Could Clea be Cracked? | Every New Card Reviewed! | The Snap Chat Ep. 139

How will the new cards coming to Snap impact the current meta? Join Alexander Coccia and special guest DeraJN as they chat about this and more on this episode of The Snap Chat.

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!

Transcript

Alex: 0:00

Hey everyone, and welcome to the next edition of the Snapchat. Today I'm joined by none other than Dara. Dara is here filling in for Cozy. Uh, unfortunately Cozy is under the weather. He's been casting for like two weeks straight and for like eight hours a day, his voice is completely shocked, completely gone. He wanted to be here, but you know what? When you got a guy like Dara ready to step in on literally a moment's notice, it's okay. Cozy. You're allowed to rest. Dara, how are you my friend?

Dera: 0:25

I'm doing great. Alex just woke me up. It's 2:00 AM right now. Not really, but it's, I, I was ready to go. I'm always happy to fill in for Cozy the Goat, Alex also the goat here and I get to join the Snapchat. I think, is this my first appearance on Snapchat? It might be, you know,

Alex: 0:41

yeah, I think it might actually be the first appearance. Um, we've only had a couple guests on ever, like really? I don't even think Dexter's been on before. Wait, who have you had on so far? You've had Regis? I think only we've had Regis once, and I think we've had Cam Best once. And unless I'm forgetting, I think that might be it. Like really? That might be it. So, no, Ben Broad? No. Ben Broad was, uh, an interviewed by Cozy, specifically on his channel. That was a while ago actually. Uh, but never on the Snapchat itself. And what's interesting is now we have two weeks in the, in a row with a guest. Oh, that reminds me. There was an opportunity where drew Berry was on my side of the podcast before, and that's when Cozy was super sick at some point. And we recorded on separate dates is a long story. But yeah, drew Berry actually was technically a guest as well. Uh, so we've had a couple d you are amongst fantastic, uh, fantastic alumni as we might say. But what I'll say though is amongst those, you might be one of the more competitively minded gamers. Someone who has knocked me out of a tournament in the past tournament, or two Oh yeah. I might say. Right. We've had a lot of fun together, uh, competitively. And, uh, man, there's so much to talk about today, guys. We're talking about Clia. We're talking about astral projection. We're gonna be talking about all the cards that came out over the last couple of days because we have not had an opportunity to actually review them, including Kid Omega's. Current stats. We're gonna be talking about nightmares, current stats and what it's looking like. And of course Deramus who just came out this week. We're also going to be discussing our favorite cards at every cost this season thus far. And then the Snapchat mailbag Dara edition, my man. How's your weekend? Snap been

Dera: 2:15

my weekend. Snap has been actually a lot of up and down, you know, I uh, bef at the beginning of last week, obviously we had the whole scandal with Kid Omega and I went on a rampage, you know, talking about, what's the future of Snap gonna look like. A bit of doom and gloom as you guys also had on the last, last episode. I actually watched your guys' episode live on my stream. Just went over it. I know it was a lot of good takes. You know, you had Regis on, so was got three people's takes, but, you know, I think. Sanctum brought things back into like a decent spot. You know, there's never a better time to be playing Marvel Snap, you know? No, I had not, not really ever a better time, but I know that's your saying. But it's a great time to be a Marvel Snap player. Yeah. Yeah. That haven't a great time

Alex: 3:00

actually.

Dera: 3:01

Yeah, it hasn't been a great time for a bit, you know, but I feel like I actually, I think outside of monetization, I think Marvel Snap has been feeling kind of the freshest and some of the best stuff that, like I, I'm enjoying playing the game again ever since a long time, since they've been releasing more cards. Some of the new cards that are coming out are being actually like, impactful in the meta, in the ways that are interesting. Not just like new big card comes out, like Merlin really great, like new card, you know? That added a lot of new interesting ways to play. Like things like that I feel like are really, uh, keeping the freshness of the game alive and then sanct them showed like that monetization also is like coming back in line a little bit, uh, with what our expectations would've been. Where it took me like three and a half hours to get the new car at National projection. So that is much more reasonable than, like, kid Omega was like, grind for eight. What, what, like 12 hours a day for nine days straight and then you still have to pay$20 on top of that if you did that. So, I mean, like that's not great, you know, so this is a, a big change up.

Alex: 3:59

Yeah. So in Snap I feel like I, I agree. Like there's been a lot of incremental improvements on the game for so long, and it's been getting better. Like there's still tons of bugs and that suit, like me, frustrates me beyond belief. But in terms of actual, like the releases, they've been releasing the cards, I feel like they're increasing in complexity. Um, like we, we have like a Dermo, which I remember when like Nico Monro came out, it seemed like a crazy card for them to release, right? Like, it had so many stages to it. And now we have Merlin and Dermo in the same month. A lot of complexity. And even prior you had GUI Moto, which again, it's like, it's like a four in one card to some degree actually. You don't even wanna play GUI Moto half the time. You're all, it's all about those winds of with tomb, right? Yeah. So I mean it's, uh, it's really cool what they've been able to do while also skirting the line between, and this has been one of those topics of conversations for the longest time. Do you want cards to come out and release a little on the hot side so that they can actually shake up the metal a little bit? Or do you want them to be a little more, uh, you know, I don't wanna say the word fair, but a little more. Balanced and then ultimately not actually have an impact on the meta and then potentially get nerfed in the future. I'd actually be interested before we dive into everything else, to hear your take on that.'cause that's something Cozy and I have discussed so many times and for the record, I tend to lean on the side of, I'd almost rather them be slightly on the hot end. Not like broken, but just maybe a little, a little spicy for the meta shakeup.

Dera: 5:18

Yeah, I actually definitely agree with you. I think there's a lot of conspiracy theorists out there that think they kind of do it on purpose, that they dump'em on the high end and they nerf it right afterwards to kind of take your money and then run, you know, and move it on. I actually think from outside of a money perspective, I think having it start on the high end actually does create like some shake up in the meta, keeps some freshness, and then maybe you tweak it in a little bit. You do purposely nerf it afterwards so that you can like, make sure it's not too dominating the meta, like if it came out too hot, like you do wanna just hot enough that it spices things up, but not hot enough that it's really the only card being played, you know? I think that's the sweet spot, is it's fun, it's powerful, but it's not dominant, you know?

Alex: 6:00

No, I absolutely agree. And actually for the record, over the last little while, we haven't had many like absolute breakout, crazy banger cards. We've actually had a lot more duds to be honest with you in the, uh, in the Snap pack release window. So, that's pretty fascinating. See, now I'd be interested in your thoughts on the latest card coming to Marvel Snap, Dara. And that's Clia. Clia is a one two that reads when this permanently gains power add flames of, uh, ine to your hand. I don't know if that's how you're supposed to say. And this effect will happen in both in hand and in play, notably not in decks. So rip ako. And for those briefly curious here, the, uh, the flames of the ine. Am I saying it right? I don't know, man. I, I never know how to pronounce things properly.

Dera: 6:42

Honestly, the dyslexia in me read that as flatline until you just said that, so, you know.

Alex: 6:47

Okay, at least I'm not the only one. And then, so this is a one man of skill with no power that reads on reveal afflict an enemy card here with negative three power. And that's a significant change. It was negative two power, I believe, in early data mines. And since the official announcement trailer, it got bumped up to negative three. And this is really what you're after. And so, uh, Dara Chloe and I usually do star ratings on our podcast. To give you a bit of a insight, I went in at four stars on clia. I was, I was actually kind of excited about this card. I think it might actually be pretty good considering that secondary is beginning to lean into the skills more and more. And we'll talk about astral projection momentarily. Cozy was not so hot coming in at 2.5 and then later said, okay, maybe I see 3.5. Cozy gave a bit of a range there. So Dara, I'd be interested in your star rating on clia.

Dera: 7:37

And my first take on it is, I feel like it is gonna lean a little bit lower. Not, maybe not four or five, but I mean like, it could be cracked. I like, I think of this as like a collector card, Nicholas scratch card. You know, it's like, it's only gonna really be good with the other cards that are in a combo with like adding cards to your hand. And then playing skills out I think is like two of the things, you know, like maybe you get some value off of the negative three that you're doing, but playing a one three is strong. So one two was unplayable, I think at that original data mine that would've just been like a one star card and they realized that they buffed it up, so I think playing a one three, it's playable, but it's like it, there's sometimes better things you could use with your energy per turn. But I think, I think it's gonna be, I like, I wanna lean towards like a 3.5, you know, right now, somewhere around there. Just because I don't think it'll be a dominant force, but I think it'll be definitely like a, there'll be a deck out there that it'll fit into and it'll be pretty strong, I think.

Alex: 8:36

I've been struggling with this card now I am excited for this, this card and that's why I lean a little on the high side. But at the same time, I see the issues with it. Like for instance, a lot of the decks that I've been trying to design early for the Tuesday, uh, launch window feel like they're very draw reliant. I. They feel like if I don't get my draws in the order that I want and CLIA is on the board, everything falls apart. And I get a little concerned about that. And so that's number one. But what I will say is that because it has to be buffed, it's the kind of card that can't just hold its own, right. It doesn't, it really doesn't work on its own. It needs support. And as a one drop, you're asking for a lot if you need support. Now, we don't get a lot of one cost scalers, and this is not necessarily a scaler, but I, I feel like the skill it's providing is enough value that you'd want to play it. But like, at the same time, like think about like vitro for instance, and how impactful that is for those movement based archetypes. And that is a, like a, it's a one costed card that scales well into the 70 power range, right? At times. Now CLIA itself will not scale that way. But you mentioned Nicholas Scratch, you mentioned collector. There's other cards that perhaps can kind of scale alongside it. Well, you also, every single time you're, you're playing your skill. Not only are you not occupying us. Board space, but you're actually doing negative three power. So I think that there's like a lot of potential here. I just wonder about what those play lines look like and whether or not they're worth it at the end of the day.

Dera: 9:59

Yeah, my biggest concern about Clea is having to buff like her in some way. Having to gain that power. Like how many times can you like do that consistently? Like obviously if you get a location, uh, like Mer Island or whatever that like buff said, every single turn, that's gonna be really good. But if you're having to play like a Gwen Pool, I'm kind of curious, I don't know if this will work this way, but like, does Gwen Pool hitting it three times, give you three flames of the ball team fall time? I don't know. I don't know if that how it works or if it does do that. Like if it did, that could be pretty good. You know, like I don't, like there are gonna be some cases where you maybe high roll or you completely miss it with some cards.'cause like at it, it works in hand or on the board. Right. So, but I think it's gonna be harder than you think to actually bump the card. That's why I am leaning a little bit weaker because I think it's gonna be hard to get. Those buffs off on clia guaranteed, especially, you know.

Alex: 10:50

Yeah. So on that note you are right. She goes down on one, what do you do on two, right? There's not a lot you do on two, but when you get to like three, okay, you have, um, Ironheart, which has got changed, right? Ironheart gets changed. Will Buff, the CLIA will provide the skill. For Gwenpool, I believe that the interaction would work in that you would get three skills because they are three different instances of the card getting buffed permanently. So I would expect it to work that way. I'd be surprised if, uh, if it worked. Otherwise you have Nikia, which is obviously not a good card. And so what the hell's your deck look like if you're playing the Kia? That's kind of the question to ask yourself. But Galata just got nerfed iron hurt just got reworked. But what about, like, what about, uh, Marvel Boy? And I start to think about like, what that deck looks like, right? Like Marvel Boy will consistently buff clea each and every turn on curve. And if you think about like, like can you do some sort of zoo deck and use the skill to like, keep space open while negatively impacting your opponent?

Dera: 11:48

Yeah that's not a bad point there. I think Marvel boy, it is something I didn't really think about, but yeah, that, that definitely adds to it. I was thinking like you could do cards, like Forge or like you were also talking about, uh, what's her name? Nikia Iron Hurt? Nah,

Alex: 12:04

Galata

Dera: 12:06

Gwenpool. Why can't I think of her name? Uh, the new Mr.

Alex: 12:10

Fantastic. Next season.

Dera: 12:12

Nico. Nico. Nico. Nico, sorry. Oh, Nico.

Alex: 12:14

Minero

Dera: 12:15

like the one that gives plus two. So it's just like, you know, like if you're just adding it before you play on the board, because you don't have to play Cleon one. You could play her after some other stuff like. So you have some hand buff stuff going on and then you have some play it out like agony also, you know, I think that counts. Like you play agony, then you play clea on top of agony. Yeah, true. Like just little things like that. I don't know if that's gonna be worth like wasting one of those buffs on something like clea to just get a one three flame basically. You know, like, like just to be able to cast negative three power and if someone runs Luke Cage, all those are completely worthless, you know? So it's like, there's always those considerations.

Alex: 12:50

Yeah. For me, I think the core place I would if it's not gonna work well with a, um, I. With a Marvel Boy deck, I think this car's gonna fall apart. Like, that's kind of where I thought, I think the Marvel Boy interaction's very strong. You mentioned Nicholas Scratch. He can be in there. That's what that deck looks like too, because if, my concern is if you're holding CLIA, okay, you play Gwenpool on four or three with Azabu and then you play CLIA on four or five, like what does your deck look like? What does your game plan look like? It's a, just like, it's too late. She has to be on the, the board early. And so for that reason, I start to think about this, I start to think, okay, what types of cards want that negative three power to be applied? You have Diamondbacks, right? Diamondbacks can feast on that, but then like, will this card go into a shell like toxic with Ajax? I'm not convinced it would because. There's not many opportunities to buff the card to get the effect right. There's like these hoops you have to jump through. However, I wanna throw a card at you that I think has been completely forgotten about. It's one of the duds from prior seasons, which ironically I cope with more than I would. I even reviewed it negatively. And then as I've played more and more of it, I've grown to love it a little bit. What are your thoughts on Kari? Because Khoi could MultiPro this card just like Gwenpool, except it's on the field of play.

Dera: 14:06

It could fill up your hand with the flames. I feel like with Khoi, I didn't even Yeah, that's, that's kind of crazy. Like if you only have clea on the board or clea on one other card, you could get like five, five, uh, flames in your hand, you know? But also, so what you're saying is Kari

Alex: 14:21

Kaori into fri in your Yeah, actually I just,

Dera: 14:25

yeah. Well, yeah. So part of the problem with this is, uh, it's kind of actually a little counter synergy there, just because Khoi requires cards in your hand to get more buffs, but you. Get cards from buffing, so you'd need your hand empty and full at the same time. So there is some, some problems there.

Alex: 14:47

The double-edged sword of Kari gameplay. Damn. Yeah. Fear. That does sound interesting though. Yeah, it does. It does. And like for that reason, it's like I start to wonder like, okay, Nicholas as well, you're playing a lot of these, uh, these skills out and if he gets to one five, is that okay? Is that enough one six, is that enough for Nicholas scratch or is he just not powered enough? I could see him getting a buff to a additional power.

Dera: 15:12

I think one five is fine. Honestly, I think if you're, if you're a one five, I think that that is premium stats for a one drop. So that's all you really need. So you need to be able to cast three skills for nickel scratch to be worth it as a one drop in your deck. I think I found I was regularly not getting up to one five when I was playing decks currently that have skills. So I, like I, I tried like a full skill deck and. Nico Scratch was just like not quite getting there, you know, like playing'em out consistently and then being able to play three skills after him. I think if you play three or four skills though in a deck, I think this, this card will make Nico scratch worth playing. This will put it over the line.

Alex: 15:48

Yeah. No, and I think Nicola Scratch has been largely waiting for this card, uh, to be honest with you, because it has not seen any play at all. And keep in mind, like Merlin's in the game, so if you have, you have Clea, you got Merlin, all of a sudden you have all these skills coming to your hand, nickel Scratch in theory should be able to make some magic happen.'cause if you think about it, you got, you know, turn one Clea, turn two Merlin, and then, you know, turn three Marvel boy, Marvel Boy is kind of, or even turn three you could even do something like a Shauna Mar Marvel. I don't know, man. You got, there's options, right? You have a lot of options to actually do some legitimate stuff with the deck. But like, I. Sometimes you just jumping through hoops and not putting enough power down, that becomes the question, right. And again, it feels very draw specific, right? Like, if Nicholas scratch is not on the board early, that's like, that's a card that effectively feels dead. Uh, any closing thoughts on CLIA before we move on to astral projection?

Dera: 16:40

Uh, I, I think we'll just have to see how it really, like, it's a, it is gonna be a deck building challenge, I think is gonna be what it's come down to. So whatever the deck comes out to be with like, whatever way you can utilize the skills. But I, I'm curious to see what other people come up with. I'll definitely try deck building with day one with her and see what I come up with. But I'm holding out right now for giving it like a top tier rating. You know, I think it'll be just okay to start is my take.

Alex: 17:07

That's fair. That's a, that's a take that I would definitely agree with. I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful, but I, um, I. I am prepared to perhaps be underwhelmed'cause I'm just, I'm excited for a new type of card that perhaps can, uh, can work with some of the buff cards that I love but never get to play'cause they're just simply not good enough. And that my friend is gonna take us to the next topic of conversation, which is astral projection. Uh, astro projection is the card available in the Sanctum Showdown event. It costs 2000 sanctum points. I don't know what they are. And it reads, uh, honor reveal copy the text of an honor reveal card in your hand. It is a three costed skill and unique to other skills. It actually gets added to your deck. Now, Dara, um, before we, uh, record it here, you did mention that you played a lot of this particular card already. I have not yet. I've actually not yet unlocked it. I've been kind of taking my time. But uh, so we have a bit of a different approach here because I've not yet played the card and so I'm gonna give a preemptive rating of what I think it is. And now I want you to tell me how wrong I am. I'm coming in at approximately a two star rating. I think that this is likely not great, but I want you to tell me that I'm wrong. Uh, you're probably

Dera: 18:18

right actually

Alex: 18:20

it's disaster

Dera: 18:21

probably right on the money. I think it has a lot of potential, you know, but it's gonna take someone finding like the sweet spot for it. I feel like, again, like it is another deck building challenge.'cause you, you have the problem of it's adding zero power to your board, so you're just getting an on reveal, uh, since it's just copying on reveal. So you need a high power on, or a high cost on reveal for it to be worth playing out. Like a Dr. Doom. I've been playing like in a Nomura deck with it. So it's just like, it's kind of tough. But then part of the main problem I think with this card is the fact that. You can't run other honor reveals that whiff the card basically.'cause there's some cards that like just gain power or something like that. Like you just, like, I have an Odin in one of my decks and it's just like Odin being played for As for projection, when you're trying to hit one of the other ones in your hand, you might just be wasting the Asher projection. It does nothing if there's nothing to Odin in the lane. But I, there are times when you want to Asheville the Odin, but it's just like, I think the card it makes the deck building challenge really hard because you need to only have the high value cards. Like there is a deck floating around out there, uh, that is like the one turn kill I saw Regis had posted about this and I, I played it a bit on stream, which is just Cerebro Ultra and astral projection. So you have cerebral on board, you play cerebral ultra and astral projection on the last turn and it pulls your Tron ability and you just fill up two lanes and it's 20 power, so in each lane. So it's like that, that's a pretty good combo. And you can even play out like Blue Marvel and some other stuff just to like buff. Buffet.'cause that just takes one turn to get 20 power and two lanes, 40 power, you know? So it has some potential, but you're, I try that deck. You like hitting that combo very, very rarely. And also people like see it coming and other things, you know, there's also problems with like, locations messing it up and other things. Sos

Alex: 20:08

well, all the problems that cerebral has.

Dera: 20:11

It's fun. It's a fun weird deck. But is it good? No, it's not good. You know?

Alex: 20:17

That's fair. That's the problem. Now I, I have a couple issues with astral projection. You're talking about it being awkward. I think it's awkward for a number of different reasons. First of all, it's a skill. Who the hell's casting it? I'm just gonna throw it out there. I care about the lore of Marvel Snap. Who is casting this skill? Are we like planes walkers now? Like, you know, what are we doing here? That's, that's one thing. But the other thing is that I think you touched on one of the major factors. You're paying three energy for zero, a zero body on the board. And, uh, that can be potentially problematic, especially when like, you don't actually target, which on Reveal is being hit. Although in the case of what you were talking about with the OTK, like there's the only on reveal in your hand is of course the, uh, the tron. So that's why it makes sense right now. There are some cards where like, I'm excited to test and now obviously Zola is a good example of this. Like Zola, you know, with Astro projection, you might be able to sneak out a Zola play that's highly impactful. You don't care about the Zola power, but you might care about being on the cast of Zola effect for three Energy. Another spectrum. Hear me out. Because if you have an ongoing deck, there's a good chance that spectrum's gonna be your only on reveal there. As a result. With this three energy, you could play like a speed, right? And as for projection, and then do the plus two across the board with the spectrum effect. Now obviously Spectrum has a body attached to it. However, you're really after that plus two power. And so I'm curious about what your thoughts are on Spectrum. Is that maybe a spot that's being under under explored right now?

Dera: 21:46

So since you have a 12 card deck in Marvel Snap, this is taking up one of those spots of what could be another card, right? So what are your odds of drawing spectrum and as projection in a game and then having Spectrum be the a body you don't wanna play out instead of Asher projection? Like I think it's just like too many things have to come into alignment there for you to actually wanna do that. I think the amount of games you're gonna have Asher projection in hand with Spectrum in hand after I've played everything out outside and then having speed to be able to play out with Asher projection on the final turn. I think it's gonna be too few games for it to be worth it as a thing. I think having only one target for it is not gonna be the deck that you want to play. It's too low impact and it's not gonna be worth playing as protection over it. That's the same problem I have with the OTK deck. It's just having one card for it. It's just like too few games where everything comes together.

Alex: 22:33

That's fair. I guess I have one more suggestion. Could astral projection be the Kang buff we've all been looking for.

Dera: 22:42

Use that as a, as another Kang. I know you've been the K fan voice since day one. I thought of it. I think,

Alex: 22:47

I'm not gonna lie, I thought about projecting Kang. Is that stupid yes or no?

Dera: 22:51

Well, you know, while it lasts, I think I saw on the discord answers somewhere that they have officially acknowledged that there is a Kang rework that they are testing, you know? So, no, wait, I didn't see that. Oh, you missed that? Yeah. Well, you gotta pay attention to the, I don't want, want to rework KI

Alex: 23:09

think Kang's broken as he is. People just haven't figured it out yet. You, you get to, you get to Snap on turn five and then like, they get scared. You know what I mean? I, or turn six, you know, Kang needs something.

Dera: 23:20

I get it. You're acknowledging it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I, I don't know what they're gonna do with him, but yeah, you loved Kang for a long time and you put in some, you were the one who actually popular popularized K and the Ivo deck, you know, so.

Alex: 23:33

Yeah, I did. Definitely. I mean, realistically, yeah, he was, there was probably a better card I could have played instead of Kang, let's be honest. But we were in a tournament format and when people didn't realize I had Kang, I was getting a lot of free cubes in those games where, you know, you're in a, a big tournament and every two cubes matters in the conquest kind of, uh, scrimmage. Yeah. Like, it, it was good. Later on, it became less effective because I think people I was against knew, they're like, by the way, this dude has Kang, so he's Kang snapping you like the, the, the surprise factor kind of dissipated and if they know you have Kang, uh, then, but there was one time where I remember I was playing against Jeff, and I think it was the, what's the, what's the one that copies the highest cost card in your hand? The location. Cash pressure.

Dera: 24:17

Oh no. Located copies. The highest cost card, the White Palace. It's

Alex: 24:21

white. Yeah, yeah, white. Yeah. So it's White King's Palace or whatever. Uh, I was against Jeff and he copied my Kang. So he knew I had Kang. He played Kang against me. And then he knew on turn six I had Kang. But the mind game was, I'm like, I'm not gonna play it. I'm not gonna play. He's gonna try to, to fake me out and play sub optimally and I'm gonna drop my chunks. And I did. And he actually tried to fake me out, like looking at the VADs and stuff. He tried to be like, all right, I'm gonna do something to like trick Alex into his Kang play. And then I just didn't play. And he was like, you gotta be kidding me. Right.

Dera: 24:53

That's genius. That's genius. That actually is such good king mind games. But I feel like that that comes from like, people knowing it's in your hand is like the only way that you can really play those mind games, you know?

Alex: 25:02

Yeah. I wonder if he always just drew a card, if that was enough of a buff. I wonder about that. If he just always drew a card.'cause right now if you top deck him on turn five and play him, you will draw a card.

Dera: 25:14

Yeah, people would just play it to play it then like it would just be in like most decks'cause it's just a deck thinner at that point. So I don't think that would be a, I don't, I personally wanna put that as like the, what you should do with King.'cause it'd be a free card draw essentially.

Alex: 25:27

I see Dara the number one, uh, crystal supporter out here looking for all that depth thin draw. Well,

Dera: 25:33

crystal costs three. Energy can cost zero technically. Right? So like if it, you started the next round with less energy, like two less energy or something, then yeah, that would be worth the car draw, you know? But I don't think you, no, I

Alex: 25:46

actually had not considered that technically. Although he costs five, he really costs zero'cause he resets the turn. That's a good point, Dara. I'm glad. That's why we ask the smarty pants in the room. The questions, uh, Dara appreciate that. Uh, I wasn't expecting to talk about Kang today, but here we are. As for projection. Dara thumbs up or thumbs down?

Dera: 26:04

Uh, definitely a thumbs down for like overall impact and I think it's fun and it has potential for the future if some new big. Five and six Power Honor reveals come out that it will be worth. But I think right now I haven't found a deck. I haven't seen a deck. I've looked for decks on Untapped, trying to see if there's anything that like, uh, I could make out of it. And I haven't seen one that really seems strong yet. So yeah,

Alex: 26:28

looking for inspiration. Found none basically. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's a shame that this is the cheap one. This was the cheap card because had uh, this been 50,000, uh, dollars or whatever, it may as well be$50,000. Uh, perhaps we wouldn't have been upset because the card that unfortunately for us is super expensive is also the one that people are most interested in. And that's Kid Omega and I display this gray Unowned kid Omega with Pride and Dara, I believe that you do not own this card either.

Dera: 26:58

Yeah, I just stopped playing high voltage also. Like I got the emo and I stopped, you know, like I played first couple days. The, hell yes. It being, you did the

Alex: 27:08

exact same thing.

Dera: 27:10

Yeah, there you go. I, uh, I think that email is cool and I, I used to get like every email in this game, but I've like stopped spending on the game, not because I like not because like, I don't like playing the game or whatever, like it's only because I don't wanna support the monetization practices of this game, you know, anymore. That's the main reason why I stopped swimming. But I love the emote, so like getting that was great, but like, grinding for Kid Omega was just like not worth it. And then dropping like 80 I got, by the time, if I didn't spend my money on the emote and I tried to buy Kid Omega, it would've been like$80, you know, on top of what I'd already played. Not

Alex: 27:43

worth it. Yeah, it was crazy. It was absolutely crazy. So like we, we talked at length about the, uh, the kid Omega shenanigans last week. It was all we talked about for an hour and 20 minutes. It was exhausting. It was exhausting. With that being said, neither of us have played it. It's been played against me. However, in terms of untapped B statistics, infinite only over the last seven days, it's currently running a slightly negative cube rate and a 49% win rate. It's running a 5% popularity, which surprises me'cause 5% of you guys got it, which is fine. You know, I, for the record, I don't think anybody should be shame for getting the damn card. If you have the means to get it and you want to get it'cause you wanna play Marvel Snap, you go right ahead. Uh, but I was surprised to see a 5% play rate on the card. Post Infinite, uh, the top performing deck, and I'll throw it up on the screen here, is a 52% win deck with a thousand games on it. It is the, uh, the Nimrod Black Panther Elixir Deck that I think is probably the, the spot where most people were looking forward to playing it. Regardless of that, Dara, what are your thoughts thus far on Kiddo Omega? Whether it's the monetization, whether it's the, uh, the gameplay itself, its win rate. What do you think of Kid Omega.

Dera: 28:56

Honestly, whenever I have it played against me, I feel like this card is too good, is what I feel like, but the stats don't say that it is that good. But I feel like some of, like I've looked into the stats a little bit. There are some really bad kiddo mega decks out there that are really dragging it down. Like some with like negative 1.5 cube rate with 200 plus games, 1.26 negative 1.26, average cube rate with 200 games. You know, like, so some people, I don't know if it's just like sometimes the stats are bogged down by some like bot farmers or something, like people just losing games. But I think overall it feels really, really good for them. I feel like because eight I, I didn't really realize this because I didn't really play it, but until it played against me, it's like it just sucks up the power of anything that died anyway. So it's just like if you just use it on a card that like wants to die anyway and, and as a big power card, like if you sure a nimrod into Kid Omega killing the Nimrod, your kid Omega gets the 12 power that. That Nimrod died from. So it's just like, it didn't even, you don't even lose the original Nimrod power and you get kill it. So it's just like, it's so good in a lot of ways that I feel like it, it's gonna be a good card, you know, I think if used correctly. And I think it just, a lot of people probably aren't using it correctly if bringing the stats down.

Alex: 30:05

I absolutely agree. And to be honest with you, you touch on a good point statistically. Now. In the olden days of Marvel Snap, where we had much larger data sets earlier on. Surprise, surprise guys, less infinite games of Marvel Snap are being played seems like week by week. And so we have like these, these stat pools, which are very small. And when you have statistically, uh, a small sample size, I mean, you're a numbers guy, you're an analyst, right? So you, you understand exactly where I'm going with this. You have a small sample size, more chances for weird deviation, right? So that's why I always look at the overall aggregate stats, but also what's the best performing deck right now and just focus more on that, right? Uh, so that, uh, that Nimron deck is running currently a 52% win rate. Now, I'm not gonna quote the person because we're not supposed to quote the, uh, creator Discord stuff, but I do know that someone in the know at second dinner did. Make a comment regarding the internal win rate statistics of Kid Omega. Um, they didn't give us anything detailed or specific'cause they said they don't like to do that, but they said a comparable card to Kid Omega win rate, uh, win rate wise is something along the lines of like a Glen Pool. It's doing well, but it's not crushing the way people might think it is, but it's definitely a good card and it's not running a 48% win rate in their internal statistics for sure, but they use Gwenpool as a comparative example. Dare you seem shocked. Well, Gwenpool is one of the

Dera: 31:27

most cracked cards of Marvel Snaps. So I feel like Gwenpool, it means that the card is actually cracked. You know, like Glenpool has been in like all the top decks for the last like couple months. So I feel like if they're compared to Glenpool, I didn't hear this, but they're compared to Glenpool, I'm like, this is, uh, this is definitely a card that you're gonna wanna pick up. And that's the fact that it's gonna be locked for another like two, three weeks. You know, it kind of sucks.

Alex: 31:53

I suppose so. I don't think Gwenpool ISS cracked for what it's worth. Like when I think cracked, I think like original Loki is cracked. I think original Serer was cracked. Gwenpool iss just very good. I don't think it's cracked though.

Dera: 32:06

Well, when I say cracked, I mean like it is one of the most solid cards in the game. It's not cracked. Like it's busted. It's cracked as in like you're putting it, it's so flexible and usable in like, uh, in any good stuff list, you know? And everyone seems to be throwing it into a lot of lists. Like it made it into a bunch of stuff and it was in most of the top decks for a while, you know? So that's why I just think Gwen Pool is a, is a very solid card. I shouldn't use the word crack'cause crack should be reserved like you said, for original Lokey kind of stuff. But

Alex: 32:31

yeah, that's what I would think my mindset was. I agree a hundred percent. Like if a forecast card elevates Silver Surfer to another level, that tells you enough about how good the card is, right? Yeah. So like Gwenpool Galacto, they made Silver, they cut Silver. Uh, sorry, they cut Sarah from Silver Surfer. Like, it was just like those cards were so good just to play and then just generate so much running value with like, you didn't, didn't even, I still like the Sarah versions better, but anyways, so Dara overall, kid Omega, don't read into the stats right now. You do think this card's cracked? With that being said though, definitely keep an eye for it when it comes into these Snap packs and it's, I think mid-July should be hitting the uh, Snap Hacks, right? Yeah. As a series five.

Dera: 33:10

Yeah, series five, mid-July. So it'll be like an extra card gets released that week since it's, it's technically gonna be released alongside I think another card anyway.

Alex: 33:19

Yeah. And that's exactly when I will get it. And, uh, it's a shame'cause I actually love Nimron is one of my favorite archetypes. It wasn't long ago that Cozy and I did our, like our favorite of the month type thing and I brought up like Nimrod, Sheri, uh, Syme Spider-Man, like those types of decks. I absolutely love them. Um, so I actually literally can't wait to play the card. This was a card that I was so excited for. It's a damn shame with everything else that happened alongside it. And Dara that's gonna take us to our next card, which is gonna be Nightmare, nightmare Released, and, uh, with a lot of fanfare, a lot of excitement around, uh, around Nightmare. Now I'm gonna give you a little bit of context here'cause I'm not sure if, uh, you know, you're a, a weekly listener to the Snapchat, but Nightmare was a, a fierce topic of discussion between Cozy and I.'cause I came in thinking that this card was going to underperform competitively despite the fact that it has a phenomenal like effect. Cozy thought. It was absolutely outta my mind. Cozy came in at 4.5 stars. I came in at two stars. Wow. So very, very different from one another. We don't often deviate this far, but we, first of all we do, its kind of for like. We kind of dig our heels in for content.'cause it's fun to know at the end of the season, who's right, who's wrong to eat some, you know, eat a little bit of crow as they like to say. But it be on both those sides. But I to hear your thoughts having been able to play nightmare, uh, what do you think a nightmare so far? And who preemptively do you think might be right? Cozi or me?

Dera: 34:52

Pre, I, I played nightmare and I preemptively, I was on Cozy side preemptively. I'm still on Cozy side. I'm, I'm just, I think, uh, I thought this car would be cracked and I think it is, it is borderline cracked. Like it is slightly worse I think, than I thought it would be. And only ever so slightly, you know, so I don't think it's full cracked, but it's like, it's probably a four star, you know, like maybe not a 4.5.

Alex: 35:18

So for what it's worth, I came in low, right? And the moment I started playing the card, I loved it. I love, I gave it a glowing review. I said I was, couldn't be happier to be wrong.'cause the way it works is like, okay, there's different mindsets to like analyzing, first of all, analyzing cards in advance, way harder than people think it is to try to be, you know, accurate with, uh,'cause it's, it's hard. It's cards don't exist in a vacuum. And so when I go into it thinking, okay, I gave nightmare two stars. I'm not like, like, I wanna make this card fail. I want to be right by pro. No, I want to be wrong. I wanna be the one that produces the five star nightmare deck. You know what I mean? And so I developed a deck, tried to work with some stuff, and I loved the card, loved it. I had so much fun. And I think for me, it's when I gig, Anto Galactus someone that I realized I loved it. And then I really knew, I loved it when someone played Gig Anto Galactus on me. Later on. Okay. Yeah, so it was just I can't tell you how much I love this card. It is such a phenomenal card. Beautifully well designed. Perfect with Merlin too. Perfect with,'cause you just polymorph this man. You just polymorphic. And even have all, I was gonna say, you have a nihilist making a comeback, but you can't play them together unless you top deck a nihilist. But like, honestly, I love this card so much. I literally love this card so much. And so I'm glad that you had a positive experi experience with it.'cause I did too. Untapped win rates don't look good post infinite last seven days, but I would've paid attention to that right now. The top performing shell is a, the Saron shell is a Saron based shell, uh, that's running approximately 53% win rate over 410 games. I'll throw it up on the screen here so you guys can take a look. But overall, I love the card. I.

Dera: 37:06

Yeah, I, I, I liken, uh, nightmare to Pixie. Uh, I think it has a similar kind of output and potential of it. It really, you can get some really powerful stuff to go off on it. You can also get some really bad outcomes where it just completely messes you up, you know? So me, I like it. I really like the card and the potential it has, but I feel like Ben Broad, I must have done something to him in another life because I can't, for the life of me get good outcomes consistently with these kind of cards like Pixie or Nightmare, where I feel like I'm getting finite on my giganto, you know, I'm not getting Galactus, you know, so that just seems to be a problem that is unique to me. But I, I do like the card. I think it's fun. I think cards like this are just like fun, that they have some really big potential to have some really cool things happen. But like I said, it's inconsistent. So it's one of those ones that like, they're gonna be games where you just have to know to get out because you've got a bad nightmare or some games where you just like Snap it up because you got. That Galactus, you know,

Alex: 38:07

and with that being said, like, let me be very clear. There's a chance that like competitively and win rate wise, cube rate wise, that this card actually does not perform compared to some of the other ones. Like it might not be the meta shaker that some people expected, but when I tell you I loved playing this, it's you have to have in your collection, it provides you such a unique gameplay experience. And I think the major difference though, and I'm gonna call you out Dar here'cause I played so much pixie this month. I, I it's, I don't want to spoil my favorite two costs of the month'cause it's literally pixie, but I played so much pixie this month. The difference between Nightmare and Pixie is pixie as a backup, like High five in Triple M, Mobius, and Mobius really prevents you from getting those really negative unless it gets turned into a six cost obviously. But Mobius and Mobius provides you with some of that mitigation from the downside risk. Whereas Nightmare has none of that. So Pixie at least has Mobius, whereas nightmares like, nah, you're just. Now that's just a, that's just a infant now. Like get wrecked. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's

Dera: 39:07

why I think some of the best nightmare decks aren't actually running six drops is one thing that I've seen. Like, uh, I've seen some nightmare decks that like, there's one that was running around there that's a misery nightmare deck that a, the highest cost car is your red skull. So you're just, uh, you have like the hood and Merlin, but you're not running Inc. Gigante, which a lot of them are running. I think there is some potential out there for just like some, uh, ways to play nightmare. That lowers the risk I think, of playing

Alex: 39:39

it out. So Dara wouldn't have known this guys, but in post-production, I literally put that deck on the screen when I mentioned the 53% win rate deck. So Dara's on top of it, man, Dara's on the ball, literally called out that deck is the exact one we were talking about. Uh, so is that one 53%? Yeah, that's what I was seeing when I, uh, took the screenshot moments before we started recording. Last seven days ranks 100, pool three plus. Okay. You're seeing something

Dera: 40:05

different. Oh, I, I'm looking at latest patch. Yeah. So that, that's the only difference.

Alex: 40:10

Yeah. I was using last seven days, but anyways. Gotcha. Again, statistics, it like, it's so funny how that works. Hey, like you could really like the way you adjust the numbers and like the scope and the filters can really, uh, can really change the messaging around certain statistics. Uh, I went for the last seven days'cause I wanted a greater sample size and I felt that this particular deck outside of the buff to misery, which would've made it better, was not necessarily impacted by the OTA, although the meta shifts, of course, I figured that it was fair to use the last seven days for the larger sample size

Dera: 40:40

specifically because latest patch with the misery is why I was looking at just like the latest little bit here because of the four nine. So it actually did have a si a pretty sizable win rate buff since then. So that's just why, what numbers do you see now? Well, it's a 59% win right now. 59, but has less, but that's only with 130 games, so it's like less a, it doesn't quite the sample size you'd like to see, but you know. Yeah. So mine

Alex: 41:04

was 53 F four 10.

Dera: 41:06

Yeah.

Alex: 41:07

That's a lot more games.

Dera: 41:09

Yeah.

Alex: 41:10

Yeah. Number is bigger. Uh, yeah, the, the sample size always makes a big difference. And I actually always love too when, um, you know, a deck's doing really, really good and I like covered in a video or I put it in my, my list or something like that. And it seizes a lot more play than the win decks because everyone's playing it and learning how to play it and stuff like that. That's always funny too. And that's gonna take us to our next card. This one here was probably the most anticipated of the, I mean, nightmare was a huge card, but Al Dormammu is on a completely different level here because. Talk about excitement. There's so much to discuss about this card. It's a seven 11 and I made a comment about the hot dogs already. I'm not gonna do it again. I love seven 11 hot dogs. On game start, uh, begin summoning ritual, which adds step one to your hand. The summoning ritual has on reveal merge your highest power destroyed card with your mom, with Dermo. To continue this costs zero. It's all glitch. You can't really see the summoning portal then comes in your hand as stage two, which on reveal Dermo steals one power from each card here to continue both your opponent and your cards. Of course, uh, this is similar to LA fees effect. And then finally, you have a card. That, uh, on Reveal destroyed two of your characters here to summon Dormammu, keeping tabs of the power that, uh, first of all, the car you destroyed, the power that you stole. And this, I believe, costs three, if I remember it does cost three. So anyways, Dormammu a super fascinating card. Cozy and I both came in at four stars with our kind of preemptive evaluation of Deramus. Dara, you've had a chance to play Deramus. How has it been?

Dera: 42:48

Yeah, so I, I preemptively thought Deramus would be like with a four star as well. Some it seemed like it'd be a good card, but upon playing it, I, I think. Me playing it, I lowered it, but me playing against it, I feel like sometimes I feel like it's really strong to play against. So it's like I might be just do be doing something wrong, I feel like. But like I feel like the first step is the hardest step to accomplish. And then secondly, the third step is the next hardest step to accomplish.'cause it's like you have this kind of, you're at odds with what you wanna do. So the first step requires you to have a card that dies and doesn't come back to life, right? Like, so it has to stay in your dead your graveyard essentially. So, but on the third step, you wanna kill cards. And I feel like the cards you wanna kill are the type of cards that wanna come back to life. Like Wolverine, you know, or Uncle Ben, I guess Uncle Ben or Bucky Barnes. You know, like cards like that do die and stay dead, I guess. But like, if you have Wolverine or XY three or something like that's what you want. Kinda wanna kill with the third step. So having that kind of like problem sometimes I, I wasn't able to get a card to be killed early enough. I feel like for the first step for it to really feel like I could. I progress my, uh, I guess, I don't know what you call this, uh, the steps of Dorma, the rituals. The ritual. Yeah. Like I, and I feel like it's not a big enough card a lot of times to like really be worth it is the thing. It comes out, it's like a seven 16 like tops usually, you know, you're not getting it much bigger than that most of the time, I feel like. What

Alex: 44:12

do you, what do you think? So my play experience with Deramus and the deck that I was playing was actually very similar to what ultimately became the highest performing deck, according to untapped based statistics last seven days ranked 100. As showing on the screen, it's running a 52.6% over 2000 games. And the thing about this deck was that I think you literally hit the nail on the head, as we say all the time here. It's the first step. That really slows this particular card down. And that might be a good thing.'cause if this first step was way more easy, then perhaps this card would be absolutely broken. But that first step does really slow the card down. It is zero cost. And so as soon as you destroy something, even as such as like you have Uncle Ben on the field to play and you carnage it, turn two, you just sneak it in on turn two, whatever it, it really does slow it down. And you're right, it's at odds with itself because you have cards like X 23 Wolverine in there, but you're also gonna have death locks and other things. And like, there's stuff you just don't wanna destroy. And there's things you want to target with the destruction. Wol Reed's balancing all over the place. You're trying to play things so that you can maximize your mom lose effect. And like, it's great to see Bucky Barnes as a winner. The thing that really impressed me with Deramus specifically was there was a lot of turns where I was able to play deramus on turn five. So you're talking about that 17 power, that 16 power. I was getting him out on turn five and then having a turn six where I have a null and a free death. You know what I mean? And so there were times where if I'm getting, yes, he's a sh magnet, but that's why you run Knull because then Knull will trade the power from the destruction of their mamu. But I do agree with you. He feels a little awkward, which is unfortunate because I think this is a super fascinating way to play. Destroy, destroy, needed an infusion of, of something it needed. It needed a more ex exciting approach to playing it. And I think Duam was it. And if Duam underperforms, which is entirely possible'cause first impressions came like, okay, this card can do things, but it's not the banger. Perhaps we expected, I expect this card to get buffed. Honestly, I feel like this is one of those cards that because of the amount of players that we're excited for the amount of players that got it, this is an easy buff candidate and you probably start by making these skills easier to perform the ritual. You don't have to buff the power of der, you have to make it so that the rituals themselves are better. You know what I mean?

Dera: 46:35

Yeah. I do think the rituals feel actually very weak. Like I don't feel like I'm ever really buffing Margio Mamu much like,'cause you don't want to kill like a big card for your first card to be able to. Suck it into Dormammu.'cause then that's just stacking all of your power into one car that might get shanked anyway. So it's like, I feel like that's like a weakness there. And then there's also the weakness in like the second one that's just sucking one power away from every card and then adding it to dmu. That also just feels like it's really not adding much most of the time to dormammu. And it just, like, I feel like it doesn't really feel like I, I feel like the third step add zero to dama, it just summons it, right? So it's just like you're really not getting a much bigger card, but you are summoning it, right? For three, uh, energy on the third step. So it's like you're not really spending too much. Like you, what is it? You spend four energy total over the course of all this, but it still is killing some stuff along the way. So it's like, it is a lot of power for energy, but it's over three turns plus, you know,'cause you have to kill the card too. But I think, uh, it's hoop. She's jumping

Alex: 47:34

through.

Dera: 47:35

It's a lot of hoops. I, I think buff candidates I think oo might be in a solid place. You know, where I don't think it necessarily needs to be buff. I've. Played against it a few times where I feel like it feels really strong. But that might also have been because I was playing some opium decks that like astro projection decks and then maybe that's why Damo felt kinda overpowered.'cause I was like playing some decks that aren't really the best. But you know, it felt, uh, I never really think it's overpowered, but I think it might be a car that's kind of a little bit replaceable right now for something else in destroy decks. I felt like the strongest place that I found Duram move was one that didn't really show up on untapped as like a very played deck, but kind of strong is a Thanos version of it. I think that might be a place where it really shines.'cause like you said, the best case scenario that you have is like having that free death on the last turn. But like I think Thanos is a deck that you're much more likely to be able to get that free death out by killing a lot of your one drops earlier and kill Monering stuff.

Alex: 48:26

It's funny you say that because um, in my testing I actually played an extensive amount of Thanos and I did like it. And the thing about Thanos was that it was very natural to just destroy things. But you weren't getting the, the power swings of like, oh, I destroyed Wolverine and Bucky Barnes. You know what I mean? Which is huge and that you, you create a tremendous amount of value. Like Bucky Barnes is a great thing to destroy. But yeah, no, I absolutely agree. And if they're gonna lean towards buff, potentially. And, oh, before I say that, it's also worth noting that, this reminds me of Ajax. When Ajax came out, everyone tried to cook and everyone played Luke Cage. The stats were kind of underwhelming. And literally since Ajax release, you wait three weeks and it's been one of the top performing cards in Marvel Snap, like very consistently excellent win rates. Toxics been fantastic. It has the, it has the valve in Luke Cage, but in DER's case, I was playing against so many other DU players deaths were coming out for free all over the place. Noels were disproportionately high. They were kill monering my stuff before I was ing it. So like there was a lot of weirdness. And so I wonder if, first of all, we need a more refined list and then when, once the more refined list comes out, if duam then takes off.'cause realistically we often take stats on aggregate when we're like making discussions on podcasts and stuff like that. But realistically, dermo needs one deck. It needs one deck that it performs well in. And then there you have something that's special. But if they're gonna approach it from a buff perspective, Dara, I have a suggestion. What if Domo with the card can't be drawn? What if it doesn't actually go in the deck? What if you just have the rituals so then you can't top deck and be like, well crap, what do I do with it now?

Dera: 50:07

I think that'd be a significant bump. Honestly, I think that would be really good. Too much. I would love that because too much maybe because it would have to count as one of your card draws, I think, at the beginning of the game to draw the ritual.'cause then essentially you're just, uh, able to play that in every deck as just a way too, uh, it'd be the old Chavez kind of thing. Like where you're just trying to. Not draw other cards.

Alex: 50:30

And that my friend is why I'm not a game designer. And that's gonna take us to our favorites at every cost this season, Dara, we have six individual costs. We're gonna go through all of them one through six. Dara, I'm gonna let you start. What was your favorite one cost this season in Marvel Snap?

Dera: 50:49

This season in Marvel Snap. My favorite one, cost card. You guys might not have guessed it. It is an off meta card kind of. Not really, I guess. Uh, I was gonna like, it's not really specific to the season. I don't know if it has to be specific to the season, but, uh, it could be anything. Yeah. Yeah. It is just, uh, I was gonna say Titania just because I, I just, uh, I haven't really been on this podcast before, but Titania is just a card that, uh. I feel like it's really undervalued and underrated and people use it in obviously clog, but it's just something that like, it creates some of the like most interesting plays I think in the game for one cost cards because of how you have to perfectly predict like how many cards are being played out in different ways to pop it to the correct side. And if you get like two titanium going, it gets like really complicated. Crazy like,'cause you obviously want to clog them and then you wanna take it back on like the final turn with the titanium. That's like the whole purpose behind the card. But it is just like one of those cards that I feel like it uses a lot of brain power. I feel like a lot of just like figuring out what you're gonna do with it. And I think it's not used enough. I think a lot of people think it's bad because they use it poorly and I think it's just because it's such a high scale cap card.

Alex: 52:06

If someone plays Titanic against me, I just retreat. I'm like, no, I'm not playing this. Yeah, I'm just joking. I don't do that. But, um, I, I mean the classic titanium to Green goblin combo is one of my absolute favorites. I love that. Just love it. And, and you're right, it's free real estate. You just, you play anything there and she just passed back, wins the location, right? It, it definitely is a card that I would never have expected to come up as your favorite of the season. Much like, I don't think you're gonna expect this. My number one of the season's, Ebony Ma and I actually almost went with that really no way. And for the reason why, first of all, we got some support with it, with Nightmare, obviously Nightmare really like Ebony Ma. But in with the cron change and, all those types of things happening, Ebony MA represents a really well designed card. Very high risk, very high reward. A lot of, uh, synergy with things like Nightmare and Syron and stuff like that. You want that one. Seven can be kill mongered, but you don't wanna just slap it down on turn one, two, or three because if you lock that location down, you might find yourself in trouble unless you have a a means to access it. I think it's just a brilliantly well designed card that does not get enough love.

Dera: 53:16

I, I agree. I really like the design of it, just because you could even throw it behind, like things like Invisible Woman and other things like that, allowing you to continue to play on the location. A lot of people don't utilize that, I feel like. But like you said, nightmare, a really good card to be able to play out with this card. But I, I almost chose this like, because I have been playing in some decks where I'm just slapping it down on turn one, two, or three because of like all the different cards I have that allow me to access that lane. I was trying to put it into a national projection deck actually that. Ran like the Moran white tiger and I was just like, what is a one cost car? That's just the biggest thing. So I actually have it currently in my Asher projection deck to just slap down. I feel like that's always fun. Like it doesn't even run like more machinery, anything to access location. It's just like, I'm just hoping that I can move other stuff. Like I have a NOC turn in there and some other stuff to move into there if I need to, but

Alex: 54:01

that's awesome. Yeah, you love to see some Ebony Mall gameplay at the very least. Now Dar I'll let you lead the way with your two cost that you're gonna give a shout out to this month.

Dera: 54:10

Yeah, this one's specifically due to the OTA for it. This is a rhino actually became a two cost two five a staple now in cerebral five I think. And just like overall just a good two cost card, it combos with, uh, Merlin Super. Well actually just getting the rock out there, you can either polymorph the rock into something better or you can shove it into your deck for two extra energy the next turn. So I think that is a really good combo and Rhino just being like premium stats now with it. Uh, I don't, I think it's gonna be a playable, usable card and a lot of things, but at the very least, a staple in cerebral five.

Alex: 54:44

I love Rhino. And what's interesting is, so there was that deck, like I know Regis covered and stuff like that. Uh, there was a deck that I featured on my Merlin release that was the Sasquatch, uh, Bishop Rhino deck with Merlin in it. And it actually made waves in the meadow, which was, which was fantastic. And it's funny because the inclusion of Rhino wasn't actually. My brilliance, it was the community's brilliance. We were testing a deck with, uh, with Sasquatch and stuff, and someone said, Hey, what about Rhino? Like literally in the chat, Hey, what about Rhino with Merlin? We're like, yo, that's a great, everyone's like, that's a great idea, and we put it in. So that's one of those situations where I'm getting undue credit for something honestly, a community member did suggest. Uh, but yeah, rhino. I thought it was actually pretty good at three six, although I'll be remiss to mention, I, I do miss the location destruction. But two, five, I think this is a legit card, especially with what you're able to do with this rock. And you're right, Merlin's great. And uh, you know, it's just, I don't know man. I think this is a good card. I think it is. Rhino's a legit card now and that kind of surprises me. Now I do always write down two options at every cost.'cause Cozy does this to me all the time. You did Snipe my two of the month. Well, we did bring it up earlier in that, uh, it was Pixie, which I can't, I always make fun of Cozy'cause you can't find stuff. But Pixie was my two cost of the month, even though I still think this card should be a one cost if we want it to be actually good. It's still fun to play as a two two, but I think if it's a one cost similar to the way Loki's played where it's like a turn one. This is the game I'm playing now, bro. I, I like that. So that's for me. But realistically, if I can't pick that,'cause you already stole it. I'm going with havoc, the amount of love I give havoc, the, uh, the agent venom decks that I've been playing, all love havoc. Uh, you can play havoc and sanctum sanc toum, uh, showdown, and he'll sit there and just pop off hard with power the entire time. Uh, he's obviously a stronger target. He's limited downside. Ver well, not limited, but he has some downside versus the shadow king. But overall, he, he pops back up a little bit, at least. I love havoc. I feel like this is one of those cards that people don't like playing, but once you give him a shot and you start to understand like kind of the, the way those like four energy decks work, I think this card's fantastic.

Dera: 56:53

Yeah, I, I love havoc. I think Havoc is one of those ones that like, uh, doesn't see, that much play outside of those agent venom decks, like you said, but I think it is just like a strong, it's a two eight that dodges maybe a two 12 that Dodges Shang, you know, if it, uh, if it. It, it dodges Shadow King too.'cause this goes off at the end of the term, adds an extra four. So there's so many different ways to play it. Like the true downside is that negative one energy you're getting. But if you're playing this on turn five or six, so you really don't see the negative downside that much.

Alex: 57:21

Absolutely. I agree. And for the three costs, I'll, I'll kind of take it here now. First of all I would go nightmare here. We just, just discussed it. I never had more fun playing Snap in the longest time since playing Nightmare. I love the card. Uh, but if I'm not gonna go nightmare, I gotta give some love to Cerebro. I think Cerebro has been lots of fun. Still such a piss off deck, but it's crazy. With this plus three power just numbers wise, it actually puts up insane power. And don't forget the way you win games of Marvel, Snap is it's power in locations and Cerebro does exactly that.

Dera: 57:51

Yeah, I love Cerebro that that actually is like what I would've chosen, but you know, I am still choosing it as my card kind of'cause uh, if like Cerebro plus three power, one of the best decks. Cerebral Five specifically, like I said with Rhino, has been something that I've been having a lot of fun with. And I don't know if we wanna go straight into my car just to tie it in here is actually the ancient one, just because now they just buffed the ancient one. So Tal Mandala is only two costs to play out, and I've been playing this with Cerebral five and it is just super cracked if you're able to use this on Cerebro itself and just get three cerebros going. So I feel like that, like I would've chosen cerebral too, just because of this alone, you know, just like it's so much fun. But Talala I think is something that's gonna be seeing a lot more play now that it's got that little buff and the, I mean, talala, that ancient one, I guess Tamala being the card that's created from it. But I think, uh, I, I'm having so much fun with cerebral and just playing this card on top of it, and Alala, has a lot of other synergies as well outside of cerebral, but. It's fun. I

Alex: 58:54

like that. Call out. And for me, the ancient one was close to great in this like Victoria hand style deck. I was playing Devil Dinosaur and I was using Quinjet. So bringing this down with the two actually made the card playable. And I remember mentioning it to Cozy when we reviewed the card. I said, playing it with Quinjet. It actually felt good and without it, it's awful. And now it goes down to one with Quinjet. Hell yeah. Now we're cooking. Right? So I like that call out a lot. The ancient one, getting some love here on the Snapchat via Dara. And that's gonna take us to number four. Dara, I'll, uh, I'll let you lead the way here.

Dera: 59:28

Number four. I, I had kind of a toss up between two that I was gonna go do, but I think the one that, that really ties it into everything that we've been talking about. Like I, I don't want to just like keep going into cerebral five stuff, but uh, it doesn't only do that, it's Scarlet Spider. I feel like it's something that like. I know a couple people like, I think Regis really loves cars Aspire and some other people just like do some deck building with it. But it's just like, I think this card is a little bit underutilized. Like you buff it up, you get some cool stuff going with it. It's, it's a four 10, just like a lot of the other premium four tens whenever you get it to go off. But like something that I've been noticing is that if you're playing a skill on the final turn and it's like filling up a location, you can still activate the scarlet spider on the final turn and then you can basically fill up that skill spot that you use the skill in on the final turn. So I think it's something that like with all these new skills that are coming out, you can still fill up your board and then still fill up that location with the spot. So I think that's something that's interesting and unique with us that's really shining through with this latest season. That's being very skill

Alex: 1:00:31

heavy. Well buddy, that's a great call out. You're all in on cerebral, eh, but I do like that. I like how you're mentioning the play order of using the clone to fill the skill location. Uh, that's excellent. For me, I think this has been the month of misery like I had. Be honest with you. I think misery has been such an absolute banger. This has been the month where it's really showcased its power. I was actually surprised to get buffed. I think the buff is wor, it, it makes sense. It got buffed.'cause like you're negating so much power by playing misery. However, I've always thought that it's been a cool car. I always love the design. I really appreciate cars that, that provide deck building challenges. And I think misery is exactly that. It amplifies everything you hate about a mill deck, for instance, right? But it has that factor of like, well you just destroyed your. Du cable and, and, uh, gladiator and you just got nine power or eight power there, right? So I've always loved misery. I think it's a really cool card. And it was my card of the month at four cost. When we go to five I'm gonna have to say that, uh, I'm, I'm glad a nihilist is at least seeing some love again for me. Like I just, I was someone who loved the nihilists. I know it was a, an archetype that kind of went too fast, too far, too too early. When it first came out, it was all over the place. Clog is very frustrating. And Marvel Snap, it pissed people off. It had to go to timeout, but now I think it's coming back.

Dera: 1:01:52

Yeah, I think I, I actually had to choose two cards because I thought you might choose an s and I wanted to choose an S as well. Just'cause I think it, it is on its way back in just with a lot of the new synergies it has with some of the decks out there. Like a lot of the Merlin synergies and some just like the negative power cards in general, I think are becoming more popular. I. I, my, my other card was also tie into an iiss in a sense. Uh, and that was cce because the same thing that you could do with an nis, you can CCE them and they just, like, they all become just bigger cards. But now with the Merlin and the Polymorph, you, CCE isn't as necessary, but I think it is a good backup a lot of times. You know, so like, it, it is just like a, a mass polymorph, you know? So I think that that it, it does, uh, tie in, I think, and it's just like a fun card to play in those Merlin decks.

Alex: 1:02:42

I've never had a card in my entire career kick me in the bowls as hard as Ccy does on a frequent basis. This card trolls me so bad. Like you think I'm joking, man. Every highlight I've ever had with Ccy, is it ruining my life? Every single highlight is it completely ruining everything despite the fact that I cannot help myself and get these beautiful variances? Some variants lately have been cooking, like this is not a creative house pocket one, but like these, some of these variants right now are actually popping off and I always love the Searcy one. But yeah, Searcy is honestly. I don't know if I can play anymore, man. It's borderline morph. I understand. It's like, it's like a mass polymorph for this card. It hates me. I'm glad it loves you though. But it certainly just wants to keep me in the sch nuts.

Dera: 1:03:24

It loves to create content, you know, that's the thing. So obviously there's gonna be some really bad ccy outcomes out there, but you know, you know that that's content. You know, that's still good. You know, like I, I like to roll the dice and see what I get, you know, and I think it's the same as nightmare, you know, sometimes you just can get really bad things. At least Cy, you know, when you're rolling the dice, it's is all on your board already, and it's going crazy sometimes.

Alex: 1:03:49

Dara, who's your number six?

Dera: 1:03:51

Is, uh, what you pulled up? Is that your

Alex: 1:03:54

number six?

Dera: 1:03:54

No, I just wanted

Alex: 1:03:55

to pick something silly.

Dera: 1:03:58

I was like that, that, that's a crazy number six. But I think this month like it, like you, you could do seven cost cards, you know, because Yeah, of course. Six and above,

Alex: 1:04:08

six and above.

Dera: 1:04:09

But that's why I just, I just want to Dormammu I think would've been like a six cost card I would choose, but it doesn't really count, I guess, unless we're choosing and we are doing six and above, you know, I would choose Dormammu just because I think that that is just a, like you said, it's just like a, such a cool, unique kind of card with like the steps to summon it and everything. So it, and it is since coming out and it's only been a week, right? So it hasn't been long. So, but I think since coming out it's, it seems pretty pretty strong enough that like, I've seen it a lot, you know, maybe it's just'cause it's the first week, but I think it, it is been kind of a staple of the last week for sure.

Alex: 1:04:43

Yeah. I, I, I think Theam was play style, a lot of fun. I think they could, maybe they could potentially tweak it a little bit. They have lots of dials here as they like to say, as Glen likes to say, lots of dials here. And so, um, we'll see what happens. But I do like that call out and for me, we mentioned it prior. It's gigantic. I can't get over how much I love this card. It's so stupid what it, what it does alongside something like a, uh, a nightmare. And I know you're thinking, Alex, why don't you just play Nightmare with like Infinite? I was playing infinite too, but for some reason it was al that was winning games over and over again. Al was turning into Dr. Doom. Al was turning into Galactus. Infin was just sitting there like, Hey bro, I am a Zola now. And that's fine too, but like Gito for some reason, I don't know if it's the art. I don't know if like Nightmare Loves Gito for some reason, but it was this card that became a living highlight reel for me. And so I gotta give it the Love Gito. You can only play this at the left location except when you nightmare it. Then you can play it everywhere and make them kneel. Kneel before Gito, my friend, that is now gonna take us into the Snapchat mailbag and, um, we got some, uh, some funny things here to discuss. We'll save the, um, we'll save some of the comments directly for Cozy for the next podcast. But we did have, uh, a number of really impactful comments regarding the Kid Omega situation. One of which coming from write off and it reads. I'm happy to see the general consensus of people speaking with their wallets. Myself included. I didn't mind paying for the season pass the gold pass, but since the greed got cranked up to 11 with FOMO tactics, too many cards getting released to entice collection complete players to spend new cards getting nerfed almost immediately and sees a pass premium. Second dinner have bit the hand that feeds them and the followed is looking grim for them, but deserved such a shame for what is an awesome game. Using a much loved franchise and Darrow, the reason why I read this here is'cause I think it, it really does do a good job of summing up what a lot of the commu uh, community was feeling regards to the Kid Omega situation because that's the thing that kills me. We're talking about a fantastic game that plays amazing tons of content. Like I just finished talking about how Nightmare and Giganto literally made some of the, the most fun situations I've ever had playing Snap in the longest time. It's a shame that some of the stuff on the periphery are detracting from that.

Dera: 1:07:08

Yeah, I completely agree. That's something I've been talking about since like day one of Snap is like the game itself is like great, one of the greatest games ever played I've ever played personally and just like has so many things going for it. Like the art is amazing, the gameplay is amazing and it's just like never have really, I feel like got it quite right on the monetization side. I. Like they haven't quite honed that in. I feel like they have been experimenting, but I feel like almost in the wrong direction, you know, and they've continually done that. I feel like they, like they've tweaked things, made it slightly better in some ways. But then I feel like whenever they do these kind of like kid Omega level experiments, like Nexus events, obviously back in the beta, huge failure. This kid mega thing, huge failure. I think they have a lot of things that they're wanting to do to try and make more money, and I think they're just doing it in the wrong way. Like the person in this, uh, he said like they're trying to bait people into buying more cards, they're adding more things to the premium seems to pass, things like that. I think adding more stuff, I think is a legitimate way to make more money for the game. I have no problem with that. I have a problem with the pricing that comes along with that, as long as it's a reasonable amount and not strictly pay walled, where it's just like the only way you can get it is using the premium. Sees a pass, the only way you can get it is if you pay extra gold on top of doing these other things. Like if there's other ways out, other avenues.'cause I know in other games out there, uh, you have more free to play or you can trade out different things for other things. So you're able to find a different path to get these cards and things aren't locked. I think they've just had this policy for the longest time where they lock things behind paying or lock things behind like time walls and other things like that. And it just creates player frustration. Uh, that's the thing that I really want to try and remove. And just if they were able to just come out with a monetization policy and just like if they tested new things that were for the benefit of the players, not trying to just feel like we're getting milked. That's, I think, the biggest problem. And I think sanct them did feel a lot better, but obviously, like you said, astro projection not the best card. So maybe they're just dumping like the worst cards into these kind of things and we'd want them to be able to drop a kiddo mega into something like, sank them that we could get for free. You know, things like that. But obviously they got bills to pay and they're trying to do it. I think they're just doing it the wrong way, you know, and I just want, uh, I want the future of Marvel Snap to be bright. I want them to maybe turn things around and do things for the better of everybody in the community. And. And I think if they do that, I think they will be rewarded too in that more people will be spending and the game will stick around

Alex: 1:09:44

for a lot longer. One thing I wanna say though, is I absolutely agree with, with what you've said, however, there's, there's one thing I kind of wanna push you on. So I had mentioned, uh, a number of times, and one of the things I was least comfortable with was this hamster wheel effect. That they, that they, you know, they bring out the Snap pass, which is supposed to increase card acquisition, but then they offset that by releasing way more cards. Now obviously you're someone who really likes to tinker with the meta and stuff like that. I'm the exact same way. But do you think that hamster wheel effect of basically like, hey, like, oh, you can get more cards maybe with the snapbacks, but also now we're inundating you with cards. Do you think that there is a very. Yeah, there's like, there's like a, like a fine edge. There's a balancing act that has to be, uh, has to be kind of figured out in order to not alienate the free bay players in which like they're just forever not gonna be collection complete and just chasing cards as they continue just to fall from the sky.

Dera: 1:10:39

Yeah, I think they, A lot of people are looking at it from the wrong perspective. I don't think the problem at all is the amount of cards they're releasing. I would actually prefer them to like quadruple the amount of cards that they're releasing. I think it's not enough personally to create these like impactful events that pull people back to the game. Like a lot of these other games have these other card games that like, not even just card games, just strategy games. Like if you have these big events that are big shifts that allow people to come and have this big event. You'll get people who have dropped outta the game from just like slowly not playing it more and then all of a sudden there's a big drop of cards, like an expansion level thing. People will come back to the game. So if they do more of those kind of things where like a bigger amount of cards are dropped, I think it's actually better. The biggest thing is not the amount of cards, it's the amount of cards for the price. The thing is, snapbacks did not decrease the price of the cards by a significant amount. It may, it was kind of like a switcheroo, like it looks like it's a little bit better and it is a little bit better. It's like 5% better or something. It's like barely better in the amount and it's actually worse in the like collection, complete amount. Like you said, with more cards coming out, it's because it didn't really decrease the price enough to adequately release enough car, like have the card release be more frequent. That was the main problem. They still need to bring the price down. Further for more cards to be released in a way that is good for the players so that you can still keep up with the game and play, pay a reasonable amount. I just don't think that they have the pay a reasonable amount per card thing down yet. I think that's what they need to really focus on.

Alex: 1:12:12

Okay. This is really cool. I don't, I don't mean to just stick to this question and like, you know, interrogate you for to say that, but your, your opinions is kind of divergent from what I've said in the past, and I, I think this is really interesting. So you're saying that one thing that could be healthy for Snap overall in terms of like player acquisition, retaining players is having larger, more impactful meta shakeups, right? More cards coming in therefore more exciting things happening, more decks coming, even if that means that there are more cards to acquire and more resources to spend. Your argument is not that, oh, the cards are not the problem. It's that we don't have the means to acquire the cards effectively. The individual cost basis of each card is simply too high. We actually should want more cards. We just need them to be cheaper so that you can actually access the cards. And so it's like the hamster wheel. We want the hamster wheel. We just want the hamster wheel to slow down a little bit. You know what I mean? We not, we need to be able to run faster alongside it. Is that pretty much what you're saying? Yeah.

Dera: 1:13:12

Yeah, exactly. I, I think that people want to not just be playing the same exact game for, unless you're talking about chess, you know, like the same exact game for, you know, they, especially with the game like this that has like that orangey kind of buildup. Like you, you want the game to feel fresh. And I feel like on single car releases it didn't feel that fresh. And since they've increased the amount of cars, the actual gameplay and the freshness and like each release feels so much better I think. And I think that could only be increased and feel better the more they do that and the more they release. And I think the thing that doesn't feel good is the price you're paying for these. Like, I've paid too much money for this game and I think that I would prefer if we were able to just I think they are pretty generous. With the free to play players, that is one thing. I think they've hit a pretty good markdown. It's the fact that once you try and spend a dollar on this game, it feels really bad. Like you're not really getting much further. You play for months and months and months and then you spend, you wanna spend like 10,$20 on the game. You get like nothing pretty much for that, that price you get like not even one card, you spend$50, you get one card, you spend a hundred dollars, you get two cards. You know, it's like you're really not getting too much when you spend money. They kind of like force you to have to play the game to acquire the cards and then spending gets you just barely anywhere else. The only real value you get is from the season pass where you get like the card for$10. That's like the best value you can get. And I don't really see, I think that should be the baseline of like what cards should be priced at, at the very most. Especially because it's a 12 card deck. So cards are gonna be worth more than other card games that have like 30 card decks. But I do think that. You need to have it be brought down from like the$50 price point for a premium card for a Series five card. And then also I think they need to take away the whole thing where they lock the better cards for longer behind Series five paywalls. That's just another thing that's just like holding us back from not being a pay to win game. And I think that they're just got all in on making a pay to win.

Alex: 1:15:10

Yeah. Okay. That I, I, I love what you said there, and I do appreciate, like, the audience might not realize this, but you do come from a, you know, a, a game developer pedigree. Like you literally worked on Hearthstone, like, I mean, like you were a part of that team, and so a lot of people might not realize that. Um, so, uh, I, I actually take your opinion on these matters very seriously and I appreciate that because it's like, I don't know, man, it's very hard to get, uh, it's very hard to get insight like that, especially when. It can be so easy to get lost in the sauce and the negativity sometimes. And finally, we're gonna close the Snapchat here, the Dara edition of the Snapchat with, uh, this comment from DOA Rave, which in I just laughed at when I read it. We need more deck spots, spots specifically. So the amount of comments every week we get about people demanding more D slots. Dara, do you want more Delos? Yeah, I, I

Dera: 1:16:02

don't know how we don't have more d slots. Like it doesn't really take up any more like developer time or any sort of space. Like obviously the, like it was a problem instone back in the day and they added more and it was, they added more and Marvel Snap too. But I feel like it's still not enough. I'm constantly having to delete my decks and I just like, I wanna, like, I don't go back and play them too often, but it's like some of them hold a special place in my heart, you know, of like just these decks that I don't wanna have to delete'em. That I just like to have it just to look at it, you know, sometimes, and maybe go back occasionally, but it's just like. It does make me have to give up on some of my, like, top decks that I like. I love playing and I'm just like, I gotta make a new deck. You know, it's just like I gotta have this on, on the ready to go, so I have more decks. Thoughts, please.

Alex: 1:16:45

Yeah, for me, I always try to have like a Phoenix force deck available and an Evo deck available, and then I build around everything else. I would love more deck slots. I don't know why we haven't gotten it. With that being said, Dara, thank you so much for coming in with the solid, you know, coming in for, uh, for our boy Cozy on his, uh, in his darkest hour there as he needed to recover from literally continuous casting for the last several weeks. Uh, Dara, you bring a very interesting and unique perspective in the Marvel Snap world, given your pedigree. As someone who's worked in car games in the past, worked with data as an, an an analyst, I think that your takes are often the hottest, the spiciest, the most accurate and the ones worth listening to. So thank you so much for joining us here, guys. And if you have not. Somehow discovered Dara's Stream on Twitch tv, which I don't know how you've not found it. I'll be linking it down below. It's a place where I often lurk to see what's cooking in the Marvel Snap world, and I would strongly suggest it. Thanks so much for coming guys, and we'll see you on that next one.