Prodigy: Imitation Is Not Always Flattery | Fantastic Four Season First Look | Esme Cuckoo & Surge In Review | The Snap Chat Ep. 132

Is Prodigy copying greatness or copying failure? Will the Fantastic Four season be a game changer? What are Cozy and Alex's final rankings on Esme Cuckoo & Surge? Join Cozy Snap and Alexander Coccia as they chat about this and more on this episode of The Snap Chat and every week as they discuss all things Marvel Snap.

You’ve been listening to The Snap Chat. Keep the conversation going on x.com/ACozyGamer and x.com/AlexanderCoccia. Until next time, happy snapping!

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Today's Topics
• 0:31 PAX East and Cozy On The Street
• 6:51 Alex's Topics
• 7:15 Prodigy
• 19:44 Fantastic Four Season First Look
• 44:57 Snap Reddit Review
• 51:10 Google Spoils Thunderbolts
• 54:58 Esme Cuckoo In Review
• 1:02:12 Surge In Review
• 1:08:27 Hot and Rising
• 1:19:22 The Snap Chat Mailbag
• 1:25:13 Outro

Transcript

Cozy Snap: 0:00

What's going on guys? And welcome back to yet another episode of the Snapchat. And guys, we've been talking about the brand new card Prodigy, who is gonna be a bit on the lackluster side, but to make up for it, we have a lot of new and exciting cards that probably Alex are gonna change, snap the most that we've seen in quite some time with the Fantastic four in the first steps and that whole season. And then you guys said it by popular demand we're bringing back the Reddit review. A lot of you guys liked it and it will be returning. And as always, I am joined by the one, the only. Mr. Alex Kocha. What's going on, buddy?

Alexander Coccia: 0:31

Hey, buddy. I'm doing good. I'm just trying to get over the fact that you're not wearing headphones. You look so different. Yes. I don't think I've ever seen your ears before.

Cozy Snap: 0:37

I've this, I've seen your ears once before. I've done this on one other. So Mr. Alex here is heading to PAX e. So we are recording pretty early and my headphones are dead because this is, this is how we make the magic happen. This is how we ensure we get a podcast each week. So we found the perfect pocket of time to, to film this and Alex, you added to ies man. I tried to talk to staff team, try to make it happen. It's not gonna happen. I will not be joining you, but you excited to hit up the good old ies.

Alexander Coccia: 1:03

Yeah, I'm super excited. I'm really looking forward to, it's great because you, you get to meet a lot of members of the community as well. PAX East, there's a huge amount of Snap players there and obviously you have the Penny Arcade card backs. And Mike from Penny Arcade, their artists has been I think there's gonna be an album maybe even next week. Could be out today or tomorrow when this goes live. So, yeah, like it's actually pretty awesome. I'm really looking forward to it. And I have I actually have six commander decks ready?

Cozy Snap: 1:28

Yes.

Alexander Coccia: 1:29

Three alter decks. I got so much stuff ready, so fun. And I don't even know how I'm gonna pack it all. So

Cozy Snap: 1:33

it's, it's, it's so fun. Like I I'm super sad I can't go this year. Last time I went was all for Snap, so like, it was super busy anyway, but we still. Made it happen. And then like Alex was there and they're like, Alex, we just like, we had him I like ran into you. Right. Quote unquote. I didn't even see that though. Where did they even post that? I don't even think I ever saw it.

Alexander Coccia: 1:51

I don't think they used all the footage we had.'cause Yeah, it was, it was you and Felicity were there on Snap Business and I happened to be there anyway.'cause I'm just a huge PACS fan. I've always been a point Penny arcade guy. And so then at the time infinite Veritas was like, you know, let's get Alex into some of these. Like, see, he's here. Why not? Like, get him into some of these. And so we did some really fun stuff together. I, I really remember that. It was hilarious. And I look for what it's worth. Cozy is by far the best, like dude on the street. Interviewer, you have this confidence about you'll walk up, go to anyone to, anyway, you'll walk up to someone's grandmother and ask them who their favorite Snap card is, right? It's. It's completely wild how like you're actually perfect walking around with a microphone. There's literally no one as good as Cozy Snap.

Cozy Snap: 2:32

Well, dude, I, first of all, thank you. I so before Snap, and a lot of people know this, in fact, somebody on a rivals video, like one that was like, went off on views, but someone was like, I. Dude, didn't you do? No. You've come a, a long way since doing Mario Kart with strangers and I think like that's I think I've always said this, but in consecration streaming is the, the hardest medium to do. It's very hard to constantly be on your feet. I. And, and talking, right, because you're, you don't have a recording. And it trained me best to be a content creator, but what I used to wanna do is, like, streaming from my studio wasn't enough. So I would go out and just like, turn on a live feed and then I would just get, yeah, random people ran a hobo versus a, you know, a, a guy in the military and I would have them play off in Mario Kart and just random interactions and that I feel like taught me. More than anything. Like you have to get so comfortable with yourself and, and then find a perfect balance of not being annoying.'cause I feel like in this day, you know, everyone has a, a phone and everyone has a device to film now. And so like, there's more and more like annoying people than there are, like, fun almost in my, in my eyes. But I always think it's the most enjoyable content to film because you don't know what you're gonna get and like your assets, the things in your video are random people that could do anything. I think it's just, it's a, it's a killer time.

Alexander Coccia: 3:47

I think one of the benefits you have too is you're not like some teenage kid pranking people and acting like a clown. You know, you got some, you know, young stud muffin walking up to you with a microphone asking you about Mario Carr. You're like, yeah, I'll talk to this guy about Mario Carr. Why wouldn't I? Right. He's wearing, he's wearing running shoes on the beach, but I'll forgive it'cause he is an absolute stud muffin.

Cozy Snap: 4:05

I'll have to bring it back. I don't know. I used to have my pregnant wife be, be the one that would like lug out the equipment with me, like just a different. Different era, man. A different time, different era. But yeah, I'm super sad to Miss pacs, especially'cause of how much more I've dipped into magic too. So just like wanting to play with you, wanting to hang out and, and also just kind of like check out the floor more again. Last time I was so busy, but yeah, you know, times have, times have changed a lot of people. I would say since I, since the beginning of snap, anyone that I communicated with outside of Glen, who was a little bit later, I don't, they're either not there anymore actually. They're pretty much not there anymore. Like a lot of the team has. Either moved on and doing something else, or they're gone. One of the two. And it's sad, it's like weird that you see this transition. Like I was watching the other day this 20 year documentary on oblivion and they went back and watched it. The same people that created that game and they were all in the same room. I. And like one of the number one comments was like, how rare it is for any company to keep pe somebody for 20 years yet alone a video game publisher and or people within the realm of who makes video games. So I think it's really special that they can do that Bethesda. But yeah, sadly I think my days of doing some of the marketing stuff for Snap are over, but who knows? We'll, we'll, we'll see.

Alexander Coccia: 5:16

Listen, at the end of the day, you're by far one of the most talented people in the Snap ecosystem. And and yeah, even if they're a little salty about your absolute insane rival success, that just increases your reach, it increases your capabilities, in my opinion, to bring more brand exposure to them. So I see absolutely no reason why Cozy Snap should not be getting call number one, anytime there's an event for Snap Buddy, like, honestly, you're still the king.

Cozy Snap: 5:39

I'll do it for free too, man. I just wanna first of think I love you. I. I just wanna do it'cause it's fun. Like, I think it's just fun to do. I think it's just a very like, half the stuff that I've done for them was free because I just thought it was cool to do. Right. Like, it's just a, it is a cool opportunity to do, you know, I don't know. I'm living the dream man. I'm talking about video games, like for a job. Yeah, I know. So, and I think

Alexander Coccia: 5:59

about that too because like like when we did the Deadpools Diner casting together, that was a highlight of my career. Like I had so much. On. I really do hope that not only myself, but together we get an opportunity to do some stuff in the future for Snap because Yeah, man, for sure. I don't know, man. I think, I think that we just might have a history and be able to kind of riff off each other a little bit. So small bit. I think it might be good content.

Cozy Snap: 6:19

Small bit, man. Well, speaking of, dude, let's go and jump into today's Snapchat. So we're gonna talk about Prodigy, probably not that much. But we're also gonna be talking about fantastic Four, which this was the first time. So I put together some custom art with them quickly. So the art you're gonna see today is not the ones that are gonna be there, but this is the first time I'm seeing the carts at all. Have you seen them at all? Do you know anything about'em?

Alexander Coccia: 6:38

No. I don't even know. They got they got leaked. That's even exactly, because last time I looked they were just, they were placeholders, but with no tag. So I, yeah. You're hitting me for the first time here. Heck

Cozy Snap: 6:45

yeah, dude. That's what I, I like whenever I saw, I'm like, cool. I'm not even gonna think about, I'm wanna do it with Alex for the first time. But Alex, we know what we're talking about over here. What are we talking about on your side of the Snapchat?

Alexander Coccia: 6:54

Cozy. On my side of the Snapchat, we're gonna be discussing both Surge and Esme. In review, we're gonna be talking about our first impressions of the card and how it's performing in the general first few days of Marvel Snap. We're also be talking about the hot and rising cards, the cards that are really starting to emerge in the meta, the surprise shakers and movers. And then as always, our Snapchat mailbag.

Cozy Snap: 7:15

Well, bud, let's get right to it. Let's talk about Prodigy. The three costs, four power card, and I'm still convinced you need to upgrade to these shades, man. I mean, just look at the Drip. You would be the coolest kid. The coolest teacher at the school. With those. With those, they don't even have, I don't even know how they're on his head. They don't even have like it's just all lens. They're just

Alexander Coccia: 7:33

floating on his face,

Cozy Snap: 7:34

kind of. They're hugging his nose. Yeah. A very tight grip there. The future man, that, that forget superpowers. I wanna know,

Alexander Coccia: 7:41

bro. So future, I know that like, augmenting people is like kind of popular, like the day OFX type thing. You put a magnet on your, in your face, and then you put a magnet on the glasses. So they just like, and they just stick to your face. You don't even need the Yeah. Man ear things

Cozy Snap: 7:56

like wifi in your shoes, you know, kind of thing. Like connected. The shoes don't work unless they're on the wifi and like, yeah. Yeah. I All, these are great ideas. We just need to pitch them to Apple and make it happen. Like I think. I think we could get it done. But hey, listen on Reveal, if this is in the back row, copy the text of the card in front of it. Alex, it's the three cost. It's a four power. And last time, we just rated him last week and we both weren't very high up on the card for a lot of reasons. And mainly that there's just so much kind of going against them. We played with the back and front row mechanic and you've got that, but then you also have, you know, just timing and things you can't control and locations that can change. And there's so many different things that can happen. Not to mention car draw you know, being one of the biggest ones in playing out. So where did you change your mind at all on Prodigy? Within a week? Kind of where do you land on him right now?

Alexander Coccia: 8:45

So I really wanted to move up to at least a two and a half. I don't think I can do it. I think I still have to stay at a two star because we did get some confirmation and it's funny how things work sometimes. Like we record these early enough where sometimes we don't have confirmation of everything from the SNAP team. Like you know, like the Esme interaction for instance. And last week on how it copies the three drop. We weren't sure if it worked with surfer that ended up. Proving false. And in the case of Prodigy, something that was clarified, which is definitely a benefit, is that Prodigy, if it copies an on reveal card, it will repro the on reveal. So if somehow, you know, there's a Dr. Doom, I'm just throwing Dr. Doom out there, but Dr. Doom somehow is in the two slot. And you play Prodigy on the four slot, you will get additional dune bots. That was clarified by the SNAP team and that does increase his capabilities. And so I'm like, okay, do I move him up to two and a half? And then I continued to think about the cart and I just, I just don't feel it. And I kind of wanna be wrong'cause I think this card could potentially be fun. But I, I don't know if it's consistent or reliable enough to, to really be worth the the investment.

Cozy Snap: 9:45

Yeah. I do think a little bit of it is, and, and I hate to say it's like, because here's the thing I was gonna say, like, getting our hands on the card because, but the problem, is what I just said. It's not about where we think it could fit and finding the best case scenarios for the cart. It's the actual scenarios that happen, right? So what you just said is a great example. It's like, oh yeah, you know, you could have really great honor reveal stuff going on with it, but at the same time. Those working out aren't gonna happen all the time. This is what I will say about'em. And I agree, probably on a two star for now. I'm gonna give'em a two, but I'm gonna give'em a good future because I think that especially what, what we're gonna talk about with the Fantastic Four today, like, there's constantly new archetypes, there's constantly new cards coming out, that copying an effect, especially at a, like a low cost effect, can greatly increase your chance to win a game. And most importantly. Where he's gonna fit the most is board wide effects, right? So if we get more of these board wide decks, which we're kind of getting with the Fantastic four, we've seen this in the past, we, we've seen this with Patriot Zoo, whatever living Tribunal, some of his synergy we're gonna go into, that's where he's gonna shine the most because it doesn't matter as much of the randomness and what's being played. You know what I mean? Like, I think that he has that going through him, and that is one thing that if you do pull him from the snap pack, it's like, okay. I think there will be places for him in the future, even if it doesn't land like right away.

Alexander Coccia: 11:04

I, I do agree. Now I, I'm not familiar with what the Fantastic Four will look like, but I think the key thing that really took me off Prodigy was we saw it with with Captain Marvel, or not Captain Marvel, captain Carter. Where is the positioning, like the positioning, macro considerations of the board state? Are impactful in snap. Like, and so, you know, you might have a situation where like he is the first card that has to go in a location and he's basically a like nude three, four, which kind of sucks, right? And I thought about like, well, if I want to double in effect, like I could use Fuga and I mean that's a, that's a bit different of course.'cause you're replaying the card. You also have doubling the effect of moonstone. And on that note, I do think that like. Copying Moonstone actually is probably one of the coolest things that he can do.'cause you get the power and you also get the double, it feels like a three four onslaught when you use it on moonstone to some degree. Right. Which I think is kind of cool. But yeah, like it's, I have some notes and I have some ideas, but like, I, I just don't, I just do not see this card being that impactful on launch. Well, and that's so maybe in the future,

Cozy Snap: 12:07

and that's kind of what I meant by like like, I don't know how many scenarios where he has to be the first card down. But if it's board wide, it won't matter. So like, we like'em a little bit in Living Tribunal because it matters, but it doesn't, like, you know, you do need to have'em in the back row and tribunal's a bit more of a tight knit one. But I think as we continue to get cards that can boost again everything around it. Is that,'cause like I think you mentioned in Patriot last week, like that was a, a semi example of it where it's like, okay, blue Marvel or Patriot. Could work because you're really like old trons, really the finishing game plan anyway, right? Or whatever. Right? So it's not that big of a deal where you're placing things, what you're doing all the time. I mean, he, he won't ever be a five star card. There's just no shot of that happening. But I do think that he has a bit more of a future. He can go up, you know, even potentially a four star card if we get the right deck for him. But right now, that deck, it just doesn't exist outside of living tribunal, outside of Patriot. Like where are you gonna test him day one.

Alexander Coccia: 13:02

So I have a couple ideas, and they're a bit cop, but let's get through them now. The first thing I'll say is that one thing that really kept me down is I think that with Prodigy, it's, he's very hard to play on curve because unless you're filling locations one, two, and then on three Prodigy comes down, how is he in the third or fourth slot? And if you consider, if you're playing on curve, it's most likely that even if you're playing on curve, you're copying the one slot, right? Like the the ant. So you play Ant-Man, Goliath, prodigy. Prodigy goes behind the Amman, so you can't target the two costs. So the whole thing, curve wise, is a nightmare, I think. So that's one thing worth considering. So that brings me down. I tried to do a little bit of like, okay, how can we get a little creative here? I think that he has the potential in a Doom 2099 deck to perhaps be impactful because you could copy say the Doom Bots themselves and. Buff the Doom Bots. You could potentially copy Doom 2099 and only play singular cards and now you're getting more bots out faster as a quicker zoo. But then again, the curve is weird'cause you, you'd zobo into Doom 2099 into Prodigy. How do you target the doom 2099? Like, what's it look like? How are you playing in those lanes? So the macro side is so incredibly hard. Then I was like, what if you tried something like Iron Fist? Now this, you wanna talk about cope. What if you had like something like, I don't know, a Captain Carter down and you play Prodigy onto the Captain Carter and you iron fist into another lane? You could use the iron fist to block one of the spots in the front to force it to land. On the three or four spot in the location, right? So you can use, that's such cop. I love it though. Like that's so work. I know it's so cope, but you can use iron fist to force him to hit a specific cart and then move into another location.

Cozy Snap: 14:52

Can I ask this though, outta three five? Is he good? Because at this point then it's less about making him work for what his niche is and more about just having value that then can turn into good play. Right? So like, I don't know, for example, if you have Thanos like. Is it the worst thing in the world to play two stones and then you have him copy the stone, draw a card, three, five, he has, you know what I mean? Like at that point you're just getting value that can transcend that value. Is that kind of what you think could work for him?

Alexander Coccia: 15:19

I mean, I, I'm not sure. Like, I just, does that make sense? Like it's not, he seems so awkward. Like so here's a question for you and it came up when you brought it up. So let's say he's a three five. Why did they decide to make him a three four? What was it that Glen saw the balance team saw that said, okay, oh three five, man, that's too high for this guy. This guy could this thing, maybe the upside this thing, I don't see it, dude, this could be a three six and like, I think Luna knows better.

Cozy Snap: 15:44

I, I just think that there are, there are play lines that you'll be able to get down that you're gonna be able to use it to its effect enough. The, I mean, I think we can agree that it's, it's like Captain Carter. It's not the it's not so much. Power. It's the cost, like it's the awkwardness of the cost because he is gonna be a three cost that you play later. You're not gonna play him on curve like that. That's the most likely scenario for him. And so that's what makes it tough of where you're gonna end up having to play him. It, to me, he, he does scream like, you know how Tron we looked at him and it was pretty clear and obvious. Infinity. The Ultron was a, was a fun card. I think this is like when you get these cards, like almost like what Fastest was where it's like these fun cards. That are never good, but they're not all the way fun and they're not all the way good. So they're in this like awkward spot of neither. Does that make sense? Like, you know, pixie, at least it's like, okay, you, you're a lot on the fun side at least it's not that great, but at least it's like a good time. Like you're, you're doing some crazy stuff. This kind of goes in the, the other camp of, of neither, and sometimes the, the cards that are just good speed is not fun at all. And so I feel like this is one that's in the middle.

Alexander Coccia: 16:51

You're right. And I just, I don't see the draw here. And even here's a key thing. We're talking about a three cost and not talking about a surfer.'cause you can't reliably hit even a forge, right? Like, what do you hit?

Cozy Snap: 17:04

cause I thought about surfer. Are you ready for this? It's like, oh, brood. He could redo one reveals, nope. Brood perfectly. Puts it behind the other brood. So it doesn't like the brood links. So he can never hit brood in that scenario. I guess Sebastian Shaw you could hit and then surfer him and get some value there. But then why? Why are you doing that? What do you need that for? You know?

Alexander Coccia: 17:21

And even then, I often use Sebastian Shaws, like almost a single lane winner, right? So he would have to be in like the one slot you have to, like, you have to play him behind Sebastian Shaw still. And I think that the re the reliability of setting him up so you can get a consistent effect on project is gonna be too hard. Like, I don't know man, I'm, I'm not sold on the card, but, i, I'd like to be surprised from time to time.

Cozy Snap: 17:41

So what I did is I typed it on the comments of our last video, the, the term prodigy. And usually we get people that are like, well, have you thought about this? And there's really not, there's really not a lot. I mean, there, there's some people saying tribunal, you're gonna get a lot of that. For project, I think it's gonna be magic before turn five, turn five, five's Ironman on free lane turns stick is mystique and prodigy on that lane. That's some that. That that's a hard Yeah, because here's the thing, I think it's easy. It's easy to make him seem good. It's just the reality of it happening. And we fell into that with captive Cardi essentially. Right. Prodigy and the ancient one have too much overlap. Yeah. So no one like, you know what I mean? Typically we get like, whoa, what about this? Really didn't see any of that with Prodigy. So we'll have to see where he fits in. I do think maybe he has a potential in the future. To get better over time. Anytime we have these cars that do this, you know, can happen. But I, I personally think a three five could make'em interesting.

Alexander Coccia: 18:39

Could make'em interesting. We'll have to see what happens. But yeah, at three, four, I don't know if you buy this on day one, you're either, you have some God to your plan that no one else does, or you're full mowing hard. Like, I think this is an ultimate wait and see card. Ultimately,

Cozy Snap: 18:52

what the good news is, is that it's the, the, again, the cards after'em aren't like must have. And so. At the end of the day, it's, it's not gonna be, you're not gonna be in stitches if you, if you know, if you double up your odds and get him. But what I did do is I took, so right now, the, the fantastic four first steps, we've talked about this before. We're going to our next subject here. Anything you wanna close out on him by the way, or are you good? I.

Alexander Coccia: 19:15

No, I'm ready to go. I, I, I, I, every time I talk negatively about a card, I, I, for the record, I want to be proven wrong. Like I want to, I want Prodigy to be successful. Why? Because there's gonna be people that get it. He's also gonna be entering the seasonal spotlight. S spotlights, the, the Snap hacks. He's entering the seasonal Snap Hacks. We don't want landmines, every single card that gets pulled, we want it to have at least a home somewhere. Right? And I think that Prodigy feels like it's probably gonna have a home nowhere. And I think that's unfortunate.

Cozy Snap: 19:44

Moving on. We don't know. The art again, is just what I put together. This is not official, but we have the fantastic four first steps be beautiful. Yeah, this is cool. So a couple things. First of all I just see Thunderbolts. I said before, last time Chad was gonna go see it. It was really good. I think. I think it was I to say it was the best since end game. I don't know if I agree with that statement. That's what what I heard. I think the, the newer Spiderman is probably better. No way home. And I like Shung Chi a lot. I think those were tough to beat for me but it was very strong and, and very solid and has me excited. And our next few mo movies are insane. We have this one, Vince asked the four first steps, July. And then we have the Both The Avengers. So super exciting to see that. But this is gonna be not the start, but the continuation, if you will, of them repurposing characters and somewhat of a divided front. Some people love it, that we're gonna be able to see characters be good again. Some would rather, I think, in a game. I, I totally agree with this. The only thing is they're so good at OTAs that it makes me sad for the cards. That, that, that they're, that they already are, right? Like invisible women is not used a lot. So how could you repurpose that instead of making a new one? But that's not the conversation we're gonna have so much today. Unless you want to add to that before we jump in.

Alexander Coccia: 20:53

No, it's just Goliath chemo and that's why Invisible Woman feels useless.

Cozy Snap: 20:57

Yeah, that's fair enough. Well, dude, okay, so usually, man, it is a big statement. This will change Snap. And I say that really without any hesitation because these are some really cool cars, and I don't know about you, but I would go and see let's say Rogue One when it came out and I saw the last scene with Darth Vader just going crazy. And I would think to myself, man, I need to play a video game with Darth Vader. Like, I need to get in the world. Of it. And so they're very smart here. Obviously even tested four is gonna do well and they're gonna probably, you know, want to make. These cards good. So that if people wanna come play snap, they're, they're playing with some solid cards that don't need other cards around them. And, and these are gonna work all together as a family obviously as the Fantastic Four is. But then they also have a lot of synergy around them, so pretty exciting stuff. So we have Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic. First up here. And his, he is a two three. Alex, with the ability, end of turn, give a card in your hand, plus two power or minus one cost. So at the end of the turn, he's gonna do this each and every time. Call me crazy, but is this not absolutely busted? On most fronts, this seems like an a just a card that's gonna go everywhere.

Alexander Coccia: 22:05

So basically FAOs and shambles is what this is

Cozy Snap: 22:07

complete shambles, but like, this is, we talked about it last week, the two drop of the, of the month or the two drop of the, of the quarter that comes out and just like Reign Supreme. This seems way I could see this, mark this. Now I could see this where the, the month is September, two months after this car is released and it goes down to plus one power or minus one cost instead of plus two power.

Alexander Coccia: 22:29

Or it's a two, one or something. Listen, I, I think this card's really good. I think it's good. I have some hesitation with this, this or type statement. It's one of the frustrations with Faso. I literally played like 12 hours of faso's over the last two days. And not having a consistent effect is kind of annoying because sometimes you really want that, that discount, and then other times you really want that power and you, you can't pick and choose. And so what's an early start? And

Cozy Snap: 22:54

you would give it.

Alexander Coccia: 22:55

Oh man, early. If I had to right now, I would probably give it like a three and a half to four.

Cozy Snap: 22:59

I think it's a five star card. Maybe

Alexander Coccia: 23:00

four. I think it's a five star. You think this is five star? I do.

Cozy Snap: 23:03

I don't

Alexander Coccia: 23:03

know, man.

Cozy Snap: 23:03

Because listen, dude, no matter which way you go playing him on curve, think about the either or. He just doesn't matter. He's a two five. Okay? He's a two seven. Okay. He's a two nine, he's a two 11. You have that possibility, or he is a two five with a minus three cost, or he's a nothing and he just gives you minus four cost, right? So I feel like. It won't matter on the either or because you're just getting so much net value and you can have the cards go below, go to free too. So you're getting cards that can be played for cheaper. That's always good. Or you're just getting plus possibly four power. Now I get it. If you play'em later, it's not as good. But I, him being a two three is what's crazy to me.

Alexander Coccia: 23:42

Yeah, no, he's probably definitely a solid four now that I think about a three and a half might be low. I was just thinking about the fact that, he has a, he hasn't like, activate feels slow sometimes. This is obviously not activate, but it has a slowness to it where it's like, it's a two, three, it's two to the hand, right? Not, and you have to still play that card down. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. So he's not generating the power on the board. But here's the thing, cozy, and this is where it has the five star potential. It's like. You hit the plus two on a nimrod right on turn two, and then you turn, and then all of a sudden now you hit it with the negative one pa cost. It's like, okay, now I have a, you know, four whatever Nimrod that keeps getting buffed. Yep. And maybe you make something magical happen with some sort of like extra value play, right? Yeah. And every single most powerful combo in SNAP gets more powerful at reduced cost. So like I do definitely see the potential here for sure. And let me just say, you should be doing the artwork because this is beautiful.

Cozy Snap: 24:34

It's kind of cool. I I mean I found this, it wasn't you know, wasn't, I don't even drop and the rest of'em are way worse. It's just me getting stuff in the for the trailer. But let me, let me say this. I if you think this is broken now, just wait till we just wait.'cause I told you the family synergizes, right? So this is a season pass card. I believe it's archetype, like it could go into any archetype, which is really cool too. I think this thing can truly go into most x like outside of like. Ones that, oh, for sure. Like that's, that's one thing that's just crazy about it. Even like I hear that we bring up surfer all the time, but even surfer, even just power hungry decks like a surfer, it just doesn't matter. Like this thing always has its value in some way or another. And that excites me. Guys, I want you to keep in mind, end of turn is what this guy says, and then you're gonna see shortly. Now this one, I'm gonna go straight to this one because I think this is gonna paint the picture for the rest that we're gonna talk about and you're gonna. You are gonna start to the, the wheels are gonna start turning pretty quickly here before we get to the rest of'em. Invisible woman first steps at three four. Alex Activate. Okay, hold on. This turn your end of turn. Abilities happen twice. Alright, so this is gonna be the car that sets us up for the other ones. But let's just start with Read Richards Mr. Fantastic. So now at any given turn after tune three, you're gonna have that ability happen twice, which is, which is awesome. Now I'm pretty hesitant against activate abilities that are higher in costs. But that's pretty exciting. Just fourth of fantastic four cards. But my god, Alex, if you think about how many hat cards in the game have end of turn abilities, you're, your mind's gonna start spinning.

Alexander Coccia: 26:04

I was just thinking like, I'm trying to remember the exact text ready for this. Like a lot of the EVO cards? Yep. Yeah. So one of the Evo cards, right?

Cozy Snap: 26:10

Yep. Almost. So I think this will be the return of hi Evo to the, to the fullest degree, because there's. Keep in mind, it's only one turn. This is happening. But how crazy you can get this, you know, to, to pop off. So here's some of our, here's some of our cars. We have Bruce Spanner. That essentially is gonna have now a 66% chance on one. I guess, I don't know. The statistics may not work out, but you, you've got, you've got that happening. You roll

Alexander Coccia: 26:34

33 twice. Yeah.

Cozy Snap: 26:35

Yeah. You're having 33 twice, right? So you've got that. Oh, and then how about Marvel Boy? Marvel Boy, that's such a crazy effect, bro.

Alexander Coccia: 26:45

I never even realized Marvel Boy had that cast,

Cozy Snap: 26:48

bro. How stupid is this card that's, this is a really, like, I think you'll see, but I think that there's this zoo deck that can work with Marvel boy, invisible Woman, Reed Richards, that start to really cook. It starts to really make sense that you're like, hold on, because then re remaking a card, either free or giving power to a one cost. You're like, whoa, whoa. And it continues to go crazy, bro. I'm not finished though. Check. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. You're not finished. Okay. I was gonna

Alexander Coccia: 27:14

say, like, I was just thinking that like. First of all, you, you got me completely pumped now because the Marble boy had not considered, now I'm trying to think about that. But even sticking with High Evil, like even an extra P Pro in like something like a Hulk, that's a lot. It's like that's four extra power at the end of a turn,

Cozy Snap: 27:29

bro. It keeps getting crazier. Like even sunspot like. I don't know how that would work, but you would have it essentially in the high Evo deck. So that would work. Yeah. Hey, guess what? End of turn. Oh, red Hulk p cracking twice. You could have that happen if you do it at the very end of the game, which you'd probably want to. A lot of these, unless you're just trying to get like more value with Reed or whatever, you're gonna wanna just pop'em all at the end. And then yeah, you've got and something's aren't even turning up the right way'cause I'm pretty sure we have Misty Knight is in here. I dunno why she's a show. Yeah. Misty

Alexander Coccia: 27:58

Knight would be for sure.

Cozy Snap: 27:59

You have Wasp, you have Misty Knight Giving Plus one Power for all Unspent energy. You have Cyclops doing the minus one Power and those are the main ones, but also you have the Hulk as well. All of these can re-trigger. So this is not only a good VO card, it's a good Marvel Boy Zoo card and it's a good Mr. Fantastic card. I think this is going to be crazy when it comes to synergy.

Alexander Coccia: 28:22

Yeah, a lot of pew pews coming outta that cyclops there. Yeah, this is pretty cool. I, I do share the concern with the Activate side, but in this case, I wonder if activates better than on Reveal, because if you're on revealing, you don't have as many on the board. Whereas with Activate, as you said, you, you hold it to the end and then like you basically do the thing and then, then you do the activate and then the Hulk is gonna double and then like. Pew pew's everywhere and Misty Night's gonna throw it twice and stuff.

Cozy Snap: 28:48

That's what I'm thinking. It's like, okay. Even if you play her late, you know, let, let's say you play her on four. Okay. You could still play some of the activates at a one cost, right? Or you do her in a one cost, let's say her and Misty night, it's still gonna be great going into the last turn. Really the only time and, and it's in turn, and so it's like, yeah, you're wanting to have more on the board. I would say most of the time. You're gonna wanna do this either on, mostly always on turn six, I would imagine, just for that last little bump up, but it's gonna always hit the value at three four, in my opinion.

Alexander Coccia: 29:17

So, and I think it's gonna likely be played on four, because if you think about it, Cyclops three, this on four, you're floating energy, right? Cyclops piece or more a warrior.

Cozy Snap: 29:24

Yeah. There's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of three costs. I contend for this and this, so this was a little bit of my board wide effect that I was thinking with Prodigy. I'm not saying that this would be the Prodigy card, but like when stuff like this happens, you're getting more and more cards where it's like, oh, product, you could just copy that card, that's gonna be just fine. Yeah. And then you're gonna get the, you know what I mean? And so it doesn't matter where you play in because. Marvel Boy is gonna be giving, Marvel Boy is gonna go up to an insane value card with something like this. And as you continue to read these, just wait because you're gonna go, oh, okay. Zoo does make a lot more sense, but yeah. So you've got Mr. Fantastic. End of turn card. You've got this card as an activate. Next card, we've got up. Let's go to, oh, this one's fun. The thing. Alright, so the thing here is a five six into turn. This one's tough to even like process plus two power. Okay, so in turn, things get gain plus two power. So at minimum he's a five 10 once per game. If your site is full, destroy an enemy card here with lesser power. So if you fill your site up AKA with a zoo deck, but if you fill your site up, he will destroy an enemy card with lower power. This guy can get up to a five 10. But with Mr. Fantastic making him cheaper, you could get even further than that. But on top of that, you also have wait for Sue Storm you know invisible woman to give him even more power, thus making his power threshold higher. So you can give rid of tech cards or just big powerful beasts with this guy.

Alexander Coccia: 30:46

This is pretty neat. And actually, for what it's worth in the trailer, he's by far my favorite character in it. Yeah. I dunno if that's consistent, but he looks so awesome in it. But but no, this actually looks really interesting. It has, the Spider-Man 2099 feel to it, but it doesn't have to move. And it actually I. I wonder if the activation's easier or harder filling the location on a deck like that. I'm just trying to think. Power-wise, it's particularly interesting. I like the design. It definitely reads like a magic. The gathering card though.

Cozy Snap: 31:11

Yeah. Oh, some of these are going to you trust me. I, so that's why I think in a. In a zoo style deck, you can fill your, your location up pretty easily. How much do you actually want to utilize that and, you know, destroy the other side? Like are you gonna want to or need to do that? Either way though. I just think it's crazy that you have a minimum with invisible women of five 12, but you can go right, so you're five 10 or five 12, so right then there power's kind of crazy.

Alexander Coccia: 31:36

Yeah, I actually, I like it. And once you start to consider the potential synergy in zoo with Marvel Boy, invisible Woman, and et cetera, this actually does look pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. I like the design. It's a really interesting design.

Cozy Snap: 31:48

So we've got the thing what would you give him at a what would you give invisible Woman and what would you give the thing on a star basis?

Alexander Coccia: 31:54

These, these rankings are so hard'cause I like really dwell on the rankings for a long time. They all seem particularly strong. Invisible woman feels like for me, like probably a four and a half just because I'm that hyped up. I have a concern with the cost and a concern with the slow slowness of the activate ability. But this might be a circumstance where the invisible woman Activ ability is actually a superpower'cause of the end of turn functionality of it. Ben here his name's Ben, right? Yeah. And grim Good. Yeah, that's right. I, I would probably go four. I think that Invisible women's better.

Cozy Snap: 32:27

Yeah. To me, I feel like the, obviously the season pass card is the one you want, but then Invisible Women is like the one of the month because that's the activate or that's the, the archetype anchor kind of. I mean, essentially like that's the car. Like you don't have to have these, these are all gonna make her better, and they do that on purpose to probably sell more. Right. But like she can fit in already designed decks. And what's really cool is moving forward, end of turn, now can be a key word we're looking out for because you have that huge synergy.

Alexander Coccia: 32:56

I will say that Mr. Fantastic feels like a great season pass card because even if you're not collection complet and you're not midmaxing decks, he could probably kind of go everywhere. Like really? Isn't he just a great two drop for anybody just to buy in? It's a

Cozy Snap: 33:08

crazy two drop, fill a spot

Alexander Coccia: 33:09

with. Yeah, he's a crazy two

Cozy Snap: 33:10

drop. I'd actually be surprised if he comes out at two 30, but I think they will. I don't think he'll be a two. Two doesn't have a seasoned pass card brokenness to it. Right? Doesn't, doesn't feel the, the, the same. I would agree probably with your rankings. I do think the thing is really good though. I think we're undermining how strong this guy can get. Human torch. A three, two human torch, end of turn. Plus one power once per once per game. If your side is here, is full double this card's power instead. So you've got a three cost. This one is. I like the thing way better than this one.'cause this one, you have a lot of things going. You gotta have to kind of deal with it to make it go crazy. So like if you played on 3, 3, 3, 4, you know, it's a 4, 4, 4, 5, 4. So you get it. You could get it technically to a three 12. A three 12. Technically,

Alexander Coccia: 34:00

I, I think he's interesting, but like if you think about the power potential of the original human torch, I think it's higher than this. So this might be the weakest of the bunch.

Cozy Snap: 34:09

Yeah, so this is the way I'm thinking. It's like the way I'm reading all these, you just absolutely are gonna wanna play it with Lowcost cards because if you, let's say you have a zoo deck, these are starting to step on each other's toes. Like if you have more of a boy at three costs, oh, you have invisible woman at three. Okay? Then you have him at three. It's like, how are you gonna make all these work? And a lot of that engine, I think a lot of the wind conditions will come through Mr. Fantastic. By reducing that cost, but as you said, can't guarantee the reduction of cost. So then it's like, how are these working? Now keep in mind, Mr. VAAs gives plus two power, so then it makes him almost a win con. That's the thing. If you do fill a location with like ones, he can finish it off as like a dude. This guy could get to crazy. PI, I think this one we're sleeping on a tad because think about right now with Surge and like Scarlet Spider Deck. Some of the stuff we're seeing right now, he does kind of fit into that. Kind of find these, these, these archetypes that are giving power.

Alexander Coccia: 35:05

Yeah, you're right. And the other thing I'm thinking about is that like. Maybe just maybe like, what about like Elsa and Kitty Pride? Like Elsa, you're filling locations. You use Elsa to play'em in, give them the Elsa buff, then double the power after the end of the turn. I think there's some potential there. Early thinking here, I don't have anything concrete to say, but I was thinking about like what Elsa Bloodstone is another card that wants to fill locations, right?

Cozy Snap: 35:30

Yep. You could do that. You could go kaho. You could go galata. Like there's, there's a lot of ways to give this guy power, fill up that location, and then all of a sudden he goes from this three six to bam, three 12 wins a game, or three eight, bam, he's 16. So even though he can't go as high as human torch on a move deck, I think he's almost easier to, he's not almost, he's definitely easier to slot into more decks. And he's kind of an independent car compared to others.

Alexander Coccia: 35:53

What about Tron? Because Tron fills locations, right? So like. The thing in this card here, you can more or less play them on curve with Ultron.

Cozy Snap: 36:02

That's kind of cool. That's actually kinda wild. Yeah. You could get that thing going wa this. It's really awesome because I think that they want these cars to be good and I think most of these, like we've talked about how many scenes seasons are kind of looking a little, a little suspect, but this season it completely looks strong, you know, across the board.

Alexander Coccia: 36:21

I agree. I like, I hadn't seen these before and so talking through them with you now is it's actually got me a little bit excited and I hope they do it right with like the, the branding of the Fantastic four first steps and stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I hope that like the cards are distinct enough. It's also worth noting that, it's kind of, this is kind of a random thought, but I think it's kind of sad that even if like Marvel Snap gets people to come in with like, oh, it's the fantastic first step season, get into Snap and then people come, but they can't play with the cards. Yeah. Yeah. So it almost would feel like the new, the new user experience, you should almost give them, here's the fantastic four, like. Start your Marvel Snap journey or something like that. That's a hell of a way to start. Yeah. Do you know how sad it would be if you're like, I wanna play, you know, the Fantastic Four and it's like, oh bro, that'll be two years from now.

Cozy Snap: 37:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good luck getting, yeah. More of a boy in a random slot or whatever. But then that's maybe when we see our first like snap pack, dedicated pack. Yeah. Thing maybe. Oh yes, yes. Good call. They could do that. They could do that. Next up, man, we've got the Ventas car here and Vanta car is a four six Alex. Okay. This one to me screams a little like not exactly. It's not gonna be, it's not gonna be in the mud. Like this is a series four card in my opinion. But activate, give your end of turn cards plus two power. So it's a four six that gives every single end of turn card plus two power, but it's an activate. It's a four cost card with only six power. Two cards. Make it a four 10. Is this something that is reliable and can be played?

Alexander Coccia: 37:49

The only challenge here is like how many. Activate cards you wanna put in a single deck. So your turn five and six are completely useless. Yeah. It's like, you know what I mean? It's not so much turn five, of course, but turn six specifically. You gotta do something eventually. I, I don't think it's terrible. I mean, if you're gonna be leaning into this end of turn shenanigans, it's not bad. It's just funny that like, if you think about Cyclops, Cyclops is potentially generating more value than just. This is providing like, yeah, of course it's a, you know, it's a buff, but just letting the end of turn things do their thing, it makes it feel strong. Like for instance, oh, like sunspot, assuming sunspot can double whammy on the floated energy and doesn't like consume it and only does it once or something that we don't really know about mechanically. If it, if Sun Swap can double pro. That's way more power than just like plus two or whatever, right? Yeah. So sometimes the end of turn effect is stronger than the buffs is providing.

Cozy Snap: 38:41

Yeah, and I think they were very smart in making it where it's the end of turn effect, but then also fill the location. Because what's happening is, okay, let's say you play him on three and Fantastic car, and four, it's like we just, you're not able to have enough cars on the board to get. That'cause it's like okay, hey you could get Torch's power up to three, four automatically very easily. Plus he's getting plus one power. So the more I think about it, I think actually Torch is gonna be kind of crazy. Torch has the ability to go up to some mad power braille, like pretty some insane numbers if we start to look at some of these cards. But yeah, but thats car. I think it's probably the least exciting of the bunch and the most narrow by far. But I think it will amp up. The deck archetype if that's what you're, you know, wanting to play solely is this end turn stuff. But like you said, is it gonna be even worth that card spot at the end of the day? My feeling is no. But will, like how hard is it gonna get, you know, to get torch up anyway if it proves harder than maybe you, you slot'em in? Alright, next one. This one. This one's a good one. This one I think is gonna be in the main month here. You got Herbie, a little robot, Herbie. Okay. He's a two. Two. Alex, this is probably one of the most creative cards I've seen. So it says each turn, this is in play swapped to a new activate ability until one is used. Okay? So there's a two, two with like almost a Nico design. Okay, so these are the abilities. Activate. Next turn you get plus two energy. Hello. That one's, that one's not bad. That's on. What? That, that to me, just starting with that one. Seems like a great. You don't get to pick, but man, if you get that on tune three, man, you got, you got yourself a. That is the best one.

Alexander Coccia: 40:14

That's pretty damn solid. Yeah. But deck building around it might be difficult. Like you can't make, you know what I mean? We'll have to see how many options are there.

Cozy Snap: 40:20

Yeah. So remember we said that Nico was gonna be bad. Now she's on reveal, but Nico was gonna be bad'cause there's too much variance. Like there's only four options. So you have that one, you have activate, give your cards at adjacent locations plus one power. So there's a two, four, that one's clearly not good. Or not the one you're looking for. Activate, create a rock with, with four power here. Create a rock with four power here. So this is a way to fill your locations for the other cars, for the thing and for human torch prodigy. And this makes'em a two six. Yeah, that's crunch. And then activate double this card's power. So obviously if you have the fantastic car, if you have other ways to get, you know. A power to this guy. Now you're starting to see why these giving powers and most importantly, Mr. Fantastic giving power so you can make this go from a two four to 2 8, 2 10.

Alexander Coccia: 41:09

They really went hard on the activate this month, eh, like super

Cozy Snap: 41:12

hard. They did super hard. So in turn, activate. So this one's interesting to me. Obviously the energy one is the one you're looking for, but then if you don't get this, I think either the consulate, the, the, the prize of the, the plus four power rock is pretty good with what the deck wants to do and doubling the cards. Power has a lot of potential too, but if that one shows up at the wrong time, you don't want to use it. So there's only four and that two of them seem strong at any point.

Alexander Coccia: 41:35

Yeah. No, I agree. I absolutely agree. And yeah, you're right. Nico has shown us that sometimes variances could be a superpower. Like if Nico's in a deck, like you can't really anticipate what your point is gonna do with it, right? So I I kind of agree. I think it, it might be better than first meets the eye.

Cozy Snap: 41:50

My biggest problem is it's when this is in place so Nico can happen, it is happening in your hand. This has to be in place. So you do have that, you know, in play plus also activate. So turn six. You know, I guess turn six. You could do the rock one or the double. Actually no, no, not turn six, turn five. Right. So little bit of a bummer. But yeah, so those are the main ones last you wanna give. We don't know where these are gonna come whether they come after or not. We'll quickly go through'em. We've got moleman. This one reads to me like a magic card all the way on Reveal Banish the top card of your deck banish Add two rocks to your hand with power set to the Banish cards cost.

Alexander Coccia: 42:26

Okay, I'm interested. I like it. So basically I'm assuming the rock's gonna be one cost, right?

Cozy Snap: 42:31

You would think so. You would think that they're gonna be just cheap. So I feel like and I don't have this guy's stats.

Alexander Coccia: 42:37

Banish Hulk get two to get 2 24 in power.

Cozy Snap: 42:40

Yeah, that seems probably a little strong. I wonder how high, how high how high up this guy's power and cost is. It does have it, but I can't find it. Mad thinker at the start of each turn. Game plus two power. If your hand is full after you draw.

Alexander Coccia: 42:53

Really? Mm-hmm. What a strange design. I don't even know what to think of that one.

Cozy Snap: 42:57

Isn't that bit weird? Yeah. Here, you know what? See,

Alexander Coccia: 42:59

that is a weird one. I, I don't even know, like we actually don't really have cards that interact with hand size.

Cozy Snap: 43:04

That's why both these kind of read to me as like a little bit of magic cards because okay. So Moleman, by the way, for the record, is a three, three. So that's actually pretty damn good if you make your deck around

Alexander Coccia: 43:15

it. I just realized I said something so stupid.'cause both Ronan and Devil Dinosaur interact with hand size. So just getting ahead of the commentary,

Cozy Snap: 43:21

just get, just getting ahead of the comment section, quote of the day. And then also Mad Thinker man, that made me laugh. Matt Thinker. Let's see what this guy is. Matt Thinker is a one one that can't be right.

Alexander Coccia: 43:36

Yeah, it's probably just a placeholder at the start of the, we're kind of dipping plus, yeah, we're getting further dipping into this early here,

Cozy Snap: 43:40

getting further into it. Anyway, that's fantastic. Four season. I said it will change snap'cause I quite literally think it makes a new archetype. And ads. What We don't get a lot cards that can fit just about anywhere and have a bunch of synergy together, bud. Easily the most excited I'm for your season coming up.

Alexander Coccia: 43:53

And honestly it's gonna do something with Activate, like it's legit gonna do something with Activate, it's buffing a lot of archetypes that need a little bit of love. And so like even Evo, like you might think, oh, I see Evo all the time right now. But yeah, you're seeing Evo in the Ajax shell simply for Abom, and now you have truly an an high evolutionary enabling system here. So, yeah, no, this is actually pretty awesome. I'm excited for it.

Cozy Snap: 44:14

And here's the most exciting thing. We're not gonna go into all of'em, but this is like, wait, what? I think all of these have skill cards or something to do with skill cards. So like Cloer and time honor reveal moved the thing to this location. He can repeat the destroy ability in the game. Okay. Like holy crap, right? But then it's like flame on honor, reveal, add human torches, power to the next card you play. Like, so there's, these are all gonna have skill cards. It looks like they're, they're very early concept, but that's awesome because now if you have these cool interaction cards with skill cards attached to'em now I hope they don't come and, and dilute the deck. We don't want that. I don't think so then that then,'cause then you're getting like human torch and then you get the, the, you don't want, if you didn't play'em, you have the flame on. What are you gonna do with that? Right. So it's a little bit awkward. But anyway man, let's move on to the Snap Reddit review. Alright guys, so Reddit in review, Alex and I are gonna be looking at the top of Reddit and reacting to what we see and to the podcast. We will we will definitely describe to you. First up, we have a Dan Hip, Thunderbolt art and this Dan hip man, I feel like his stocks were like this. They, they've kind of tamed, like people have tamed down a bit on the hip, but this is a masterpiece.

Alexander Coccia: 45:23

I, I still like dead hips art. I just find myself, I really like the photo realistic, like fantasy stuff a lot. And so I, I tend to go over that, but I still run a few hips. Like my, the Beast Hip was one of my absolute favorites for the longest time until I got the Flavia, which Flavio's coloring is just incredible. But yeah, no, I think this looks awesome here and it makes me, I haven't seen Thunderbolts yet. Is, is Shadow dude relevant there?

Cozy Snap: 45:45

Yeah, that's oh, I don't, I don't wanna spoil it.

Alexander Coccia: 45:47

Don't spoil it. Don't spoil it. Don't say if it's supposed to be a surprise, don't say anything, but just, you know who he is is

Cozy Snap: 45:52

all I'll say. That's all I'll say. What does this one mean, Alex? We have code tax cap in store.

Alexander Coccia: 45:57

Yeah. So if you go to marvel snap.com and then you go to the top right to the shop and in the redeem section you type in all caps. P-A-X-C-A-P, PAX Cap you will get the Penny Arcade Captain America variant for free from last year.

Cozy Snap: 46:15

I saw that they're giving out the card back from last year. I was a little sad. I like, I'm glad and sad, you know what I mean? Like, I'm happy that mo more people get it, but I was also like, dang, because it was a cool exclusive.

Alexander Coccia: 46:26

Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. I mean, exclusives are always cool when you're the guy that has it, right? That's true. It's true. But yeah, like if they're gonna be doing something similar to that, then like, the year of exclusivity is pretty neat. But yeah, the art's fantastic. And I think there's, as I, I think I mentioned already on this podcast, there's a penny arcade. What's it called? Album coming out. So this might be in the album. I don't know. May as well get it for free.

Cozy Snap: 46:47

Remember when this was considered the best card in the game? And we have Jeff, a two three. That feels like a eternity to go at this point, man. But I think, was it, was Jeff the longest running best card in the game? Like I think so. Like it is, it had that because like we at least could give that to'em and I feel like nowadays that's super controversial. Which one is.

Alexander Coccia: 47:07

If you want power creep in a photograph, this is it. Essentially like a two three that just moved. It could be played anywhere, is definitely not good enough anymore. It's also worth noting that Jeff was super, super popular because Professor Rex was a menace at the time.

Cozy Snap: 47:21

Yeah.

Alexander Coccia: 47:21

Professor Rex got completely taken outta the game, like he doesn't even exist now anymore. And so Jeff was super, it was used offensively and defensively with Professor X and so those decks were prevalent for long enough that I think that Jeff remained relevant.

Cozy Snap: 47:35

And keep in mind, I think between Snap and Rivals, but because of the popularity of those two games, I think we are gonna get some kind of Jeff Easter egg, Jeff showing something in, in Doomsday or The Avengers. I think that they're gonna show him in some capacity, he's gotten too big to not capitalize him on the MCU.

Alexander Coccia: 47:54

Of course, man, you got Jeff's gotta be in there. He's gotta be in there. I, I love the comics even though they're, they read more like, kinda like visual novels. Not even novels. There's no words in most of them, but but yeah, Jeff's, Jeff's amazing

Cozy Snap: 48:05

snap packs are getting outta hand as we have a shiny blast voice. I pulled one of these, actually.

Alexander Coccia: 48:11

You pulled one of these outta your snap pack

Cozy Snap: 48:12

Uhhuh. Yeah, it was crazy, man. I want, I wanted a I wanted a prodigy and I got a, I got a blast oyster. I don't even think I'd be mad about this, even if it was fundamentally useless.

Alexander Coccia: 48:22

No, I would, I would definitely take I would take a six. Oh, I like the fact that it's a six nine. It's the extra bit

Cozy Snap: 48:27

there that, that does it for me. Yeah. Blast stories, coincidentally is probably easily my top three. It's in my Mount Rushmore new Uncle Ben's sound effect is amazing. Have you, have, you, you, I'm sure you've heard this.

Alexander Coccia: 48:39

I've heard it now. Yeah. I didn't quite understand what he says, and then I'm like, oh, it's because he just got capped. Yeah,

Cozy Snap: 48:45

he, he dies. Yeah. It, this is. This is up. The first time you heard this, it got, it Had to have a little ch a little smile, a little chuckle to you.

Alexander Coccia: 48:53

Cozy. Do

Cozy Snap: 48:54

a reenactment of it with great power. It comes. That was pretty good. That was actually really good. That was pretty good. Yeah. That was good. That was solid. That was really good. I'm actually proud of that one. Ooh, here we go. Nobody has commented yet, but skill cars. They look like this. Now, are you a fan or not a fan, Alex?

Alexander Coccia: 49:10

I haven't played AMO to see them, so I don't know.

Cozy Snap: 49:13

Looking at'em right here. Guys, there is a giant circle with just the, the cost and the name. I actually like this. I, I think they definitely needed to make somewhat of a difference between skill cards and not, and we're about to get a lot more

Alexander Coccia: 49:22

buddy. They literally look like bolts of ball sack on the screen right now.

Cozy Snap: 49:25

They do. Friendly reminder that Alyth was able to pull this off back in the day.

Alexander Coccia: 49:34

Oh, it's gonna delete everything, dude. Oh my God. It's honestly heartbreaking to watch

Cozy Snap: 49:41

this card lasted so long too, like so how long was Maine Alyth in the game?

Alexander Coccia: 49:49

I don't know, man. It must, it felt like at least five months, four months minimum before they started kind of changing it OTA and patching it. And I will say it's funny because I almost wanna go back to that, that episode of the SC, where we talked about it and I feel like both of us knew it was gonna be good, but we didn't identify it as like the card of the month. We need to do a reaction.

Cozy Snap: 50:11

We need to go back. What we need to do for an episode is the whole episode. I just go to the top 10 most broken cards today, and we go back to when they released and what we said about'em, and we just react to it.

Alexander Coccia: 50:20

Oh, that's gonna be so embarrassing. I.

Cozy Snap: 50:22

Yes, but also I think incredible. I think we have, I think

Alexander Coccia: 50:26

there's gonna be a lot more, like, this card looks like it's gonna be good. Oh, Loki's a good example of that too. Oh yeah, you were like ex, you were actually excited about Loki from like, just a flavor perspective. That game, that card broke the game.

Cozy Snap: 50:37

I was like, yeah, this is gonna be something I'm gonna play a lot. Like I can't wait. Hopefully it's like niche enough and good enough to use, and then it's just like absolute, completely, completely cracked and dumb, dumb. Duggan looks different. Rest in peace. Dumb dumb. Rest in peace.

Alexander Coccia: 50:51

No idea where dumb dumb is. I still love the fact that whatever, whoever programmed the announcement for Dum is now available in series four. Didn't even bother to change it when Xi Doxy came out instead,

Cozy Snap: 51:02

it hilarious. They're like, nah, just leave it. They're like, sir, it says everybody's getting a free air. Ah, fine. Don't worry about it. No one reads those things. Anyway,

Alexander Coccia: 51:10

Cozy. I got a funny story for you. It's funny for you, not for me. I'm a little upset about it, but you know what? It's your fault and you don't even know it's your fault and I'm gonna take it out on you right now in front of a audience here. I was gonna say live audience, but it's not live audiences. Actually, days prior to the this releasing due to my traveling commitments, but cozy, on the end of the last Snapchat you had said, you had said, Alex, I'm gonna go see the thunderbolts.'cause I can't risk getting spoiled. And you said, you know what? Spoilers are everywhere. My entire feed is Marvel stuff. I gotta get out there. And don't you worry audience if you're listening, no spoilers here to be had. I would never do that to you. But I just want you to know that guess who got spoiled hard? This guy right here happened. And you know how it happened. I was so annoyed. And again, I stress, don't worry audience. I'm not gonna spoil nothing. Don't you worry?'cause I would never do that to you. Literally after the Snapchat, I was on my phone. I dunno if you have an Android so you have like the Google feed, the newsfeed top. Top of my newsfeed was like a YouTube channel. It was like a thumbnail. And like when I say the immediate title, I mean like the first four words are like ruthless, spoiler. People

Cozy Snap: 52:17

suck, man. I hate when people do that. And the,

Alexander Coccia: 52:19

yeah, and the thumbnail was literally a spoiler. And the first, like in an autoplay, the first, second savage spoiler. There was no way I could have avoided this. To the point where I'm like, Google, why did you do this? Why? Yeah. I'm like, I couldn't, I, by the time I processed what I was looking at, I was already spoiled. Everything. And it was like, it was like gamer kids 69, 4 20 xxx Of course. Yeah. Was like the YouTube channel snowball my, and it was literally the footage. The second I saw was someone's, it was like phone footage from like the front row of the theater, so it was like super, like wide and like I was like, dude, Google screwed just enough. I was, we'll talk about it after. I want you to, I'll tell you what I saw. I was so upset'cause it looked sick and I was like, no, why would you tell? So anyways, that was my moment right after the Snapchat, and maybe I should have went to see Thunderbolts right away.

Cozy Snap: 53:11

I saw a short man that it has to do with this, but doesn't. But it was like a husband, like went up to his wife's phone when she was gone and he was like saying things to the phone for targeted ads. He was like. Chicken Parmesan recipes. He's like how to clean the house efficiently. Like he was like saying things to see if it would like pop up later on his phone. It got a good chuckle outta me. But yeah, man, they're, they're always listening, man. They're, they're, they're always listening. Luckily, the spoilers weren't, like, it's not a movie that had like, you know, the death of Captain America, whatever, right? Like, it wasn't like the whole world bent outta shape, but there was some stuff that could be spoiled for sure. There

Alexander Coccia: 53:44

was definitely some stuff that could have been spoiled.'cause I feel like I got spoiled a little bit there. But and talking about MCU quickly, we also have, obviously we have the Fantastic four coming out. When's that coming out? Is this summer?

Cozy Snap: 53:54

It is almost in line with Comic-Con completely. So it's like July, I wanna say like 26th.

Alexander Coccia: 54:00

And what's next after that?

Cozy Snap: 54:02

Avengers Doomsday

Alexander Coccia: 54:04

Avengers. A Doomsday, which is I think May next year.

Cozy Snap: 54:09

And then I think two years from now is Secret Wars. From like yesterday,

Alexander Coccia: 54:14

secret Wars. That is like a, is that a movie or a show of interest?

Cozy Snap: 54:18

You, you don't know. What, if you don't know what the word Secret Wars means by now as a Marvel creator, all Hope is lost. Don't put

Alexander Coccia: 54:25

that on me, bro. It's, it's up there. I don't know what's going on's. I know that people have told me that it's really good. Wait, wait. There's Agents of Shield. People have said I have to watch. Then there's inception I've been told I have to watch, and then there's apparently I gotta read up on Secret Wars. And that's not, that's not the Nick Fury one. That's secret invasion, right?

Cozy Snap: 54:42

No, this is a, this is a very big, this is very big. It'd be like what's an equivalent like you know what Order 66 is on Star Wars. Nope. Okay, cool. Alright, let's move on. Dar Vader. Let's just talk about Esme. Let's just, just move on from this conversation

Alexander Coccia: 54:55

before I upset you. Connoisseur of media. Yes. Esme, cuckoo, cuckoo, Esme Cuckoo. All I've known is that, I don't know how to say this name at all. Every single part of it is awkward. Cozy Snap. Esme three, four on Reveal. Cop your hand, whatever. You know what it does now. That's great. For the audio listeners, honor reveal, copy a card from your deck into your hand set. Its cost of three and power to four. There you go. I did the thing, I did the podcast thing. So I played a ton of both Esme and Surge, like when I say a ton, I literally started streaming for Twist Drops, played for like 10, 11 hours. Got to Infinite was I was like ranked 52 or something, which is, I mean, that's more along the lines of this. I was the 52nd person to get the infinite at the time, I guess. But what I'll say is that like I played so much of these cards that I felt like I got a pretty good handle. Of their strength, their potential, and what they can do. And I, I was playing them in similar shells and even in some of the same shells and found that they did have niches that they fell into. So with regards to Esme itself, first of all, I came in at four stars. You came in at 4.5. Do you have any initial thoughts? I feel like yes,

Cozy Snap: 56:06

in the initial days, she's fallen more into. We were kind of talking about will she end up being because I, I, I, let me just say this. I think I needed more playtime. I think, not me. We all need more playtime to see about the copy mechanic. As it continues through Dex. But remember we talked about like is she gonna be niched into some certain cards or will she be plug and playable and like that was the true thing. And yes, definitely. I'm not shocked on release. Like a lot of her target. And at least what I played too right away was what we thought was gonna be kind of those Mr. Negative type cards, the sages of the world, the Ironman, like. That's what we leaned to.'cause we knew it was gonna be good and it made a lot of sense that those hit really well and those overperformed, and I think in the other areas, at least initially, she underperformed in more of a catch hole way. I.

Alexander Coccia: 56:53

I absolutely agree and I will say statistically, currently and this is a couple days earlier than usual because of the travel commitments I have, but she's running a 57% win rate. Now, bear in mind this is inflated because of bot statistics the first week. So it is gonna be definitely higher, kind of low or currently including bots

Cozy Snap: 57:10

kind of low for. New card on bought release, like Almo is like a 60 something percent on the release. Surge

Alexander Coccia: 57:17

is much higher, I'll say that. Okay. Okay. So if that gives you any, any, any indication. So Esme at a 57. Now what else say about Esme and what my experience indicated was that. I think the power is not necessarily copying the Ironman or the gore, and I think a lot, as you said, a lot of people went to that and it did work. That was the thing you could definitely do. But what I really found valuable was the opportunity to reach into the deck and essentially double the chances that I get a chance to draw a card I need. Surfer's a great example of this. If I don't have surfer in my deck by turn in my hand by turn, six things feel kind of bad in a silver surfer deck. And there was multiple instances where I would play as me on turn three, get surfer, and then also draw surfer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which was particularly fascinating. Moreover, there were instances where I would play Esme, get Sebastian Shaw and draw Sebastian Shaw, and then draw into surfer as well. Now, yes, of course you're thinking Alex. That's just, those are just blessed situations, but those are situations that happened and they happened more than once. Put yourself in a situation where you are against a strange supreme player and you see the strange supreme going crazy. You're holding ESMI on turn three. You don't have Sean Chi in your hand yet, and you know it's in your deck. I. It could be potentially valuable to roll Asme to potentially get that shun chi early so that you can take out that that strange supreme, the ability to, to add that like factor of digging into that deck and not like in a jubilee of pulling it and slamming on the field, but actually holding it.'cause blink digs into the deck, but the card comes out. Jubilee digs into the deck, but the card comes out. Iron lad digs in, but the card is immediately revealed. With Esme, you're pulling the card and you're storing it for future usage. So the tech pieces can actually be very useful.

Cozy Snap: 58:55

Yeah. And it's helping with, you know, you have so much information too when you're doing so right. Like you're able to clearly see what you could get. And sometimes, at least when I was playing, it's like, oh wow, I'm good with any of these options, even if I double draw into that. And I think what's cool about her and, and as I, we continue, we just talked about the Fantastic four first step cards. Think about that whole deck. I think she's great as just kind of a Mm, there's nothing else. I wanna do this turn. And any card that I continue to get is gonna help out. Like, those cards are all good to get back in your hand and if you get two of them, awesome, right? Like, what a cool thing you can up doing with that. So I think that she's going to be pretty futureproof too. Like she's got a lot going for in that department. It, it, it, she feels really solid to play.

Alexander Coccia: 59:39

And for what it's worth so last week I was incorrect about the interaction with the copied card and Silver surfer. The card gets copied to the hand and then it gets set to the cost of three, but it does not count as a three costed card. I actually tried to find where Glen had explained the difference between the small c, the capital C and the c slash and dash and all that stuff. I couldn't find it in my time searching discord.

Cozy Snap: 1:00:03

It just has never really happened that way. Like pixie, like it just, they always, they like, they've been very like strict on that from, and probably because of this reason, because of surfer. Yeah. Because of ways you could, you know, manipulate it,

Alexander Coccia: 1:00:14

but at the same time it's like, it is someone non-intuitive, right? Like once we understand the rule Yeah. And we, we see it mechanically work, then we just get it like it's obvious. It's like okay, that's fine and that's cool, right? Because still getting a galata as a three cost or a Gwen pool was still awesome. Like that was, even if they weren't getting buff, like that was still awesome. You know what I mean? But I think it, it like the, the rules, the rules of the card game, the snap, especially as you add more cards, sometimes there's these like stepping on the toes situations, right? But overall with Esme, what I, what I would say is, my general, first of all, it's also again, earlier than usual, but one of the advantages of the season pass card is, is slightly less fomo'cause you can get it later in the month. Although you are giving up the weekend missions with the the 50 150 gold I should say, as may, I'm cautiously optimistic on spoiler. I think surge is better. But I do find that Esme is potentially pretty interesting overall. I will say though, I was a little, I don't wanna say disappointed'cause I wasn't expecting it, but I think they really need to look at the season pass and if they're gonna be really leaning into tokens as a source of like an economy engine.

Cozy Snap: 1:01:16

Yeah.

Alexander Coccia: 1:01:16

Give your paying customers some tokens in the season pass.

Cozy Snap: 1:01:19

Yeah. I gave them the benefit of the doubt this time because I think that the either or launch date kind of thing, but as we hit June, it's like, all right, okay. Like we've known this is gonna come now and you could prep for this in advance. And so I'm hoping to see a, a change and they kinda even mentioned that in one of those Dev Q and a's they were like, yeah, we can add tokens in more places.'cause now they're essentially a Bible currency. So, yeah. That's what, yeah, I would, I would hope to see.

Alexander Coccia: 1:01:41

What I've seen, I've said this before, but what I've seen out of second dinner based off of the changes they've been making with the SNAP packs is they seem committed to making the game more accessible and better. This isn't just cope, this isn't just them just kind of, you know, taking a need to the community that's been complaining about card acquisition. I think they're actively trying to make their game better. And for that reason, I believe that if they find that there aren't enough tokens in the ecosystem, that they'll start incorporating more just outside of the wallet, which. They always say the credit card, the most powerful card in collectible card games at the end of the day and cozy. That's gonna take us to our next card to discuss. We did have a dual release and this one was surge. Into the snap packs, right off the rip surge is running a 59% win rate, and of course that's ranks 70 including bot based statistics. Cozy, what are your thoughts on Surge? I've

Cozy Snap: 1:02:28

been waiting for your thoughts on Serge because we came in at different, you know, I think you were most ex you were excited about it, but you thought she was a little pumped up. A little bit too much. And as I was playing her, I was like, you know, I wonder. I wonder what Alex is thinking over there on how you played her. She did work in interactions that we thought she, that she had the potential work in, which was nice to see. But yeah. I'll g I'll give you the four,

Alexander Coccia: 1:02:49

right? But I like how you do this. Eh? You're just like, Hey bud. I, you know, you're wrong and I'm right. So I'll let you admit that I'm right. Okay. Cozy. Here we go. So cozy gave her the five, I gave her the four. I gave her the, it's my five card of the, the month. But I was somewhat hesitant from a power perspective. I was probably a little incorrect. I surge was impressive. What I will say though is I felt often like, oh, okay. There was one highlight I did where I literally surged and then top deck Silver Surfer and I was like, dammit, I can't play Silver Surfer on turn three. Yeah, that's crazy. I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna keep the s, I'm just gonna lean into, I'm gonna play a temple surface surface, see what happens. And I did still won the game. Yeah, I did. Still won four cubes because it's like the amount of just like momentum being generated was crazy. Like she was actually awesome.

Cozy Snap: 1:03:41

You have to commit to the bit, and I think you said it, you know, I think when you went in with the cautious optimism was, well that's not how Snap's played. And I think at the time I rhetoric was like. Yet, right? Like we haven't played that way yet. And it's true. I think that was a great example of it. It's like, because there were times where it's like, this doesn't make a lot of sense, but I might as well just keep this top deck momentum going. And it was really cool to see that continue on. She's very interesting and I think this is definitely like I. A card that really shapes the way you play, which is why Snap is so cool because you don't even need a new game mode. Sometimes you just need a card that really encourages a new way to play. You know, we see that in other card games and it's, I hope they continue to lean into this kind of stuff, which, you know, makes you, it pulls you outta your comfort zone a little bit. You know, you have a little bit of a different play style than you used to. But, yeah, s was was definitely cool.

Alexander Coccia: 1:04:29

It was awesome. And I will say I came really, really impressed to the point where like, I, I would say that if you're someone who's on the fence, whether or not you want to spend 5K if your collection complete, I think she's worth rolling 5K for like, I think she's unique enough that it's worth having your collection. I had a blast with her. She feels strong. Yes, there was some instances where you, you know, you get surface surfing and you're like, Hey, I'm not gonna play this till the end of the game. But there's other times where like I play Surge on two, I hit brood, I play brood, and then I might even have forge in hand and that just allows me to combo forge with Sebastian SHA five or whatever. Right. I was able to do a lot of fun things. I think

Cozy Snap: 1:05:05

my advice is get her and get her now, and the reason I say that is because out of the month, she's the card to get. Because if you wait, then you're gonna be risking to pull a prodigy, pull, whatever. And so if you do want, if you, if you're on the fence and you're leaning towards like the 60%, 70%, you want to get her side, get her, because then at that point, it's gonna take that much more to grab her. Either way, those cards, those filler cards are gonna be in there for the next month and whatever. But you just, you know, lower your chance of grabbing her from a snap pack.

Alexander Coccia: 1:05:36

That's a good like Yeah, that's a great, great opinion because you have the snap hacks, which we joked about prior. They progressively get worse because as you skip things, they kind of get like stuffed with poo, right? You try. Yeah. It's like they, you add your own landmines and some months are gonna be harder and harder in landmines. Some

Cozy Snap: 1:05:54

months are gonna be harder than others. Right? Like some months, let's take the one with Chu. It's like, I think there was some bad cards in between and then Chu came out and everyone wanted Concho. It's like, well, that at that point, that's gonna be a lot tougher to make decisions, but this is one of the easier months to make decisions on because it's all in the front half.

Alexander Coccia: 1:06:09

Yeah, and for what it's worth currently we have a couple decks that have been making the rounds with regards to surge. And actually, ironically, Esme is making some of those lists, as we had discussed here on the podcast, first cozy. One of the top performing shells is the havoc based shell buddy. Boom, fist bump to us. We actually called that. That deck's running a 61% win rate. Bought inflated there. We also have some interesting stuff going with with like Gwenpool and Hope Summers and Elsa Bloodstone. Yes. Surge making the rounds on a couple different unique decks.

Cozy Snap: 1:06:39

I was pumped to see Scarlet Spider Show show up, man. Yeah, like that. I was like, any time this card comes up I was pumped. And what a cool card to top deck. And be like, I'll definitely play this at this point. Like you're only getting pure value at that point. So, you know, it goes to show you Scarlet Spider Gut, you know, kind of dumped on when it came out. There's just so many cards that come out down the line that help out past cards and so it's so important to evaluate these and what they can do in the future.

Alexander Coccia: 1:07:04

And the nice thing about it's, we're still recording, like only the first week of these cards release. And I think that Esme ultimately, I think is weaker than search. I dunno if you would agree with that. Yeah. Like first impressions.

Cozy Snap: 1:07:14

Yeah, for sure. And it's mainly because of what Surge is doing to your deck and it's that whole cost cheaper, the flexibility of it. There's a bunch going for Surge. I think Esme is good, but there's just more use cases for surge.

Alexander Coccia: 1:07:26

The challenge I found with Esme too was it predict, I mean the deck I released was actually one of the top performing Esme decks, which is great to see. But I had cards like FAOs in there. You, if you have Esme on three and Faso on three, you always play FAOs. Yeah. Like you always play Faso on three. And so I often found myself playing Esme on five to seeing if like, oh, I don't have surfer yet. Can I reach in or what do I do? And so Esme I found was still valuable later into the turns, especially since you're just working with the three jobs. But it did feel really good hitting things like Gwen Pools and Galata and stuff.'cause I had turned fives where I was playing galata, which got discounted by surge into forge. So you're buffing the forge, and then forge is like, like kind of setting the, the buff for the next turn. Right? Which, where then you could hit, you know, your. Your broods or whatever, but ultimately, yeah, I would agree. Surge number one, asay number two. Both of the cards certainly do have potential with regards to surge. Definitely get her now if you are collection complete or near it as the rest of the season looks a little not as good. And that cozy is gonna take us to our next topic of conversation because if Surge is gonna do anything. Esme is gonna do anything. It might bring some cards back to the forefront that we're not seeing much play prior. Now we're gonna be talking over the last couple of weeks here because you know, cards have been coming and going. There's still some cards that are very prevalent and we'll talk about those as well. But the real risers. Are the ones that are kind of the ones that over the last couple weeks maybe they got a new injection of power and they're coming back out and cozy. I wanna start the conversation with Thanos. Thanos has seen a massive surge of popularity and cozy. Can you guess why?

Cozy Snap: 1:09:05

Well, strange Supreme, my friend, strange Supreme bringing out the best in him. And, you know, again we, we've made the joke too many times where it's like he's inevitable. He will always find his way back into the meta at some point in time. With different ways, different builds.'cause it's a really cool card with so many ways to interact with it. Heck, we even talked about'em with what's his name? Prodigy like, hey, maybe, I don't know if you just copy a, a draw engine for him. But yeah. Clear as day strange, supreme really, really amplified him.

Alexander Coccia: 1:09:32

Yeah. And we are, again, statistically for this first week we were discussing ranks 70 and above. So there is some bot inflation, but. Both Strange, Supreme and Thanos are running an 18 to 19% popularity, both of which at a 56% win rate. So clearly there's their their performance is tied to one another. They're being played in the same decks, and they're doing very well. And even though new cards are being released, you're seeing almost a 20% play rate on Thanos, which. Three months ago would've seemed absolutely crazy. Yeah, the card was dead in the water. And it's notable that they made some changes to the stones. They made some modifications to the stones and how they worked and stuff like that. But really, it's, it's strange. Supreme. That was the reviving factor.

Cozy Snap: 1:10:13

Yeah. Without question. For it's funny'cause you can't call something hot and realizing if it's hard, if it's been hot, but it's been like a sleep, not a sleeper hot even. But do, do you feel like Ajax and affliction just kind of. They just continue to exist and, and, and like, it's not talked about much, like we haven't highlighted it in a while. We did talk about, I think Diamondback kind of constantly being slept on as like just a really good car that's not talked about. But I feel like the, the Ajax has always in the affliction side has just always been relevant and solid.

Alexander Coccia: 1:10:43

I'm trying to remember, I think Ajax might have been one of the spotlight cash weeks that was the best coming up that we've now lost. Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. Because of the s the snap packs. But yeah, Ajax is one of those cards that like honestly, when it first came out, it looked good and people were like, yeah, it's, it's pretty good. It gets huge. But the decks hadn't really formed around it yet. And then the list got really tight, really tight, really good. This is one of the most consistent top 10 deck performers in Marvel Snaps since its release. And yet, while we've had injections of power with Diamondback and others. This, this card doesn't see much play. The win rate is always sky high, but the play rate is always well under everything else. There's a huge discrepancy between how much people are playing, how much people are winning.'cause it's certainly winning.

Cozy Snap: 1:11:31

Yeah. You do need a lot of cards to really perfect it. It's an archetype that every card that comes out, it really enhances it. And Diamondback just being the most recent example. Right. But yeah, at this point, this came out, I think in July of last year and it's been slept on almost ever since. Like it's performed. Well, it's been, you know in the conversation of one of the top decks and for a while, the top tech, right. For a good while to the point where they had to look at some of the cars to, to tame down. And all it takes is another affliction car to just boost it up even higher, which I'm sure there's plenty of those coming out. You know, now that they're really thinking even more cars are gonna dip into that affliction could be a little bit of a scary archetype. I guess maybe that's why it's playwright stone. It's not like move, but it's in a sense. Yeah. You know what it, you're playing with fire is what we like to say.

Alexander Coccia: 1:12:13

It's funny'cause it honestly doesn't see much play and I feel like it spikes when a new tool comes out. Like Diamondback comes out, everyone's playing Luke Cage, but almost nobody's playing Luke Cage defensively because this is not popular enough. And Luke Cage is incredibly powerful with this board wide effect. We, we, I mean, how many times we said board wide effect. You know, in this podcast today alone, very powerful. Sport wide effect. But talking about the next couple cards here, I want to just bear mention to something. Now, there is a specific card and it's number three I really want to talk about, but it's also worth mentioning that Hun Chi at a 31% win rate or not third win rate at 31% popularity is not currently the most played card in Marvel Snap. The card that consistently sees the most play is actually Sam Wilson, captain America at 35%, despite the Nerf, but we're talking about risers here, and Sam Wilson's been near the top for, since its release, and Shachi has been in it near the top forever. So who's the riser? Cozy. It's a thunderbolt. You probably saw him on the screen. He likes to hit people for the negative. He likes to strip away their card text. He's red. Who

Cozy Snap: 1:13:25

is he? The Guardian? Dude, it, you know what's funny is like it made, so before my wife and I went in to go see the movie, she's like, can you kinda like run down these characters again? And like, I thought the best way to do it was just to go to Snap. And I just like went to my snap cards and I was like showing her who? Oh, I see. I can't spoil stuff. It's not even that big of a spoiler.'cause it's in the trailer. But regardless, don't say it. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say it. There's a hero though that she don't you even

Alexander Coccia: 1:13:49

dare bring up stranger things.

Cozy Snap: 1:13:51

She. No, she saw the the Snap card though, of this one this one character. And she was like, that's gonna be an news. She's like I didn't know it was this kinda movie. And it's funny'cause some of the art, you know, like Red Garden's a perfect example. I was like trying to go through my red car, you know, this is like the closest one I found that was like, kind of given the, the David Harbor vibes. But yeah, man, red Guardian, he's he's cool. And after you see the movie, man, it's just you. I don't care if white widow's good. You wanna, you wanna try to play them together.

Alexander Coccia: 1:14:16

That's awesome. And I'll say that Red Guardian currently is the third most played card of Marvel Snap at a 24% meta popularity. He seems like a great catchall. Ironically, you brought up Ajax. He's currently making the Ajax decks as simply just pure tech. He's a great catchall, cozy and one of the other call outs worth mentioning as well, another tech piece. And this is the good boy, the doggy. It's Cosmo, and this might be fully related to the popularity of Thanos and specifically Strange Supreme.'cause believe it or not, it has a well just barely 19% play rate just slightly above that of Thanos and Strange Supreme. I wonder who he's protecting,

Cozy Snap: 1:14:59

bro. There is a comment on our last Snapchat that we missed and I thought it was actually like a really good point. We were talking about Zorn and I'm a little bit higher up than you are in them. Just by a little bit, but someone's like Zorn is the perfect co anti Cosmo card and it makes so much sense. He can completely keep a lane for the first time Cosmo free.

Alexander Coccia: 1:15:21

It's true, it's true.'cause Cosmo, even if you play it there gets punched out.

Cozy Snap: 1:15:25

Yeah. So you could essentially on turn three set up or No, he's a two. Cos. So you can set up a com. Now a lot of those combos that you wanna keep Cosmo out, you kinda sorta, you know, want to have the whole lane to do so. But even having that option of like guaranteed safety for an honor reveal thing is kinda cool.

Alexander Coccia: 1:15:43

No, I just realized I can counter that. I know the exact play you make. I think this would work. You ready? Okay. You ready for this Red guardian Cosmo? Okay, on tempo. Turn one, not turn One, screw two. One turn. One. Turn. Two Colossus. Turn three. Cosmo. Turn four. Super scroll. When super scroll comes down, does the ongoing go first and then prevent it from being moved?

Cozy Snap: 1:16:04

There it is. Done and done. Colossus error. Here we come. It's there. So is

Alexander Coccia: 1:16:08

Colossus back baby? Yeah.

Cozy Snap: 1:16:10

All, all the stop probably are pretty suboptimal. Like Zorn Lane play like yeah, you probably would win anyway, but do that actually is some big brain thinking. I like it.

Alexander Coccia: 1:16:19

Thank you. It's like the new form of C control, but except you were on, just scroll in every way and you still just lose, even if you get the,'cause you're putting zero power on the board if you don't top cozy. Do you see any hot and risers you'd like?

Cozy Snap: 1:16:31

I think just like a shout out to it's been really cool to see since even the beginning of Snap, like ongoing and like where it's gone, right? Like obviously a lot of it had to do with Goliath and him coming out and kind of giving a good resurgence there. Captain Carter. But it's been really cool because you know, back in the day it was just really ongoing. Like destroyer decks is all you could pull off. And then it's continued to like just evolve. And I remember back we would have subjects about that keyword being something that they need to look at.'cause on reveal's thriving and ongoing, it just seems like there's not really a lot going for it. And then even back then we would talk about though, the more cards that come out for it, it's always gonna get better. And you know, here we are. Years down the line, you have low cost cards with grid effects that fit into those lanes. And I just find it like such a comfort deck. And I think it's definitely clearly was more hot in the rise last month. But still stupid solid option.

Alexander Coccia: 1:17:21

That's a, a great point and it's, it's funny you bring like kind of inventive decks up because there's two cards that have been making a lot of pretty inventive lists. They both have the same meta popularity at 11.4%. Similar win rates, 55 to 56% and it's Mobius and Mobius. Juggernaut Juggernaut being able to be used alongside Surge and Esme in the havoc based decks. Good, closer. And Mobius. And Mobius naturally prevents the discount for Esme and both Surge. So Mobius on the rise. Do you think Mobius is worth playing defensively?

Cozy Snap: 1:17:58

It always, it is always, the word depends, right? It's always the, it's always how popular do decks get that he can be played in. And I think virtually myself, I'm always leaning towards the, the red guardian, the sh q for tech card slot. And I. We're getting more, like we just got the season pass card that does, we we're always getting cards that reduce costs and the more those that come in, great. And the more those that kind of in, you know, go into into the meta, like a great example is Mr. Fantastic doing minus one cost. Like this is a, this just shuts that strategy down completely. Right? So we're gonna keep getting those cards. So not yet, but I'm, I like'em.

Alexander Coccia: 1:18:35

I would venture to say that playing cards purely defensively like Echoes and Mobius and Mobius, yeah, they feel terrible because you're not doing what your deck is designed to do. You're playing for what your opponent is. And I think the most successful decks in Snap are the ones that execute on their game plan and generally don't care about what your opponent's doing. You're doing your thing. C Control has always been the anomaly. It's, it's been the anomaly to that rule for Snap. Yeah, you don't just play Moby Sam Mobius.'cause you know what I mean? It's really only found in a couple decks. Like it's not making surfer decks, but it makes the pixie ones, it's here and there

Cozy Snap: 1:19:09

in simpler terms. It's like all the way back to the Devil Dyno and the the Ronin conversation, right? Devil Dyno, you have control. You know how many cards you're gonna have. Ronin you don't. Right? So like, at the end of the day, always pick the one that you have control of.

Alexander Coccia: 1:19:22

And sir, do you know what I have control over? The questions in the Snapchat mailbag. Beautiful, beautiful segue. Thank you. I appreciate that. You know, I, I'm glad that we are at the point where we just congratulate each other on the quality of the segues we're producing because we, we just need some more positivity in the world, and I appreciate that cozy. Just like I appreciate the question from James iv, which reads, while on the subject of quality of life improvements, for the love of one, above all, can we get some deck slots? Finally, please

Cozy Snap: 1:19:52

just. At this point we have to, I don't, I don't know. It's crazy to me. It's gotta be a server capacity thing, I guess. I don't know. I it, it, it's gotta be, if other games can have 20 decks lost, let's say, or, or, or 15 even, but they have 60 cards in those we can Sure. It's only 12 cards to a deck. You, you know, and it's just. We got that on launch almost, right? It was like January when they gave us the up to 20, maybe even sooner than that. And that's it. That's been the last update.

Alexander Coccia: 1:20:23

Yeah. It would be nice. And it's one of those things I hope they don't monetize either. Like just give it to us. Yeah, just give it, just give us more D Man. I can't be that hard. Oh, maybe it is hard. Maybe they're like, bro, have you ever developed a mobile gain? I'm like, I guess not. But the next question comes from Martin Lamb and it reads. What do you guys think about having so many new series fours every season? On one hand, new cards are good, but on the other, the amount of resources needed to keep up a collection is huge. By my calculations, a dedicated, free to play player that only opens collectors packs the cheapest option, they'll still be short, at least six K tokens every season, equating to their unknown cardpool, growing by at least two cards each month.

Cozy Snap: 1:21:06

I think as long as they're not Uncle Ben, as long as they're creative, as long as they're, you know, adding not just like obvious filth cards. I, I'm good with it.

Alexander Coccia: 1:21:16

I mean, I don't think their goal is to add like, actual garbage to the game, but I've been surprised or cards to just

Cozy Snap: 1:21:21

do something super similar and it's clearly like just, you know, an understudy to the other card, like the, the fast dose of the world.

Alexander Coccia: 1:21:30

I mean, to be honest with you, in their defense, how do you, like in the Spotlight Cash system, how do you release a new Patriot card? Like a bla like how do you release a one four blank? You know what I mean? Yeah. You can't. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Like, no, like it's not, it's, that's not enough. So a series 4, 1 4 blank card or whatever that maybe goes in Evo that, that's potentially cool, right? Yeah. Like. I mean, actually the evil effect would be why you'd roll the caches on it, but I'm just saying, you know what I mean? Right. Like there's some cards that they don't warrant the attention of like a spotlight cache.

Cozy Snap: 1:22:00

Yeah. And I hope that they stay. Yeah. Right. Because then if you get like the fantastic car and you don't have any of the other cars, like end of turn cards, you're like, okay, I don't have any of these. Like I can't do anything with these yet. But yeah, true. They can release like more compliment cards to our types that already exist.

Alexander Coccia: 1:22:17

It's also worth noting that cozy and I, we did discuss this when these snap packs were announced, the idea of the hamster wheel with the additional cards.'cause I still believe that the, the problem with Marvel Snap has never been the release or the card schedule. It's been everything around the acquisition of the cards. And so releasing more cards, I, I don't know if that's solves the problem. It, it's, it's solving a problem we don't have. Right. And so hopefully it just doesn't make the hamster wheel all that more difficult. But you know what, sir? We have a question from Ventus Arius and it reads binged friendly neighborhood, Spider-Man, and started Expedition 33 this past weekend. I was shocked to find out that not only does Charlie Cox, AKA, the Daredevil himself voice Spider-Man, he is also the voice actor for Gustav in Expedition 33. Do you think that he would voice Daredevil in Marvel rivals? Also, do we deserve more crossovers with voice acting in games like Snap and Rivals?

Cozy Snap: 1:23:16

Great question. Yeah. You know, voice actors like Matt Mercer is one of my favorite voice actors, and they just, they can do, they have a very large scope. Right. Yeah, I think Rivals does a really good job at this. Like, for instance, there, i, I'm blanking your name. It's actually really hard to say, but the girl who was gonna play Squirrel Girl, they ended up cutting that show and then they hired her to do it. So like, they, they love to do that kind of stuff and it'd be pretty cool. I don't know if they'll ever do Charlie K, like, it'd be like, I think that pulls a great one. Oh man. I wish they could shell out and get Ryan.'cause that's who I, you know, hear Deadpool as Right. So yes and no. They're expensive for a reason. There's a reason why we don't have like. Direct MCUR and things like that. Because that's probably very expensive for second dinner.

Alexander Coccia: 1:24:01

Oh, I'm sure it is. Like the ips and the rights to things would be huge, but I think that, like, especially in games, I think that audio and sound is often something that's underappreciated. And when a game has an amazing soundtrack or the sound is on 0.0 yeah. Like it really makes a difference in the experience. Just like the experience of forgetting to call someone back, which Cato did bring up Alex and Cozy arguing about the phone call makes them sound like a high school couple.

Cozy Snap: 1:24:28

That's pretty much what we are at this point.

Alexander Coccia: 1:24:30

Pretty much, pretty much less physical affection than I would appreciate, but that's a whole other conversation as a wanna list, closes out the Snapchat and as he said, at this point, I will buy inception for Alex. We

Cozy Snap: 1:24:44

all will

Alexander Coccia: 1:24:45

Alex,

Cozy Snap: 1:24:45

we, and it is another week goes by you. You just didn't watch it.

Alexander Coccia: 1:24:49

I got good news though. I actually looked it up on Amazon Prime video and it's actually free. So I don't know why I thought I had to buy it. It just makes me

Cozy Snap: 1:24:58

hit you more.

Alexander Coccia: 1:24:59

It's actually free, it's openly available and I could have watched it at any point now and I went to watch it last night, but the leaf were playing so I watched that instead. And I'm sorry, cozy. I had to, I had to watch the Toronto Maple Leaf, make it run at the Stanley Cup. Just like we're gonna make a runoff to I bad transition. I don't know. What are we running to Cozy? Are we running

Cozy Snap: 1:25:20

off to Boston guys? And we will not be able to do an in person Snapchat right now. That's so sad. Maybe

Alexander Coccia: 1:25:25

one day, man, maybe PAC's Prime will do it. Ax, where's that one? Seattle. Got it. Maybe we need to, we need to figure this out. We need to do, we should do like a thing where like. Imagine having a live Snapchat mail bag. I know. We've that out. You just nail

Cozy Snap: 1:25:40

questions at us. ComicCon. We'll buy out a room. We'll, we'll make it happen here. And the ComicCon? Yeah. Why not? Like the one that's coming? Yeah. Well, I don't think we, I think they planned that out like a year in advance. Maybe. Maybe, maybe the next one will be washed up by them. But we'll do it anyway. Get like two people in. But I've been

Alexander Coccia: 1:25:53

washed up for a years, so I'm ready. Thank you

Cozy Snap: 1:25:56

so

Alexander Coccia: 1:25:57

much for watching everybody. We appreciate each and every one of you and we'll see you on the next Snapchat episode.

Cozy Snap: 1:26:01

guys, thank you so much for coming to yet another episode of the Snapchat. This is proud your week and hopefully you guys enjoyed the fantastic four conversation we'll see you guys. Then. If you go to pass these, say hi to Alex until the next one. Happy snapping.