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85: You Just Got M'Baku'd
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♟️🧐 Did all of Kang’s horsemen and all of Kang’s mien make this April Fools Grande? (spoilers: yaaasss, queen!) 🙌🎉
For our esteemed listeners’ consideration:
- Ozymandias 🪨 Selene Horseman of Famine 🪨🪨
- 🐫 Rama-Tut
- 🌮 Arena Grande 🌮
- April Season Rankings ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- 🫰 Weeks in Snap!!
- Secret Homework ⁉️
Video version on YouTube.
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 - Supergiant Surfer
- Ben - Snowball Surfer
- Bryantts24 Surfer
- Ben - Rocks Rock
- Rie - To Me My M'Baku
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 / Big Question
- 0:02:56 Ozymandias / Selene, Horseman of Famine
- 0:06:42 Rama-Tut
- 0:11:57 Arena Grande
- 0:27:06 April Card Ratings
- 1:38:21 Our Week in Snap
- 2:02:27 Next Week's Secret Homework: This Week's Secret Homework
- 2:03:46 Housekeeping / Closing Remarks
Recommended
Transcript
Welcome and Introduction to Infinity Spin
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to Snap on This, a Marvel Snap podcast. This week's secret homework, Infinity Spin. I'm your host, Lauren Rodevs, here with my usual amazing, delightful co-hosts. First up this week, it's Rhi.
Desert Island Video Game Choices
00:00:13
Speaker
Rhi, the magical fairy that asks us questions every week, has is teleporting you to an island and is giving you like seconds to choose what is your desert island video game.
00:00:28
Speaker
And if it helps you feel better, she'll let you she'll come back in 24 hours for a second pick and you'll have time to think about that one. But one of them you have to pick right now. FF14. OK. okay Yeah. MMO.
00:00:40
Speaker
Hopefully you have another 10 years. They've promised another 10 years. I'm set. I hope you have an Internet connection. have electricity, so I assume. Can the fairy repeat the question?
00:00:55
Speaker
you're being transported to a desert island you you have to pick your one desert island video game but if it helps she'll come back and ask you for a second one after 24 hours so you don't have to like you don't have to overthink the first part of the question just like hit me so hard i knew there were more words but i was like oh dang I don't know if that changes your impulse answer, but what I want is an impulse answer.
00:01:18
Speaker
without Well, I i don't know. I live my life in Desert Island games. i I have like five games that I'm always still playing. Yeah. It's true. You are very much that sort of gamer. I i don't i don't really let it a lot of new ones in. I, you know, I curate the stable. ah It's a it's a great rotation. um I don't know. i i think right. and Like as far as games that I know that I have.
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think right now I'm going to say Hades 2 or perhaps Slay the Spire 1. But I hope that maybe maybe someday Slay the Spire 2 becomes that Desert Island that's violent game.
00:02:03
Speaker
I see. And finally, she turns to me and my answer is Super Smash Brothers, if somebody is coming with me. Oh my gosh, great pick. And if I'm by myself...
00:02:15
Speaker
I think it would be Good Sudoku, which is a mobile phone game that is just an excellent implementation of Sudoku. um It's right there in the name. ah By Zach Gage, if you are familiar.
00:02:26
Speaker
ah Fan of his design. Anyway. Man, that was such stressful question. would love a fat cross. What's that? little fairy to tone it down next time. Cheesy Pete's. you think it's too intense? i mean, last week was, what's your favorite drink? Like, come on.
00:02:45
Speaker
I like Picross better than Sudoku, but i don't know of a Picross game that has like thousands of puzzles and good Sudoku has thousands. Like it's going to last me if I'm stuck there for a while. Okay.
Review of Last Week's Marvel Snap Cards
00:02:58
Speaker
Let's talk about last week's cards. Any new thoughts about Ozymandias and the rock deck? We could throw Celine in there too, because she has some overlap with that deck. i I feel like the hype has already died down.
00:03:12
Speaker
Yeah. I've seen a lot of them. i i still still have been seeing some. i played my rock deck all the way to Infinite right after we finished recording. I don't know why I always... I you know i could just play more Snap before the podcast instead of...
00:03:30
Speaker
you know I just have so much fun talking about Snap on the podcast with you both and then it makes me want to play Snap and then I play all the Snap that I should have played before the podcast that I might talk about it. I mean, the podcast is every week. You just talk about the last week's game. I know i know and that's sort of how it happens but then I'm talking about old Snap and who wants to hear about old Snap? It's true.
00:03:51
Speaker
You know who I finally saw? i finally saw Selene. Really? Yeah. I got a never before seen a couple days ago and I was like, you know, that doesn't feel true, but maybe it is. It took a few days. Yeah. Yeah. You know, last week I was saying like, I'm not sure this card really happened. And that's why, because there was not much evidence to support its existence.
00:04:15
Speaker
Really? I've seen it like more than I thought I would. Really? um Yeah, and I mean, she hasn't felt like too much of a threat. Like, you know, they usually manage to trigger her ability, but like, and she's a for nine yeah I don't know. I'm trying think if she won a lane.
00:04:37
Speaker
I feel like it's just like she wasn't such a big factor that and I've never like, Selene, you know, like, it's always like, oh, hey, yeah, what did you think? Good for you.
00:04:49
Speaker
um And then, yeah, rocks are, ah I don't know, I've been playing Enchantress, so, like, haven't been as threatened by rocks as I thought I would be.
00:05:00
Speaker
Yeah. yeah i don't know. I have nothing new to say about rocks. Celine, I've Celine. We're a Celine podcast. We are a Celine podcast. I've run into her a few more times and it's just like if she comes out like early enough, depending on my board, then I just then I just that's the lane I'm throwing. Right. Like it's not like she can hit across lanes. And if it's if it is a lane I'm already invested in.
00:05:29
Speaker
Oh, well, like she's big, but she's not. She's not big enough. And they're distracted doing other things. And yeah, she has not felt threatening at all. I haven't looked at at her stats. I have no idea how she's doing. But in my personal experience of playing Snap, not impressed. Yeah.
00:05:45
Speaker
Okay. I don't remember whether I won or lost the game when she finally showed up. So...
00:05:53
Speaker
I might have a screenshot to tell me what I'm doing. not memorable, at least. I think she did go off. The objective was fulfilled. Yeah. Most times I've seen her, yes, that's the case.
00:06:05
Speaker
Oh, you know where I think I saw her? Maybe it was Doom 2099. Maybe that's where I saw her. I don't know. Really? I've seen her in Rocks, mostly. me too. Maybe it was Rocks.
00:06:17
Speaker
Doom 2099 and get they get two from Doom. They get two Doom bots. Wonder where they're getting their third. No ability. I might have been wrong. I might be misreconciled. I mean, it's a card I only saw once. And the novel thing about the match was that Selene showed up.
00:06:32
Speaker
I am going to refer to my screenshots. Probably. I don't know. That's not great. except yeah Sometimes i just like to I like to know the truth. all right, let's talk about this
Introduction of Ramatut Card and Strategy Discussion
00:06:44
Speaker
week's card. The last of the season, the third Kang variant we've received in this game after... The first of his name.
00:06:52
Speaker
Kang Prime and Iron Lad. Ramatut, 4-5. On reveal, use three on reveals from cards released before. Ramatut's time. I noticed this actually doesn't include any of the on reveals from January to March this year, which...
00:07:08
Speaker
i don't know i feel like they should take the time to add those there's a few dragons and guardians cards that i feel like could fit in um he's really fun yeah you did you grab him did you play with him i mean he's uh arena grande also i have no way all i have is the screenshot i' never before seen i don't know what what the selena deck was it was probably rocks that's my bet um
00:07:39
Speaker
But yeah, I've seen Ramatut. You know what I learned? Reading on fourth location, I learned that apparently the Ramatut on reveals are weighted and they're not all equally probable, which... Oh.
00:07:52
Speaker
I didn't know that was public information. Well, that's what Scott says, so... um it might be public i don't know when i first heard it the thing is scott doesn't have the numbers either yeah they're not in the data as they're weighted like like the x mansion ones yeah it could be that the waiting is is in the game data and has been data mined but i haven't seen it um anyway
00:08:22
Speaker
um I didn't have the tokens to even like have it be a choice. is So I didn't get But have seen know It is the kind of non-sensory i thought it was where it's just kind of irritating to lose for it to it because it's like hard to account for it. um And I also, yeah, I played it with Grand Arena, but I'll be honest, I know I should have been enjoying it while I had the chance to enjoy it for free in the silliest and funnest of ways. But the way i was playing was I had a book because, like, they were playing, you know everyone was playing it. So, like, it's just, like, animations were just going off, like, forever and ever. So I was just like, okay, cool. Yeah, going click to see what happens. This is, like, a silly game. We won't.
00:09:10
Speaker
Yeah, valid. I've had tons of fun with this card, but it feels like the kind of fun that's like a burst for a week and then like and then I'm good.
00:09:21
Speaker
like and he It's not like he's even going to be ah evolving. I mean, there may be future cards that synergize with him, but it's not like his ability list will be expanding. um if there If the abilities are weighted...
00:09:36
Speaker
I think they could use more waiting because i hit destroyer so many times. And granted, I'm doing silly combo stuff where I'm like proccing Rama Tut so he does like 12 or 18 on reveals. But still, there's a list of 108 and he's hitting destroyer. What? Are you going to complain? So often.
00:09:56
Speaker
it's absolutely That's what you get when you practice. Also, this list of 108, SnapZone, they think it's like 200-something. So I'm like really getting a lot of mixed signals about what Ramatad's actual like functions are.
00:10:11
Speaker
I don't know. I haven't seen SnapZone's list, but I would trust fans. ah yeah Everybody's telling me different Ramatad stories, and I don't even know who to believe.
00:10:23
Speaker
The one i saw, KM Best had on Twitter a list of, like, a list, it looked like it was from the data mines. Like, it looked like it was written in, not code, but like, In game language, I guess in code, it had like a list of all the cards that Ramatuck could hit and all of them were alphabetical until the last three, which were Viper, MODOK and Destroyer. Almost as if they weren't in the original list and then got added in later. Or like maybe they got taken out of the original list and then added back in the end. Right. Yeah.
00:10:56
Speaker
ah Yeah. Anyway, ah there are there are other things that can ruin your day like Modok and Heimdall if you're doing combos. And um i don't know.
00:11:07
Speaker
I feel like there were a few things that were messing me up. Maybe Spider-Man, Cersei. Cersei can mess think something up if she you know evolves your Wong too soon. ah But yeah, destroy I was flabbergasted by how often I was hitting Destroyer.
00:11:19
Speaker
I mean, it happens a lot. I mean, we've we've all played on the rafts. You know, a lot a lot of times the six cost is a destroyer. Yeah.
00:11:31
Speaker
Or an APOC and you're not playing discard. Or an infot. Yeah, there's there's a lot of bad hits, honestly. Yeah. I mean, like, honestly, you i don't complain about an apocalypse or a Hella. That's that's my feeling.
00:11:47
Speaker
All right. ah This is normally where we would vibe check next week's cards, but this is the last week of the season, so we will be doing season ratings shortly.
Marvel Snap's April Fool's Mode: Arena Grande
00:11:58
Speaker
i you want to talk a little bit about Arena Grande, a mode that they kept as a surprise for April Fool's?
00:12:05
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. I think it was great. Okay. One, this is exactly the kind of thing. Second dinner. I don't know if you have been reading about yourself in the press, but you do not have a good reputation out there and you can use all the good you can get. And this was a great, this was a perfect.
00:12:25
Speaker
thing um to throw out there where it was like very easy to complete. Not only was it easy to complete, another factor, it was easy to see that it was going to be easy to complete. A lot of times with these events, it's so hard to calculate how much time you're going to need on these exponential things, you know? But this was in a way that's like, oh, I just need to do that like this three more times, you know what i mean? then Then I'll get it all. And that itself Makes it less stressful about like grinding in an event. So like little things like that can matter. And um one, it was just all free stuff. I get that it wasn't like any soup. There wasn't one. There wasn't a free card. So it's totally optional. You miss It's only two days or whatever.
00:13:13
Speaker
Yeah, no big deal. Right? But yes, but borders aren't nothing. And there was like a mystery vein in there. Like that was fun. forget what I got, but it wasn't it wasn't something. ta It wasn't like a pixel that I hated or something. i got Hasbro Jubilee.
00:13:28
Speaker
Oh, nice. I don't know. Oh, yeah. see Okay, now I'm seeing it. Okay. And then... um Like, and it was just, it was such a good will. It was all free. It was only two. Oh, I thought that was so funny. Okay. The two gold, right? For the pass?
00:13:46
Speaker
Because I saw this and I immediately knew I'm going to be like, oh, people are going to be so OCD about having an off amount of gold. And sure enough, like, I feel like I, so like, I'm somewhere kind of just around. I've seen people being like, oh, you you can, here's how you can get your gold back to like a five or zero kind tips and i was just like i don't know was at me know where there's the two guys talking and then there's like the aragorn ranger guy sitting the corner like fools you know and it was just like a second dinner thinks they can get me to spend for boosters or something you you have spent months months training me to ignore little red dots all over the place in your game because there is simply no way to remove them you think you can hurt me with a three or a seven?
00:14:35
Speaker
You think? Anyway, so like I just I laughed in the face of that. i was like, yay, two gold all day. i don't i don't even do I know exactly what my gold balance is? Not enough to get everything I want. That's just always what it is. So like well I'm one of those people who wanted zero or five at the end. So i just didn't get the pass because there was nothing of value on it. So like I just didn't want to sweat it at all.
00:15:03
Speaker
There's a Deadpool variant, a card that like I've got variants for should I ever decide i want to play Mr. Pool, but I i don't.
00:15:15
Speaker
I don't know. i loved I loved how low stakes it was, and also... Man, so many of their other limited time game modes have... like This one felt neither ill-conceived nor badly executed.
00:15:28
Speaker
And i just... I have nothing... like i you know if If there was something to hate on about this, I would hate on it. But like I just thought it was so so tidy and like good and stuff. you know i thought it was really fun. I played all of the decks. I sampled all of them. And like I just thought it was really cool.
00:15:48
Speaker
What a neat idea to be like, wouldn't it be so silly to just and hide just out for some cravens? Yes, yes, yes, yes.
00:15:59
Speaker
And then it doesn't matter that they're not balanced and some of them really suck. It's only around for two days and you're just there to see the fun of what's going on your side. That's why they called like the Urby Duck Cube Donor. You know what I mean? It's just like, have some fun. ah And this is like the best because I hate April Fool's anymore, right?
00:16:18
Speaker
April Fools went from like, there was a time where pranks were harmless enough that like they were kind of fun. But then very quickly, it's just like, it's just, it's like, this is just harassment. You can't call it a prank and be like, you ruined someone's property or like emotionally damage them. And that's like somehow okay. of Right. A good prank. like The person who is being pranked genuinely laughs at the end.
00:16:44
Speaker
Right, and that's just like and yeah it's so rare anymore. And then, like, and then we went online, and then it just became, ah, it's like, we have rage bait all year long for you to click on, click bait, click bait, but April Fool's, we're just gonna, like, double that right up and just see who we can get claim the most rage bait-y, like, it's just so annoying. It's like, I don't care about, like, these funny these fake articles, just like, let me see what's, you know, let me see a new dress or something. i don't know. So like, anyway, but like, uh,
00:17:20
Speaker
Wait, what are we... Oh, we're
Developer Reputation and Impact of Arena Grande
00:17:22
Speaker
talking about the mode. Okay, so this is... It's so... It's so delightful. And it's like, it's so rare, I feel like, lately I feel like the devs have felt like they've been in tune with, like, the people playing their game. What a silly, delightful, like, fun idea that, like, yeah. Like, you know, look at Ben. He couldn't... He's like...
00:17:49
Speaker
You know, and he didn't he played it all. He didn't feel obligated to get all the rewards and he still had nothing to hate on the perfect. You need this so hard. Like when when game studios just don't value like their reputations enough, you know.
00:18:06
Speaker
but Anyway. Yeah, i I came away from it being like, I'm so it's so nice to see Second Dinner having fun.
00:18:17
Speaker
And it doesn't even feel like in the like corporate make fun of self humor, like we're one of the kids too. is It doesn't feel like that. It feels like genuinely the devs got to let loose and do something silly. And it was really stark to me like, oh, like this feels fresh because we haven't had it in forever. like We do get fun cards every now and then, but like so many of the patches and all that, they're so focused on Here's a new economic feature. Here's a new way to buy borders. here's and like and I understand there are reasons for that. right like
00:18:53
Speaker
It's the nature of a mobile game. It's easier, perhaps, to develop economic features than game features. But it sends a message when 90% of their communication is about...
00:19:04
Speaker
how to sell you things like that. That's all they care about. And that's not fun. That's boring. That's business, not games. and And also like a lot of their communication is about how like, Oh, we're finally fixing an unbalanced thing that we sold you last month. Or like, like yeah I guess that's sort of part of it. I don't, I don't know.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I can see how some of the game balance stuff isn't super exciting either. You know, they don't take also some of it. is like mistake They maybe shouldn't have made like, you know, perhaps in the name of moving some season passes or whatever, you know, like when. Sure.
00:19:39
Speaker
i can see that. i um Anyway, i I would love to see Arena Grande come back as a weekend mode that you can play for free and it's silly decks.
Ideas for Custom Deck Modes in Marvel Snap
00:19:53
Speaker
I kind of want a mode where I can custom build a deck that has multiple copies of the same card. Yeah. That feels like that would get out of control and somebody would figure out something that's... It would be fun. like You know how like fighting games have a practice mode? It would be fun to have like something like that in Snap.
00:20:09
Speaker
We've discussed that before. Also, as silly as these decks were, I feel like they worked pretty hard on them. Like somebody like yeah actually like really sat down and like put some attention and some some passion into it. And like as as goofy and as like sort of like lightweight as the whole thing is, like...
00:20:28
Speaker
eight there it's clear that there was effort and intention behind it and i i don't want minimize like as as fun and goofy as it was like somebody worked real hard and i see you
00:20:42
Speaker
also the name is flawless that's fine oh i mean look you have to accept that it's deadpool right marvel games probably told them you have to do april pools day Given that they're doing the Deadpool theme, i think the name is great.
00:20:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's the one of the least obnoxious Deadpool-themed things around. All right.
00:21:09
Speaker
Should we take, I don't know, 25 minutes in? Too early for an intermission maybe, huh? Oh, also I liked that on the rewards track you get cable boosters at one point. and Cable and Wolverine. Oh, you do. I thought that was so random.
00:21:24
Speaker
I know it's not. When I was a kid, I had to. yeah Cable and Deadpool were so very closely associated. they aren they Oh, really? They had the same title. that that was That was the book. It was Cable and Deadpool.
00:21:37
Speaker
Oh, I didn't know that. I knew Cable was in Deadpool 2. Yeah, that that they the there's that too. yeah i
00:21:47
Speaker
I didn't realize until later that the boosters came in the amount of six, seven. Like I knew that I was like, that's a weird number. It's the new funny number just dropped.
00:22:00
Speaker
Right. I was like, oh, we're 420 and 69. We've got a new one. And there's very little rhyme or reason to it. didn't either. And I'm just like, yeah. was just like, that's so weird.
00:22:10
Speaker
Why they do six, nine? That would be funny. I'm like, I'm just old. At first I thought, oh, this just goofy number they're giving out. And it only clicked later. And I saw somebody else saying something about, like oh, I like the number of boosters you picked. And then I was like, wait, why is that significant? And i was like, oh my gosh.
00:22:28
Speaker
But yeah, all of them, all of the boosters that you received were in quantities of 67. Also, I think Mandatory Burnout pointed out that 67 was on Jeopardy. It was a clear winner. I saw that!
00:22:41
Speaker
You know what? that This probably goes in way. Does mandatory burnout also watch Jeopardy? i also watch. Yeah, that's the thing. like month In month in our household, we started watching Jeopardy before bed and ah we're fucking loving it. Oh my gosh. Shout out to Jamie Ding, bureaucrat and law student from ah fucking New Jersey or whatever.
00:23:02
Speaker
Loves public transportation, the color orange in his parents. He's our current champion. At least ah we're you know probably a little behind, but like he's he's a delight. God damn it. Jeopardy is so is it? The vibes are so good on Jeopardy. I'm I'm just loving it. I don't know why we didn't start watching Jeopardy sooner.
00:23:23
Speaker
Awesome. I don't actively watch it, although i did just watch the YouTube edition. ah Which featured. ah i was writing three youtube celebrities and very easy questions because it was celebrity okay so youtube also threw that at you i was like wondering if youtube somehow knew that we'd been watching jeopardy on some you know maybe they do but i was like why are they recommending me jeopardy shit right after we started watching jeopardy huh but like no i guess if everybody's getting it then everybody's good yeah
00:23:58
Speaker
There was a special jeopardity for a long time but it like a special like charity YouTube celebrity episode. All the questions are YouTube themed. has Brennan Lee Mulligan and Rebecca Black. and I feel really bad. i can't remember the other person's name, but it's a famous drag queen from you know who competed on RuPaul's.
00:24:16
Speaker
Okay, Rebecca Black was the example of failed nepotism. And now she has gone to successful nepotism. Yes, yes. Sorry, but did you say Rebecca Black was an example of nepotism?
00:24:30
Speaker
What did Ben say? i was also... i was going so This is ah this is a hot time for Monet X Change because they were also on the the traders on yeah NBC or Peacock or whatever.
00:24:43
Speaker
okay oh It's okay that you don't know. The traders or Monet X Change? Or both? It's okay. Okay. I watched the first season of UK Traders and it was i pretty fun. That one doesn't have Alan Cumming.
00:24:57
Speaker
You're setting yourself up to not like the Traders. Oh, really? Somebody recommended the UK the u k version. No, the UK one's good. I've got nothing against Claude's, but ah you know, Alan Cumming, though, he's he's got the best fits.
00:25:11
Speaker
Is he the US fan? Yeah, and oh dude, he he just throws these portraits of the contestants to the ground with such disdain.
00:25:25
Speaker
He's just, he's really camping it up, and i it's a joy. So that that's what that's what the U.S. version really has going for it. Way too many reality stars on it in recent seasons, though. Yeah.
00:25:38
Speaker
I do not care about housewives versus gamers, gamers being survivors contestants that not not even our kind of gamers like, to you know, where you want big brother, you're a gamer and you you have like, oh, ah you know, like there these the battle lines are drawn and like, Yeah, you're just trying to take on the housewives, but we'll band together against you, even though half of us are traitors and half of us are faithful. It's fucking stupid as hell.
00:26:07
Speaker
um Yeah, the the recent seasons have taken a turn, if you ask me. they were They were awfully mean to Ron Funches, and that doesn't get you very far in my book. I got you.
00:26:19
Speaker
All right. Let's go on to... into our intermission now because I am I just realized I'm out of drink yeah I'm also out of water I was gonna tell you to start reading strife while I went and got my water can we keep that part in though yeah we can take an intermission listeners we almost always take an intermission that's when you get the guitar thing going that's the intermission yeah okay did I say anything terrible no I said terrible I have no concept of what I say being inside outside of the podcast Fiona For the record, you don't say like inappropriate things that need to be cut or blocked from humanity soon
00:27:02
Speaker
It's not even a risk. All right. Let's take an intermission. Okay, we're back from intermission. And we're going to rate the cards in April season.
00:27:13
Speaker
That is imminent starting next week. ah First up, our season pass card. Read... um Okay, it's going to be Strife, who is um forecast for six power, and with the objective, play three unreveal cards, which will give you the benefit to use the highest cost on reveal in your hand.
00:27:40
Speaker
um I think this has to be pretty good um because there a ton of on-reveal cards, right? Most decks use at least some. so there's a wide range of decks this can go into, different flavors. Also...
00:28:02
Speaker
um It's like counter for on reveal is like Cosmo, which is powerful, but it but it's not like the tech like Stardust stopping at hell or something because Cosmo only shuts down one lane. And it's really mostly it's only effective mostly when they when they have Pryo, which if you're worried about a lot of Cosmos, you can like build some early Pryo getting into your deck. So they can't like, you know, get one off and you saw something that's like it's like on reveal you know you have um more wiggle room i think i gotta give this one a four because also not even to talk about the benefit here um uh like you know a thin thing fuma's got a pretty good ability right like that kind of stuff and it's like
00:28:51
Speaker
Yeah, so you could even just trigger this last turn and, you know, just like not even play that high cost card in your hand. yeah um so you know it's's it's abilities we haven't, we've kind of seen, this is a different flavor of stuff we've seen around and stuff that's mostly been pretty good, you know, so at least useful certain occasions.
00:29:16
Speaker
So I'll give it a four star. Yeah, the ah consummate professional that I am, I don't know what that means. It just sounded like the right adjective. um yeah I didn't introduce our rating system. So, you know, if this happens to be your first episode listening to us do season ratings, we just rate them one to four. One is very bad. Four is very good.
00:29:36
Speaker
Ben? Sometimes feelings are involved. Absolutely. Yep. Yep. so it But, you know, for brevity, we'll say it's about how good they are. um even Even if maybe there's a little more to it. And, you know... this card seems mighty strong, probably a little too strong, folks. This is one of those season pass cards that I think they're going to have to make some corrections about ah in like six weeks or so. i think maybe this is a bad idea um for the very Fin Fang Foom kind of reason that we said. And ah that's not the only thing to do with this card. I think I was i was listening back, not to the whole episode, but to the...
00:30:18
Speaker
to the episode of snap on this, where we saw these cards for the first time, uh, data mines and stuff. Uh, wow. That was so many cards that episode, but any who we realized once we got to techno organic virus that like, Oh, maybe they want you to use this to activate your very expensive techno organic virus. And like, that's such a fucking joke.
00:30:39
Speaker
That's not what this card, this card has so many better things to do than that. It's not going to fucking waste its time dragging techno organic virus kicking and screaming towards practicality and relevance. Like it's just not happening. No, this card's nuts and it's got way crazier things to do. Yeah. Yeah. This card's not good. I mean, it's very strong. It's not like good for, it's not good for the game. Yeah. I'm not looking forward to that.
00:31:02
Speaker
No. Yep. How are they, how are they going tune it? How would you fix it? Well, for one thing, i would get it away from, like, good stats. Like, Absorbing Man doesn't get to be 4-6. Why the fuck does this thing... Why does this Bin Fang Foom get to be 4-6? It's ridiculous.
00:31:20
Speaker
I just realized he can copy Brood. That's... Wow. Okay. Yeah, yeah. But like, i' i don't I don't know. that That seems like such small, that's that's so unambitious for for this card, I think.
00:31:39
Speaker
um Yeah. So four. I don't know if you said that or not. Yeah. Too good. ah Strife is also a four to me. i think he's a very good card. I know that I don't play the game like most people do. um You know, 75 percent of the time.
00:31:55
Speaker
Sometimes I'm trying to climb to infinite or do well in and in in an event, but the rest the time i'm I'm goofing off. And strife is a shenanigans card for sure. I'm going to do so many cool things with this card. I'm going to be copying Zola's left and right. And then I'm going to Zola the strife and copy two more big things. Yeah. I think a lot of people are going to be doing that. That's not just a goofy Lauren thing to do. That's just a thing. Well, so that's the thing. I'm like, I, I, I always try and succeed to various degrees to filter out,
00:32:25
Speaker
the fun factor, the Lauren-ness of it, and and try to focus on, like, really, how good is this card? Or, like, is it worth investing in or whatever? And it's just like, I think if you just want him to be a good, big card, he can do that easily. There are so many good things to hit, and it's targeted.
00:32:42
Speaker
The Cosmo of it, I did not think about before. So, like, if you're trying to use the objective as, like, a delayed thing, like, I'm going to play him on four, but I'm not going to trigger it until six, he is just begging to get Cosmo'd. But other than that...
00:32:54
Speaker
seems real good yeah do you think that's like it the way I'm sort of imagining this card seeing like I think the standard usage of this card is basically going to be as like a on reveal at the end of your turn do this shit like that's how I think it's going to play like sure it's technically an objective card but you're not playing it unless the objective is going off that turn anyway and like it's the easiest objective in the world so you'll to have the I don't know There's some deck building consideration to make sure you have enough on reveals and enough good hits for him to copy. But like it's not that's not a hard restriction.
00:33:32
Speaker
Really good. just start your day with an America Chavez and like go from there. There's going to be lots and lots of ways to fit him into different decks. OK.
00:33:45
Speaker
Ben, will you read our super premium season pass, which is Techno Organic Virus? Techno Organic Virus. I already alluded to it. It's a one cost skill.
00:33:56
Speaker
On reveal, copy this to your hand with plus two cost. Infect your other cards here. Replace their text. And what's that ongoing text? They've got plus one power for each Techno Organic Virus you've played.
00:34:12
Speaker
so um My mate, I don't think this card is very good. I think, I think I, I wanted to give it a two, but like, I think I was just being nice. I think this card is a one. I i think it's a real, real stinky. Um, you need to already have a bunch of cards on the board. The first time you play this card that you're supposed to play three times.
00:34:36
Speaker
Uh, I, I just, I don't see it. I think it's goofy as hell. I, I don't think it's going to be practical. I don't know. like maybe Maybe there's like ongoing stuff to do. I i don't think so. like All the things that seem like they might be things seem like they're not really things. That's just that's just my perception. I would love if either of you were high on it, I would love to yield the time and and hear what could work about this card.
00:35:07
Speaker
i'm I'm pretty high on it. I think it's one of the best half of the season. ah i gave it a three. But you are you're you're making me question a little bit. I don't think it's as bad as a one, but you are making me question the three a little bit. That said, the thing that this is, is it's replacing bad text, right? You throw this in something like a Sauron deck, and it does the enchantress off-going thing for you.
00:35:32
Speaker
at four cost less so you just do it once and like it's just clean you're happy you're happy enough if you do it once yeah right like um i don't think very often you play techno organic virus three times i think it's just too expensive to do and so that means pretty much always the ongoing is only going to give you plus one or plus two but that's fine if you're replacing text that doesn't matter like if it's if it's either actively bad text or if it's like on reveals or activates that you use early like spider ham it's like once once you once they've used up their text might as well ah update it right so maybe it lets you play a few more on reveals in the spectrum
00:36:14
Speaker
ah The other thing that I think is notable is if you do want to go all in on Techno Organic Virus, I don't know how good that's going to be. It seems pretty swingy, but you could do Mobius and then every copy you get costs one.
00:36:25
Speaker
Oh, that's a good point. hadn't even considered that.
00:36:30
Speaker
I think I'm going stick with the three for now, but... see What do you think, Rory? I also gave it a three. Okay. First of all, um a little bit on the feelings. I like this card. It is different. and It gives people a little something interesting to chase. And it doesn't just feel like, hey, we comboed to think two plus minuses.
00:36:53
Speaker
shifts the existence map into some new card, you know? I appreciate that about I would say it would be fun to deck build around it, except for real. I mean, and there's ways to chase one cards a little bit more now, but at same point, it's still hard to just rely on drawing, like, one card. But what I would do to chase it would be, like...
00:37:17
Speaker
I mean, you know, it would be like doing some Moon Girl stuff. What if you multiply it before you play it the first time, you know? And then... um most I liked the Sorin idea. I hadn't even thought of that because I do enjoy playing Sorin from time to time. So anyway, to wipe it and and it comes back and it gives you a secondary way.
00:37:39
Speaker
How convenient. Okay, um although at more cost. So... um You know, i i think it'll give people, you know, I think it'll be a fun thing for certain people that find this an interesting thing to mess around with. Yeah, there's obviously a limit to how it's strong, but I gave it the bump up to three from a two because I just think it's, I just think it's neat.
00:38:04
Speaker
It is neat. I do think it's interesting. Like, I think it'll be fun to build around. I just don't know how strong it will be.
00:38:13
Speaker
Like, pointing to Sauron as an example, like, I think it will be good there, but, like, Sauron itself is not a super strong deck right now. So, does that matter? i don't know.
00:38:24
Speaker
Yeah. You know what you could do to be real cute on turn two? You could play Ebony Maw and Techno Organic Virus. and Right. I don't know, but then, I don't know. That seems like kind of a bad use of Techno Organic Virus, because it really does, like, want you to have several cards there, right? In that lane. No, it's a great use because like that Ebony Maw, if you're not playing a Nightmare in there as well or something, and it's just one otherwise it's just a dead card in your hand.
00:38:54
Speaker
So it's like, you know, if that's your one and what else were you going to do on that turn when you're in a Sauron deck? It's like two cards for a two seven if that's like all you're doing with it. so like Maybe you played Lizard on two. just cuter than it is practical.
00:39:09
Speaker
i mean Maybe it's like Lizard on two, and then on three you're playing Sauron, Ebony Maw, and Techno Organic Virus. like There's a world where that makes sense. It replaces Zero. like Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. I'm like, I definitely take out... I was just thinking that. like Zero is the card I take out put in Techno Organic Virus, and I'm happy. I'm happy to do it.
00:39:30
Speaker
A 1-3 isn't as as great these days as it used to be. It doesn't go as far. Okay. Although... oh I mean, it might still be better than Techno Organic Virus for the stuff we were... I don't know.
00:39:45
Speaker
Techno Organic Virus also and it in affects every other card there. Zero only ever affects one card, and you have to play it in a specific order to make it happen.
00:39:56
Speaker
I've played so much Soran. I like Zero, but I'm just saying, like, I would play this card over Zero in a high-peat. I think the question is specifically how good is it to do with Ebony Maw? Because then you're not getting as many No, in Ebony Maw. Okay, say and it's okay i so, okay. I think there will be good things. Like, sora there are Soron decks that run Enchantress.
00:40:18
Speaker
And it's like, yeah, Enchantress can also be offensive. But still, this costs four less. Or it means that you can Enchantress two lanes. Yeah. I'd run this and Enchantress. That's the that's why when you said Sauron wasn't as powerful. I'm like, well, there's certain stuff. And I'm thinking about and like, no, you're right. It is kind of less power. I have played it recently, actually a little
Critique of the New Wolverine Card
00:40:40
Speaker
bit. And I'm like, why is that? And it's like you don't have you are so busy taking your own cards for your power. you are not you can't stop them. And people can just get bigger if they're not just playing big cards. because there's just so many ways to multiply and stuff like that.
00:40:56
Speaker
um And that's why you play Enchantress. It's one of the few pieces of tech you can offensive things you can fit in a Sora on deck, you know? Mm-hmm. Okay, on to Wolverine, Horseman of War.
00:41:11
Speaker
The objective is this has 5 or more power. When we first saw it, it was 6. This has 5 or more power to give one of your cards at each location plus 3. This made me... The change from six to five makes a huge difference in my mind. there are It's much easier to give him plus two than to give him plus three.
00:41:31
Speaker
Right? So, I mean, you have like you have Chavez and Agony as ways to do three, but ways to do two, you have Carter, Maverick, Mother Ascani, the new Storm, with from glenn Forge.
00:41:43
Speaker
There are so many more ways to get the plus two. ah Galacta, yeah.
00:41:50
Speaker
that Then he's a 412. That's pretty good. But is it good enough for how hard it is to do? like We have Ikari coming next month or the month after that is also a 412 that has an easier condition. just You just have to play him on a location where you're where there's an afflicted card.
00:42:10
Speaker
Maybe an enemy afflicted card, but still. So I'm... i am I don't know if this is a two or three. this is This is the card that's the opposite of Strife for me, where I'm like, I'm down on it because I think it's boring. It's just stats and not super good stats. But also, like sometimes the stats cards turn out to be decent. right They turn out to be playable.
00:42:34
Speaker
Well, I'm like, what what if you Mother Ascani this? Then you can play two of them that are three cost on the last turn. like That's a decent chunk of power. Is it worth how little power Mother Ascani is? I don't know.
00:42:46
Speaker
So I'm between two and three on him I'm interested in what you two think. I will commit to a three for now, but it's not a very strong three.
00:42:58
Speaker
It was a re-rotation. Okay. I gave it a because this is kind of card I like to play with, you know, buffing cards, but I just have to think there's better, more synergistic ways to like for the cost, for where you play it It's just like...
00:43:17
Speaker
Right? Like, i don't know. Like, what do you want? It's like, what do I want to do with it that's better than other things? Like, Nomura. And Nomura is like my dream, not a reality, like for realsies, you know what i mean? like So, I mean, not that it can't be, not that I couldn't win or get to Infinite with Nomura or something like that, but I understand, you know, where Nomura currently exists in the meta. Yeah. And in how many ways it is to disrupt, right? And so it's just like, where are you what are you taking out for this in the kind of deck that this would go in? Because you don't want to build around this, right? It's just not it's not a build around card. And you what you're gonna I wouldn't take out Gwenpool for this, probably, you know what I mean? like for me
00:44:00
Speaker
Yeah. So it's a two. But it's the power, like you said, and stuff. It's not nothing. it It's still more playable than, ah you know, like Jessica Jones and stuff. So like, it's, ah I feel like I could do more with it at least. So that's, that's why I give it a two.
00:44:18
Speaker
Ben, what did you give Mm-hmm. I also gave it a two. think that the Gwenpool example is a great way to sort of start looking at this card.
00:44:30
Speaker
What you get from this card, like, I kind of don't care that they made it easier to do the thing because the reward is just not very good. ah Adding plus three power to like a random ass card on each location. You can't like, you know, you can't guarantee it's going to hit Captain Carter or Maverick or whatever you want it to hit. can if they're the only card there. No, you can. You can. It's true. But, like, they might not be the only card there. And also, the thing about hitting Captain Carter when she's the only card there is, like, how are you going to fill that lane, huh? You know, like like, the form factor on this card, like, it's it's just not a good shape. Like, it's it's not... Nobody needs this Tetris block. This is not in demand. um
00:45:14
Speaker
that no Nobody asked for this. ah Well, I don't know. Somebody probably did. But, like... Lauren, they think about how much I think about your disdain for Selene, a horseman of whatever the fuck she's the horseman of. Like she's a four fifteen, right?
00:45:29
Speaker
Yeah. Four fourteen is i forget how big she is, but not big enough. Right. Not big enough. Selene is a great comparison, actually. This is something that I noticed about Wolverine just earlier today.
00:45:41
Speaker
Selene is asking you to do something completely unrelated to her ability. You need to play cards with no ability, and then she does Affliction. Those two things have no overlap.
00:45:53
Speaker
Wolverine is asking you to buff him and in reward he buffs things. So you just throw him in a deck that has cards that buff each other. And as we've talked about before, those cards are at a critical mass. It's you're at no shortage of options for buffing Wolverine and then he'll buff other cards that you want to be buffed. Yeah, maybe, except like the order is wrong. Like you're playing cards that will make Wolverine bigger before you play Wolverine or like, you know, around the same time you're playing Wolverine.
00:46:23
Speaker
Like if you if you Maverick'd up your Wolverine, for example, Maverick already did his thing. He doesn't care about getting bigger anymore. Right. And like all like all that kind of I just don't like nothing about this card goes in a straight line towards victory.
00:46:38
Speaker
It's like it's all s wiggles and like yeah it's all like lateral movement. i I just don't. Yeah, I think the cards just not.
00:46:51
Speaker
not fulfilling a role that decks wanted yeah i i just i don't think this card works that's that's my perception but like you know it's not it's not like terrible on rate and sometimes if you can land the buffs on favorable targets which again seems to me maybe maybe i'm maybe maybe my powers of prediction are wrong on this one but like I don't know. like I can sort of like see the potential in the Dream and like I understand how like they decided that this might be a card someone wanted, but like I don't think it really is. I think i think there's a a little confusion there.
00:47:30
Speaker
Yeah. It could be four is just too much or that the reward isn't big enough. I think the Gwenpool comparison is also interesting because... like the difference between buffing cards on the board and buffing cards in hand. Buffing cards in hand is hidden information.
00:47:45
Speaker
Buffing cards on the board, you already paid for them. So there's not a risk that your buffs are just going to stay in your hand the entire game. Also, those hand-buffed cards, like that is how you can make sure that it's hitting a thing. Yeah.
00:48:00
Speaker
You know, ah you can't buff a brood that's already on the board. And like, you know, if your Maverick was on the board to buff your Wolverine, it's not, you know, doing any fresh paying it forward. And I just, yeah, buffing things in hand does give you the surprise element. I just think buffing a random thing at each location, it feels kind of star hockey. You know what I mean? yeah.
00:48:24
Speaker
not like exactly like Starhawk, but like Starhawk can buff up to four cards. You know, if you filled right or the left. And they're already there. Is that something we want to do? I don't think so.
00:48:38
Speaker
What I do appreciate about the the one minor thing, I mean, I mostly am just in agreement, but But the minor thing to appreciate is I i i see a lot of value be to be to being able to buff something after you filled it.
00:48:53
Speaker
Because we're just playing so many cards where we fill lanes lot more. And the ability, yeah, the ability to fill a lane and then just add more to it, a little more to it last turn last two turns. That is my bread and butter, i think.
00:49:09
Speaker
Like the week before last, I was saying something about how like I'm totally down to fill a lane early with with a brood or something in a surfer situation because my opponent is not sure how many points I will be adding on turn six if I'm doing surfer or surfer and absorbing man or surprise Wolverine or, you know, show out or whatever. Yeah, I share you know. reid That's a really good point. And it makes me. Yeah, I think I'm glad I put it at two and not one because this is not a one.
00:49:37
Speaker
That's a really good point. There's very small difference, but Wolverine you can play on the last turn. You can't do that with Gwenpool. yeah Yeah, that's true. There are advantages.
00:49:49
Speaker
That's the problem. is that it has to take ah It's a four cost. It's got to take a certain spot. Is this the one you prefer for what you're trying to do?
00:50:03
Speaker
This is the card I'm most on the fence on on whether it's good or bad. and I feel like it's just like... Right in the middle, which maybe just means it's bad. Okay. Ascani's son is going to be Deadpool's diner. It's finally coming back.
00:50:19
Speaker
Rhi? Did they fix it last time? i forgot. i feel like they just... Last time, Deadpool's Diner was extremely generous. like I bought like nine emotes and countless borders. yeah i would be shocked if it's betters I would be shocked if it's that generous when it comes back. Give me stuff. Okay. um Ascanison? Ascanison?
00:50:44
Speaker
Oh, man, I just heard it. Okay, two, three. knows? Uh, two cost, three power. With the ability activate, which I do occasionally play some activates now.
00:50:58
Speaker
i Create a one cost card at another location. Increase the cost each time you're winning here as the turn starts.
00:51:12
Speaker
What? yeah This is one star, right? Like, what the fuck? That's nice. Okay. Let's clarify the text because I've seen a lot of people misunderstand it.
00:51:23
Speaker
I think that his ability, or like if he's winning the location, it makes his activate stronger. yeah does If he has already activated, it's not going to transform the card out there.
00:51:35
Speaker
If you win for two turns, his activate becomes create a three cost card. yeah another okay I still think this card's not good. but you know I still am going to give it one, but mentally it's a 0.5 for fun factor because I'm like, oh, that's kind of fun. I would mess with that.
00:51:51
Speaker
It is interesting. Maybe I'll find some way to know more. OK. But like, no, it's just come on. So usually, OK, now that I know it increases, that changes it. But initially, my thought was like when you want something to create,
00:52:12
Speaker
A one cost, like you want the thing itself to also be a one cost because you're probably all in on the one cost. You know what i mean? You're doing you're doing a zoo thing. You probably have Kazar and Blue Marvel. So you don't want it to be a two three with an active.
00:52:28
Speaker
like keep lady You want a squirrel girl or that kind of thing. And then this is like, okay, it does give you reach, but one, you don't have control over that reach. You know what mean? So there's a randomness factor that you don't have with other cards that can move on their own or give you reach.
00:52:46
Speaker
um Also, like don't like just let you set three spot and a power. you want it to be like... good enough or you're not playing a ton of cards in your deck, you do have to worry about filling lanes up with, you know, junky little cards.
00:53:02
Speaker
And then it's just like, and then it's over it's a random card that you then don't get to decide whether to play or not, which is scar it scary. was scary. It was scary for me. um because And I am going to talk...
00:53:17
Speaker
I'm going to talk so hard about Arishem later. I love shield and random stuff, but when I have the power to use it to be clever, not when I'm like, I hope the game, that's why Ramatizing is exciting for me because I don't so much being like, I hope i hope the dice worked out. You don't like letting go and letting God? So it's the difference between input randomness and output randomness, right? Like, do you make the decision before or after the random thing happened?
00:53:46
Speaker
Yes, exactly. Exactly. And so this you don't get decide. So everything it does, something else does better or and you get more decisions over and there are just like better ways, things that synergize. Like I applaud that.
00:54:07
Speaker
You know what i mean? it is something like it's not just it's something like slightly different. and But it's just like I don't see how this fits anywhere in a way that isn't just for super goofs. Like, how do you, you know, how, why, where, when? It's got to be a one star. But plus for like the the silliness, I guess. I don't know.
00:54:32
Speaker
Ben? Yeah, he was... i I don't know what... when i When I rated these cards last night, i I guess I was just feeling generous. I wanted to give everything a two. least that was bad. But, like, yeah, I don't know. This is a one or a two. I mean, like, maybe it's a two just because, like, you can at least get some presence on the board out of it. But, like, you know, like, the obvious points of comparison for this card, I think, are, like, Adam Warlock, um...
00:55:03
Speaker
ah you know ah obviously Adam Warlock, but you know also maybe... That is not obvious to me. What is the connection? That you're trying to win the location? They care about winning a location every day and ah you know Another would be Iron Patriot. and These are both cards that are good at their jobs, and I don't know what this card's job is.
00:55:24
Speaker
This card is like, well, try really hard to win this location, and you get... oh Like you might, you might like, hey if you, if you win three times in a row, you might generate a man thing at a location that you used to be winning. you know like what even What is this card for? It's not for anything. So it's for nothing.
00:55:50
Speaker
And for the same cost, you could put Sam Wilson in a deck, right? Yeah, and you could play a real two-cost. Find a way to buff the shield, you know, if you want to like win that like Sanctum or something. If we're talking about Aurora. Two-costs are so good. You should play a good two-cost.
00:56:04
Speaker
ah Right. like You could put this in Aurora, but you put Sam Wilson in first every single time.
00:56:13
Speaker
So it's a one Ben. Yeah, I think i gave i I gave it a two in my notes, but it's a one. Let's be honest. I'll be who we really are here. hmm.
00:56:24
Speaker
Look, interesting ish ability. i think that people in general underrate cards that have the output randomness, especially things like a Cersei or.
00:56:38
Speaker
i feel like there's another one, I don't know, Shauna or this where it's the bad hits are more memorable. You're like, Oh, remember that time that I generated a green goblin and it stayed on my side. Cause my opponent's side was full or whatever.
00:56:55
Speaker
Like, I think he has value, right? You'd play a two, three that generated a random four. I think that that's a card people would play. That's that's four free energy generated a random four every time, but this card gives you homework.
00:57:07
Speaker
Yes. Uh, and then, so this is where I like, I'm giving it a one And it's not that it's unplayable. You can do stuff with it, and I think it'll be better than most people expect.
00:57:19
Speaker
But it has no home. There's no reason to do it. So, for that, and like there's no deck where it is one of the best 12 cards. Also, those cards you compared it Cersei and Shauna, those both have actual jobs. Those have, like, outcomes that you are guaranteed like, get, you know? Like, Cersei will fix your void, you know? Like, Cersei, like, you have actual problems you're trying to solve. She will mess too. Sometimes void is hobgoblin, and then stuck your side anyway. not saying Cersei can't mess you up, but, like... you can count on her to at least sort of do a thing. Like you, you have a problem that you want Cersei to solve. So Cersei is the card you play to do the thing. Like you have good evolved targets, the polymorphables as I think of them.
00:58:04
Speaker
oh Yeah. But like, and Shauna, you know, she's guaranteed to like make a bunch of one costs on all the locations, which is a thing that sometimes you actually want. Yeah. And it's a specific thing, but like this, this is not a card that does a specific thing. It doesn't even tell you where the other card is going. The the other card is just going not here. Yep.
00:58:25
Speaker
Okay. Ben Archangel. Ooh, I'm a little excited about this one.
Archangel Card and Destroy Mechanics
00:58:31
Speaker
Archangel horseman of death. All right.
00:58:36
Speaker
The objective. Oh, you know, you probably want to know the stats. That's right. It costs two and it's got three power. Archangel, Horseman of Death, Warren Worthington, the third objective. Your cards are destroyed four times. There's no rhyme or reason to how objectives are.
00:58:54
Speaker
Yeah, i don't know. i i guess I guess this one's consistent with the next one, so that's good. um But yeah, if you've got if you've destroyed four cards, or if your cards have been destroyed four times, you then, at the end of the turn, get to resurrect one here with plus four power.
00:59:14
Speaker
I like this card a lot. I'm not really a huge destroy player, but like, gosh, it sure seems better than Elixir to me. um ah You know, i as we discussed when the card was datamined, you're going to want you know, curate the the possible resurrection targets by probably playing...
00:59:35
Speaker
destroy cards that don't stay in the graveyard, so to speak. You know, your your Wolverines, Deadpools, all that stuff. But yeah, like, man, you just want to kill a Venom, right? And bring back a big ol' Venom, right?
00:59:48
Speaker
And, you know, makes Null all the larger. Just like the more you turn things through the destroy engine, like, the... better things get also i want this card to be a docking friend so like i i gotta to give it some love just for that because like it's uh it's fun resurrecting a docking with plus four power because the that's another muramasa shard you've got and like pretty soon you're looking at you know in just a big nasty lane um Yeah, i I think this card is ah pretty strong. like Again, I'm not a destroy player at heart. you know like i'll I'll fuck with destroy mechanics in you know small ways, like 100 bad guys or 200 bad guys with swords more recently.
01:00:32
Speaker
um I can't give it less than a three. I think it's dope as hell. I really like this card. I'm pretty excited about it in a way that I don't usually get about destroy cards.
01:00:44
Speaker
Hmm. I think it's asking way too much of you. Four destroyed cards is a lot. And i'm fascinated. You brought up an angle I hadn't thought of, which is destroying your Venom or Carnage or whatever your destroy enabler is. And yeah, he kind of justifies doing that.
01:01:03
Speaker
Because destroy so many of your targets and destroy are ones that don't actually end up in the destroyed pile. I worry if you're putting him in something like Killmonger, It'll be much easier to hit yourre your four destroys, but then it's pulling from a pool of four ones. and it's like It could give you a very bad thing back The worst thing. It's not targeted at all.
01:01:30
Speaker
I would much rather have it be a cheaper objective and not give me the power. I like Elixir is more targeted and yet you never see Elixir anywhere.
01:01:40
Speaker
um And the advantage that this has is you can invest the two energy early. But that also means it's two energy you're not spending towards playing a destroyable card or playing a destroying card.
01:01:51
Speaker
And I just I just don't I don't think destroy can fit him. It's such a tight list already. I'm giving him a one.
01:01:59
Speaker
Okay, I him a two, actually. um For some of the reasons, he's hard to read because um for exactly reasons he said you you said, um and as I've said before, the same with discard and stuff, it is neither something that wants to be destroyed or can destroy itself, which is limited in a deck, and that's usually null and death for most things, you know what I mean? Because it's like, who doesn't want to play a free 12?
01:02:24
Speaker
You know what mean? And then Nolk will just win a lane ah by itself. So... That's the, that's the, yeah, that's the problem is it's like the great thing if you can fit it into a destroy and it probably would be for like a null or something is it's like you are hoping to resurrect. It would be so targeted because so much of your destroys don't stay destroyed. You know, your destroy pile would just be that one venom or something. So you have control over what you're doing. So it's tough to say, like, you know, maybe you could fit it in there, but.
01:02:59
Speaker
um On the other hand, and that means we're looking at like Elixir, Phoenix Force stuff style decks. So there's, I'm sure there's like combo stuff you can do with it. Like you'll hit you would just like Phoenix Force and stuff. um But yeah, that's where I fit on it. And I put it too, but it's it's like, it's cheap, you know?
01:03:18
Speaker
um But you don't, you don't, you don't put it in an a lane you're going to destroy stuff. Because you don't want to destroy it. And that makes, and destroy, you want to be able to destroy of places can.
01:03:29
Speaker
like um Or at least gobble up the power. This has to stay on board. Or you're not planning on destroying stuff? Maybe? I know. I would destroy where I want. When I play destroy, I will god's... Unless there's, like, a reason where, it like, they waved and I can drop a gnoll early and stuff, then I'll play around it, but, like...
01:03:47
Speaker
You know, it's good because the problem is when you're playing destroy and you have like an X-23 and a Wolverine bouncing all over the place, you don't want to set yourself up for failure by trying to create safe lanes, you know, like unless it's really important to your strategy.
01:04:01
Speaker
Actually, Ben's example where you're destroying and then reviving one of your destroying cards, Venom, Carnage, Deathlock, whatever. After he's already done the revive, you're fine if it comes back and eats him.
01:04:14
Speaker
hmm. You want it to be the venom, though. The thing is, you don't want to res that carnage. You don't want that carnage to, like, eat you're fine if a venom, like, eats a gnoll. You lose out a little power there if it eats, like, a big cost card. But carnage, you absolutely don't want to come. And, like, you you're fine with the Wolverine and stuff. on gnoll lane. You don't want it to eat a... That's true. or But there's other big cards, like Death and stuff. So it does that's the problem. It needs to be so specific that it's like, is it worth putting this in over all the great Destroy cards? that like
01:04:47
Speaker
I don't think the revive is happening on turn six very often. I think you hit four destroys pretty early Destroy deck. I don't think it's an end-of-the-game thing, although like I think sometimes it'll be cool because you know it's a surprise objective card at the end of the game. That can be kind of swingy.
01:05:04
Speaker
i at One point that I didn't emphasize that maybe I should... I like that plus four. i think that this this card is It's functionally like never less than a two eight, even if you're bringing back a dead squirrel. Like you killed that squirrel and you got the bonus for killing that squirrel. Like you've discounted your death or whatever. And like you you done got the body back. It's ah like, you know, we we like two eights and stuff.
01:05:33
Speaker
And like it's probably more than a two eight. Like, you know, destroy for a long time, though. Like nobody plays Squirrel Girl. And like she's in Weapon Yeah. But Weapon X isn't a real, like, you know what I mean? It's what he, destroying players, it's like their fun car, you know? It's like, this isn't the one you can take out all the time to, like, win. I just, like, came to Squirrel because it's the worst possible example. It's a 1-1. I'm like, that's the floor. That's, like, floor. is actually the floor.
01:06:03
Speaker
I guess. I don't want to play this card with Hood. I don't think they're friends. Well, no, see, I actually do think this might be in this sort of like fire hair misery. that sort of. attack Yeah, maybe. And in that deck, you want cheap on reveals that you want to repeat. And that's one thing Archangel does is you bring something back and repeats the on reveal. Yeah, but I i just I don't think it's controlled enough.
01:06:26
Speaker
So even though that is like that is something you can do, I don't think it's what you do do.
01:06:34
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:36
Speaker
I'm on Polaris. Polaris Horseman of Pestilence is a tuoo wearing spiky metal armor. Objective cards in play are afflicted with minus five power to put a card from your hand here.
01:06:53
Speaker
She has a very cheap way to do this, right? To do a Dragon Lord. Mm-hmm. And there are decks that can splash something that does minus five power, right? That's a Selene. That's a Hazmat. That's a US Agent or Man-Thing. doesn't need to hit a lot of cards, and it counts cards that are your cards, too. it doesn't care whose cards they are. So i think it's very hittable.
01:07:17
Speaker
The reason I am low on this card is because I don't know where it goes. Okay. i like It seems playable, but like Affliction itself, wouldn't it rather just be playing Anti-Venom and Malekith?
01:07:32
Speaker
Maybe not. I don't know. I kind of think maybe not. yeah you think no That's a really good question. i mean like i you raised a good point. I don't know. yeah now i Affliction doesn't super-duper care about the order the cards are played as long as Hazmat comes out late.
01:07:52
Speaker
And you know you can control that if if Polaris goes in the Affliction deck. I just don't know if she does. And if she doesn't go in the Affliction deck, that means she has to go somewhere where you're splashing Affliction.
01:08:03
Speaker
And the best thing I can think of for that is like Caliban or Omega Sentinel. Yeah. and i' just like and i don't know i don't know what the deck is.
01:08:15
Speaker
I told you of going into this, I didn't give any twos up, but maybe she's a two. I had her at one, but maybe she's a two because she is like, she does something. It is a pretty strong thing and she is pretty cheap. I just have no idea what her home is. Yeah. i love is the like stupidest thing.
01:08:30
Speaker
I'm excited to hear it. Okay. okay Sorry, just now as I was listening to you talk. Like the, okay, but what if you did like, you could put it in a Soran type thing because it doesn't, it just has cards in play, right? It could be your own cards. So you could put in like, look at like Mary, you know, Typhoid Mary, stuff like that. Like, give your, you know, give yourself some negative cards and then, um and then yeah, and then have it, through you know, throw one of those big
01:09:03
Speaker
power ah cost cards. Because if this is with like Nightmare or something, you know, you want it to pull your Infonaut. You know, if it pulls your Skull, hopefully you've already store on it. If not, maybe you still an Enchantress you can play on it or Techno Organic Virus or something. So I think that could be kind of a goofy fun thing to do with it.
01:09:24
Speaker
um Just sorry to interrupt you. No, I was done. I gave it a one. What are you thinking? Or no, I gave it a two, ultimately. Okay, so well my initial instinct was to give it a three. um Because, yeah, it is easy to pull off with a hazmat. Affliction is, like, decent, you know what i mean? and It has to be, if as long as it's not too meta that people are running a bunch of Luke Cage, it can be pretty good, you know? Like, I've certainly, like, I've certainly, you know, been upset to some afflictions that i haven't been able to avoid. But, um...
01:10:01
Speaker
And like I said, yeah, I mean, putting cards from your hand there, it's hard. You got to plan for it. You got to target it I just feel like this is and this is so cheap and it's something you can set up and pay off later in in ah in something where you're ramping or playing big cards, you know, which is something like Sauron or something. you Sometimes you get top heavy in your in your hands. um You know, there are a lot of top heavy.
01:10:31
Speaker
Top heavy. Ooh, you could play it in Doom 2099 as another way to like pull, you know. Doom 2099 plays a lot of big cards to only be playing one per turn. How is it afflicting? How are you?
01:10:43
Speaker
Like Lafayette? Well, you know, yeah maybe it's a new flavor. oh is this Lafayette's moment? right I think it's pretty easy for Lafay to do minus five. Yeah, I think this might be Lafay's moment. Like Lafay's been a good card like on in principle in a vacuum like on paper.
01:11:02
Speaker
But like i feel like the home has never been there. But like, oh, this might be it.
01:11:09
Speaker
I don't know. Reed, did you have anything else? No, yeah, I gave it a three. I'm kind of digging it, to be honest. um You know, I think it's intriguing.
01:11:21
Speaker
I am also kind of digging it. um I think you probably don't want to play it early just because of how easily it could go off at any moment. There are a lot of locations that will just get you there. Sewers, but like Thunderbolts Tower, like all like so many ah like pretty common locations do some sort of widespread affliction thing, like ah whatever the the minus three one is. Is that the negative zone something? Negative zone.
01:11:51
Speaker
Yeah, like there are a lot of common and uncommon locations that will help you get there. A lot of cards will get you there in one go. Your Lafayes, your Omega Sentinels and all that.
01:12:04
Speaker
And yeah, sure, Caliban. but Well, Caliban, that's the Doom 2099 card. Yeah, I haven't even like thought super hard about Caliban.
01:12:16
Speaker
there are a lot of cards that have like little affliction, any things going on. I mean, play scorpion. You might even like you're halfway probably to, to this. Like in I, but I also don't know specifically what I want to do with this card. Like this card is not like for me. So like, I'm not, I'm not feeling like super confident, but it does such a good thing for such a small cost.
01:12:42
Speaker
And like, It really is just like it might it might go off before you're ready for it to go off. like i I think it's going to be so easy to get this card to go off. And like maybe that means you splash and afflict. i think maybe you play it where you already want to be playing some of those other cards.
01:12:59
Speaker
I don't know. I really do think it'll be good friends with Lafayette. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. i but I believe in this card. I don't have a specific enough... i I cannot picture with enough clarity and exactly what it'll look like when it's being good, but like I bet it's going to be good. So I guess I'll give it a three with a lot of optimism.
01:13:22
Speaker
and Him? Yeah. Seems strong.
Marvel Snap Mechanics vs. Magic the Gathering
01:13:26
Speaker
i don't want to harp on this too much, but this this especially reminds me of the like text slop that we've talked about. It's just yeah like, do one marble snap thing to do a different marble snap thing. like it's like also It's such a Magic the Gathering thing. How is Affliction related in any way to pulling a card from my hand? like I just don't yeah understand. yeah She has little Octopus tentacles, so maybe her animation is going to pull something out of my hand. i hope so.
01:13:56
Speaker
And she's the horseman of pestilence and that's how she afflicts things. like i just It's like because she pulls cards so now she's pulling your card. like Everybody loves Cosmic Ghost Rider, right? And I think like a solid 40% of everyone's love for Cosmic Ghost Rider is just that chain swinging around.
01:14:12
Speaker
The animations help a lot. It's so good. It feels so satisfying. is indeed. Okay. Mother Ascani coming in Grand Arena. Re- Okay, this 4 cost, 4 power. the ability on reveal, give the leftmost card in your hand plus 2 power and minus 1 cost, then copy it.
01:14:39
Speaker
And I don't know, i feel like a lot of times my ratings have to do with how I'm feeling in particular way. sure Sometimes. Yeah, all of But it's like, I've got one stars for days this season, I guess. This is another one star for Because, okay like, one, for the kind of deck, for the kind of deck I'm playing this in,
01:15:01
Speaker
am i Am I not playing um Star-Lord, you know, Master of the Sun or whatever instead? and Am I playing both? Probably not. They're the kind
Strategies for Playing Mother Ascani and Other Cards
01:15:13
Speaker
of things I want to do with it. I just don't feel... Because the thing is, when you want to copy it, right? What are you copying? Your Galactus First Steps or something? To play it twice? No.
01:15:24
Speaker
Right, it's just, I don't know i i feel like Frigga does, if you're trying to copy something, like it's cheaper, it's easier to like fit around. I'm not seeing it. Maybe I'm missing an obvious thing for this card that I should be giving it a much higher ah rating, but ah you'll have to explain to me what you're seeing for it.
01:15:45
Speaker
Yeah, you can see, you can re re-review after we say our bits then.
01:15:52
Speaker
Is it me? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. If you feel differently. I think this card's pretty good. That's what I think. Um, are you like fin fang fooming it? Hopefully. it No, I think you are, um, talking about these very expensive cards, fin fang foom galactus first steps. That's not the vision I have for mother Ascani.
01:16:16
Speaker
Um, I think Mother's Ghani is friends with cards that cost like two and three and like that. Like Swarms? That's what I think. Well, no. Like ah maybe Victoria Hand. You probably want a second one of those that costs one less and so does the first one. and that's cheap to play after you've copied it. So there's that. and that's that's what I'm not excited about. I'm not excited about that.
01:16:39
Speaker
But I sure as shit will be playing this card in some surfer decks. Yeah. Trying to copy Surfer? a brood? Yeah, copy Surfer, copy Captain Carter, copy Brood. want some 2-4 broods?
01:16:52
Speaker
Copy Maverick. What are you taking? are you, like, so, like, instead of Gwenpool, maybe? what do you I'm just curious. I haven't played Gwenpool in Surfer in a long time. I did recently get a Gwenpool variant that makes me want to play Gwenpool in Surfer again, but I haven't been able to play. cards that really make sense.
01:17:09
Speaker
Anywho, I can bump out anything. I don't know. Maybe I'll bump out Cannonball. Unlikely. He's still so good. That's what I'm saying. It's tight, right? I can see fun things, but it's hard to pull off. It's expensive compared to Frida. Right now,
01:17:26
Speaker
Right now, my two most played decks in the past week are two different Surfer decks that have two cards different. I can make room for any card I want to play in Surfer. And this is a card I will want to play in Surfer. I'll make room for Mother Ascani. She's going to feel so good when you hit her with Surge. Oh my gosh, Surge into Mother Ascani on three, that's going to feel good. Everything feels good with a Scourge to be on. Yeah,
Card Combinations and Surfer Deck Strategies
01:17:50
Speaker
yeah, yeah. I can't talk to you. Hey, I'm just saying, like, you don't, you are trying to get something that costs two or three on the left side of your hand, and you just, so many cards want to soak, oh man, a second jack flag, a second jack flag, and you can play them both so easily. Oh, man.
01:18:14
Speaker
I mean, yeah, you're playing them last turn, but that means... No, you play on turn five. Or, like, whatever you get, you you can play it on turn five. Like, ah you can split it up.
01:18:24
Speaker
You can play... So, if if you're in Surfer, you play this on four. Then on turn five... Like, all of this is assuming you don't have any extra ramp stuff, which is... yeah I mean, hopefully you do. But, like, so if the curve goes Mother Ascani on four, then, like, you can play...
01:18:42
Speaker
ah captain what if it's brood that's in your left oh that's that's also great that's honestly that's perfect yeah so you play play the first brood on turn five and it costs yeah and then uh on turn six play the second brood and surfer and i don't know a merlin spell or something I feel like you called it with it being small cost cards that you want to play towards the end. Plus that protects it like a Victoria. I love to see a Victoria hand early that I know I can take down, especially if I can get it right before they copy it. You know what I mean? That's the most exciting to me. They the silenced version. Yes, love doing that to people. Yeah, this will be safe from that kind of thing.
01:19:29
Speaker
Right, or a surfer that is something you want to hold. But then it's like those are, that's, you have decided. It's like, there's so many times that I feel like it could be a way you play this, you got that extra card in your hand, and then it just turns out like it's something better to play. Because you only have two turns to play this card.
01:19:47
Speaker
And if you play this on turn five, it's because you've decided that's definitely what you're going to play turn six. I don't think you want to play it on turn five. I think you want to play it on turn four for sure. So now you only you have a card that you can only play on one turn that's taking up a slot in your deck. And then once again, you're dictating this. I have decided because this is such a low power card, Mother Skana yourself, that I am definitely on turn six, like...
01:20:12
Speaker
or five, you know, playing and not the other cards in my hand. i don't know. I think it's more, I don't think it's as free and easy to do stuff. And you don't always, the left cost card in your hand can be, you it sucks when it's something, I've tried to play a lot of majestic wing beat, you know, and it's just like, sometimes you get a card that it's just like, I just do not want to play this card right now. And it is holding up. Now I have two dead cards in my hand that I have to wait to play, you know, and that sucks.
01:20:42
Speaker
I'm just saying there are downsides. I'm sorry to Raina.
Evaluation of Mother Ascani Card
01:20:45
Speaker
We're taking like different roles. I don't know. ah like All I can really speak to is how it's going to feel in Surfer and it's going to feel really good in Surfer. My only thing that like worries me about it in Surfer is that you know it's going to be the only card you play on turn four, so it's probably not a Sholao friend.
01:21:05
Speaker
And that that makes me a little sad because that's one of the two kinds of surfer that I have been playing a lot of. But... um Ooh, like everything else about it. Like so many cards in any of my surfer lists are happy, happy targets for Mother Ascani.
01:21:25
Speaker
And like I like the an example the way the deck works is so nonlinear. It like doesn't matter, you know, like eat like it really.
01:21:37
Speaker
Yeah, there's there's like nothing to. I don't know how to articulate this. um Yeah, I just, it's not going to go wrong in my surfer deck. i don't I don't know what everyone else wants to do with it, but I i do know what I want to do with it and it'll work.
01:21:57
Speaker
What's your rating? I was going to give it a three, but gosh, the more I think about it, the more I think maybe it's a four. I don't know. I'll i'll give it a three. Because like I feel like there are a lot of busted cards coming out in the months to come. and Sure. you know i'm not I'm not sure she stays in the deck forever, but like i think I think we're going to have a wonderful month with her.
01:22:17
Speaker
That's what i think I love this card. We brought up Majestic Wing B. And that is something that like I so often... Not so often have I made this mistake, but I've put it in a deck before thinking like, oh yeah, I would love minus one cost on on stuff a and plus two. And then it's like, oh yeah, it only does the minus one on the expensive things. She's going to do the minus one on everything.
01:22:39
Speaker
and give you a copy? Come on. like That's so great. And it's hidden information. She has so much upside. And her being 4-4, that's bad stats. 4 is expensive, and 4 power is bad. So like that's her downside.
01:22:54
Speaker
She represents huge opportunity cost. But I love that Rhi brought up 6 and 7 costs, and you brought up 2 and 3 costs. Let me bring up... one and four costs one costs become free you get two free cards four costs you could play two of them on turn six if they've been reduced to three that's like that's a good thing to do ah fours are not the powerhouse they used to be but still how often is your desired turn six play two of the same four costs though
01:23:25
Speaker
kind of to Wolverine Horseman of War is a pretty yummy, what, 3.5 that generates That's a great answer.
01:23:32
Speaker
Like, I know we're not in a world where, like, Shang and four-cost Enchantress win games anymore. so like Certainly not two of them. Like, yeah like you don't want two Shang-Chi's or two Enchantress. Not anymore. That used to be the... Like, one of the things that made Zabu so strong is you could just swing two lanes because you could play Shang and Enchantress.
01:23:59
Speaker
that's not you know That's not the world anymore. So I'm not sure... not sure what what those fours are. Maybe they're both strife. I don't know. yeah oh you You're right. I was too low on this card. those like and you can always lockjaw away or do one of those cards that will overwrite her. Oh, yeah. That's
Storm Horseman Card Evaluation
01:24:18
Speaker
really good. I like that, Rhi.
01:24:20
Speaker
Blinking is great, yeah. Because blinking blinking, you want the higher cost cards that you're blinking, you know? Blink is a great one with this that would also work with ramp. Okay. If you play Lockjaw in a Mother Ascani deck, is it the end of the world if you play a couple one-cost Lockjaws on turn five? I don't think it is. I think that's pretty cool. yeah if Yeah. like Just the order, like, you can you can swap, and yeah, that's neato.
01:24:48
Speaker
I don't at all want to act like she's free, but she is super fun and there's absolutely things to do with her. We already brought up Victoria Hand. That's the low hanging fruit. That's obviously going to be great. There's lots of other stuff.
01:24:59
Speaker
ah She's a three and I'm like so close to four, but yeah i feel like yeah I feel like a lot of that is my heart and not reality. don't think it's your heart, Lauren. I think this card is just that good. i think it might be a four, y'all.
01:25:10
Speaker
I don't know. All right. I'm dragging myself up to a three. um But, you know, respect to my initial reservations. But, yeah, you guys are right. There's a lot I didn't think about with this one.
01:25:21
Speaker
Okay. Storm. Ben. Storm. Horseman famine. ah She's a 3-1 now.
01:25:33
Speaker
i think datamined at three two um yeah But this is also a familiar Storm stat line. Storm's storm's been 3-1, the other Storm. um Anywho, objective. End two turns in a row with unspent energy.
01:25:48
Speaker
to give your other cards here and in your hand plus two power.
01:25:56
Speaker
All right. I guess I have to have opinions about this card. i gave it a three. Seems good. The objective seems super easy to do. ah we think we've all learned that several times over living in a sun Lord's world.
01:26:13
Speaker
Um, The reward is pretty good, it seems to me. I mean, I'm less excited about giving the power to the other cards on the board, especially because, like, when are you doing the objective? If you do it too early, do you even have enough cards on the board? I'm more excited about giving the cards in your hand plus two power.
01:26:35
Speaker
um i mean, she's a three cost, so, you know... Yeah, I feel like the easiest two turns to end in a row with unspent energy are turns one and two is the thing. so You could play a one on turn two.
01:26:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. i There are reasons to have her buff the board and your hand. Yeah, I'm just more excited about the buffing in the hand because, like, for one thing, it's hidden information. I mean, like, your opponent knows that the cards are buffed, but they don't know what's buffed and how how much impact that's going to have. and You know, i yeah, I struggle with this card a little bit just because it doesn't,
01:27:22
Speaker
it's not a card that i asked for, you know, like I read Mother Iscani and I'm like, oh, this is a card I want because it does the thing that I want to do. This card does a thing where I'm like, do I want to do this? How badly do I want to do this?
01:27:37
Speaker
I don't know, but like, I'm sure there will be decks that are outside of my narrow focus that want to do this. Like this is a strong effect. um And frankly, i just, I want, I want to hear,
01:27:50
Speaker
what y'all think about, I'm sure, I feel like you will have more specific ideas about what to do with storm horseman of famine than I will. I think the fact that they shaved off a point of power, ah is if anything, you know, probably evidence that this card, uh, felt strong in testing. yeah so I, and I don't think they test very much to be honest. Um,
01:28:17
Speaker
um So I think it must have felt real strong. yeah o um Hey, look, now she's a Ravonna card. um
01:28:31
Speaker
I don't I don't love this card. It seems really easy to do the objective. The payoff is is pretty good. That said, it also feels like a trap to me. I've seen tons of people be super high on this card, and I think it's just good. I don't think it's amazing.
01:28:51
Speaker
Granted, there are lots of good hits, and maybe it just goes in the Surfer buff stack. Like, you hit Carter, you hit Maverick, like, you hit Brood. There's so many good hits there. and she's a three also.
01:29:04
Speaker
the Surfer is is the low-hanging fruit. um I have no idea where else she goes, but... Yeah, really easy. i do think I've seen people talk about skipping two separate turns, and it is two two in a row, but that still is just not that much to ask.
01:29:22
Speaker
No. I gave her a three.
01:29:28
Speaker
These are the least enthusiastic threes we've handed out. don't like her.
Surfer Deck Strategies and Hidden Information
01:29:33
Speaker
She's boring. Yeah, do you have... Can you muster some enthusiasm for this card, Rhi? Yeah. um I gave it a two. I did wonder if at all it goes in negative because, you know, negative good if he usually isn't playing anything on one. So you're already skipping one turn and like they've got some weird stuff. And then, you know, and it's like a one three. So if you play it at the end, do you know what I mean? It's not the worst. But I don't play negative a lot. So, you know, I don't. It's just from the outside. don't either. But have been saying. sounds
01:30:08
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of high Evo lately. But the reason I give it a two, even though i this obviously goes well in high Evo, the problem is when you're skipping energy, you know, for your stuff, that's your thing, which is obviously that's what you want to be doing if you're playing this card. Like, a lot of times, it's like, I've been seeing Warlock, which, like...
01:30:32
Speaker
You know what i mean? Usually you've got, like, Hulks in your hand, like a She-Hulk, a Red Hulk, a Regu-Hulk, if you're playing high Evo kind of stuff. And, like, ah like making those cheaper with Warlock is often more valuable than, i think, giving them extra power because they're already such big cards. And then B, like, your other three-cost card that you want Because it's like... you You're either trying to play off and you're going to play that three card on a four or you're just going to not skip energy turn. But you're usually never going to play like more than you don't want to add too many threes and like a high Evo. And I like Cyclops. Cyclops is just just great. And part of the reason Cyclops is great is because he can continue to work in locations that are going to shut down or that you're going to fill up, you know, with Sunspot and maybe other ways to buff it up. So that's why I give it a two. It doesn't seem bad, but it's just like in the places where I'm going to use this, it's it's like more at level maybe with the other cards I would put there. or And I feel like because I haven't played this card, I'm seeing the reasons I play the cards I do now in those spots. And it's harder to fit her in when you are, you know, like you kind of want to play the Red Hulk and stuff and swap her out for one of your other three cost cards and being adding in another three cost card to your high evo deck i don't know yeah i think for high evo yeah i think everything you're saying makes sense and it was so hard i've been seeing lot of hype it was so hard for me to follow it because you mentioned a card that i hadn't thought about at all and i i was very i was very interested in that possibility okay so we what if the
01:32:19
Speaker
the The two consecutive turns. I thought like the easy, obvious ones, or like maybe not the easy, but historically the easiest turns to not spend the energy are turns one and two. But now I'm thinking like, okay, what if what we want to do is we play Storm on three. Maybe we have played cards on one two. Maybe we spent all the energy on one and two. Who knows? Okay, so we've done whatever until turn three when we play Storm.
01:32:44
Speaker
Then on turn four, we play Warlock. Float one energy. Turn five. We skip everything and we play all the fucking surfer cards all at once. Just go nuts.
01:32:59
Speaker
ah Notably also works if you play Warlock and Storm in the opposite order. Yes, that too. ah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so wow. i i'm not I spend a lot of time not thinking about Warlock and I never would have...
01:33:15
Speaker
I mean, like, I should have been thinking about Warlock. This is obviously like they should be in cahoots, right? They're two sides of the same coin. I think you might be right. I think maybe she is better. She could be better than Cyclops. She could replace Cyclops in that deck, possibly.
01:33:33
Speaker
You're still thinking about Hi, Evo, and i'm I'm always thinking about Surgear. know, but like I'm still putting Warlock in. I know, but we're still talking about the Warlock situation. Oh, and their friendship, yes. there Yeah, that like where she is, and it would be cute to like you know have them go both go off at the same time, and you have a bunch of cards made cheaper and buffed up at the same time. How cute. okay Barfin buffed cards on the board. Yeah.
01:34:02
Speaker
And once again, it's hard for them. That's hitting information. What got cheaper? What got buffed? They don't know.
01:34:11
Speaker
kind of feel like i don't like her because everybody else does. I think
Marvel Snap Gameplay Overview and Deck Preferences
01:34:18
Speaker
that might be a sign that this is good card, Lauren. I know Rhea's also a hipster.
01:34:23
Speaker
I don't feel as hipster as Rhea sometimes, but on this card, I really am feeling it. Like, this is this is an a good card. It's probably a four. It's just so, like...
01:34:35
Speaker
i don't know. You know, you can give cards that you hate fours. I do it yeah all the time. I'm not excited about Strife. This is a four. don't know why I'm not excited about it.
01:34:50
Speaker
I've been thinking about the comparison to Nakia and maybe that's a silly thing to compare. She's two Nakias, but Nakia starts with three more power. It's so easy for her to if your hand is big enough and it it should be bigger if you skipped to the first two turns.
01:35:10
Speaker
One thing I do like about the ah delaying it, you know, making it four and five that you're skipping or whatever. Or even if you skipped one and two, but playing Storm on five. Or maybe if you skipped one of one and two, so that you don't make the streak yet.
01:35:26
Speaker
you You keep, ah you know, like if you play one card in the first two turns, then you keep more cards in your hand held back for for later barfing. Yeah, but I like playing Storm later and then having cards on board that she hits as well as cards in hand. That that means more total power output. Yeah, for sure. You should play her on a lane where you already have some stuff.
01:35:47
Speaker
Yeah. Hmm.
01:35:51
Speaker
Okay. Well, that's that season time for the seasonal question. Which one are you most excited for?
01:36:02
Speaker
ah For me, it's got to be Mother Iskani. I mean, like some of these cards are... I'm i'm excited about ah Archangel, but, you know, I'm sure I'll put him in some kind of bad guys with s swords. 300 bad guys with swords with Archangel Horseman of Death coming sometime in the next two months whenever I feel... His wings are made of swords. It's very appropriate. It's a very cool design. ah it's ah It's a classic, classic look.
01:36:29
Speaker
Um... i I think it's got to be Mother Iscani. I'm looking at the other cards. What else could excite me? I'm not excited about Storm, although I do think she seems very strong.
01:36:40
Speaker
Not excited about Strife, although I do think he seems very strong. Yeah, the strongest card that I can get excited about is Mother Iscani. Yeah. right ah For me, it's between ah Polaris and Techno Organic Virus because I just think they're the ones I will have most fun trying to puzzle out and like build a deck for, even if it's just for that week and I drop it. I'm intrigued.
01:37:08
Speaker
feel so bad for you. You pick the Super Premium Season Pass like every time. Oh, you do. That is ah that's a pattern. Yeah, that's Techno Organic Virus. I forgot. yeah I guess those it'll be a Polaris, maybe.
01:37:21
Speaker
um i think it's mother ascani for me too strife's gonna do some cool things but mother ascani seems more fun so uh she's she's what i want majestic wingbeat to be and even better yeah if more expensive yeah majestic wingbeat is exactly fine like the this you know
01:37:46
Speaker
Alright. On to our side quest. If we have a little more segments to ah yeah It's just like, oh, it'll be like at least another, what, like, 40 minutes. but We could go fast. we We could actually keep it snappy.
01:38:06
Speaker
it's like, in the long run of things, five minutes is not so long to be, like, refreshed. Oh my god. I think why think break is the the move.
01:38:18
Speaker
but's All right. That's fine. Intermission. All right. We're back from intermission two in the episode where we're not cutting the talk about the intermission planning.
01:38:30
Speaker
We're being completely transparent. I'm always a transparent. On to our side quest. First up, we can snap.
01:38:38
Speaker
I can resist. And everything I do is a transaction. Yeah. Ben, how was your weekend snap and keep it snappy? Well, my weekend snap endeavoring to keep it snappy as I sometimes do.
01:38:50
Speaker
um I forgot to set the timer again, but it's always running in my heart. uh you know i did play some snap as i mentioned hit infinite right after we recorded ah played a little conquest and stuff i for some reason on the days when i've most wanted to play snap it's just shaking out that it's hot locations and stuff and i'm just i'm not into doing that on the ladder But also, I don't really feel like, you know, I'm not doing hashtag pod goals this season or anything. So, like, it would, it's it's just been kind of for S's and G's. um
01:39:30
Speaker
I do have some infinity tickets that I don't think I'm going to burn through. You know, that's just how it goes. You spend all all the season, you know, getting a bunch of golden infinity tickets and then like it's the final week and you're like, well, I've got a lot of gold tickets that I should turn into infinity tickets and then infinity tickets that I'm just not going to.
01:39:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's just I don't know. if That's me. I don't know how everyone else does it, but um I have some decks that I'm I'm loving. Unfortunately, they're old as hell.
01:40:02
Speaker
the The two surfer decks that I mentioned earlier are Snowball Surfer and Supergiant Surfer, and they are two cards different from each other. The two cards are pretty important. The two cards that are in Supergiant Surfer that are not in Snowball Surfer are a Jack Flag and Supergiant, and they give that version a very particular flavor. And ah Snowball Surfer, sort of the classic, the flagship, if you will, um that one, it's got Maverick and Xolau, two cards that also give that deck a very particular something.
01:40:37
Speaker
Um, yeah. And I recommend both of those super highly. I saw an interesting surfer deck in our, uh, discord in the speakeasy, uh, Bryant TS, some number 24, maybe. I don't know. Uh, he had, uh, uh, I, I don't know, Bryant.
General Gaming Discussion and Game Mechanics
01:40:56
Speaker
It might be a day who I don't know, but they had a cool deck that I can't find right now. It had, um,
01:41:04
Speaker
the fallen one in it, which is not a ramp option I'd ever considered for my surfer stuff. um but it's very intriguing.
01:41:15
Speaker
What I, um, did notice it didn't have absorbing man in it. And I really think absorbing man is a cool card. I don't know. If you're building a surfer deck, I recommend putting Absorbing Man in it, but i am curious i haven't tried Bryant's deck.
01:41:33
Speaker
I'm not even sure i own the Fallen one. ah So that that would make it harder. but um But yeah, that's about where I... No, I don't own the Fallen one.
01:41:45
Speaker
Yep, it's my daily card. No Fallen 1 for me. So I can't test Brian's deck. That answered your question? if you're ah if you're If you're in the Discord, I don't know, scroll up, find it.
01:41:56
Speaker
It looked really intriguing. I thought that was neato. And I was like, you know, I'm always thinking about cards that would be fun to hit with Surge. ah See the previous discussion about Mother Ascani.
01:42:08
Speaker
But I'm like, bet Fallen 1 feels pretty good to hit with Surge. And, you know, I'm sure sure that's how it goes. um Other than that, in games, still playing the games I like to play. As I mentioned, I would like to bring about five of them to the desert island, um you know, climbed some Babel Blocks and Catherine.
01:42:31
Speaker
Through a few attempts at, you know, getting my fresh file speed run goals in Hades 2, you know, still cleaning up those final couple ascensions in Slay the Spire 2, I am...
01:42:46
Speaker
considering checking out the beta branch that had so many crybabies review bombing the game on Steam. I'm not saying you can't disagree with like balance decisions and stuff. That's like what the whole early access thing is. But like there's a way to give the developers feedback that is not review bombing the game on Steam. So do it that way.
01:43:03
Speaker
if If you're upset that they took away your easy infinite toys um going infinite. I realized I used that term ah last week. And, you know, in Marvel Snap, infinite has, like, different meanings and stuff. But in other card games where this can more easily be achieved, going infinite ah refers to when you have a set of actions that you can just, like, take indefinitely. And you you have to, like, tell your opponent, like, you pick an arbitrarily large number and say, like, I'm doing this infinite interaction this many times. And in Slay the Spire, you actually have to drag all the cards around. But... um
01:43:43
Speaker
You know, ah you you just like you create a perpetual motion machine of card effects. um So that's that's what that is. And that's why people got upset about Slay the Spire was Slay the Spire 2. Some cards on the beta branch, not even not even like the.
01:44:02
Speaker
Oh, no. Did they change something and some gamers that played a game got upset? Yeah, exactly. But they didn't even like really change the thing. This is just like a hypothetical change. Like, hey, we're thinking about making it a little harder to go infinite. We're thinking maybe that would be the good balance choice. And yeah, people got so busy.
01:44:20
Speaker
um Anywho, other than that, what I've really been spending a lot of time with is Mugenics. Once again, there really is a lot, a lot going on in that game. Also another game where it's super easy to go infinite. Uh, I've listened to a lot of podcasts and heard some interviews and things, and I know that magic, the gathering was a very large, uh, gameplay inspiration from eugenics. And a lot of it really shows there are a lot of abilities that are named after magic, the gathering cards in an unambiguous way. ah also pieces of equipment.
01:44:55
Speaker
There's a, there's a little sword that, uh, we'll be very familiar to, anyone who played Kamigawa block or any game of commander since then. Um, anywho, Mugenics is as always, you know, ah a game about which I've got complicated feelings, but there is just an awful lot to like about it, especially the music and, um,
01:45:25
Speaker
Man, it's there's some frustrating things, though. It's very I haven't complained about that. There are so many things I have complained about, but like, gosh, you can get really stuck in analysis paralysis when ah one playing eugenics. Just ah a lot of micromanagement. And like, it's the whole point of the game. Like you want to be micromanaging this stuff. But like.
01:45:49
Speaker
you'll You'll get back from a successful run and you'll have too much equipment for your inventory capacity. And you just have to stare at all these fucking icons and like the sorting options are OK, but they're not like.
01:46:03
Speaker
Honestly, it would be. eat i wish they had like little pull down menus when you're trying to equip the cats before starting a run. And i don't know. there's There's some things about the game that like.
01:46:15
Speaker
there's too much friction and some things take too long. And I think some of that is maybe my fault for like how, what I'm bringing to the game of myself, but like, gosh, sometimes the runs just take too, too many hours. I, yeah you know, like too, too many hours on a run. And ah then I, I think about what I'm doing in Hades too, where like, even, you know, even if I don't,
01:46:42
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know. Hades runs can be measured in 10 minutes and Mugenics runs are measured in hours. as is and but That's long for a roguelike, for sure. Yeah. it's It's sort of like you start Mugenics run and it's sort of like you started a new game of Civilization. It's like kind of the energy and like it's just ah you know, it's all good and fun and like the point of the game is to like sit there stroking your chin, trying to figure out what the smartest thing to do with your, you know, buck wild overpowered, but also very fragile cats is, and you don't like,
01:47:25
Speaker
I'm getting what I asked for, basically, but like maybe too much of it or just like, I don't know. i I do know that this is a game that developers intend to keep iterating upon for um years, it sounds like. So I think there will be quality of life improvements at some point that will...
01:47:46
Speaker
accordingly improve my quality of life when playing the game. And I'm looking forward to that because there are some rough edges and gnarly guts in this one.
01:47:59
Speaker
But still so much to love. It's so exciting when you... When you your your favorite cats give birth to a a new little kitten who has just the the perfect abilities that you know you're going to do something real silly with.
01:48:17
Speaker
And also, i complained about like ah the the limited inventory stuff. Yeah.
01:48:25
Speaker
yeah you can't hold on to it. You shouldn't hold on to every piece of equipment and it's, it's good that they make you pare it down and stuff. And there are good feelings to be had within that system. Like I'm thinking about like, I've got, I've got full, I've got some, some beautiful pieces of equipment that I'm just like saving for a cat. That'll be like this. Like I've got a bunch of toys for a cat. Who's good at fire stuff that I've just like, I've been saving up and I, you know,
01:48:53
Speaker
for like the past 20 hours, I've been saving up pieces of equipment for some future cat that will be good at fire stuff. And, uh, I don't know. I, I,
01:49:05
Speaker
Man, it's so hard to explain things about this game. But yeah, there's there's a lot to love. And if you're like, if you're a freak like me, i don't know, get in there, check it out. But also, i don't know if if it sounds tedious to you. You're probably right.
01:49:20
Speaker
It can be a little tedious. um I don't know. I'll probably grab it as soon as it's out on Switch. Yeah, give give it a shot. I bet there will be some quality of life improvements by the time it comes around for Switch. Also, the man, some controls things. I don't know.
01:49:40
Speaker
oh i I've played a little bit with the controller and I'm not loving not loving that because I just wanted to see. you know but yeah I'm sure i'm sure they'll get they'll they'll improve some things. Hopefully before console release, yeah. yeah That's not a game that's in early access, by the way. That's a game that is, in theory, fully fully formed. all right Yeah, that's been my week in Snap. Sorry,
Personal Marvel Snap Experiences and Deck Strategies
01:50:08
Speaker
it's a little unfocused. i'm just i'm not I'm not my most focused self today. so you know in Some weeks you just get a different Benjamin Roller.
01:50:15
Speaker
Maybe we needed a third intermission. Ree, how was your week in Snap? And keep it snappy. Sure, because it was so hot in here. I didn't have time. I didn't set up the AC because didn't think it would be 80 degrees today. OK. I do have synapse stuff this week for once because I had a deck that I was just super hype about. I took it to Infinite for funsies because I'm like, honestly, a big reason is like, oh, this deck is so fun. going to talk about Let me get to Infinite give it that little sparkle, sparkle behind the discussion. Yeah, a stamp of the pool. Right? I even took, okay, it's an Arishem deck.
01:50:59
Speaker
But here's here's the fun part is that, you know, I do enjoy Arishem from time to He is crippled badly in the knees with that first two turns, just bam, bam. Mm-hmm. right in the knees like, give me extra energy. It hurts so bad. It's like, what? I gotta play on on energy in until turn three? No. Anyway. But, okay. But new thing is I have discovered it has been so long, but I think it was after all the buffs and stuff. I've entered M'Baku era. It's such a card for Arsham, surprisingly, but I guess not surprisingly. um i took ah so many folk like screenshots of all the times M'Baku won me games. Especially Big Cuber ones. I want to dump them so bad, but like ah forcing everyone to look at all these, it would be like showing everyone... like um
01:51:53
Speaker
don't know, a vacation I had been on, but not like one with interesting things to look at, like my weird hobby that I'm yeah, that's a diner in a place or something, you know, like, so yeah, but I was just like, every time I'm just like, you just got M'Baku'd. So like, to and so the deck, of course, is called, to me, M'Baku, even though Storm isn't in it at all. But like, okay. And it is such it's such a funky deck and it's an interesting, um it's like always every time with Arishem and you change things up, you're learning more about the nature of Arishem. It's all true. Arishem Disciples know.
01:52:36
Speaker
It's an ever-evolving process and um in which you forget sometimes which what cards do. Because you get them randomly and then you're like, oh, I screwed that up. Okay. um But this is also an En Sabaner deck, which surprisingly is so fun.
01:52:57
Speaker
in Arshem, usually that's the random, as we talked about earlier, the random I don't like that I have a little less control over. Although it's not completely. It's something my deck, but it could be something from my deck. But what one of the great things about End Summoner is so many people are running something like that steals power. that like You know what I mean? that um like I've been seeing Selene, you know, ah Horseman of Famine, whatever it's called. And other things, Omega Red, there's enough of it? or locations that do that? You're just like...
01:53:30
Speaker
Yeah, that one will just go, you know, I'll just be out of here. Or they send over a goblin and you're like, that's fine. That's just going to go. I'll just make sure I trigger it, you know, last or I'll trigger it early. I'll draw that goblin. I'll play it on them in their location. So um so I thought he's just at least in this meta, it's been amazing.
01:53:49
Speaker
legit useful to drop a card out or especially if you get a random hood right because with rshm you're trying to manage randomness with the cards that you're wrapping in your rshm shell so this one i mean quinjet quinjet's just too good unless like things are rampant irishm you gotta have it um east east east
01:54:15
Speaker
Iska is the Unbeaten, ah because that just it's just a card that's just good everywhere, which makes it good in Arishem, and it's fun, and it can win so many attacks. I love her much. Great card to play on turn three.
01:54:28
Speaker
Right? Yes, exactly. If I have her in hand, she gets played on turn three just about always. Very rarely. There would have to be some really good reason I don't play her. And that gives her so many. Like, right? She just solos Elaine. She's great in this deck. Okay. And then, um interesting. So Galactus First Steps.
01:54:50
Speaker
Right. Is another it's a good once again with Arsham, you're managing randomness and it's like it's good. We have a lot of little cards in here already. haven't discussed all of them.
01:55:02
Speaker
um But it's like having a a solid big card to play that you can make bigger in hand and drop It's just useful. um i've i've beaten I've beaten some Galactuses in numerous ways after they Galactused, but like Galactus First Steps can be one of those depending on...
01:55:22
Speaker
um How things have gone, that kind of stuff. Okay. Other things about mitigating Arishem is that danger. It's the danger. It's like you could get just cards that are unplayable. Like, it's like, I want to play this Electro 3, you know, kind of stuff. And you can get... Or you can get cards that are kind of fine, but they're too small. And then you're just out of stuff and sitting on energy. So this deck includes Valentina, which is also a great 2-3 play. Because, right, it mitigates the random... It's like you may not have 4 cost to play in deck 4, but now you do because Valentina, you know...
01:55:59
Speaker
um Then cables in this, which cable, right? Just solid power in a card for two, four, which is something you're looking for with your Arashem shell wrapper cards is usually good.
01:56:12
Speaker
And it's like, it's that tech, it's like, right? I can't fit a copycat in this maybe, but like, you know, if I cabled them and they're a rock deck and they drew their Patriot, like I'm probably gonna snap them. Did they knew I draw their i drew their Patriot? They don't know. like Cable's just a great card, right? It's great in Anishim because once I said it's bringing cards, it's tech against them that you can do, um which in this deck especially, um there's more limited options, gives you more choices to play from.
01:56:44
Speaker
um Elias is in this deck. um You know, you get Pryo. Elias just ends a lot of things. And it's always a good... In Arishem, they never know if you have it.
01:56:58
Speaker
a um And Enchantress. Okay. um There's still two other cards haven't talked about. But let's talk about Enchantress next. So...
01:57:11
Speaker
And Tranchus has long been key to Arshim, and I've multiple times, there's not a Shang in this deck, and there's been times where been like... i You know, should I replace her with a shank? I've been seeing so much high evo and big cards kind of stuff. But no, the reason, one, Enchantress is one of those cards like Legion where an eight power is just a good power if you're whiffing on it, winning the game for you, literally, you know, which Enchantress can do against the right decks.
01:57:43
Speaker
Yeah. And Shang doesn't do that. And like, it's bad when you can't use a Shang and you have a bunch of low power. Like you can get in situations with Arishem where you just never drew enough power to win, you know? um So you want your tech cards and, but you're also mitigating your own cards, right? Enchantress helps you if an Arishem card ends up being a Soran card. You know what i mean? It's, it's,
01:58:08
Speaker
So and Shang doesn't do that for you. And that's why Enchantress is just the tech to choose for Arshem, in my opinion, if you can't fit a Shang, which is where Isco went, really. And I i won't regret it.
01:58:23
Speaker
Cosmo does the same thing, right? Getting Pryo and playing Cosmo and people win so many things and people don't know, right? This is another deck that people just don't like see it coming necessarily because you're not playing ongoing or anything. That stops it. It helps you in the same vein if you drew a Destroyer or, you know, other stuff you need to stop that from your... So once again, a lot of Arishem tech is like, how can I use this...
01:58:51
Speaker
pro again you know as tech and also against my own cards to mitigate problem cards. And then the last card, which is another surprise card for me, and she has definitely won me so many games. Because I would say Legion is normally in a lot of Arashem decks,
01:59:09
Speaker
But there's not room for Legion in this Arashem deck with all the other cards you said. So Scarlet Witch is in it. And I have a fantastic... I have a Scarlet Witch from an old bundle, so I have the Art Germ Scarlet Witch, which is just rare.
01:59:21
Speaker
love, like, pulling it out. But, like, it's won me so many games because people are magicing lot lately, I've noticed. So, ah you know.
01:59:32
Speaker
yeah ah So a lot of times... Yeah, just hold it. Just hold it and Like, as opposed to Legion, which is my comfort zone for being in Arshem or for location change, because there's more control.
01:59:47
Speaker
Her being, like, mostly when I'm playing her, depending on the deck I'm playing, I'm saving it for turn six to make... getting rid of Limbo a surprise because they just don't know that I have it, right? If I'm not in Conquest or whatever, and that's just probably going to win it to me.
02:00:05
Speaker
and her being so cheap allows me to play out power to also, like, win on turn six, which it's it's never a guarantee that stopping the game early anymore is just going to meet, you know, than they expected means they didn't already like put enough in their lanes, especially if they are playing something like heat high Evo where they're skipping it and their sunspot's going to get bigger kind of stuff. So it's like, ah you know, she's had a lot of utility. And then like, ah and Baku just jumps in at the end.
02:00:40
Speaker
So good. I have had so much fun this deck. I took it, yeah, I took it to Infinite. um It was a blast. ah And that's that's really what I spent, like, the majority you know, my week in Snap.
02:00:57
Speaker
Awesome.
Anticipation for Upcoming Marvel Snap Season
02:00:59
Speaker
Okay, I'll talk about mine briefly. It's spring break in both my wife's and child's school districts.
02:01:08
Speaker
My wife is out of town visiting family. So it's just my kiddo and i for like five days and we're having a great time. Huntrix meals from K-Pop Demon Hunters came out at McDonald's and we've had them twice already and are talking about having them a third time. They're pretty good.
02:01:26
Speaker
Not a big fan of the nuggets, but but like they're good enough. And the rameon seasoning is bomb. You put that on the fries and the chicken nuggets, pretty good. Also, the Derpy McFlurry, if you like berry flavors at all, it's a really good McFlurry. It has popping boba in it. It is so good.
02:01:43
Speaker
ah Possibly my favorite, and I'm a freak for Oreos, so you know that's saying something. Yeah. I've been playing Snap, you know ah writing articles about...
02:01:56
Speaker
April Fool's Game O's that probably didn't even need an economy article, but it does cover does cover how to spend 48 more gold if you're one of those people. um And I know there's lots of those people. Yeah.
02:02:10
Speaker
Working on clips. I have a good list of clips for cards coming up this season. So I'm excited to do those. i soon I don't know. keep Keep your eyes peeled on my Twitter, Blue Sky or Fourth Location YouTube shorts. Yeah.
02:02:28
Speaker
Okay, sort of on to our homework, secret homework. But we discussed this is already a very long episode. And also, although we all did play Infinity Spin, none of us made it out of the proving grounds.
02:02:41
Speaker
And so we would like an extension on the homework, and we will be discussing it next week. So, listener, if you haven't played Infinity Spin yet and you're interested, there's a website. You can Google it, like Marvel Snap Infinity Spin. You'll find it. And it's like they turned Conquest Mode into a roguelike. It gives you, like, a random deck and then you get well, semi-random. There's obviously some clumping going on because there's some theme, I don't know, some synergy when you get your starting deck. But then you upgrade your deck and and go through, ideally,
02:03:13
Speaker
all the way through gold conquest and win an infinity ticket. And that's when you win with your, with your deck. Um, yeah, we're not committing to do that.
02:03:25
Speaker
Well, no, I will. try I'll give it a few more tries to try to beat proving grounds though. Um, but also if we can't even do that, which I, you know, i'm I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't make it out of proving grounds. I'll give it another attempt or two. Yeah. Yeah.
02:03:42
Speaker
Exactly. So, homework extension. We'll talk about it more next week. um Okay. If you liked what you heard, please like, comment, and subscribe. If you're just an audio listener, just, I say that like you're in any way inferior. No, you're amazing. But if you are only an audio listener, come give us a subscribe on YouTube anyway. We're trying to get to 500 for mostly arbitrary reasons. um Rate and review on iTunes or Spotify.
02:04:07
Speaker
Leave a comment on YouTube or Spotify or come hang out in the speakeasy. It's our little corner of discord where you can find this. You can find the instructions to get there in the show notes or video description. We're probably part of the snap judgments network. That's that's the discord that we've glommed onto where you can listen to other great shows like snap judgments, the titular grand pod by pulse glazer and Nick de Greek geek on Saturdays.
02:04:32
Speaker
You know, last time I was on that, I really struggled with saying Nick de Greek geek. Yeah, it's hard. And i I've been doing great lately. Just saying. um Well done.
02:04:45
Speaker
Yeah. on ah On a journey of, ah you know, self-betterment. Getting better at saying other people's names. It's like, it you know, i love Nick, but like, it's a choice to make your username a tongue twister.
02:05:00
Speaker
Anyway. Yeah, it is. Tune in next week. Find out what we think about the new season and how our runs in Infinity Spin went. Same snap time, same snap channel.
02:05:15
Speaker
OK, I do. I do kind of want to dipsify outro. I finally watched Wolf Children.
02:05:26
Speaker
Yay! I've been there It's on one of my streaming services. Was it good? well then Was it everything that Lauren promised? I going to talk about it and then like probably just not worry about spoilers, but now I feel like I shouldn't. Own a secret homework?
02:05:42
Speaker
Well, i can I can take my earbuds out if if you want to. No! And it's at the end of the episode, so when I do the timestamps, I don't even have to listen to this part.
02:05:55
Speaker
You can come back later. We can talk about it another time. Let's talk about it next week. Wave
MMO Experiences and Digital Scarcity in Games
02:06:01
Speaker
your arms around when I can listen again. no, no. Vent. No, come back.
02:06:07
Speaker
Will you watch it this week? If you'll watch it this week, we can do it. We can talk about it next week. Yes. I can commit to watching it this week. I think it's on HBO. and Instead, think it's on also you can wish me luck on my new I put in this week ah for a new FF14 house.
02:06:28
Speaker
oh Are you familiar with the a housing market struggles? I only know that it exists. Like I've heard you and Chase talk about it and I don't understand. Like, aren't these digital goods that should have unlimited supply?
02:06:44
Speaker
That's why it's so fascinating. Okay. and MMOs, right? So you think that's how a lot of and MMOs do it. You just go to a place. It generates an instance. You can invite people.
02:06:56
Speaker
FF14 was like, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to have standing instances um of neighborhoods, right? Like the metaverse? Like there are these set. Well, it's a huge instance, right? A zone that is full of like houses, different houses. And um there are different places you can buy a house that are themed that is like in the major cities.
02:07:21
Speaker
So they each have different themes. And then each instance, they have like 30 instances of that house of the same neighborhood that you can go into. But it's like literal like space. It's not infinite. You know what mean? It has like coordinates.
02:07:34
Speaker
Yeah. And the problem was, and there everyone's like, there's not enough housing. And like, they got to build more. yeah exactly and they're like no there's plenty of housing the problem is you people want the highly desirable housing you guys want to live on the beaches you want to live in the the store the story lore wise cool places nobody wants to live in the fucking goblet that's sorry that's the older region it's the ugliest i mean debatably you know and a no no disrespect to older fans just kind of generally memed on as the egg place no one lives. So one, there are like locations that are less desirable. And then two, it's a server. They're like, go to a lesser populated server.
02:08:18
Speaker
it's like, yeah, just convince everyone to leave all their friends and all the happening spots. You know what i mean? It's so funny because it's like digital. It's digital, right? It's supposed to be infinite and we're just mirroring real life.
02:08:31
Speaker
But what these what these neighborhoods have enabled is really cool. The fact that the whole neighborhood is instance, people have all these parties and like, you know what i mean? Big events.
02:08:43
Speaker
And like people complain when their neighbors have big yard decorations they think are ugly and are ruining their view. And like, um like there is. OK, and here's the thing. So like.
02:08:55
Speaker
So housing has been a problem and how you used to have to get a house. Is that like yeah yeah housing goes into market when you, um when someone who has previously bought a house, to this point, they're all bought out, right? And there's like a whole seedy black market underground thing where people are buying and and paying so much real money to like try and like finagle, to get to finagle the system, to like get a house, to transferring free companies and stuff. Shave stuff. Anyway. And
02:09:30
Speaker
But the only way to get it is someone gave up their house, left the game or something. More likely, they didn't log in for so long. If someone... it's not just logging in It's not just logging in. You have to... like Because you have to go visit your house at least once a month. Oh, I thought maybe they were getting their property taxes.
02:09:49
Speaker
No. Fortunately, once, you know, like, more you know, if you're a property owner um and you own everything, like, you just... Okay. But, like... ah So so if you don't go to your house so often, you know, there's a countdown timer and eventually they kick you out and it goes up for auction.
02:10:10
Speaker
And what you would ah do was you would go like when it went up, you would just have to be there and you'd have to go like buy it. And to to minimize the black market where people were like paying real money to trade because they know it would go up at exact this time. You know what i mean? They would hold all this shenanigans. They're like, OK, we're instituting a random timer that it will go on sale. You know what i mean? So nobody can know when it'll go on sale.
02:10:41
Speaker
So what you would do, what you would do, and I did this because I am such a fucking loser. You don't even you't even know the depths of loserdom I've done. It's like you would go and you would click on a house that was up for for sale and you would just click, click, click, click. click click click oh Right?
02:11:02
Speaker
And if you were a free company, ah you know, a streamer famously, their free company had all these spreadsheets. They organized it. They always had two people on a sign clicking on the one they wanted. Right? that was the only That was the only way to do it. And I would, like like, on, you know, my time off, I would just sit there, like, with whatever and just, like, click Trying to get these houses for hours. It was so a pain. And here's the thing. You weren't the only one there. You're sitting there and there's like, yeah, there's that cat girl over there trying to get on my house, my house by the waterfall that I picked out because it's special.
02:11:42
Speaker
And, and, um oh man. And so I clicked so many times. So many times it would be heartbreaking. You would be clicking for hours. The house would finally go up. Because you don't know. It's like 12. a 12 window. It's like a 12 hour window. for hours just didn't know and then someone else like their click happened first and everyone else who had been clicking for hours just had to leave like it was devastating and a lot of people would happen to them time after time after time again um i had a free company house still have but you can have a free company in a private and like in a free company but like
02:12:21
Speaker
My private house, I got like I got a free company the honest way through many hard clickings after many failed the attempts. I've done much of this. So it's, you know, none of it's fair. But when I got when I got my house, it was like this perfect. I decorated like a little sorceress cottage. It's like set apart, which is what I need. You know, not too close to me, please. A part away, like, over the steep fall in the background is a waterfall. It was, like, it was the perfect location. The outside is perfect. I had these, like, weeping, like, blossom trees out front, like, a little, like, it was just, it was perfect. And then um for some reason, in one of my, like, times of lesser stuff, I didn't go to my house somehow for, like,
02:13:11
Speaker
long enough yeah wow yeah i knew i could tell where this story was going and it still hurt to hear yeah to be fair this house i had stole someone who had been clicking forever when i came up and like started clicking and then immediately won it because it somehow magically so ah And the person who was there, like, went out. We have tons of emotes in FF14. Like, these are players who want to fucking express themselves. And believe me, they do.
02:13:42
Speaker
Through all kinds of visual ways. But yeah. And they, like, literally sobbed at my knees when I won the house. They had definitely been clicking hours after I had run right up. But I didn't feel bad. Because I'm like...
02:13:56
Speaker
it's this time, it'll be the next five times, but maybe that sixth time you'll be me and come up and get your house. And that's just the housing. or
02:14:06
Speaker
Eventually they changed it because like, eaten this Yeah, because that's a terrible system. yeah this fucking, this sounds atrocious. Oh, you're like well, we can't. We're not like you can't like we're not changing everything. This is their problem. They're always like, well, we built it that way and it's the foundation. So thank It's only so good we can make it. But like what they do now is that there's like.
02:14:31
Speaker
There's just an actual bidding period of like a whole week. Everyone bids and then um whoever wins, you know, then has there's a collection time ah where they can go like be like, yes, you know, like you have to put a down payment down to do it. So you can't go bid on a ton of houses or anything. Yeah. And then, yeah, so you either if you lost, you need to go get your money back or like if you win, you go get it. And there's a period of a grace period for that. And then the houses go back on the march. So it's like the cyclical bill bidding and
02:15:08
Speaker
um period And so, like, i it's been a while now that i have been i have been homeless ah in the game. ah you know, because it's like I miss my sorceress cottage. It was perfect. And my stupidity. I lost my house to my own stupidity. Not as usual through, you know, ah the foibles of capitalism or whatever. But, like... And and and I needed some time to grieve. But I find this that I'm like, I can't go back to the to the lavender lavender beds because, you know, I will not find the perfect sorcerer's. That was like a rare and beautiful thing. I found this great place in in the beach in my home pirate city, which I kind of love where my apartment is. There are also apartments.
02:15:54
Speaker
And it's just got this view all all the way down to the beach where I could just sit out, sit out on my porch apart and yet watch the people as is this my want. So like um I put a bidding on it right now. There's one other bidder on it. and i'm like
02:16:11
Speaker
But I'm not sitting and clicking for hours and hours and days and weeks. So thank you. That's good. I mean, that's an improvement. Wish me luck. suppose. yeah I hope I get this place. This sounds like the worst.
02:16:24
Speaker
Oh, sounds like they should instancing. I hope you get the help. This sounds like it has got to be creating so much more misery than joy for the players of this game. Okay, so wait. Just like the net psychic outcome.
02:16:38
Speaker
outcome Do you understand how much people love this game, though, and the depths of the other things they have created that give players those ways? Like I said, I've i've gone to like, I've seen one-woman shows. i've seen like There's just crazy amounts ah that people get into this game, and that's what makes the housing so valuable. I can't imagine that, like, Second Dinner would make some system like this, this and, like, people would would do it at all, like, to get a thing you know if they weren't couldn't like just pay real money for it or something and it's like the people did this people so for hours hours like i mean people win traded to win leagues for a deadpool you're still getting to play a game this is literally people sitting and clicking on a sign retreating on the first turn is not like that win trading and conquest is not really playing
02:17:35
Speaker
um But I do take your point ah that there's lots of love and stuff. I feel like I heard and you could correct me, but my understanding is they used to have the interior size of the house was connected to the exterior. And then they had a big update where you could have like a large interior, even if you had a small interior.
02:17:53
Speaker
That's coming. oh it's coming. Yeah, the Doctor Who update. that It's bigger on the inside. They're trying to make concessions where they can. We have long complained. We're like, we are Final Fantasy XIV. We have long prided ourselves on being less toxic, you know, on the superiority of ourselves over World of Warcraft players as a World of Warcraft player formerly who, like, obsessively played the games for the last days.
02:18:19
Speaker
time it smack-tacking my own here. Don't at me. And, um... And look. Look at their glamour system. We're FF14! We have... We have everyone.
02:18:31
Speaker
Like, the furries are here. like, Instagram girls. Like, Kako... We get... They're here for the glam. Right? And look... Look what World of Warcraft has.
02:18:44
Speaker
Look what they have that we do not have. And, you know, Yoshi P is like... But the foundations, we built them poorly. And how can we, how it is not possible for us to give you what the Warcraft players have.
02:19:00
Speaker
And what the Warcraft players have, is that the thing that I've seen in the advertisements that look away from because they're... unsettling um oh well now they're advertising their housing system which does look like so grim it's like you're never gonna own a fucking house in real life come home to world of warcraft you sad fuckers the whole world is sad it's so depressing whoa oh that feels like the sad note we usually end the podcast yep