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64: A Bunker and Stuff
153 Plays1 day ago
🤘👩🎤 Be sure to check out Lauren’s official Community Spotlight on the Marvel Snap channel!! 📲▶️
For our esteemed listeners’ consideration:
- 🫰 Weeks in Snap - Lauren on main!! 🎉
- Spider-Punk 🎸🕷️ Man-Spider 🚶🕷️ Superior Spider-Man ⤴️🕷️ Web Sling 🕸️
- 🧓🦶 Ezekiel Sims & 🦎🫥 Chameleon - next week vibes
- OTA - move rising 📈 tech falling 📉
- Secret Homework 🤫: Let a card inspire you 🛞🧭🌅
Follow us on Twitter/Bluesky:
Check out the other great shows in the Snap Judgments Network:
- 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:
- Ben - Secret Surfer
- Rie - Existential Agents
- Zombie Mobile
- Birb - Destroy All Ones
- Scott - Move Tribunal
- Frank Puddle - Goblin Queens 6.0
Credits:
- Cover art by Lauren
- Snap On This!! Theme by Ben
- YouTube thumbnail by Lauren’s kid, Reggi
- Thumbnail portraits by Adam Star
Timestamps:
- 0:00:00 Intro / Our Week in Snap
- 0:25:00 Spider-Punk
- 0:38:44 Man-Spider
- 0:42:50 Superior Spider-Man
- 0:45:24 Web Sling
- 0:49:53 Ezekiel Sims
- 0:56:01 Chameleon
- 0:59:20 OTA Discussion
- 1:16:11 Secret Homework: Take Inspiration from a Favorite Card
- 1:26:13 Next Week's Secret Homework
- 1:31:01 Housekeeping / Closing Remarks
Recommended
Transcript
Week in Review: Marvel Snap Adventures
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to episode 64 of Snap on This, a Marvel Snap podcast. This week's secret homework, let a favorite card inspire you. I'm your host, Lauren Wodevs, here today with my usual amazing, delightful co-hosts.
00:00:15
Speaker
First off, Ben, how was your week in Snap? And keep it snappy. Well, my week in Snap, endeavoring to keep it snappy, as I basically always do. um So last week, it was, we were nearing the end of the season.
00:00:31
Speaker
And, you know, it yeah came to light that Ree was going to miss the Conquest variant for the first time maybe ever or something. And...
00:00:44
Speaker
I don't talk about it a lot, but I used to get the Conquest variant every month. But I've now missed it probably more than one hand worth of fingers, less than two hands worth of fingers.
00:00:56
Speaker
But i I missed last week's Conquest variant. But you know you know who the true casual, unburdened by the pressures of the game kind of player is? It's me, because I didn't even hit Infinite last month.
00:01:11
Speaker
Oh, really? That's right. I know. That sounds very healthy.
Challenges and Reflections: Missing the Conquest Variant
00:01:15
Speaker
Yeah. For real. Well, that they it was modes. I played Sanctum like the whole time Sanctum was around. And then i had to I had to play a lot of Grand Arena because here's the thing. I bought that event pass.
00:01:30
Speaker
The leapfrogging and the the the gauge just filling itself up, like ah I don't know if they if they got smart for a second or something, but it didn't seem to like work out quite as... ah it it didn't snowball so immediately into a ah full prize gauge thing for Grand Arena. I actually had to, like, play, like, a lot of games.
00:01:53
Speaker
Not, like, a lot of games, but, like, too many games. I'll say it. I'll say it. I think that if you buy the event pass... maybe Maybe it should take you the work of an afternoon. maybe maybe that is ah Maybe that is what I thought I was paying for.
00:02:08
Speaker
ah So that was I spent a little more time ah with arachnobatics than I honestly hoped to. And it just didn't leave a whole lot of time. And ah yeah, I just
Deck Strategies: Secret Surfer and Golden Gauntlet Prep
00:02:21
Speaker
didn't get around to it. I got to other stuff to do. i For instance, I was...
00:02:27
Speaker
workshopping a deck that I might be playing in the golden gauntlet this weekend. And, uh, you know what? I'll even, I'll even tell you what's in it. Cause I'm not even sure I'm playing it.
00:02:38
Speaker
It's called secret surfer because, uh, I think it's fun to call things secret, especially when they aren't, uh, yes for For those who have not listened to every episode of Snap on This, am the coiner of secret homework, a famously not secret thing.
00:02:58
Speaker
But anyway, Secret Surfer has one secret, and it's Cannonball. oh It's America Chavez, Surge, Merlin, Brood, Captain Carter, Silver Surfer, Hope Summers, Mercury, Sebastian Shaw, Copycat, Absorbing Man, and Cannonball.
00:03:13
Speaker
um It's pretty cool. There are a lot of cards that I would have liked to have in it. At first it didn't have cannonball. The secret ingredient was actually cosmic ghostwriter, but, uh, he just wasn't working out.
00:03:24
Speaker
And the the patterns weren't coming together. Um, some cards that are notably absent from this deck. Uh, we got no power buff girls of any kind, no galactor, no Gwen pool.
00:03:39
Speaker
Um, also no red guardian here. um I'm just not loving the – I mean, like, i I do love Red Guardian. and Red Guardian gets you out of so many scrapes and situations and things.
00:03:53
Speaker
But really, Mercury is the star of the show. When Mercury hits the board, I feel like that that's a game that's going well. Because, wow, the the thing that inspired this was – Some complaints from Thursday, who's a very brilliant move player, about ah just how oppressive it is to play against Mercury.
00:04:16
Speaker
And I thought to myself, gosh, I don't feel like losing to move decks in this this golden gauntlet. I better bring Mercury. Thursday hates this card. And I got to say, ah having her as as one of these... i mean, I was playing two-cost Mercury in the Surfer deck I played when I qualified, actually. So, like, I've i've already been loving Mercury, but, like, Mercury left the deck. But then I was like, I don't know. probably I probably ought to put Mercury back in,
00:04:46
Speaker
given how much of a day ruiner she can be.
Reaching Infinite: A Personal Journey
00:04:50
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, she ruins days. And, you know, people just, they get so greedy with this move shit. And like, I don't know the deck briefly had Shang-Chi in it before I realized that Shang-Chi should totally be cannonball. Cause I had mercury and I was doing ramp things already.
00:05:05
Speaker
But, um, yeah, I've just been like, how, how do, how do my surfer numbers compete with the, the ridiculously huge numbers of, uh, you know, that There are a lot of decks right now that make really huge numbers, and I just wanted a way to kill a really big thing, you know?
00:05:23
Speaker
Be it a this week's flavor, a man spider, or, you know, whatever else gets big. Honestly, I've still been seeing some zombie giant mans around, and ooh, I...
00:05:38
Speaker
Oh, I murdered a really big horde and somebody didn't like it, judging by the emotes. I took some screenshots. Oh, wow. they they were not They were not expecting the cannonball in the surfer.
00:05:51
Speaker
Anywho, that's a real fun deck. I recommend it. I don't know. I might play that on Saturday. I also ah might not. I don't know. There are other thoughts I've had.
00:06:01
Speaker
ah But that one seemed... I've been playing that one on ladder this season. It looks like I'm going to hit infinite this season. And it's ah it's good good enough for that. I'm i'm in the mid-90s and stuff. And ah yeah. so ah Nice. other things.
00:06:22
Speaker
Still playing other games. Still loving other games. Still really loving Slay the Spire, especially. i was playing that last night. And I stayed up too late. That's what I think.
00:06:34
Speaker
um What other things... m ah One of our listeners, here's a grapevine recommendation where I recommend a thing that my one of our listeners recommended to me.
00:06:49
Speaker
And ah that's the game Dispatch. I don't think all the episodes are out yet, but we're always talking about these dang Telltale games. And, ah you know, it's one of those. I don't remember if it's made by the Telltale people or just in the vein of the Telltale people's games. Telltale doesn't exist anymore.
00:07:05
Speaker
See, that's the thing. But I'm like, maybe it's the people because the people didn't all die in a fire as far as I know. um But Disfatch, you know, it's got Aaron Paul. I don't know.
00:07:16
Speaker
I'm hearing great things about it from everywhere, including from one of our listeners, Geelan, who sometimes tunes in to to my stream. And I feel bad because I'm usually just doing the most boring speed running shit, just playing the the first night of Hades 2 over and over again.
00:07:32
Speaker
But anyhow, I have a hot tip that it's great fun. I've watched a few other people play little bits of it. Looks like great fun. And it's got superheroes.
Community Engagement: Introducing the New Season
00:07:44
Speaker
And... ah It seems sort of Snap adjacent. I feel like maybe more interesting things happen in or around Snap for me, but I'll just have to wait until something later in the episode reminds me of them, and then I'll just shake up the the flow.
00:08:02
Speaker
Who knows? I don't know. maybe Maybe nothing else interesting happened at all. I would love to hear about one of your weeks in Snap, though, Rhi or Lauren. are we Are we sticking with the traditional order, or we zagging? Traditional order. We've been zagging sometimes.
00:08:15
Speaker
All right. order but first i lie fact checkcked it's by ad hoc studio which includes industry veterans from telltale games also ubisoft and night school studio i don't know what night school studio is um and i just i wanted to ask you with with the golden effort you put into ah you you lovingly poured into grand arena have you been enjoying zombie sent me Yeah, the fruits of your labors.
00:08:42
Speaker
ah Oh, you know what? I thought about actually i wasn't going to give him ah test drive because I'm like, well, I don't have zombie Mr. Fantastic, so I don't really have the whole zombie crew. Except I was opening my series four pack to get web swing and look what the...
00:09:04
Speaker
that Ugly zombie Santa brought me. It was zombie Mr. Fantastic, the card I've always wanted.
Mental Loops and Gameplay Strategies
00:09:11
Speaker
um So I guess I have him. I guess I have the whole zombie kit now. I could I could do zombie things. I'm just it's so much more fun to like fuck with them.
00:09:22
Speaker
I was just being a little shit. um I didn't. Maybe you I didn't expect you've been enjoying your century. Rhi, how was your weekend snap and keep it snappy?
00:09:35
Speaker
Okay, um so if you rewind to ah to let last week, you know on on last week's episode of Breeze Weak at Step, I was all like, I am not getting Infinite this month.
00:09:50
Speaker
I'm not getting the Conquest variant. I'm not doing Grand Arena because i am mental health. And then everyone clapped. Well, remember.
00:10:03
Speaker
Okay. Like after that, I was very proud of myself. And like, some reason, like verbalizing that, like that night, like, I know, it finally like freed me up. And I was like, oh, I like, I actually kind of want to play also like my build of my mermaid game. Should we play at night? It just was like broken. And was like, I feel like playing again.
00:10:22
Speaker
And played and I did enough Grand Arena, mostly with the like default Mr. Fantastic deck, which was real obnoxious when people were attacked specifically against that. And I was like mostly too lazy.
00:10:38
Speaker
Right at the end, I finally made my own. i was too lazy for most of it. Anyway, I did enough to get the like... the Moon Knight variant. um Yeah. You know, and that felt good. You know, and they're like, here, little rat, have this little bite cracker. And was like, yeah, it tastes real good. I do love a Moon Knight variant.
00:10:57
Speaker
I may have a million. Right? And... I did. Okay, I did let... This still was the first Conquest variant I've ever let go because have a lot of good Bishop variants already.
00:11:11
Speaker
and I, like, don't ever play Bishop anymore since
Balancing Goals: Game and Mental Health
00:11:15
Speaker
he's, like... Now he's mostly good in like bounce type stuff. um And but I was like, I was like, was like, but, you know, there's still like three or four. There's still a couple days.
00:11:29
Speaker
i could still get like infinite and keep that streak going. And I finally... I finally found the perfect analogy for what my brain does.
00:11:42
Speaker
and um you have to forgive me for explaining this because I know probably like both of you already know, it's probably a lot of listeners, very fundamentals of programming. But just in case someone is not at all versed in the fundamentals of programming, the one of the basic loops in programming is called a while loop.
00:12:02
Speaker
And it's basically says like, while this condition is true or not true, continue to follow this set of instructions. And it's very useful. i use while loops all the time. a lot of times for like, hey, you know, every frame that the mermaid's not where I want to be, you know, like moving to where I want to be, you know, like iterate that sort of stuff.
00:12:25
Speaker
Lots of useful things for for while loops. The danger of while loops is where you don't have breaks in them. but It's called an infinite while loop. It's where there the the and the condition that you're trying to meet always stays true or false. And therefore, the instructions continue forever and ever. And you just get hung up.
00:12:46
Speaker
Like if it's in the game or whatever, just freeze, right? Because it's just continually looping through this set of instructions. And I realized used to come here to this to a certain scene in the universe.
00:12:59
Speaker
That's what our brain does sometimes. And sometimes it's useful towards productive ends, like getting a piece of code done or finding a bug or like something like that. But sometimes, like that day, it was just like, OK, while I'm not infinite,
00:13:15
Speaker
Play one more game. And just like the exclusion of all else to be like, well, okay, if I get up, if I have to get up and move, I guess I'll do that. But like nothing else. It's like, oh, if if's like the power is running out, I guess I'll plug it in because that will enable the instruction loop to continue.
00:13:31
Speaker
And I got it all the way from like from like the 80s where I left off after like, I don't know, several weeks of not playing. Like I'd maybe played a little bit at the beginning of the season all the way in the night of two, to 100 into Infinite. was like, I don't know, 11 midnight, 1 a.m. I don't know what time it was, but eventually i got Infinite. And when I did, I was like not super proud.
00:13:59
Speaker
like It was like the Frodo gif meme of like, it's done. and ah The Shires never saved for us. Okay. But like, I did do it with the last deck I
Infinite Strategies: Lauren's Deck Insights
00:14:14
Speaker
had played a lot because I was just coming back into the game.
00:14:18
Speaker
that was smart. It was a version of my existential dread deck. Shout out to BritMangos, who also used a version of the stack to get to infinite and loves it like I do.
00:14:32
Speaker
um I actually did modify it in some ways I'd been interested in doing for a while. I actually took out Silver Surfer First Steps. um and put in Agent Coulson.
00:14:43
Speaker
Because, like, that's the fun thing. Because, you know, sometimes Hulkling's like an infinite or something. And or, you know, it gave me the extra flex, you know, and surprise.
00:14:55
Speaker
just like, I always have to, like, shum up my decks. Like, there must be randomness, you know? But, yeah. And what else did I swap from the last time this was big?
00:15:07
Speaker
Red Guardian in four.
00:15:11
Speaker
someone else who's in this before um and now i would actually probably swap out mobius for in the last version i was playing for mercury ah because even that doesn't feel like enough to stop the the move mana that's going on right now but um that's what i crossed the line with it was really fun um putting stuff into there.
00:15:37
Speaker
ah Like, uh, Hulkling, Hulkling is Heimdall still, like, once in fun games, all that stuff. Um, and then, um okay, we'll save it for later.
00:15:51
Speaker
I have this, like, like my comics corner, which is more like, ooh, there's a comic I really want to talk about, there's a comic I really want to talk about, but, um, we'll save it for later because i really want to hear about Lauren's Week in Snap.
00:16:04
Speaker
Ooh, before Lauren's week, can I squeeze in something that Reeve reminded me of? Hey, what's all these War Machine decks? Why is everybody playing Infinite? I hate it when my copycat copies Infinite.
00:16:15
Speaker
Cut out, everyone. Stop it. Yeah. right, that's all I wanted to say. Lauren, shoot. Ah, there is some of that Storm Legion stuff going around. Yeah, definitely. um Ruining cards that are otherwise fun.
00:16:29
Speaker
ah I had a good weekend in snap. I... was on the official Marvel Snap channel introducing the new season. You crushed it. hey Cool.
00:16:41
Speaker
If you haven't seen it, it's, I think it's technically the first clip I've put on YouTube because I put a man spider clip. I squeezed one into that video. Um, Yeah, I dressed up. I was going to wear the spiky beanie again today, but it's really tight. So I decided not to. But my child picked out all the accessories and did my eye makeup.
00:17:01
Speaker
and And yeah, i talked about I talked about the new season. And it was fun. It was a cool opportunity. Cool to be recognized. Hasn't been... much transphobia on Twitter or YouTube? a little bit.
00:17:15
Speaker
um But you know, that's what I get for being publicly trans. Okay, that's not a path I want to go down. That's not. Fuck them. oh No good. Indeed. i it's been it's It's been a good week. I think I was also stuck in Ree's while loop. I often am.
00:17:35
Speaker
oh While not infinite, pursue infinite. ah i I hit infinite last night, staying up too late in the middle of a work week. was like 2.30 or something like that.
00:17:46
Speaker
um Yeah, I just... I'm kind of tired of this chore, and I'm sure I need a healthier mental attitude towards the chore of reaching infinite.
00:17:57
Speaker
um But I just relax in the game so much more once it's done, and I'm tired. Like, it took 10 hours this time. Usually it's like 7, which is still too much. um no It is a very clear demonstration of where I could find some more time in my life, though.
00:18:14
Speaker
How am I going to find time to do the dishes? Well... Can I tell you something that I learned that you probably already know? Mm-hmm. Okay, so last month, I only got up into the 90s. I was like, where's that going to put me at reset? Like 63 or something?
00:18:29
Speaker
Nope, still 73. So just make it up to the 90s. Who cares? It's a card back,
Deck-Building Challenges and Meta Reflections
00:18:35
Speaker
y'all. It's a card back. Card backs that I never use. The golden ones.
00:18:40
Speaker
um Yeah. And what, infinite? You reset at 75 now? So yeah, very small. difference in fact you climb seven extra ranks to start two ranks higher so really the people doing it to the 90s are like the most efficient players yep uh-huh you get the gold it's all good yeah that'd be really smart ah Because it's not even like the 70s, 80s and 90s are not even equal. Right. I got a bunch of bots in the 70s, 80s every now and then 90s. I didn't.
00:19:13
Speaker
I was going to say I didn't see any, but I think I crossed the line against a bot, which was super like a little anticlimactic. It seems like every season I get a different distribution. I i can't make. um know Yes. It's very inconsistent and weird.
00:19:27
Speaker
Anyway, I used one of the best mid range decks right now. and don't even know if it's really mid range because it doesn't have tech, but Merlin, Werewolf, Zombies deck.
00:19:41
Speaker
It is very, very fun. I just hit auto build. Like I threw a few of the cards I figured must be in there. ah Zombie, Scarlet Witch, Merlin and Werewolf auto built it and then squeezed Web Sling in there. Because i'm like, surely Web Sling is useful when I've got Hope Summers and Zombie, Scarlet Witch.
00:19:56
Speaker
It was OK. um I used it every now and then. Mostly... now ah it Mostly it's just a one-cost skill, which is a useful thing for Werewolf. ah Making some very big Werewolves and some very big Giant Men.
00:20:09
Speaker
And then I played the destroy all ones deck that I think I've talked about here before. It's got six one costs and it's a destroy deck and it's very fun. It's really fun when Moira gets going.
00:20:20
Speaker
ah And then ah hot location showed up and I decided to play a move tribunal deck that Scott Denham, friend of the show, friend of the pod, had posted.
00:20:34
Speaker
um Yeah, it's got Spider-Punk as like a backup plan for Torch. And it's like, yeah, Spider-Punk can get pretty big if you move him a lot, but it's just like not even comparable to how big Torch gets.
00:20:46
Speaker
So, but I want to, I want to do all the cards. Isn't it sad with Spider-Punk? Like, it's like, you want to be excited and he's all punk and cool.
00:20:57
Speaker
And it's like, oh, what a show. And then, like, a guy walks on stage and lights himself on fire. Spider-Punk's like, well, shit, how do I? How do you get that, punk?
00:21:07
Speaker
And it feels like in the deck. It's like, Spider-Punk's cute and all, but Human Torch is where the, like, zing is, you know? Mm-hmm. Anyway. Yeah. That's been my experience with Spider-Punk. Yeah.
00:21:22
Speaker
like It's such a weird thing, because like I want him to be just a little bit stronger so that he can go in decks that aren't move decks. But it just makes him better in the move decks, and he still probably is just a move card then.
00:21:35
Speaker
I don't know. To jump ahead a little bit, like yeah in their OTA justification stuff, they're like, well, we really want there to be a mass move, secondary move deck where it's not about doubling Human Torch a million times. And I'm like, well, maybe you shouldn't have made Human Torch the way you did. Nerf Torch! Yeah. yeah you yeah You know, there's a way to have that, but you didn't do the thing to i achieve that outcome. So, you know...
00:22:04
Speaker
I won't lie, prefer the old Human Torch where you could just like, you know, killmonger it? Killmonger! Just like, snuff that little flame right out. even Even the threat of Killmonger was enough to like, keep things tamped down a bit, you know? You didn't have to play Killmonger, you just had to maybe have Killmonger. It was such an important part of managing that deck.
00:22:26
Speaker
And... you know You know something that moves good at? Dodging tech. yeah So, like, you could have Shang or Shadow King, and you could deal with a lot of the meta with those two cards right now. Or or Valk, even. Although she's, you know, little pricey.
00:22:40
Speaker
um yeah But you got you gotta to hit that torch. And are you going to be able to guess the where that torch is going? Reliably? um That's something that Killmonger used to be great at.
00:22:53
Speaker
Well, anyway. It was... It was a perfectly serviceable deck. I i think probably Spiderpunk is Cosmo. And then at that point, when you're all in on Torch, I like Taskmaster better than Tribunal. It does take a little bit better sequencing, but this is a Thursday-ism also. It's like, oh, your opponents are expecting Tribunal where you're going to third your power, but instead you play Taskmaster and double your power. It's like, okay.
00:23:19
Speaker
Okay. Anyway, hit Infinite, and i don't know what i I don't know what I'm going to do now.
Understanding the Rise of Move Decks
00:23:25
Speaker
It's like I rushed to Infinite, and it's like, well, I guess I could chase down clips, but there's like not a lot of people on Infinite right now.
00:23:35
Speaker
Yeah, haven't played much into the new season yet, to be honest. I mean, some Spider Punk and stuff. I think that's a wise choice. Also, this season, we don't have two full-length events. We have one long event and one half-week high-voltage that is cosmetics-only Oh, I love the high voltage that you get to ignore that. You know, i i criticize a lot of things, but like more of those more pointless ass high voltages.
00:24:03
Speaker
Here, here. um I do like the events. They do give you a thing to do, but also there's like there's just so much going on in the game. Right. Getting infinite. feel like we used to complain there wasn't enough. I know, it's funny, right? like I think some people did. i don't think I was ever one of those people hey of those people.
00:24:26
Speaker
We also didn't have as many new cards, so you weren't like, it's like, you know, you didn't have as much to it. Now it's like, well, I haven't tried all these cards. When I was looking at I was like, look at all these cards. I still didn't like my, like Elixir. There's a bunch of cards that normally I would like spend a lot of time goofing off with that I wouldn't even like share because nothing I did panned out and i'm like oh I haven't done that yet with these yeah there's a lot I do like about increased card volume and having more toys to play with but also it's very hard to get to play with all of them okay
00:25:01
Speaker
Well, we all decided before the show we have nothing to say about Zombie Century or Galacti, so we're going to move on to this week's cards. Nothing nice to say anyway. Yeah. um We're going to move on to this week's cards.
00:25:14
Speaker
Four of them in one, so, you know, it's a good chance there's one of these I have played very little. Um, Spiderpunk. Our season pass card. 3-2. Nope, a three three They buffed him last second.
00:25:27
Speaker
You can move this once. When this moves to a location, steal two power from the highest power enemy there. And of course, you can just keep on moving him. I'm making, you know, ah an ideal... so A big Spiderpunk gets to like 15-ish power.
00:25:42
Speaker
Um... Which doesn't make sense if you're doing... Three... No, wait, that does. That does. Okay. Um...
00:25:50
Speaker
What do you think? Did you get him? Did you get to play with him? Do you like him at all? I like him. i think i'll liked to the and I'll like the buffed version better, probably.
00:26:03
Speaker
um i want the card to be good, and I want i want their there's secondary mass move deck to be real, just like they do.
00:26:15
Speaker
And... ah It's not, so I don't really know what to do with this card. In the meantime, i like maybe there's a cute surfer thing, but like I just don't i don't think there is. i think things have changed. i don't know.
00:26:29
Speaker
I really wanted Nocturne in my my other surfer deck, and I was more excited about finding room for her than for Spider Punk. So I don't know. I think i think if you're looking for a second self-moving three in your surfer deck, you still don't pick this guy.
00:26:44
Speaker
So I don't know.
00:26:49
Speaker
I am. I did. So, yeah, I mean, I pretty much said my experience with him. I didn't build my own deck yet, which I probably would have had more fun with. um I auto rolled, which was a move deck. And once again, it just felt like Human Torch was the thing you've wanted to do. Well, like. you know, um between the two of them and he was throwing you throwing out for like when you Heimdall, they're just if you didn't have human torture, cetera. What I spend a lot of my time doing is like, move is meta now. For the first time, it's just move, move, like everywhere. Maybe not the first time, but it feels like it. It's definitely having a moment.
00:27:30
Speaker
Right? It's having a moment and I've always hated move. Even when it's not meta, because I love playing tech and like ring, but I never like really tech for move. When I see a move deck like hit its stuff, that's when I always get worried, you know, or in conquest or something, because it's like, oh, I do not have the tech to deal with with move. And it's usually not a problem because I don't always run into it all the time.
00:28:03
Speaker
But now it's got so many tools to hit big.
Countering Move Decks: Strategies and Tech Cards
00:28:07
Speaker
And, like, there's the dual issue like, it's like they really did. After Tech came back, when I looked back, it's like, oh, yeah, Shang only hits one card. That's not enough to get their Heimdall lane with, like, da Dagger and Kraven. You know what i mean? Because if you're...
00:28:24
Speaker
Spending that four inch Shang, you're just not getting the energy out. So it doesn't feel like Shang's enough. Mercury hurts, but it's like you both have to draw. She doesn't feel like enough all the time. you know what i mean? um and ah Shadow King, right?
00:28:40
Speaker
When I went looking for him, it's like, oh, yeah, they left him a three. He's a three cost now. Oh, that feels so much harder to like plan to drop on a six.
00:28:52
Speaker
On a six, which is really like dropping an early Shadow King. I see so many people who play Shadow King drop him early. And you know it's because that's their best play, which isn't good, which makes you feel like they should have had a different card in their deck than Shadow King that they would have wanted to play early. Because you want to hold Shadow King back.
00:29:11
Speaker
And it's like there's just usually other things you want to do turn six. Because usually spending... Half of your energy that turn just to knock down like one of their cards isn't doing enough to fulfill your own strategy.
00:29:25
Speaker
So like yeah actually I actually, said I didn't play that much into the season, but I kind of did. It just wasn't on ladder. It was like messing around in and Proving Grounds and Silver Conquest being like, how do I out move?
00:29:39
Speaker
takeout move Because it's like normally, like I said, it's been it's been the thing that it's like, you know, it's a rodent of unusual size. i will I do not fear the swamps because I just don't run into them.
00:29:52
Speaker
But then you into them, know? so it's like now we got to build a deck to go a hunting. The first thing I tried to do, tried to get cute with an ongoing surfer.
00:30:05
Speaker
Yep, I've been down that road. I see the appeal. I couldn't do it. It's too many ideas. It didn't pan out well enough. did it we do Were you ever to ever able to make something like that work? No, it has never been good when I've tried to do it. But it's so tempting, right?
00:30:20
Speaker
And like Wong could do Surfer, Wong could do Spectrum. Don't you just love the options? isn't it Yeah. Right? All the same temptations. You're like, yeah, Wong could be good for all this stuff. You're holding back your stuff. You could even throw in a Shadow King to, like, plop down. yeah There's so many.
00:30:43
Speaker
then you play it and you're like, this didn't turn out how I hoped. That's been my experience. I tried that twice. Like, I was so into the idea. I'm like, well, maybe.
00:30:55
Speaker
don't Don't do it. Or if you do it, share. Okay. Okay.
00:31:02
Speaker
And, ah okay, so that was the first thing I tried. Then was like, okay, Sauron, right? Because Sauron is just big power that I can fit a Shadow King into you know what I mean?
00:31:15
Speaker
Hit them afterward. It won't affect, like, my power. um you know, maybe I'll take out a Hydra Stamper with an Enchantress at some point. And I actually, and so I was like, oh, let me just, I was going to build my own, I'm like, let me auto roll so it puts all the cards in it.
00:31:32
Speaker
Just take out for what I want, but it'll put in everything I want in it probably. And, ah but then I was intrigued because I think I'd seen, probably you've seen this deck running around. It's probably why it was auto because it's meta. It's one with like super giant with Soran and stuff. I'm like,
00:31:49
Speaker
What's this? Let me try it out. That was fun. was working, but, like, man, move when it hits its shit. It's still just going to be big. um And then was, like, third?
00:32:03
Speaker
I was, like, really going. I tried a version of my old sexy pile of cards deck where you, like, Lose Pryo the whole game. You skip, like, turn five. I put Warlock in it.
00:32:17
Speaker
Because, like, right? Warlock's a good fit. um And then you, ah and then like, you have a She-Hulk. You can win any one lane with a Valk She-Hulk, but you've maybe set things up to do around.
00:32:31
Speaker
The deck's never been good since Luke Cage, as good since Luke Cage. When it was at its peak, this was when Luke Cage was a 3-4 so he could win a Valk lane. He put him down early. And that like honestly, that change hurt this deck, I think, more than anything.
00:32:47
Speaker
That deck more than anything else, and they changed that. But it's like that it's really hard to beat move on its bullshit because it's like I I was building things to beat move.
00:33:00
Speaker
But it's like you have to like get where they're going to play their shit right. You have to have p pride in the right. There's so many factors to stop them. They're unstoppable. Stop the spiders.
00:33:11
Speaker
I'm like definitely one of the sinister six. Like we got it. Spiders. That's what I've been trying to do. I keep coming back with new weaponry. Will this do it? Nothing so far.
00:33:23
Speaker
I'm a villain losing. They're beating me. Okay. Anyway. Even if you land the Cosmo right, you've they've got Madam Web and Sparky. How? they're fine I've read Guardian, Madam Webbs right away to still like lose to other like big bullshit.
00:33:41
Speaker
The problem is the more you the harder you have to get your own power still. And like you can't just take out one of their pieces.
00:33:52
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I've been playing a lot. I'm just saying, I'm not saying I've always lost to move every game, but I haven't built a deck that I can confidently be like... It's like the Like when um playing my Existential Dread deck, which i'm sorry I forget, I was... For people that listen every week, it was like a Galactus First Steps Wiccan deck.
00:34:12
Speaker
But um when I was playing... i just lost my train of thought getting into... Side tracking to talk with Mercury. yeah Um.
00:34:29
Speaker
Totally lost it. We can call it lost.
Dominance of Move Decks: An Analysis
00:34:32
Speaker
I think Mercury is tough because you have to have her on curve or very near it. Right. Like you draw her on five or six. It's too late.
00:34:41
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, that's what I was going to say. so It was like Stardust. Like, like, as long as I get Stardust and I get it early enough, you know, or whatever. And i for gary it's just like, it'll be fine. And I can't say that confidently with anything and move.
00:34:59
Speaker
I don't know. Okay. Yeah. i Move is interesting because like there has been a lot of people playing it this week, right? like And i have i have won many matches against people playing Heimdall's they shouldn't have played.
00:35:13
Speaker
um Like, literally, if they just didn't play anything, they would have done better than if they played the Heimdall. And just...
00:35:26
Speaker
Yeah, i don't I don't know why move is such a hard deck to play, because I don't i don't think it takes that many reps these days. It definitely used to be a very hard deck, and I think like move balance probably is still a tricky deck. But stuff like Madam Web and Sparky have made move so much easier to play.
00:35:42
Speaker
Have they? I think they've in some ways made it like more complicated. ah Maybe the sequencing is tougher, which I guess is like that's the main problem with move. Maybe I've just finally played it enough that it's clicked for me. It's just like there are so many good things to do that will generate value.
00:36:00
Speaker
And like then you really like so much more of it now, I think, is about like restraint and thinking ahead and like not boxing yourself out of stuff. And like yeah for all of Sparky's flexibility, you can kind of like screw yourself sometimes.
00:36:16
Speaker
I don't know. and It's like it's it's ah an easy trap to fall into to play Torch too soon. I had that too. like Like, yeah, i but I burned all my enablers on Punk, and then I drew Torch on turn five. it's like i I wish I'd saved my enablers, because he's a bigger. all the enablers will get more mileage if you use them with Torch than with Dagger or Punk or whatever you're doing.
00:36:39
Speaker
Kind of makes me wonder if the right deck has got Crystal or Adam Warlock involved. I would be shocked if that were the right deck. I've seen Thursday Rock Crystal before. That's true. That's true. That's a good point.
00:36:53
Speaker
yeah I wonder how the move players all feel now that like it's meta. Is it like when like we then when nerdism became mainstream and it's like, oh, we're not in the shadows anymore?
00:37:04
Speaker
Are they just like, I was into it before it was cool? I mean, at the top of the ladder, move has been meta for months on end. Like, it's widely considered the best deck in the game for them. my my understanding is North America top ladder has like an agreement like we're not going to play move or cerebro against each other. Because they're just clearly the best decks in the game at that level of play.
00:37:27
Speaker
But there but like this is the point I'm getting at with like the bad Heimdalls and stuff like that. is like Move clearly in like the stats that Second Dinner sees. Move doesn't seem like that good of a deck or that big of a threat. They keep buffing it.
00:37:39
Speaker
They nerf Mercury and they buff Fanfei. feel like there's at least another one in there. um But obviously hitting hitting Mercury's cost was a big buff for for move. They just added some move cards to the game.
00:37:54
Speaker
Speaking of movement Cerebro things, I think my favorite game I played this week was one in which ah the Cerebro player I was against ah played a generated scream.
00:38:06
Speaker
And that was a big mistake because I just made the scream real big. i love that. That's my very brief story time. I love ruining a Cerebro like a Cerebro 2 with Valkyrie is very fun or just beating any Cerebro with Red Skull. But it's like, how often am I rocking Red Skull? Almost never.
00:38:24
Speaker
um Yeah, that's fun. The scream to to ruin their day. OK, anyway, already said the main thing about Punk before we even got to this section, which is seems like a good card, but ah just absolutely stuck under the shadow of Torch and will be until they do something about Torch.
00:38:44
Speaker
Yep. Okay. Super premium season pass also in Series 5 packs. Man Spider On reveal, merge the last card you played into this. When this merges, double its power.
00:38:58
Speaker
either of you get to play this or against it enough to... I've been playing against quite a few of them. Seems like a pretty popular card. I'm not surprised by that. What are you doing with it? Making him big. only seen it once or twice. Yeah.
00:39:11
Speaker
Making him big. I've been ah trying to cannonball them when I can.
00:39:19
Speaker
It's not much, but it's honest. weirdest The weirdest thing that has come up from Man Spider is apparently this change happened a while ago because it affects Penny also, but I had no idea that Penny was working this way.
00:39:34
Speaker
But they changed it so that merge abilities happen even if you're the card that's being merged in So like if Blob or Symbiose Spider-Man eat Penny, you get the extra energy. You get the energy.
00:39:49
Speaker
Oh, really? If Blob eats Man-Spider, he doubles immediately. And i think that actually counts towards his 13. But like it's... Anyway, the point is, if you Man-Spider and then Abs-Man...
00:40:01
Speaker
you double double. So it's a times four if you do that. I've seen lots of people doing like Ravonna stuff, which lets you do Man Spider and then Abs Man and then Taskmaster Urzola. um Which, yeah, it gets very, very big if somebody's not teched against you.
00:40:16
Speaker
um
00:40:19
Speaker
and don't know. he He does seem like a very strong card. I've seen some people having success with him. ah For me, when I was using him, I felt like that's when I was running into all the Shongs and Shadow Kings. And For the record, it's not because of deck-based matchmaking. It's because I was playing a card vulnerable to Shonger Shadow King. like It's so troubling that you even had to clarify that.
00:40:39
Speaker
um i know. I feel like our listeners are probably not the deck-based matchmaking people. I'd hope so. i hope um I hope that's not the audience we've cultivated.
00:40:50
Speaker
Well, anyway, I understand that a lot of people do think deck-based matchmaking is a thing. And
New Cards: Man Spider and Web Sling
00:40:57
Speaker
why? I'll just tell you, even when Sean was at the top of the meta, I almost never saw him because I don't play cards that are vulnerable to Sean.
00:41:05
Speaker
My opponent almost always had something better to do instead. Um. Okay. I don't know. He's interesting. I think they need to fix the merge thing. I think you should have to care about which card is the face up card in merge.
00:41:22
Speaker
Hmm. Really? ah kind of like that you don't. I don't like thing because as an opponent, and what I'm going to have click on stuff to see what happened there. like You know what I mean? like it less for blob, but more for Penny, right? like Shouldn't Penny be able to do the energy, whether she's the the the face card or the the underneath?
00:41:44
Speaker
I don't know. I feel like it's all about coordination and cooperation. and i don't I don't know. i like it for Penny, but I do agree, it seems...
00:41:56
Speaker
I don't know. there's There's something not cool about the blob thing. The other interaction you might see adjacent to this is if you if somebody plays Man Spider on Bar Sinister, it ends up at like 3200 power because it just gets a whole bunch of times force.
00:42:12
Speaker
Yep. um
00:42:16
Speaker
if you If you Zola a Man Spider and you played something in between them, Man Spider 2 ends or the Man Spider 3, I guess. The second copy ends up eating the first copy, which is like, it's kind of funny, but like, you can play around that. People will learn that you need to do it right after Man Spider so that the last card played is destroyed and there's no target anymore.
00:42:37
Speaker
um
00:42:40
Speaker
I don't know if this card's a problem, but I think it is very strong. i i I thought it would be, and it was. Okay.
00:42:51
Speaker
Superior Spider-Man Series 5. three four At the start of each turn, you get plus one energy if you have any cards with increased power in play.
00:43:03
Speaker
Thoughts from either of you? I'm seeing him around. I'm still not convinced that he's... ah ah Yeah, I don't know. I'm seeing him, but I don't feel threatened when I see him.
00:43:15
Speaker
i I get a good feeling is what happens when I see him. I don't think he's very good. yeah I actually think I got a really good read on him in that there are probably decks that like him, but it's decks that are getting green power anyway.
00:43:33
Speaker
If you're intentionally adding green power cards like Silver Sable or whatever to your deck in order to hit Superior Spider-Man... It's too much. Like, this is not a build around card. You should not be doing that.
00:43:45
Speaker
And so there might be a little handful of decks that like him, but like, it's very niche. Generally speaking, he is not going to be your best three cost ramper. There's like one project that has me thinking maybe I'll pick up this card.
00:43:58
Speaker
And that's because I think he might be friends with with my with my boy Jimmy. My boy Jimmy Hams. a I kind of feel like if I want to live the Jim Hammond life, it would be nice to have Superior Spider-Man around as an option, even if he doesn't always make the list, you know?
00:44:15
Speaker
but I'm just thinking, you know, they buff each other. Yeah. The cute together. There there's, there's some literal synergy afoot. I don't know.
00:44:30
Speaker
Read anything about superior Spider-Man. I have only seen, I mean, kind of just the same thing. I've only seen them, like, once or twice. And I remember it wasn't, like, yeah. It was, like, they didn't have trouble getting them off, but it didn't feel super threatening. And it was, they were, I mean, they were playing it in a deck, like, Bounce or so you know, somewhere with their little Silver Sable and whatever planned.
00:44:53
Speaker
i mean, maybe that's right. Like, that goes along with what I was saying, where it's, like, if it's a deck where you're playing Silver Sable anyway, or The Hunger anyway, like... Right? Yeah. That was my favorite. wasn't a bad card. I wasn't like, yay, I'll win because they're playing this card and it's that bad. It was just, it wasn't like an, oh no you know? Another of this stack. Yeah.
00:45:16
Speaker
I won't be surprised at all to see him get buffed. I think 3-4 is just not big enough for what he's doing. I agree. Yeah. Web sling.
00:45:28
Speaker
a Series four card, one cost skill on reveal next turn. You can move one of your cards away from here.
00:45:37
Speaker
This is the one I picked up. I haven't played it yet I'm honestly pretty surprised at how little of it I've seen across the board.
00:45:47
Speaker
I sort of thought everybody would be web-slinging, especially given the the popularity of Move these days. Although, that say you could play this in other other things, and I think there are some smart other things to do with it.
00:46:01
Speaker
But, yeah, I'm just surprised it's not been more widely adopted. I think there might have been a lot of people that skipped zombie cards. That was where I was looking at them. Like, I would love to have Web Sling, like, as a card.
00:46:15
Speaker
and But, like, when I looked at it, I'm like, oh, if rolled for it, I'm going to get this. I'm going to get a zombie card. And I don't, that was my problem with zombies. I've played against many, you know, pretty effective zombie decks. But you have to have, like, all the zombies, you know?
00:46:33
Speaker
And, ah yeah, don't. And I don't want to get them piecemeal, which seems like the way I will get them. And I didn't want to disappoint and get web sling. I have played against it. Like it was mostly in move decks where it is definitely effective. I mean, you know, it doesn't leave, it leaves space behind, but you want space and move and ah it gives you options, you know, on your next turn. So it seemed good the couple times i' played it. But you're right. I haven't seen like everyone having it either.
00:47:08
Speaker
I've played quite a lot of it. Two of the decks I used on the way to infinite rocked it Um, I think probably the best thing to do with it is to enable werewolf.
Upcoming Cards: Ezekiel Sims and Chameleon
00:47:19
Speaker
Um, But I did also like the option of, I mean, the move deck I was playing had Hercules involved. So I don't even know if this is relevant if Hercules isn't involved. But basically what I was doing is I'd have Madam Web down, Hercules down, and then I'd Web Sling the other lane.
00:47:36
Speaker
So wherever Torch ends up, I can move, like whether he ends up in the Web Sling lane or Madam Web lane, I can move him again next turn. um Gotcha. So like when he didn't go to the web sling lane, it really wasn't doing anything for me, but like it was insurance. It was a contingency plan.
00:47:53
Speaker
um You know where I've been most tempted to play this card, but haven't done it yet? I think it would be kind of cute in a surfer deck or really any deck where Captain Carter is the star of the dish. Because like shifting the contents of lane where like ah Captain Carter is not even in the front row yet.
00:48:15
Speaker
Or perhaps Captain Carter is moving to the front row of a different lane. Like I think there's a great deal of ambiguity that you can mine there. Yeah. It seems good that flexibility.
00:48:27
Speaker
It just seems cute. That seems really good, actually. You could do other little cute things. Like, put um like Captain America Sam Wilson in the deck, and like if you have nothing better to do, you could move um him wear the shield to get an extra. light i'm Both on the same turn. You know what mean? Just find a lot of little uses for it.
00:48:50
Speaker
I love little one-drop. like That's why it's so good, and it doesn't take up space. It's like like why Nico's so good. It's like, just throw in everything. You know?
00:49:01
Speaker
She is. I mean, definitely having a bunch of one-cost skills in the deck is great for things like the Raft or Castle Zemo Vormir. Like, there's tons of locations where it's relevant.
00:49:13
Speaker
There's a reason I'm shoving Merlin in everything all the time. Yeah. Yeah. You're often finding a little, like, room for one energy to fit somewhere in a turn. Yeah, that zombie werewolf skill heavy deck, like...
00:49:28
Speaker
ah it's pretty strong but also I would just like if you're looking for some ah new way to play the game it felt pretty novel being able to like I was literally moving werewolf like six times in a single turn just because my hand is full of ones it was kind of cool is um okay That's it for this week.
00:49:49
Speaker
just Just four cards. Just four. yeah Next week we have two. Ezekiel Sims in Series 5 is a 2-2. After you play a card with higher power here, give this plus two power and move this to another location.
00:50:07
Speaker
Just a quick vibe check on this card. How are you feeling about Ezekiel?
00:50:13
Speaker
might spend 6k on him. I'm going to get it because I like I like the ah like it's cool and I'm excited for whatever they buff it to.
00:50:24
Speaker
Also, huge flavor win as a fan of the character. Like that's actually his whole deal is um he's he's afraid of this this other character called Morlin, who's like this immortal.
00:50:38
Speaker
like not literally a vampire but like some sort of timeless vampire creature who feeds on animal totem people like like spider-man or a lot of spider-man villains or whatever you know like you know how spider-man's always fighting the scorpion the rhino so like this dude moreland is like i eat you all yeah yum yum yum and uh so ezekiel's like he feels like bad that he hasn't, you know, done anything cool with his great power except like run away all the goddamn time. And he's like, uh, Spider-Man, I'll build you a bunker and stuff. Just like hide out.
00:51:11
Speaker
Like I've been doing, this guy's got your scent. He's going to kill the fuck out of you. And, uh, Spider-Man just not, uh, he's, uh, not a coward like Ezekiel is. And, uh, so I, I like, I like that, uh, cowardice is built into Ezekiel's, uh, ability.
00:51:28
Speaker
and Anytime a bigger thing shows up, he runs away. ah Yeah. So big, big lore win for second dinner with with this card, I think.
00:51:40
Speaker
I just wish it were good. I like it. you Yeah, I don't know how good it is. Where I was at was I was looking, have enough to, I have like maybe 15k tokens or whatever right now.
00:51:50
Speaker
It's like have enough to get a new, I was looking at my options. And this is my problem. If I, when I just roll, like I was like, okay, if I just roll these, I'm likely to get a zombie card. It's not going to feel good because I don't have any of the other zombie cards except for zombie Scarlet Witch.
00:52:08
Speaker
So then I looked, I'm like, oh, I actually for now have season four and season five regular packs because I'm like that far behind on my collection now. But it's like, oh, it's Sparky and Jim Hammond and Fire Lord. And I'm like...
00:52:22
Speaker
I'm not feeling currently right now inspired for any of those cards. And I'm not like, you know, I'm not a big like all in on move, you know, where I like move. My favorite move is the werewolf bullshit. I love Silk, Batrock, the Leaper. I was so tempted to get there's a variant, new variant from him yesterday. was like, oh, no, I should hold off. I don't have that much gold. And then I immediately bought Fanface. Yeah.
00:52:49
Speaker
It's like, oh, this stuff happened and she looks so cool. I love a cool girl variant. Okay. I was also excited about the Batroc variant, but it's from one of those studios. i I don't trust those those dang studios.
00:53:03
Speaker
They just seem like it. I didn't even see who the studio was. I just thought she looked cool immediately. he is like I'm so impulsed. I think he's talking about Batroc. Yeah. oh bat rock Oh, the Batrock the Leaper variant. Okay. yes I would love the Batrock variant, but I would love for the artist to have a name that, you know.
00:53:22
Speaker
Yeah, that's where I was at. I was like, I try not to get one just because I really want a variant for that card. Because inevitably, whenever I do that, when a different variant, like more comes out later, it's like, oh, why'd you it? Because I have limited Go resources.
00:53:37
Speaker
So, um that i that I immediately spent on Fanfei that I never play. Okay. But I was looking at all these and I had been set on being the most efficient player.
00:53:51
Speaker
But I'm like, if have so many cards and I'm not feeling excited do love my Silk, Batrock, Hydra Stomp, or bullshit, I'm like, probably a lot of other people all right who aren't, unless the people who are just always collection complete, aren't going to get Ezekiel Sims. So, like, maybe I can have some fun. So I actually think I might drop the six on him for giggles.
00:54:17
Speaker
Sounds good. i'm I mean, that that does sound fun, but mostly i this card does not enthuse me at all. um Maybe it's the character. i I mean, I haven't read the comics, so maybe the comics where he appears, so maybe he's he's a great character.
00:54:38
Speaker
i have seen Madam Webber. is He is in Madam Web, not doing anything that has anything to do with the his appearance in the comics, is as I recall, but at least not the the comic appearance that I'm familiar with.
00:54:52
Speaker
His first one. In some ways, it's like kind of interesting, this like juxtaposition of... like super mobile guy wearing a suit but also like it kind of makes me uncomfy like i don't think you could do that in the suit maybe it's made out of special material and i think i think he doesn't wear shoes that's his thing i believe he's a barefoot lad i think he's barefoot in the movie too ah Okay, and then our other card, Series 4 next week. ah the reason The release schedule this week is funky. In fact, there's a card later coming to SnapPak.
00:55:26
Speaker
ah Yeah, to SnapPak. It's coming on like a Thursday. What is? Okay, this whole time. And I forgot that we could actually, like, look things up while on the show because I'm so singular focused. I'm like, oh, yeah, we can, like, live check.
00:55:39
Speaker
I'm like, it as when you were talking about Ezekiel Sims, Ben, I'm like, is he? Because I'm not familiar with him from the Spider-Man comics, but I'm like, is he the one behind Silk? Like,
00:55:50
Speaker
right hiding silk in a bunker and this whole time i'm like i think but i didn't want to say it and be wrong and i just looked it up and it's like ezekiel sims was like yes all right sorry yeah what a jerk um chameleon three three on reveal copy the text of another card here you revealed this turn vibe check are you excited about this card i am
OTA Updates: Impact on Game Balance
00:56:12
Speaker
yeah Yeah. not yet I'm also excited.
00:56:17
Speaker
yeah seem like copying cards.
00:56:21
Speaker
And it's cheaper than abs. But it's this turn! I keep forgetting that! It's so hard! This turn and this location is very restrictive.
00:56:32
Speaker
we We never compared him to this card when we were doing the season ratings and stuff, but like... How do we think Chameleon stacks up against Prodigy? That's who I think is the closest card, yeah.
00:56:45
Speaker
Prodigy's better because you don't have to play him on the same turn at a cost of three. Yes, But Chameleon, you don't have to play directly behind the other card. Mm-hmm.
00:56:57
Speaker
Easier for me to set up Prodigy, I feel like, or get good use out of Prodigy than have to play on the same turn. This means you're not playing him turn three.
00:57:08
Speaker
You're probably not playing him turn four because you don't want to copy a one-cost card. It's probably not strong enough for you to want to do that. Right? What one cost is going to be worth it? What one cost is going to be? Is it Spider-Ham?
00:57:21
Speaker
There's going to be instances where... ah like ah and But enough for a deck where you're going to put him in. a 3-3 Spider-Ham what you want to do?
00:57:36
Speaker
okay so so probably give me examples of the one-drops you want to play. Turn five or turn six. five or turns six And look how powerful Shadow King is in this meta and how much I was struggling to want to play him on turn six.
00:57:53
Speaker
It's like, I don't know, buddy chameleon. You're asking a lot from a girl here. don't know. He definitely is. But there are twos and threes that are worth copying. And as long as there are, I think he's going to be relevant. Right. Your cerebros, your yeah ah surfers, your Victoria. Those are the obvious ones.
00:58:15
Speaker
prodigy people were kind of cool on prodigy for a while and then eventually he became like oh this is a real card sometimes and same with chameleon um i think i think prodigy has miles more charm just like so much more charm i think is a very fun design that like yeah asks you to believe and to work with it and like meet it halfway i Where are you getting the strength?
00:58:42
Speaker
Okay, Prodigy is three cost, and look at the fucking strength you get out of copying Invisible Woman for Steps or Jocasta, or like those kind of cards, versus what you're going to be able to copy with Chameleon. Not an activate card on turn six that costs three. Yeah, you would need Ramp to pull off one of those two.
00:59:03
Speaker
Yeah, i I don't think he's going to be like amazing, but i there are decks that will want him. Yeah, I just think he's tricky. I'm not saying, you know, I want to be excited about an on reveal, but I still think for me, I'd be more likely to play an abs man for the kind of like Gwenpool shenanigans I want to do.
00:59:22
Speaker
Alright, we're going to talk about this week's OTA. It's one that we got some heads up on because they were trying to you know let people prepare for the Golden Gauntlet. But it has arrived. Debris goes from three three to three seven but no longer adds rocks to the opponent's side.
00:59:41
Speaker
What do you think? I feel like it's kind of bittersweet because like whenever they rework a card, this... you know fundamentally like, you know, just like changing its basic deal, you know, I feel, feel bad for the debris that was cause like that was a solid card design. I thought it was pretty cool.
01:00:04
Speaker
the you know, like the, the, the double edged thing. Yeah. Very, very interesting design. And the thing is I also like this new design.
01:00:15
Speaker
But, you know, I feel bad for the people who loved old debris because I'm sure they're out there. And ah personally, on a selfish note, as I mentioned earlier, If I can't put Merlin in it, I'm probably not interested in playing it in 2025.
01:00:32
Speaker
ah That's not true. I played discard decks without Merlin. But I love it when they play Debris um because ah ah that's a polymorph target. That's a once-in-future target.
01:00:44
Speaker
i
Card Reworks: Analyzing Meta Shifts
01:00:46
Speaker
they're They're not ready for me to be benefiting this much from those stupid little rocks. you know i i get excited when they play the Debris, and now I will no longer get to enjoy that.
01:00:59
Speaker
I think it's probably good for the health the game. Okay, I think debris has gotten more powerful because it is just more likely you're going to fill your board, you know, or and only leave like one spot open and that you need that spot.
01:01:17
Speaker
um And, know, and whenever they want I don't think they ever like kind of unjustly nerf clog. hmm. They sometimes add things to clog. I haven't really enjoyed clog, to be honest, that much since Annihilus came. Back from the old days.
01:01:35
Speaker
When you used to feel real clever in pulling off a Titania Green Goblin, you know? like... but like Uh, you know, I don't think so.
01:01:45
Speaker
I think it's good because clock is really unfun to play against, you know, so it's usually good to keep it to keep it a bit down. And debris is a powerful what's pretty much always going to be in any kind of Kolog deck you were playing. Playing a good one. And the new one, love that we're going one step ah closer to the, you know, the rock deck of my dreams with Rhino and whatever.
01:02:17
Speaker
don't know. It's such a dumb, I don't even know. It's like, I just want to put them all and put make a bunch of rocks. And it's like, what's even the point? i don't need I don't know. It doesn't do anything yet. It's like my island walk dream and in Magic the Gathering. Like, I don't know.
01:02:32
Speaker
It's stupid. don't want to do it. Anyway, so I'll probably play with her after this. Yeah. i I might actually. I'm more likely to play this version of Debris because, like, i'm I'm always looking for little bodies who can hang out behind Peggy, you know, or next to Peggy.
01:02:50
Speaker
i know, just ah i think i think it's a cool card. Yeah, i'm I'm excited about it but can bring back patriot surfer don't think it'll do that i don't think patriot is uh i don't i don't think patriot is making a comeback don't think patriot has a comeback in him i think patriot is uh done i'm tired doing it this week three seven is pretty real as far as stats go yeah um I will say, I also i feel bad for the people who love Debris, right? like Which is probably most Clog players, because like we were saying, most Clog decks are rocking Debris.
01:03:30
Speaker
However, i like Clog a lot, and my favorite Clog deck doesn't use Debris. So I don't think Clog is dead, and I've seen some people say that. The thing is, the strongest Clog thing has always been the Titania with Green Goblin or Acid Arrow or whatever. um That's always been the strongest thing to do And you can still do that.
01:03:48
Speaker
So... I think Clog's going to be fine. I think Clog will be extra fine if maybe this... You know, if if you nerf such a ah big... Like, a card that looms so large as Debris, does this maybe leave room for them to to buff some some familiar faces? Like, you're you're talking about the most powerful thing to do in Clog, and like...
01:04:13
Speaker
I recall there was a very powerful thing to do in clog once and that was play white widow. ah can we bring her back? I, I, ah I don't know.
01:04:25
Speaker
i don't know. wait deafening cord before we make a change to white widow. Yeah, I guess she's not good. She needs to change, but I feel like she was too good. She was for sure. She was for sure.
01:04:40
Speaker
she was for sure Misery goes four nine to 4-8. I think they said something in the notes about her being like consistently one of the best cards at high. Right? I wanted to bring that up.
01:04:53
Speaker
When you were talking about yeah about high end you know with move and stuff, this is one of the first times I feel like I've seen them call in the notes the vast discrepancy between high end players and like the player base at large. Yeah.
01:05:11
Speaker
But I agree with this nerf because mostly I'm playing her with people that like know how to use her. You know what I mean? And she's very powerful when used well. So like I'm happy to see her nerf, to be honest.
01:05:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think she is not. ah Hood, my understanding is Hood is one of the top performing cards in the game. And it doesn't need misery, but misery is a very big part of why Hood is good.
01:05:37
Speaker
She's a decent body on her own. It's such a wild stat line. yeah Right? Yeah, she's a good body. 4-8 is still very good. She's like, what if Venom was just big to begin with? And you're like, fuck yeah, I'll play a Venom that's big to begin with.
01:05:53
Speaker
Anyway. okay Cosmic Ghost Rider, 5-7 to 5-6. I'm happy to see this change. He's one of the holdout strongest tech cards in the game.
01:06:04
Speaker
I think he'll probably still be fine. okay the i'm I'm less excited about this one. I kind of think he deserves that 5-7 stat line.
01:06:14
Speaker
That's what I think. Right? This is the nerfed
01:06:24
Speaker
Elias and ah Negasonic Teenage Warhead, right? Those both came out of the deck. It's like this deck is no longer it is. Now I'm concerned. Like this has already been happening with the deck.
01:06:38
Speaker
It's one reason I put Agent Coulson in because I needed more power that I could potentially play out because these cards were getting nerfed and I couldn't... Honestly, Negasonic would still be good, except for I just really needed her to be, she really needs to be a three for that deck.
01:06:55
Speaker
And now with him to six, I'm wondering if I'm just, like, the whole deck, like, is the deck just, like, a different... You know what i mean? Like, do I need to like kind of, well, it's core was tech.
01:07:08
Speaker
Like they continue the march. They said they wanted to focus like less on like tech, on people being able to just play a bunch of good cards tech.
01:07:19
Speaker
And I didn't realize until now how much I just play a bunch of good cards tech all the time. A lot of the time with lot of the things I do because it is being taken away from me.
01:07:31
Speaker
And now I don't know do I hurt move when you take away all my cards. And that's what it feels like. I'm like, I don't like existential judge was the first kind of homey deck since like,
01:07:46
Speaker
um You know, since like Storm, Nebula, Discard, Dracula, you know, and now that's going away. And it's like, what is my comfort if I am not if we if I'm not like playing some kind of silly thing with enough tech to take down whatever I'm up against?
01:08:05
Speaker
It's like, well, now I can't do that. Now I need to also be all in. on the most power. And that's almost never how I've played on trying to hit on just like max power. I'm trying to do shenanigans. I'm a Trixie Hobbit kind of player, you know? uh,
01:08:24
Speaker
I don't know. Someone plays a lot of these cards. conversation is like absolutely critical to the future of Snap, right? and And I've seen other players like you, Ri, who like the good cards, add in some tech to be able to manage the combo decks or whatever.
01:08:41
Speaker
When I was on Snap Judgments last week, Pulse brought up an interesting idea that was like,
01:08:48
Speaker
the The genie's probably out of the bottle, but the problem is there's too many tech cards. When it was down to like three main tech cards that were all strong and generically strong, that was okay because you could play around them.
01:09:02
Speaker
right like you you You knew that the big ones to play around were Shang and Enchantress and whatever. Now there are so many. very hard to play around every single one of them.
01:09:18
Speaker
It's an interesting challenge because I'm a combo player, but I don't want and don't want the game to devolve into the best deck is always the combo deck that can go the tallest. Right.
01:09:30
Speaker
Yeah. And I also don't want to see only other, like, you know, just be playing against other all tech decks, you know? Like, I don't know where the middle ground is there. That's an interesting um side of it. I hadn't thought about
01:09:47
Speaker
is There is so much more tech. And Ghost Rider was good. like a Cosmic Ghost Rider. I feel like you guys were dogging him, but I always was using him to good effect. he He is good. He's better than I expected he would be. And I, yeah, I've enjoyed playing him in my Jim Hammond deck and stuff. I just, I don't think he needs this nerf. like That's what I'm saying. I don't know if he's good enough now. I'm like, good for you. You did it. i left, I, you know, like...
01:10:19
Speaker
i I'm not always like worrying about Cosmic Ghost Rider. If I think they have Cosmic Ghost Rider, sure, I'll worry. i'll I'll dedicate a stray thought point to to Cosmic Ghost Rider or whatever. But like, I don't know, he should be five seven That's like, that's an effect that doesn't always get you something. No, he's not Legion anymore.
01:10:37
Speaker
you know Right? he's Yeah. I feel like he deserves Legion's stat line. That's kind of like his his level. and I think that the cards should make sense. And like the sense-making stat line for Cosmic Ghost Rider is not 5-6. I think and think there's no reason to... I don't feel comfortable playing a 5-6 that might not do something, you know?
01:11:02
Speaker
Right. I'm okay if there's some like I am as a combo player, I'm very often doing combos. Tech is not my best friend, but I like how it manages the meta.
01:11:12
Speaker
And I don't think five, seven cosmic ghostwriter was too strong. So I think it's interesting they picked on him, but yeah, I don't know. Maybe, maybe they saw it in the data. Maybe he is you know, pulling more weight than he should be or something.
01:11:26
Speaker
okay i'm gonna lump four of the next ones together because they're all just one power buffs vision goes five eight to five nine first ghost writer two six to so two seven um baku from one two to one three and hydra stomper we're buffing move from three two to three three any specific thoughts about any of those do any of them feel risky to you and No.
01:11:52
Speaker
ah Maybe Vision. i don't I don't think Vision deserves the 5-9 stat line. really yeah oh Really? I was going to say, of all of these, Vision is the only one I'm still not super tempted to play because I don't know.
01:12:09
Speaker
I guess if you're trying to lock Jom out, right? That's where I see it. Okay, never mind. I don't see that many Visions. that many visions That's where I've seen him in the Storm Legion decks.
01:12:22
Speaker
People are lockjawing him out. And it's like, oh, it is kind of nice to get that ah vision out on turn three if you're like... doing stuff, moving stuff around. Man, 2.7 so... I remember I had fun with Ghost Rider, whatever I built with him. I don't even remember what it was, but now I'm like, oh, now he's even bigger. kind of want to get back to that.
01:12:46
Speaker
And Baku, I've always meant to mess around with. It's the ultimate meme to play with. I just have never... just never gotten around to it. He's always felt so like...
01:12:59
Speaker
particular, you know? Because it's like my goal when I'm building a deck for card is to not make that the most cuttable card. And it felt like that was going to be real, real hard with him.
01:13:11
Speaker
There's two places for M'Baku. It's Cerebro 3 or anything with Blink. I know. I hate Cerebro. Okay. I'm still not even sure he goes in anything with... I mean, that's a whole card slot for...
01:13:25
Speaker
I mean, i know i know you get you get extra value in the blink situations and stuff. And it's just like, i don't know. 12 cards, and one of them is M'Baku.
01:13:38
Speaker
But yeah, of of these four cards that like moved, there are two of these cards that I do play. I do play the first Ghost Rider, and I do play Hydra Stomper, and i think it's a great change to Hydra Stomper, a card that all way like already can get big enough, but like I think the floor should be one higher. I think this was good and correct.
01:13:58
Speaker
I also like Yeah, and I think that the first Ghost Rider can safely have that extra point of power. And it's good for there to be good two-cost things, especially since they decided that we can't have Colleen.
01:14:15
Speaker
um You know? Yeah. All right. One more, a rework. Fanfei goes from 4-7... She just moves your cards to the right. Now she's a 4-4. You activate her. Your other cards get plus one power before moving them to the right.
01:14:35
Speaker
You don't like this make more Torch-centric. Yes. more more Let's buff them while we move them. ah There's only one card that cares about that, and it's Human Torch. getting like No.
01:14:46
Speaker
i don't like this. i I wish they made her three costs so we could do surfer things with her. Yeah.
01:14:56
Speaker
I don't think this is a good or interesting change. That's what I think. Interesting. I thought maybe it would be better, but like... Yeah, I don't know what I would want to do with her. think it's buff. only thing it's better with is Torch.
01:15:11
Speaker
It's not necessarily true. like She spreads her power now, right? She's like a little baby claw. Yeah, I guess that's a little bit interesting, but I don't like that she's like prescriptive, like, well, you should be playing Torch with me.
01:15:29
Speaker
and I think if fewer cards were like, you should be playing Torch with me, maybe we'd see fewer torches in the game would be more interesting. it would It also, this change does something I don't like about it. It makes it harder to do the cute thing where you're like, am I going to proc Fanfay?
01:15:46
Speaker
like Like, if you don't rock her, she's just a 4-4. You've left money on the table. yeah hu I really think they should have made her a 3, and then we could at least be doing, like, fun Red Wing surfer.
01:16:01
Speaker
No, bullshittery. Or silly Peggy stuff. Yeah, let us have fun. Second dinner. yeah
Creative Inspirations: Personal Projects
01:16:09
Speaker
Why can't make it a fool We are going to move on to this week's side quests.
01:16:16
Speaker
First up and only secret homework. I assigned the secret homework and it was ah very general, but I thought, I thought fun to let a favorite card in the game inspire you. Take a card you love and do something inspired by that card this week.
01:16:33
Speaker
I picked the card Mysterio, who is not really explicitly a magician, but is some sort of illusionist. Does like movie effects. He's a special effects artist. Yeah. Yeah. But that involves all kinds of illusion. And so i taught myself an illusion this week, which is not going to be great for audio. It's not going be bad for audio. It's just going to be better on video.
01:16:53
Speaker
So I have, hopefully, hopefully it's going to work. I have a coin. yeah. have somewhat been practicing this, but also, like, I don't have experience as a sleight-of-hand magician, so this is this is new to me. It's a coin.
01:17:06
Speaker
And I'm going to vanish the coin. Because this is inspired by Mysterio. This coin!
01:17:19
Speaker
Wow. I don't know how that how that showed off, but I mildly impressed my wife and child with that this week. And, you know, maybe in the future I can impress a niece with it. So... I'm impressed. That's what I did for the secret homework.
01:17:34
Speaker
um Ben. That's amazing.
01:17:41
Speaker
Well, um for this week's secret homework, I wasn't really sure, like, which of my favorite cards was going to inspire me. So I looked a little further ahead.
01:17:53
Speaker
In this season, not a card that I'm like expecting to play or anything, but a card that is definitely coming out. Morris bench hydro, man. And, uh, I don't know if y'all y'all know, but it's been a little rainy where I've been living in the past week and I do a lot of walking.
01:18:12
Speaker
So I did some walking in the rain to be close to hydro, man. And also, It was a lot of mud and puddles, and I was reminded of Hydro Man's mud monster so incident with Sandman. So and in that way, I was close to Hydro Man. Also, another thing I did this week, last night, I watched Fantastic Four First Steps on Disney+. plus And I was thinking about Human Torch First Steps. He has ah has a moment of self-awareness in the in the film that I liked.
01:18:44
Speaker
when he's like, he knows how he will be received when ah when he's talking about the Silver Surfer, because because like he knows that they know that Johnny loves space and Johnny loves beautiful women. And so, like of course, he's going to be fascinated by the the naked lady from space.
01:19:04
Speaker
um And that reminded me, of course, of the classic Jamiroquai song, Cosmic Girl. So I listened to that. It's a great song.
01:19:16
Speaker
uh, lots of corny sci-fi references and things. Hey, I'm not here to defend Jamiroquai's name or the stupid hats. Um,
01:19:28
Speaker
But I will defend the music. ah they got They got some bangers. Yeah. So that's what I did. I walked in the rain and listened to Cosmic Girl. And ah that's that's how I got close to my my well-known favorite cards, Human Torch First Steps and Hydro Man, the cards that everyone associates with me.
01:19:47
Speaker
So, um yeah. ah you you You could say I didn't do a great job this week. And I would be saying it with you. No, but but's the brain that totally counts as being inspired.
01:20:00
Speaker
i wish I had more rain to walk in. Rhi, what'd you do this week? Okay, I did love the secret homework. It's exactly the kind of ah shenanigans I love.
01:20:14
Speaker
um For some reason, it popped into my head pretty early what I wanted to do. And I guess I got excited about that and I didn't think as much about... ah The sharing of it.
01:20:26
Speaker
But wanted to do something, something I haven't done in a long time that was really meaningful to me when I was younger, because I used to like write a lot of i used to write a lot of poetry um and read it And um when I was younger, like, I loved – it was an interesting journey because, like, I loved Edgar Allan Poe.
01:20:51
Speaker
I still do. My favorite poem probably ever, I'd still probably say, is Dream Within a Dream. i know I'm, like, an emo sucker. But like, you know, and when I first started, when I was like a teenager and I was like in like fifth grade or whatever, writing like stupid poetry about my teenage feelings.
01:21:11
Speaker
and fantasies or what I thought was good poetry. I was usually like being really into ah like everything i was trying to make a sonnet or a villanelle, you know, using iamic pentameter, like right fitting a form.
01:21:29
Speaker
ands And it and I would do like there was like like some stupid poem I wrote when I was young. It was like about how like, you know, day and night loved each other and they they couldn't be together. But like they would meet for one moment. and that would be like, closes we call the dawn, you know?
01:21:46
Speaker
Yeah. Like, know, kind of like dumb ti stuff that you think is like. Like it's like the subreddit, like I'm 14 and this is good enough for but all all sorts of, yeah I don't know I think, i think, i think it's fine.
01:22:00
Speaker
That's what I think. Don't beat yourself up. Oh, no, but that's what I'm saying. Not even teenage But would write to the specific form, and then I like, immediately, I'd, like, want to show my friends and stuff and, like, be like, look at this, like, poem I wrote. But then, you know, and I kind of fell off, and I took a poetry writing class in college, and I was, like, with other people then who were also, like, writing, who, like, liked to write poetry.
01:22:27
Speaker
Which is really classic. Me would sign up for this class because they were interested. that's where I started. I never respected like... William Carlos Williams stuff before, you know, I was always into this very formulaic, very like, whole like, you know, of of like set rhymes and stuff. But I started really learning to respect other kinds of poetry and my own changed where I started breaking like down form and stop caring. And I started finding my own format.
01:22:59
Speaker
of like things that would like just make a structure to myself to the poem itself and not like adhering and i stopped like kind of sharing any of it like the last several poems i don't write much over the years like they became very like personal things that i just wouldn't share with anyone and they would like have this like raw edge for me because i would write them it would be like thartic experience where it's like Going back, it's like, oh, I feel like i hadn't, like, finished them. I didn't make them. It's not like when I'm writing something and I'm trying to make a finished work and working on a game. it was like like, you know, going out on, like, a drinking binge or something.
01:23:39
Speaker
Like, you just getting it all out there. And then what's there is, like, there. And it's, like, done. And it's just – it's a very, like, therapeutic experience. so I wanted to say – you know, like if you need like an outlet and like I said, it's, it doesn't even have to be sharing with anyone. It's like, it takes, you know, I talked about like, Oh, like having a while loop in my brain earlier, but like sometimes when I have like the, like the emotions that lead to like, you know, repetitive thinking, like working on poetry is the kind of thing that can take that feeling and like channel it into something that is,
01:24:17
Speaker
you know, less destructive than like negative repetitive thinking or something. So I just wanted to recommend it. If, you know, it may sound silly or whatever, and you may not, like, I want to get back into reading more or something, but like just writing it as a way to like process feelings you're having about events or anything is just like, you know, um,
01:24:43
Speaker
ah worthwhile like don't like i can't stick with journaling occasionally i just get out there and like write something that is not for anyone to read you know treat some of those things anyway just saying as a recommendation so i did i did it earlier today i wrote i wrote a poem um called scarlet it's about scarlet witch because i think she's a really fascinating character Like, I don't know. it's like
Soundtrack Assignment: Spider Season Themes
01:25:11
Speaker
i It's like, I don't know. I can maybe share in the Discord. I've never, like, read my poetry out loud. So don't know if that, like, will, like, translate well podcasts. I didn't think I was so excited to just do it. Like, I was so inspired by Lauren because it's like, love...
01:25:28
Speaker
I don't know. love doing stupid stuff like that. Like i when I was younger, I got this like pack of like cardcapped or Sakura cards, like, you know, and I used to like, when was younger, try to like, I would like carry like put one in like my backpack, like for like, for like college, someone's older than would think I would be for this kind of stuff to be like, you know, like carry the strength of that card or like try and channel it to like,
01:25:54
Speaker
You know, just like a little bit of like mind magic anyway. So, and I like you're that homework to me felt like that kind of like, you know, i don't know, find magic in the ordinary. Why not?
01:26:06
Speaker
Love that. Okay. Well, if that's all you've got, I would love to see your poem, if not hear it, but what is next week's homework? Okay, um so I was thinking, for Spider season, what I want is I want us to all make a soundtrack for it. Because it's like, you know, the spiders are cool. Spider punk is cool.
01:26:33
Speaker
Spider punk is punk. Punk is music. So the challenge is make 10 song playlist. One song, like, for each character that's getting released. So it to be, like, song representing that character. Spider-Punk.
01:26:48
Speaker
This is the order because we can't, like, title it. Spider-Punk, Man-Spider, Superior Spider-Man, Ezekiel Sim, Spider-Man Noir, Prowler, Web Sling, Chameleon, Deafening Chord, and then Hydro-Man.
01:27:02
Speaker
so
Portrayal of Female Characters in Comics
01:27:03
Speaker
um because I because realized I was making this list. We've got i don't think we have any ladies. There are no women. And like, that's a bummer.
01:27:14
Speaker
And also like, oh
01:27:18
Speaker
Oh, okay. Remember, we were talking in like our podcast chat. I saw Lauren, you know, me and Ben came to learn like the orphan children. We are like, please, can we have the season pass?
01:27:32
Speaker
ah And Lauren is like, yes, children. Anyway, and I was looking through the season pass. Lauren offered. She didn't make us beg. That's not how it went down, Rhi.
01:27:43
Speaker
It didn't go down like that at all. You know, it
01:27:50
Speaker
That's how picture it in my head in anyway. That's very telling.
01:27:58
Speaker
No, I was scrolling through. I was looking and I saw the Silk avatar first. And I was like, I was hype. I'm like, oh, we have a Silk. Because I hadn't like watched the not been on top of my podcast duties. hey I played more Snap this week.
01:28:13
Speaker
But like, you know, and then I scrolled down and I saw the variant and the silk variant is such a like, you know, it's the curse of of the like double tits, double ass. We're looking at the front and the back at the same time. All parts must be shown in a way that like yoga cannot achieve.
01:28:36
Speaker
i don't know. Yoga can probably achieve a lot of things just because I'm not capable. So I shouldn't say that. But like, I was just like picturing this, like, I'm like, do you think the spider women have to get together before each like spider season and be like, all right, one of us must be the porn variant sacrifice.
01:28:59
Speaker
It would definitely be like spider, like ghost spiders stepping up like I again, ah again will take on this burden and be the porn variant that we that the rest of you may just be cool girl variants.
01:29:14
Speaker
And it's just like, Silk is like, no, not this time. It's been too many times, Spider-Gwen. You can be the cool girl variant. I will be the porn variant this season. And it's just like, I don't know.
01:29:27
Speaker
It's just like Jessica. Jessica Drew is just like, just like in a, oh, it's that like meme with the, like the two people talking and he's like in the hood and he's like,
01:29:38
Speaker
Fools. It's just like, if you're familiar, Jessica Drew has this infamous cover that's, like, very sexualized. Like, if you see, like, Spider... Spider-Man's, like, Ash Cheeks, all the jokes that are going around about that right now on the internet.
01:29:57
Speaker
I don't know if the... I don't think the internet's the same for all of us. But I've seen lot of Peter Parker, like, butt cheek memes, like, like made for... It's the whole, like... Made for gamers, made for activists.
01:30:10
Speaker
And it's just various male characters. am familiar with that. Very sexified butts, you know. lot of Peter Parker-esque cheeks. Okay. And it's like, but I think, like, someone that comes back to this this variant cover, ah this overly sexualized variant cover of Jessica Jones, in which her anatomy is, like, insane. Like, she's not a blob woman. She's a spider woman, you know.
01:30:36
Speaker
anyway Anyway. All right. Okay. i got to wait off topic. But the bonus is three extra songs representing the variants just so we can have songs for them That is Ghost Spider, Silk, and then Black Hat. She got that web shop variant.
01:30:55
Speaker
So up to 13 for bonus. Awesome.
Listener Engagement and Upcoming Content Teasers
01:30:59
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Well, that sounds fun. Well, listener, viewer, if you liked what you heard or saw and haven't already, like and subscribe, write and review on ite iTunes or Spotify, leave a comment on YouTube or Spotify, or come hang out with us indit on Discord in the speakeasy.
01:31:19
Speaker
our little corner of the snap judgments league discord server. There are instructions to get there in the show notes or video description. ah if you'd like to, or we're proudly part of the snap judgments network where you can listen to other great shows like snap decisions from Joe on Mondays.
01:31:37
Speaker
And, uh, if you want to see, if you want to hear about all the cute things we're doing with, that we will surely be doing with Ezekiel Sims and Chameleon. Tune in next week.
01:31:50
Speaker
Same Snap time,
Justice League Red: Comic Exploration
01:31:51
Speaker
same Snap channel. Yay, guitars. Now you can tell us about the comic. Yeah.
01:32:00
Speaker
Are you sure? Oh, it's like a whole thing. Maybe I should just save it. Oh, all the more reason. Pull the trig.
01:32:08
Speaker
um Okay. Okay. I did. read I read it like a couple of days ago. That's why I'm so hype on it. Okay. You wouldn't believe this. I didn't believe it going in. The title is Justice League Red.
01:32:22
Speaker
And like, here's another reason I like to premise all my excitement about comics about why you should not excited about comics. But I was looking this and I was just kind of like, all right, you know, we'll see.
01:32:33
Speaker
Here's the cast of characters. Okay. we have Green Lantern, Simon Baz. Okay. And Simon Baz is a newer Green Lantern. He's one of the newest ones created. he had the curse of being created simultaneously with the Green Lantern, Jessica Cruz. Okay.
01:32:53
Speaker
You may have seen her around. Here's the thing. First of all, his name is Simon Baz and her name is Jessica Cruz, which already sounds like like some hot actress. You like should know who it is, but you don't.
01:33:05
Speaker
That's what it sounds like to me. And um she's got that going for And her design is she's got like a cool like green lantern, like clear monocle, techie-looking thing. right so like And you know how good... like Like a cool design brought Gwen Stacy back from the dead.
01:33:25
Speaker
That's what a cool design will do for you. And Jessica Cruz had a cool design and her character had a whole thing. Where like, um like she has like severe anxiety. um I'm forgetting the name. It's one where don't like agoraphobia. You don't want to go outside at all.
01:33:44
Speaker
Become a shut in. and it's like, I don't know. A lot of people can relate to some level of anxiety. It's a good kind of, you know, character gimmick for a Green Lantern.
01:33:55
Speaker
So like... You know, in their relationship with willpower and, you know, like you'd think they'd all have interesting mental health diagnoses. So she is not the character in this.
01:34:10
Speaker
It is Simon Baz, the other character is cool and that he is ah like one of the first don't to say one of the first because there's so many characters, but that I'm familiar with, like Arabic character and like, but he, they didn't give him like a super cool storyline. He's like really into his like gun and like, what? Anyway, he just, he mostly got screwed over in that he didn't have an interesting and enough storyline compared to Jessica Cruz.
01:34:46
Speaker
So like, um he's one character in this. Another character, Power Girl. Right. Who it's like, I've never been that into Power Girl.
01:34:57
Speaker
One of my good friends is like really into Supergirl in a way that she's like necessarily not that into Power Girl. And out of like sistership, I also sympathetically and more into Supergirl.
01:35:13
Speaker
So that's another character. And, you know, known like, having a big rack, right? It's been, like, a problem. and he It's just, like, what her character's been known for, right? She's another character. Have they redesigned her costume in recent years, or is it still the boob window? Like, the boob window.
01:35:37
Speaker
i I know. I think now it's fully, it's it's obviously as tight as possible, but full coverage. Okay. That's where at in the design. That's step in the right direction.
01:35:50
Speaker
Okay, yeah. So, and then we have um Cyborg, is like, you know, Cyborg's a cool character. still mostly 9 for Teen Titans. I have read some Cyborg.
01:36:03
Speaker
haven't read, like, I've read even some solo Cyborg. hasn't had, like, the coolest arc yet that I've been, like, you know, able to recommend. And so, you know, I look at the cover it with this cast of characters and a big central character who is Red Tornado.
01:36:20
Speaker
And someone's going to get very mad when I just want to simplify so we can move on by describing Red Tornado. I think like DC's vision themed in red colors.
01:36:32
Speaker
Robot, you know, cape kind of stuff. Just, you know, think of it that way. And so I was kind like, okay, what's this about? Oh, my gosh. So and the writer Saladin Ahmed. I'm sorry. i like say and I feel like I say everything the worst because it's usually the first time I've ever said it out loud.
01:36:52
Speaker
We've all been there. um And I've read stuff before and I feel like it's all been like fine, you know, just kind of made nothing that I've like thrown out to recommend yet, but nothing that's been terrible. But like this is like got my attention. It's this cast of characters.
01:37:11
Speaker
Okay, they go in and it's like Red Tornado recruits... ah um Power Girl and ah Simon Baz.
01:37:25
Speaker
And he's like, okay, you like you guys, you can't tell. We have to save like everyone. you can't tell You can't tell the rest of the Justice League. If you tell them like every everything you know will end.
01:37:38
Speaker
um But I need you here. Here's the thing. I've been tracking all these like predictive algorithms and they're like, Red Tornado, you know, predictive algorithms are only
01:37:52
Speaker
liable you can't link And get lost in those. And he's like, okay, yes, I know. I i i so know that, okay. But also, I do know. I do know that the Justice League reformed, they just reformed. You know how the Justice League does. They're on, they're off again, they're on, they're off again. Now they're on an on-again phase.
01:38:10
Speaker
They were just on an off-again phase. He's like, but they reformed and all this, like, power is centralized. It's going to have all these consequences, like, unknown. It's it's setting them getting together, setting an ah into motion all of these, like, events that will, like, cause the doom of everything. And if they're made aware of them, like, like you know, people will, like, die and stuff. And they're like, okay, okay, Redd.
01:38:37
Speaker
He's like, no, you have to go like right now and go like kill this this robot um because um like it's going to set in motion things and it's a big weapon. All right. So they go Power Girl and Simon Baz do it.
01:38:56
Speaker
It's kind of embarrassing. They kind of like B team it. They're not used to like teaming up. um And they're like, okay, well, no one but us saw that. So as long as we're quiet, it's all good.
01:39:07
Speaker
But like, they destroy it. And they're just like, oh, fuck, this is like an agricultural machine. This isn't like war weapon. So they storm back to like Red Tornado.
01:39:19
Speaker
He's like, I know, but like I needed you guys to go then. And I couldn't explain. But he's like, when they brought it, enables them to like go to this other world. And then they use this weapon as the last defense. And then that effect, and he like kind of explains it.
01:39:35
Speaker
And he says some things that like do make sense. And it's like of like, I'm kind of reading this. I'm like, it does kind of make sense. bunch of really powerful people getting together, making all the decisions, you know, it's like there's kind of this undercurrent.
01:39:54
Speaker
But this guy's obviously like, like, and it's a red tornado, right? So this is like, like this, like I said, compared to vision, it's like they're coming to the sky. And it's like,
01:40:05
Speaker
He may not be all human, but he's a good dude, right? He's doing all this. Yeah, I know Red Tornado as the guy who was looking after justice when I was reading that. He was the voice of reason for these kooky kids. Right?
01:40:22
Speaker
A voice of reason. This is a red tornado, know? he's telling them, he's like, I know. he's like, I can't stop you and I won't stop you if you're going to tell the rest of the Justice League.
01:40:35
Speaker
But like, please listen to me. Like, this is, I know i am trying... to we we can avert all these timelines. He sent like Cyborg on a mission to like steal something that he didn't realize he was wrongfully stealing, you know, and stuff. And he's like, we've averted all this time. There's just one that's just creeping toward this invasion of apocalypse. And I can't, you know, prevent. And he's like clearly in distress and like, and they're like, like,
01:41:00
Speaker
like Red tornado. And he's like, okay, no, you guys have to go right now or red canary is going to die. And he like pops up this visual and they see like red canary has been kidnapped by like. Is a red one now?
01:41:14
Speaker
Yeah, I guess. Like, I have been not, like, she, I think, came about in other comics recently that I haven't read. i know the black one. She's a red canary. She's just a martial artist. She doesn't have superpowers.
01:41:26
Speaker
She doesn't shriek. But she'd been captured by the old Titan villains, like the the ah Brethren of the Blood. I haven't read as much of the Titans before. um brother blood. And so like, um and Cyborg is like, well, fuck, you know, we gotta to go. So they go to save her and they're like, but they're like, okay, we'll go. But Power Girl's staying right here to talk the fuck to you, Red Tornado.
01:41:48
Speaker
You know what I mean? Because they all realize he's like, lie to them. And he any he's going on. And so she's like, tornado, like predictive algorithms. He's like, no, I've been doing this nonstop. And he's like, but this is part of why I need you here because I worried I'm losing my humanity. So I need you. You don't understand how important this is. And he's like, so desperate to get them to see this.
01:42:11
Speaker
And then he's like, okay. He's like, okay, before you say anything, let me show this card. This is brutal. And they're like, Kara, is that you? that you? And she's like, is that my dead fucking parents?
01:42:24
Speaker
And he's like, yes, I opened a time portal. Like, you know, and they're like, Kara, like we've met you. We can see you've grown into a strong, beautiful woman. And she's like, what the fuck is happening?
01:42:35
Speaker
And he's like, talk to, you know, you can talk to them for a few minutes or an And she's like, no, first I'm going to talk to you fucking you, Red Tornado. And he closes the door.
01:42:45
Speaker
He's like, okay, I don't know if we can get that back. He's like, I was doing this for you show you, to give you something back for everything that you're doing. And she's like, oh,
01:42:56
Speaker
And it's just like, there's so, he pulls such a good tension of like... Like, how much is Red Tornado actually, like, on to something?
01:43:08
Speaker
And, like, clearly fucked up. He's very, like, the conspiracy meme from, like, Homeland, the lady with, like, the equation, you know?
01:43:18
Speaker
So anyway, it's just, like, it's just hooked me into this, like, this premise. And it's so amazing with this cast of characters I didn't honestly care that much about. And I'm so, like, I'm just, so i'm I'm in for the ride.
01:43:33
Speaker
Anyway, I was excited for it. Very cool. Thanks for sharing. A nice, nice tidy ending. yeah okay yeah you do and nice nice tidy ending