01:04:31
Speaker
Alright, let me tell you about some honorable mentions. so Guardian, Vindicator, that's right, from Alpha Flight, those two. Dark Beast, you know, when Beast is evil, sometimes he goes a little dark. hunt with italian e etc I know, very creative.
01:04:46
Speaker
Sugar Man, a character that I've only encountered in this video game, never never read a comic's appearance, but I did some research about Sugar Man. I decided I couldn't include him because I i don't i don't like you know and don't have enough firsthand.
01:05:01
Speaker
knowledge of Sugarman, but look look up Sugarman if you're curious. Cool character design, interesting vibes. Abyss. Strife. I think Strife has already been dite in mind and is in the game, you know, like Evil Cable um is the short version. Also, honorable mention, Pyro. When are we gonna get Pyro? We should get Pyro. Why don't we have Pyro yet? He's in so many movies now. Deadpool and Wolverine, you know. The Stepford Cuckoos, could have had them in there.
01:05:31
Speaker
Uh, some interesting characters that we could have variants for from this season, include Lady Deathstrike. She's one of the first bosses in the game. Pretty cool. Sauron, pretty cool. Another boss in the game. Uh, one that I had not heard of from the comics because, you know, he's sort of a K-Zarr kind of thing. Oh, also K-Zarr. Why do I call him K-Zarr? Why don't I say K-Zarr? A lot of people say K-Zarr. You know why? Cause Patrick Stewart calls him K-Zarr.
01:05:57
Speaker
theyve They've got Patrick Stewart as Professor X in both X-Men Legends games, and whenever you select the characters, he'll say their name. so like I can, I just, whenever I think of these characters, when I think of Juggernaut, I don't think of Juggernaut, I think of Juggernaut. And you know, like, I think of Iceman, Jean Grey, Wolverine, you know? i He just, he says I'm a little funny and that's like how I think of, and I, I don't know, I've caught myself listening back to the podcast. I will sometimes do a Patrick Stewart voice when I say the name of a character that is playable in X-Men Legends.
01:06:37
Speaker
including Toad. But yeah I've got a design. I've got a design for one of these cards. It's not the season pass card because you only take destiny on one escort mission. But here's my design for destiny. I feel sure I must have stolen this from I don't know. Either a Magic the Gathering card or some cool suggestion that someone else had or something because it just seems like too good an idea for me to have come up with myself. I don't know. You know you ever had that? yeah We've all had that. I choose to assume we've all had that. My experience is universal experience. They have to come from somewhere. It's okay for you to have a good idea.
01:07:14
Speaker
Some of this is going to sound a little familiar. This is a 1-2 with an ongoing. Tap this to see the top card of your, not your deck, your opponent's deck. And it's not just an ongoing card, it's also an activate card. So if you just want to look at the card, you tap for the ongoing. But if you want to tap and hold for the activate, you shuffle your opponent's deck.
01:07:38
Speaker
So if you don't like what they've got on top, maybe, maybe shake the snow globe a little bit. That's so much info. Yeah, yeah. Maybe you just want extra info. I mean, you probably don't. you're You're probably trying to avert a specific outcome. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I think the season that's hard would be solid. Well, so I don't know about the shuffle of the deck. The look at the top of the deck was wasn't that Reece Jessica Jones?
01:08:09
Speaker
That was one of the things that might have been Rhee's Jessica Jones. So yeah, I probably just stole from Rhee. We decided the best version of Jessica Jones though was if you could see their hand. Yeah. That would look cool too. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. So yeah, it's possible that I stole it from Rhee just last week. So that's good. I told you it was too good an idea for me to have had it.
01:08:35
Speaker
Do you have a second card? Do you have locations? That feels very thematic. Like think being able to avert one event, you know, in the future and then to it. so i don't know i know like I know what she looks like and I know she's like Mystique's wife, but I don't know what her abilities are. She's she's got precognition. Okay. Yeah, that's great. That's very appropriate then.
01:09:01
Speaker
And it's always that thing, like, Mystique's mad at her because, like, she lied about, like, their kids. But it's one of those, like, I had to do it to, like, save, you know? She's always got that kind of drama going on. Like, I couldn't tell you. And things had to go this way. And it's like, but did they, though, you know? You just always use that excuse?
01:09:25
Speaker
But that's not how relationships work, you know, it's kind of mystiques holding on. like um Anyway, sorry, I digressed. But yeah, I don't know. Season pass card probably Sunfire or maybe Toad, because as I said a couple weeks ago, I just really want them to put Toad in this dang game.
01:09:47
Speaker
um But yeah, if man there's no good way to play X-Men Legends 2 anymore. But if there were, I would tell you to go play it and check it out. But I don't know. Maybe find a way and do that. The remaster version, obviously. That's why this the crossover is happening.
01:10:07
Speaker
The Activision situation and oh, yeah, you're right. in this And fantasy. There's a remaster and that's why we're doing a tie in for a video game that came out 20 years ago. OK. All right. I love it. It's the holidays, Ben. Let yourself dream a little.
01:10:25
Speaker
So I feel like I went on more than long enough for the amount of substance I had. Oh wait, I was asked about locations. ah Some cool locations. You could do ah the the Tomb of Apocalypse. You could do um the Brood Tunnels. Yeah, you go down into some Brood Tunnels. Oh, also fun fact in Marvel Rivals, Magneto.
01:10:47
Speaker
says Genosha with that hard G. And ah in X-Men 97, he's a Genosha Magneto. So just just a fun trivia fact. But that yeah, on ah i came I came to that by the brood tunnels that I was talking about in X-Men Legends 2 are in fact in Gunosha after it's been attacked and stuff. I don't know. Don't, you say it's a fun game. Nobody's really playing it for the plot. It's all a goofy. Like, you know, like they're just throwing characters at you. They're like, yeah, and you, and lady death strikes there and she wants to fight you cause, just cause, you know? But yeah, ah that there are lots, there's a there's a blimp. yeah the The name of the location could be the blimp where you fight abyss. And he- Catchy.
01:11:40
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. OK. ah Well, I don't know who's next, because, oh, Ria is assigned to you next week somewhere. So it's me. It's me. All right. ah So my first immediate thought, first thought, best thought was She-Hulk, because, you know, it was maligned, but I loved it. It was a very fun show. And I think it was incorrectly maligned. Yeah.
01:12:04
Speaker
ah ah Yeah, I loved it. and And who doesn't want a variant of She-Hulk in that adorable blue polka dot dress? ah But then I was like, wait, but all those major players in that show are already cards. Not quite. And so then I was like, wait, wait, because there's the wrecking crew and there's Obama's Day. And I don't know that they count as major players, but they're interesting players. And so I stuck with She-Hulk.
01:12:33
Speaker
Um, Abomas Day being Emil Blonsky, aka Abomination, his retreat, his yoga retreat for, I don't know, reforming villains or whatever. That's, that's the name of their group. Um, so for the She-Hulk remaster, I guess this is the hypothetical.
01:12:53
Speaker
um I went with a Season Pass of Wrecker, who is the one you know character between the Wrecking crew and Abomas Day. ah He is one of the cards that I built. I'm not sure about this ability, but I think it's a Sauron card. For 10, ongoing, distribute this card's power evenly across all your cards.
01:13:20
Speaker
Well, as a gamer, I love that. Interesting. Yeah. I totally thought through the ramifications about what that means. um But, you know, guys. You can kind of like load some of his power into a different location by playing more cards there. So got a tiny bit of mojo world going on, tiny bit of tribunal. Anyway, um because I learned when I read on his Wikipedia today that before he like masters his abilities, he can lift 40 pounds, but he usually is sharing his powers with his teammates. And so they can each lift 10 tons. I said pounds, tons. Anyway.
01:13:56
Speaker
I thought it was cool that he can share his ability with his group and it you know evenly distributes his power when he does so. That's a cool ability in the game. I'm into it. Can I briefly say that the game after X-Men Legends 2 Marvel Ultimate Alliance was a pretty fun boss fight against the retcon crew and you can also do simulation training missions against individual members.
01:14:20
Speaker
o no that's That's where I know the Wrecking Crew from. And also, she's an attorney at law. Great show. Continue, sorry. I left the rest of the Wrecking Crew for a future Wrecking Crew season. um So Wrecker is just the little the teaser. And later on, you know he could be the variant in a Wrecking Crew season. And his power comes from the crowbar, right?
MCU and Comic Character Discussions
01:14:40
Speaker
Yeah, or he can like store it in the crowbar and yeah Okay, the crowbar lets him generate an outfit. I don't know how much of that's in the MCU. It's what I read in the wiki today um The weekly ones are the rest of Obama's Day. Saracen, the like vampire man. ah Man Bowl, like Minotaur guy. El Aguila? I don't know. ah Spanish name. um He has powers, electricity powers, I think I read. Anyway, that was earlier this week when I was brainstorming. And Porcupine, the guy who has distinctly spiky feet.
01:15:17
Speaker
um He's like dating Spider-Woman now in the comics, so I think it's- Okay, fine is? Yeah. All right, really? I know, it's real like dating up- From what I saw, they're all like they're all characters that that came from the comics, but they seemed like they were all pretty minor there.
01:15:37
Speaker
i can speak to the existence of saracen because i have some versus system cards of saracen action so ah we plant them in a deck with kingpin and such I know nothing about the characters lore or anything like that, except apparently this appearance in She-Hulk attorney of law. I was trying to... ah Ella Gila generates electrostatic charges within his own body, um which is interesting because I think one of the working crew also has electric powers. Anyway. I mean, there are only so many kinds of powers, right?
01:16:16
Speaker
For the limited time game mode prize, because we're it's not in this season it's not high voltage or diner, it's something way better. I'm i'm not going to say what it is, but I'm just saying it's better. In that mode, the prize is Madison with a Y and two N's, but you don't know where the Y is. Yay! She deserves to be a card. um
01:16:40
Speaker
I totally said that wrong. It's to rehhesing waoo huh yeah I definitely thought about a Wong interaction, but what I went with, because she tends to stumble into portals, was to one, on reveal, swap this with a card in your opponent's deck. whoa Which I thought has kind of an interesting thing, because if you play it early, your opponent might draw it and then play it.
01:17:08
Speaker
and You know, she's swapping back and forth. Oh, look at those potatoes. Yeah, or you just play her the last turn. Anyway, semantically hilarious. She's just wondering what the hell is happening? Making deals with demons. Every time it happens, she should get like more drunk in the voice line. Like, OK, it's not like way too into the increasingly slurred.
01:17:38
Speaker
um Anyway, it would be a very fun card. A beloved character. If you haven't seen She-Hulk, there are many good reasons to see it, but Madison King is one of the best reasons.
01:17:50
Speaker
i The variants in the season pass, I did MCU She-Hulk with the blue polka-dot dress, of course, and MCU Titania with Jameela Jameel, wearing the pink the Pink's power suit and and gaudy makeup, as Titanias wanted to do. And MCU Wrecker, that would be him out of his costume and in the Obama stay, ah like,
01:18:16
Speaker
I don't know what to call this thing. It's kind of a white v-neck, but it like crosses over it. It's like what they're all wearing on the retreat. It's relaxing clothing, sort of like scrubs. Anyway.
01:18:28
Speaker
A conquest variant is going to be Abomination from Obama's day. He's he's meditating. ah And some shop variants. We got Wong eating popcorn on the couch and Hulk mixing drinks at at his beachfront bar. And ah Matt Murdock, a tourney-ing, so not in a Daredevil costume, but with red sunglasses. Not on his walk of shame. I know! That's what I thought immediately, too. Oh, yeah. That was my, yeah.
01:18:55
Speaker
Oh, that would be better. You're right. Okay, that's what it is. That's one of the most memorable moments in the series in my life. There are a lot of memorable moments, though. I don't know. Daredevil's wonderful on the show, too. Daredevil's always wonderful.
01:19:07
Speaker
um So good. The
Creative Game Mechanics and Concepts
01:19:10
Speaker
locations. And then I'm done. The locations. I did ah Marvel Studios. It could be Kevin's office, but I like, I think Marvel Studios is a more fun name. Each turn, swap the power of a card from each player's hand. So, it picks one card in your hand and one card in your opponent's hand. It swaps their power.
01:19:26
Speaker
Um, that seemed fourth wall breaky to me. I wanted lots of fourth wall breaking because that's, you know, that she hulk, but it is hard to come up with abilities that break the fourth wall. Um, I think, I think, uh, hydro Bob kind of does that where he interacts with the snaps. I think that's interesting. Anyway, that is interesting. I would love to see more of that, even though I think it's very tricky to do. Also, it makes him play weird in conquest. Yeah.
01:19:54
Speaker
um I feel like we've been talking about Hydra Bob a lot in the past few episodes and I've never mentioned how weird he is in conquest. Does he does he move on the first turn of high stakes?
01:20:06
Speaker
No, but he only moves when a player snaps. But there will come a time when players can't snap and Hyderabad is just stationary. Oh, no, he does move, though, because once I was already maxed on cubes, but I snapped anyway, so he would move and it let me. Oh, no. Like when it lets when it lets you snap, I guess he he'll still snap. But there there are games in high or not in conquest ah when you can't snap like I think okay like you can snap back. like once like When someone else snaps to all the cubes, the other player has the option to snap back, I think.
01:20:47
Speaker
but like I think once you're already in high stakes and... If you have less than two cubes or if you have two or fewer cubes and you're in high stakes, yeah. I don't know. I'm having difficulty like articulating the rule, but I think I would know it when I saw it. You know what I mean? I was kind of surprised that he didn't move every turn in high voltage or in a diner. Like he came out the diner season. Why doesn't he move every time diner snaps? Like he would have been an interesting diner card.
01:21:17
Speaker
ah Especially because he is like a Deadpool sidekick. and Yeah, I thought that was really weird. Like, you made a character that reacts to snaps and you made a game mode with extra snaps, but... Hey, he's a henchman with a negotiated contract.
01:21:32
Speaker
ah Gotta be to his benefit as well. and The other location I did was Summer Twilight's, which is the name of Abomination's Retreat. The ability there is the highest power cards here do not add power to this location. It's the anti-throne room. Wow.
01:21:53
Speaker
Nice. That's my season. That's my She-Hulk season. It's a little chaotic. That's a very cool location design. I'm sorry, I didn't react right away. I was too busy thinking about it, but it's very cool. yeah Yeah, no, that's like a lot like all the stuff for the game. It's like oh oh Bruce it And I yeah, she Hulk we had so many fun moments with that. Oh good call And last up what was your season re Okay. Mine I knew immediately, and so did some people. One of my friends who listens to the podcast was like, Rie, what did you
Marvel Midnight Suns Impressions
01:22:30
Speaker
pick as yours? And I'm like, yeah, it was Marvel Midnight Suns. My favorite Marvel game, ah non-Marvel Snap, Marvel IP game. It is the game loop on that game. Yeah.
01:22:44
Speaker
It's just like, I am a sucker for a good game. Like like for something that can ensnare me. Like I'm pretty sure I once tried to play like Dr. Mario on the switch to help me fall asleep. And then I realized I've been playing for like four or five hours.
01:22:59
Speaker
yeah traffic because I like you know like a like I will moth to to a game loop like Marvel Midnight Suns I will throw myself like a moth against the open flame repeatedly over and over again ah because the game is just one where it's like Okay um you know go out you know go first you prep you know you get all your like you know you you engineer you upgrade some cards you know. Steven in the the inner sanctum area you know they've got their two little craft stations.
01:23:40
Speaker
you know yeah and There's all the prep you can do, right? And then you go and you do your battle, which is like turn-based with cards. So you can experience everything you've done. And then the third mode is like, you get to go have little like dialogues with the characters and stories and do activities and grow your bonds, do little like kind of story stuff. And none of it is so long and it just loops, you know, it's just the perfect loop. It's like Gotham Knights wanted,
01:24:11
Speaker
Should've done that, and it didn't didn't have quite that loop. Anyway. Also, you gotta remember to go around and harvest your treasure chests and your Skyrim herbs every couple of days from around the Abbey. Yeah. All that stuff. Checking with Agatha? Yeah. Yeah. Man. Yeah, you see? This is my time. This is such a good game. i i It really is.
01:24:32
Speaker
underappreciated and I wish it had sold more and I wish they hadn't because I'll play all those for axis games even when they're not Marvel, you know, like I'm a big XCOM and civilization kid. And I just wish this game had performed better so they would be incentivized to make more of them. Oh, I want so many more card games and this is their only card game that they've ever done. And yeah.
01:24:56
Speaker
Very cool game. Where else can you gift Wolverine like some Canadian root beer and then paint a waterfall with him to a crazy relationship? um Okay, so yeah, I thought of that. That's where I had to to to go with it, even though I know it's kind of been we have like the set of variants and stuff, so in a way it's already been done, but we're doing it again.
01:25:21
Speaker
um So, first of all, Season Passcart is going to be the protagonist of the game, who is just called The Hunter. You know, that's their generic-y, like, shepherd name for the main characters so that they can have voice lines while you can still name the character what you want. And big part in the game is your character can use light powers or dark powers and really, like, go down hard.
01:25:47
Speaker
that path and become kind of, you know, the classic video game trace, but they also was important to them. You could dip a little into both, you know, and ah utilize it that way. And so I, i that's what I wanted to lean into with the hunter. So I figured it'd be a 4-4 with ongoing. The first time each turn, a card's power is you increase or decrease a card's power, plus or minus that change by one.
01:26:15
Speaker
So and the first time a card is, if it's a buff, it gets a plus one, or if it a ah you know or if it's an affliction, it'll be an additional one. And I would think this would work with cards like Hazmat and Spider Woman, or on the on the the light side with like Surfer, you know what I mean? So like you know making your big splash cards um like spectrum more valuable.
01:26:43
Speaker
That's okay. I was thinking it would just be like the first card that gets buffed or the first card that gets afflicted, but you're saying the 100 rounds of the ability. So that makes it. Yeah, that's that's originally. Yeah, originally I was thinking it'd be just the first time a card was, but I'm like, how much more fun is it, though? Well, it's way more fun. And I was thinking I was thinking plus one doesn't seem like enough. But yeah, I think it's not only more fun. It's also more like practical. Like that that power level is where it would need to be to see play. Yeah, that's very cool.
01:27:18
Speaker
And it's still counterable by Luke Cage and stuff, you know what I mean? Still seems very fair. Yeah. So then, OK, also, now the problem with Midnight Suns is, like, all the heroes are already in the game. Every single one that you can play is in the game. But that's fine, because there's plenty of villains that are in the game. Like a Barabon Strucker or something?
01:27:40
Speaker
ah Well, Dr. Faustus is one, close enough. But I thought, okay, here's how I would get introduced with this all-villains week. So our limited time mode is replacing, they're like, we got rid of Deadpool's diner, this guy, bitch. It's in the trash. It's never coming back.
01:27:58
Speaker
New mode, okay, it's gonna be, you know what, a lot of card games have PvE battles. So each week you have a kind of auto battle and it's like built where it's like, you're not just playing the deck, but they might have a thing where it generates like a, you know, buy every turn or causes affliction, you know, little one time offs and that every week there's a new one. And it's, you're fighting the villain card that's also being released that week.
01:28:27
Speaker
And you're there's going to be like a choice of like three or four Marvel Midnight heroes that if you include that hero in that deck that week, it's like got a certain ability or bonus. Ooh, and balance patch stuff. Yeah, exactly.
01:28:44
Speaker
um Then, so I thought the villains would be first, okay, not actually a villain, but, you know, you fight them as a misunderstanding, because there's a narrative here, you know, connecting going over the Marvel Midnight Sun story. It would be Johnny Blaze, who is like the very first ghost writer in the same, at least like comics-wise, first one, I go back in time. And I, because I want, I want more, we should have more ghost writers. We deserve more ghost writers. and So I thought he would be a three-three, and this is, this is,
01:29:15
Speaker
Ghost Rider in Midnight Suns, I didn't like playing, to be honest, very much, because he did a lot of, like, hurting, you know, and himself stuff, which, like, I didn't enjoy. So this was along those lines. So Johnny Blaze is a 3-3. Each turn, if any cards in your discard pile, resurrect a random one at this location, and this card loses 3 power.
01:29:42
Speaker
So like can just like keep pressing cards that and maybe the minus three is too much. Maybe it should be minus two, but that was minus three. I like it. Yeah. Right. You can pull back your black cat. It's limited to a single location. It's cool.
01:30:00
Speaker
And I didn't come up with—that was the only cards I designed, but I figured we'd ramp up, and then we'd fight Dr. Faustus, Lilith, and then C'Thon, you know? And it would it would have this, like, kind of narrative arc that would follow Marvel Midnight Suns. And the variants would be... Firstly, I just had to pick my two favorite characters in the game, Magic and Miko. You're like a little trio buddy, so of course they get to be the variants. And I figured we do, because we already have the Midnight Sun's variants. One of the fun things in the game is that you can pick all their outfits while they're hanging out in the Abbey and unlock more casual outfits. So I figured the variants would be casual outfits for Magic and Miko. And then the third one is Blade.
01:30:48
Speaker
your blades book club what do you have a thought then I have a suggestion for what the card back should be okay oh yes okay so my favorite of the wearable items in Marvel's Midnight Suns there's one sweatshirt you can get that has a graphic design on it. And it's four of the main Midnight Suns inside profile in homage to the album cover for the second Gorillaz album, Demon Days. And it's very clearly, that's what they're doing. And it's very cool. And I would totally wear it. And I would totally rock that card back because
01:31:30
Speaker
a very good album and a very fun ah image. And i it really tickled me when I found that in the game. So, yeah, sorry. Sorry for detouring. No, that's amazing. Like, I was thinking of that shirt when I was thinking of these casual variants, but it's not one that's listed specifically. I couldn't remember who could wear it. I think it's just you. I think it might just be for the hunter.
01:31:52
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Or maybe you can make other people wear, I don't know. I don't remember. Yeah, so I was disappointed, but it's the card back is perfect. That's how we could have it, because I also like loved that image and it was really tickled when I found it. um And also, ah Blade would feature his book club that he starts in the game, which is one of my, it's like my favorite club. He really just starts it so he can get...
01:32:20
Speaker
ah ti with captain and marvel because he's the hot spirit and it Yeah, everything about blades book club is so fun and cool and like the the other members are Wolverine Captain America and then Captain Marvel and blade as you mentioned and it hilarity ensues.
01:32:37
Speaker
Ah, it's so good. Wolverine just comes and raids the refreshments table. doesn't Anyway, locations, obviously the Abbey already exists, so that would need to be a featured location at one time. I came up with one other kind of randomly, the training ground, since you do it every day in represent, you always want to be training every day. So it would be a location where if at least um at the end of each turn, if there are at least Two cards in this location give a random card plus one. Hour. You know, just getting stronger, but you can't do it alone. Gotta spar. That's great. Yeah. Nice theming. so
01:33:24
Speaker
Yeah. Um, so that was me. So yeah, I just, I loved Midnight Suns. It's like when I could go on about it forever. and So that's what I learned that you haven't played the DLC though. So you have more. I finally got it. Cause I got it for real cheap. I'm playing metaphor. I think it is something yeah might be deeply discounted on steam right now. And as I, I well wine about I bought it on the DLC at the same time, but I'm I'm not super far into it. Like, I think I played like, I don't know, 10 to 20 hours before I bounced off. I don't know how long the game is, so I might be estimating wrong. But ah you guys are making me want it. Yeah. Oh, geez, it could be had for $899. But if you if you want the DLC, it's $1599 for all the DLC. Yeah, I think I got it on a big sale. Oh, actually, just kidding. It's $20 for all the DLC and the game.
01:34:18
Speaker
That's very it's so good. Yeah, at least for me, it was so close to the end when my PS4 crapped out. So like I've never played the very end of the game, but I said I went, you know, I was doing all the I was grinding it out and trying to get perfect, beautiful decks for all the characters. And I just I love the combat system so much. And I man.
01:34:42
Speaker
It was so good, and it's just like every time like you would go to a mission, magic would summon you that power, and it's just like, take me magic, take me away. It was a great game, yeah.
01:34:56
Speaker
Oh, sorry. And then I'm doing the new Secret Homework. I'm like, OK, next thing. Next week's Secret Homework. Next week's Secret Homework. I figured we'd do a light one. and It's ah the holidays. Second dinner is on vacation. So I figured we'd stray a little further from SNAP than what we would you know normally do for Secret Homework on the
Dream MCU Projects and Community Interaction
01:35:17
Speaker
podcast. And I want to see um you eat.
01:35:23
Speaker
ah Tell us about your dream MCU project, right? So, maybe for Lauren, maybe that's already Air a Force. I almost said Air Force. Air Force. Because, yeah, that would be amazing. And you can... You know some details.
01:35:40
Speaker
Yeah, so here's the thing. You can fan cast it if you want, including director, or you can just say maybe you just want a Star Wars thing. where youre like I want unknowns where this will define their career forever and they'll never get away from it. Eventually they'll be at conventions when they're 50, still just only being that one character.
01:35:58
Speaker
Anyways, so, um, so you just want to talk about the project, it'd even be like a second season of a first project. You're really like, wherever you want to take it, however far in what ways you want to explore it. I want to hear about an MC project that you want to see. That is the secret homework this week.
01:36:17
Speaker
Okay, pretty exciting stuff. Yeah, it sounds fun. And I like the idea of a lighter week. Okay, if you not say I don't love this, it's just ah holidays have drained me. If you like what you heard, follow us, like, comment, subscribe, a leave reviews, etc. All that information if you're interested in it is in the a YouTube description or the podcast show notes.
01:36:45
Speaker
um We're on YouTube if you're not watching this there. And we're on podcast places if you're not listening to us there. um But it's the same show. So just you know pick whichever one you like better. Um, we started a discord. Uh, we have a few channels there. Uh, it's part of, um, the snap judgments league discord, but it would be more accurate to say that we have hidden our own little discord community. It's very,
01:37:14
Speaker
it's it takes a little bit of work to get there. Um, on the secret in nu and red door. Okay. A link is is right there where I told you all the other stuff. It's actually a speakeasy. I'm having way too much fun. Oh my gosh. We need to rename it to a speakeasy. That's fantastic. Right? Yes. Anyway, several of you have made it there and it's been fun chatting and it's a place where deck squares get shared and we just chat and you can show off your own secret homework. Pretty great. Oh yeah, there's there's some good creativity afoot in there.
01:37:51
Speaker
Anyway, the instructions are in the description. There's a link to the Discord. There's brief instructions on how to, once you're there, to get into the speakeasy. ah Anyway, we're part of the Snap Judgments Network. That's how we got into their Discord, where you can listen to other great shows like How Can She Snap on Sundays, Snap Decisions on Mondays and Tuesdays and special occasions, and Snap Judgments every Saturday. ah Don't forget, we release on Fridays. We try to, anyway. We're damnedest. so Catch us next week. We'll be talking about ah the upcoming January season cards, ranking them. That's always an intense episode. If you'd like to hear that, yeah find out find out why I'm so excited about Victoria Hand. ah Same snap time, same snap channel.
01:39:05
Speaker
Oh yeah,
01:39:08
Speaker
for those who are wondering why we're obsessed with these words right now, they're the leading theory as for why episode 17 has like twice more than twice as many views as any of the other episodes. Yeah, because they had a title about gamers reacting. Much love to who helped that happen. yeah Made all the other episodes look like they didn't happen.
01:39:41
Speaker
I just feel bad on their behalf. I mean, these were fine apps that just didn't get the shine for whatever reason, apparently number of people who are listening, I am thrilled that you're listening and that you're enjoying this um because I enjoy this. Absolutely.