Human Torch: Too Hot? | The Future of Snap & The Snap Chat | Mister Fantastic & Herbie In Review | The Snap Chat Ep. 141

Will Human Torch First Steps double the heat of your deck? What is the state of Snap and The Snap Chat? What are Cozy and Alex's final rankings on Mister Fantastic & Herbie? 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 Back to The Snap Chat
• 0:26 Miami Adventures and First Class Experience
• 2:16 Marvel Snap and Upcoming Events
• 2:43 Funny Flight Stories
• 4:25 Technical Difficulties and Content Creation
• 7:25 Human Torch Card Review
• 19:18 Marvel Snap's Future and Community Concerns
• 32:24 The Future of The Snap Chat
• 36:10 Community Appreciation
• 37:12 Balancing Content Creation
• 38:56 A Heartwarming Story
• 44:29 Mr. Fantastic and Herbie Analysis
• 54:03 High Evolutionary Deck Strategies
• 1:05:20 The Snap Chat Mailbag

Transcript

Cozy: 0:00

What's going on guys? And welcome back to another episode of the Snapchat again later here on a Monday. Alex, how you doing? My guy, I'm just getting off a flight. I can't go into too much detail, but I, had a pop-up sponsorship between like three of my favorite current things for sure. Well, okay, now one of'em I just loved. In general, you have Marvel. Rivals And then Lego, I can't go into too much with it, but it was, it was fun. For those that are in Miami, that's where I was at. It was in New Hood, and my gosh, it was hotter than hell over there, man. Miami is a spectacle, lemme tell you that.

Alex: 0:35

I've been to Miami when my wife and I first got married. We start, I think we went on a cruise, like a relatively inexpensive cruise when we first got married. And we, we went out of Cape Canaveral, I guess, which is in Miami. Right. And, uh, I just remember being like, damn, it is so unbelievably hot and humid outside at the same time. It's not just the heat, it's the humidity. Like the whole thing is like just a, like a mixture, a recipe for discomfort.

Cozy: 1:00

It's a, it's a recipe for disaster. It it, but also a lot of fun. Like I get why people enjoy it. It was a quick one. I flew what, like seven hours to get over there and then was there for like, like a day and then flew another seven. It was rapid and fast, but it was my first time get this'cause the shout out to the sponsor my first time flying, first class in my life. And it was

Alex: 1:24

really,

Cozy: 1:25

it was something, dude, have you, have you flown first class before?

Alex: 1:28

I said that like I do it all the time. No, I'm flying coach all the time. Have you ever done it though? Flown first class? It's okay. It

Cozy: 1:34

was my first time. It was my first time, dude. I did Cozy Snap. No damn what it is. My first time, dude, I was, I was blown. I was, it was cool. It lived up to it. I gotta tell you, man, I got, you know, you get, it's real silverware, you know, the food you always think like airplane food gonna be bad. Food was top notch. It was. Dang, good time. It was great. I had a good time and I was able to like work a ton, uh, uh, on my laptop and stuff. Played a little, little scape, chilled out a bit on the flight. It was, uh, it was fun, man. But, uh, yeah, so coming back from that did, it was involved with the Miami Dolphins too, so. Big NFL guy. Oh man. Yeah. Big NFL guy. It's amazing. Oh, it was so cool. Got to meet a lot of awesome players. The whole thing was, was just, uh, just outta this world, man. It was one of those like, I can't believe this is happening. But, uh, yeah, man, the, this, in between that and then comic con's coming up and then I go to China, so it's gonna be a, it's a, it's a hoot and holler and of a season over here.

Alex: 2:24

It's a very busy time to be a Marvel Snap gamer. That is crazy, dude. Um, I, it's, it's so funny because like, to give you an idea, like, it's like Cozy. It's like, here, Mr. Snap, how are you? Great to see. Here's first class. Enjoy. Oh, you're Alex. Go, just go sit on the toilet for a bit, buddy. You'll be all right buddy. You just go. I can, okay. So first of all, the, the last time I was on a flight. Where, um, I actually felt like I was getting like more than just normal service. I was, uh, actually going home from San Diego, believe it or not, and it was from TwitchCon and I was sitting beside someone and they were like, on multiple times of the flight, they were like, hello, would you like your here's your wrap and here's your burrito, here's your candy for your trip. They kept getting all this stuff. Uh, they were like, Hey, like I, they're like, I honestly don't mind this. Do you want this? Do you want, do you want these, this pack of candy? Do you want this burrito? Stuff like that. I'm like, no, I can't. They're like, no, I insist. I'm really not gonna eat it. I want to go to waste. I'm like, well, sure. I guess. And they're like, yeah, I'm, they were like an executive for Twitch. Oh, no. And they were getting all, and part of their flight package included. All this stuff, but they didn't want it. They're just like, I just wanna go to sleep, so if it comes, just take it for me. You, you're free. I'm like, so I was like, this is basically first class.

Cozy: 3:32

Oh, did I eat everything? I eat everything that they gave. Like, it's like, do you want, uh, these, like, they gave hot nuts, man. I didn't know I was a fan of Hot Nuts, but I am, um, a fan. Yep. No, exactly. It sounds exactly what it sounds like, man. I, I, it was like they're in this little bowl. They it was, it was fantastic. But, uh, yeah man, it's a good time. I got to play a lot of Snap too, which was cool. Uh, because oftentimes I don't get like six hours to just sit there and, and chill. Uh, and, and so that was, uh, that's I think obviously, you know, we're gonna talk a lot about today, uh, new car coming out, but also like how Snap doing. The future of the Snapchat a little bit and everything in between. We probably in the next, like, I don't know, three to four weeks are gonna be doing these kind of later Monday episodes. Just works out better in the summertime and for casting and a number of reasons. So, uh, we're not late, we're just, we're right on time over here. But, uh, yeah, man, the heck of a start of a season for Snap. Lots of breakdown there. Definitely a bit of a crazy week. If you're wondering why Alex's, uh, camera looks like he's streaming from his calculator. What's, uh, what, what, what happened?

Alex: 4:33

I know it looks so bad and I'm like hoping it goes into focus. Like I'm like, why is it outta focus? You look less, less like usually I don't, dude. I know. I don't usually look as good as you anyways. Well, I mean that's just, let's be honest, right? It's Snap stop the, the glaze. Like usually I look kind of worse anyways, and today it looks way worse because my main mirrorless camera is dead again. It just died again. It's the second time it's done this. So I've had to send him for repair, the whole thing and Cozy and I just, before the Snapchat he was like, you really gotta like. Get a new camera.

Cozy: 5:01

Dude, I think that camera's making you look like the Thanos drag queen thing though. I'm telling you, you look, you look less pink here

Alex: 5:07

and like this. You mean like the white balance is better? Even though I'm not in focus, I gotta figure out like why am I not in

Cozy: 5:11

focus? It, ah, you look great. I, you know what I have to say though is, uh, I love that video. You did the fantastic car one, uh, from the lake. That to me, man, that's the future content. I think you should do that more often. I think that's like way more. I don't know. I watched the whole thing and I was glued to my camera looking at your beautiful face. But I just think it was a cool format, especially for like conversation pieces and stuff.

Alex: 5:33

You know what, I, I appreciate that you say that. I think with, uh, with so many things coming, uh, with Snap and everything, I, you know, I, I create content'cause I, I really love it. I really do love it and I don't know what my life would be like without content creation. And I kind of wanna reinvent myself a little bit and see if I can have some fun and do some unique things. I'm, I'm really glad you said that because. Maybe I can get back to something like that. Go outside the box a little bit and, uh, try to experiment in the future on, uh, on YouTube or Twitch or whatever it happens to be. Reinvent myself the way Cozy Snap and Cozy Rivals has such done, right? So anyways, buddy, that really means a lot to me. Thank you. And I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Cozy: 6:07

Of course, man. I try to, again, I had a lot of free time too. I was like, I was banging through stuff I never get to, never get to do, bud. But we know what we're talking about over here. Alex, what are we talking about on your side of the Snapchat?

Alex: 6:17

Cozy on my side of the Snapchat. Pretty straightforward here. We're gonna talk about the se, uh, series five cards that came out this week, including Herbie and of course, Mr. Fantastic. We're also gonna be talking about Fantastic Car, the E-Series four card that came out, uh, via the super premium season pass. We'll be discussing that situation a little bit, whether or not, you know, it's, is it worth it, is it good for the game and et cetera. We're also gonna be doing the Snapchat mailbag, as always.

Cozy: 6:39

Man, we'll hop right into it. All the, a lot of the fun stuff I wanna say about the cards so far obviously gonna be on your side. Oh, look at that. That look, guys, this is how, you know, we're just, we're running, we're running fast and loose over here. How did I not, uh, there we go. Bam. Look at that on the fly. And I put Hebe. Oh, it's, it's a great day to be a Marvel Snap player. But no, um, over here, man, we're talking about. Just like a checkup on Marvel Snap a little bit, and then the future of the Snapchat. No doom and gloom. I, I feel like every time I put that on there, people are like, ah,

Alex: 7:11

but uh, I also didn't know we were talking about this till this exact moment either. Exactly. So just know that like, I don't have like a long list of like, for the future of the Snapchat. I like it. We're going off the cuff baby.

Cozy: 7:19

I like making Alex have no notes. He's a very proficient note taker over there. Um, but yeah man. Let's talk. Okay, so let's talk about human torch. Uh, now that we know more about the card and just how cracked this seems to be, I mean, this full season so far is looking like a good one. I mean, between the first three cards we've had, those are all pretty dang good. Like even at just like the playing on the plane, I was like, okay, so these are cracked, right? So in general. With humid torch guys, he's a three cost, two power card in a turn game plus one power. So you play him down on curve. Nice little three five, right? But once per game, if your side here is fully doubles, that card's power. So great potential of what? A three 10 in just standard play. If you play him on curve, obviously play him late. He's gonna be a little bit less, uh, you know, impactful. But Alex, before we jump into the specifics, what's your star rating?

Alex: 8:10

You know what I'm sticking, uh, with my 4.5. I think this is a really good card. It was near the top of the season for me. I almost gave it number one last week, even though I decided to go with the Invisible Woman. Um, I think this card's fantastic, man. Yeah, for sure. And the reason why, you know, it's gonna absolutely just clap cheeks is because. So essentially, dude, the Mr. Fantastic has already rejuvenated, like Surfer, Surfer already just banging. And now this is directly gonna go into that. You know, it's like an already good deck's gonna get better.

Cozy: 8:37

Uh, people gimme crap for, uh, a number of reasons and, and I love it. I'm always here for the crap, but it's, uh, like, oh, you don't play Snap, whatever. If I, I am pretty spot on, I would say for someone who, quote unquote never plays with, with how some of these cards are gonna work out. And especially when I didn't have time to experiment a lot, but. Fantastic and Surfer it. It was so natural together and the, we kind of talked about this, the scaling of the month, like it's only gonna get better and better. That deck specifically is just going to get better and better as well. Right. There was a number of decks that ended up doing well, but you put in now, Mr. Fantastic. Which it was so tough to talk last week about some of these synergies'cause we had to talk about each card. Right. But then like. How much each one enables. The other loved Mr. Fantastic. I gave him a five, 4.5 for him, I think is definitely fair because, uh, as a standalone card, right on curve, you have just a good value card. Like crazy strong, like, I don't wanna say Serer, but the threshold that you have to hit to get him in that high power is pretty. Pretty standard, pretty easy, especially by playing him on curve, right? So he is that serer level of somewhat power. But Serer didn't belong in Surfer, right? Like we, we kind of, we knew that he had his one deck. What's so great about Surfer is that you can flex in different cars, different styles, whatever. Now you have a car that amplifies that even more so that can carry a lane vertically again with other cards, and it all synergizes with Mr. I think Surfer is just like, it's bound to be just carrying meta now for a while. It's just such a strong deck that has even more, uh, you know, ahead of it.

Alex: 10:08

This has been one of those moments where I'm like, damn, Surfer is in such a great spot. And not just'cause of the human torch. We've had like this disruption based Surfer with Gladiator and even stronger in there with Fenris doing a lot of work lately, which has been really cool. Beautiful Cook. And then now with Mr. Fantastic, alongside something Human Torch, you have this additional power generation that's just insane. And what I like about Human Torch is obviously you get, if you do like Mr. Fantastic on on two and then you do a human torch on three. That's fine. You can play the on three, you could play the on four. And because of, and of course, min maxing wise, you're gonna want this out early. I understand that because of that end of turn, power generation. But if worse comes to worst, like you could still play this late and get a decent enough body, right? Like it's not gonna be popping off. But what if it gets hit by Mr. Fantastic. What if it gets surged? What if it gets nakia or whatever? Right. It could potentially use that, like that fill thing to pop off a little bit

Cozy: 11:03

without question. We used to play Surfer and have like, okay, we hope we get brewed into blank, right? But then it was like, well, if I just remember like even way back I was like, okay, I've had this rogue that couldn't hit anything. I guess it's a body to get the Surfer bonus. Like think about in terms of like way back what we used to do there. Like that is, this is always gonna hit that in that regard and shung chi proof in the sense of it becoming that huge power later in the turn, right at the end of turn if you wait for that last pop-off bit. And so it has that building for it. It wants to have boosted power. It's getting all that from not only Surfer, but a number of cards in the deck that can give that as well. And then with, you know, not to go into Mr. Fantastic, but one of the things I, why it was an easy fi for me is like there's so many cars that he enables to be played sooner. That just is so good that continue to synergize Surfer being obviously a, a, a big shout out with that. So yeah, definitely love this guy. Now I will say one of the things I ran into. Is what we said about, so the so on decks where it's like, man, when you get too many cars at the same cost, it can be a little sticky. Surfer O obviously can avoid that a bit more, but like, not all these fantastic cars are gonna be able to fit together. Just, it's just gonna not work out that way. And what was once super flexible, Surfer is getting more narrow because you're having cars like this that are becoming now a must include. Right? And so yeah, you can go off the beaten path a little bit, but you are putting yourself slightly at a disadvantage if you don't have, you know, some of these cars obviously.

Alex: 12:22

Funny. Do you think you mentioned that because it's almost like when Surfer wasn't quite good. You could put anything in there. Like you could respond to the meta in a way. You could run Killmonger Nova, you could just run Killmonger to take things out. Actually, that's what the more modern decks do. They have fenner. They have Killmonger with no one drop. So you can wipe out their one drop at a minimum and bring it back, for instance. Right. And then now you're right. As things get tighter and the 12 cards you need to make a deck become much more refined. Then all of a sudden, like some of those flex plays suddenly can't be. Played right, like I have not seen a Hope Summers in the Silver Surfer deck in the longest time. Hope Summers used to be pretty good there because you could play something like a Hope Summers. Then on turn five you play your Sarah. Suddenly you not only do you have the Sarah effect, but you have the extra energy, which allows you to do like three drop, three drop. Abs man. But now with Surge, Mr. Fantastic. And others, you don't even need that combination. So that card's been power crypt. I mean, as a whole, like it's crazy to think this Hope Summers doesn't see plague as good as that card is. You're right. Silver Surfer is getting tighter. That is, uh, it's, it's kind of sad to some degree, but I'll never be upset about a Surfer deck being meta.

Cozy: 13:29

Yeah, no, I mean, again, if you've just been playing Surfer forever now, like you've been set because like there's been the same staples, like obviously a brew, Killmonger, whatnot. Uh, but then ever since like Neonic being good, you have that juggernauts always just like a standalone good card. Like you have cars that are gonna be able to flex in. Uh, have the same value as of the cars.'cause they bring a different surprise factor and the less they play, the more surprised they are. Right. And then you could, you know, obviously copycat and like the, the boomer bust of that card. There's so many vertical winners now for this deck. It's, it, it, it just works out so well, especially with what this card has to offer. Yeah. I think this thing has the world ahead of it. I think this is a very good car. Not to mention obviously the fantastic cars just. Just a, that's a good card. So when you have that type of power behind it too, it can also work out a Surfer. You can put it into other decks too, where you know it's gonna benefit. I guess, again, not to go into TA card too much, but do you think that this can find its way, I may, maybe not the EVO decks or whatever, but like, can it find its way into decks with that?

Alex: 14:29

I am not sure. I don't think I don't wanna say this because then it's gonna like force into reality. I don't know if fantastic art could replace the likes of Gwenpool or even the Nerfed Galata or stuff like that in those Surfer shells. No outer Surfer,

Cozy: 14:46

outer Surfer.

Alex: 14:47

Oh, outer Surfer. I thought you're referring specifically to Surfer. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Like I think there's definitely potential there. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, I thought you meant Surfer specifically.

Cozy: 14:54

No, yeah. I, I think, uh, I think for sure you're gonna wanna just Yeah. Go with Galata and then if not that Gwen Pool has just been the staple in there. But, and not to mention, man, it's just like this card, the fact that it doubles. When you have now Reed, just being able to give, like, there's, so I think we said this last episode, it's like there's so many more cars that give power now that if this came out two years ago, it wouldn't be that good. Like it just, it, it would be, it would be good because it's Surfer, but it, you know what I mean? Like there's so much more galactic, g, wind pool, reed, all those easily give power.

Alex: 15:25

Dude, I, I mean, if we were doing like, kind of like our favorites of the month so far type thing, which I love doing, maybe we'll do that another week. Like my two drop would be Mr. Sinister and you're like, Alex, that's crazy. Why are you talking about Mr. Sinister, all these buff mechanics that we've been getting. We got Reed Richards, we got, we got, uh, Gwen Pool. All these I've, I'm dropping like. Like 12 power effective Mr. Sinisters. Like it's crazy, right? Like it's not hard to generate massive power and Marvel Snap. And the thing I love about human Torch as well is you get this out on three, it starts ticking up the power. It's not like a Wolf Spain where you gotta plate it into a full location. You could fill the location after and get, its double up in power. So like that's easy with brood, it's easy with like other types of things you can do. So like, yeah, I think this is an absolute. Banger card bang card.

Cozy: 16:07

A year and a half ago, Patriot Surfer was, was going crazy. And that was still with Mr. Sinister still absorbing man, still brewed. And that was back then, right? So it's like now you combine all that with what's now and Yeah, it's, it's through the roof. So human torch, I think I personally think that the, you know, if you got the season pass, not the plus one, but if you just have Mr. Fantastic. And this, you're probably set, like there are, the rest of the cards are good coming out, but like the, these two together are gonna just be such a wabo combo to win you plenty the season. It's Surfer, so it's super flexible. I do think, dude, I think there's a world, this thing goes down to 3.1. That's why I put as, it may be too hot. Like it just feels like there's almo, there's just zero downside to the card other than playing it late. But even then, you still have that potential to get a value out of it. So I, I would not be shocked if this thing gets flamed off a little bit.

Alex: 16:54

That's, it's such a tricky thing.'cause like a two, like changing it to a three, one is actually a massive Nerf. Mm-hmm. Just like moving, like Gladiator One power additional was such a huge buff because it double dips on its power, right? It allows it to trade more effectively. This is similar when you have this doubling effect, every additional power you start with is very impactful because of the double right. It double dips on its power. If they were to do that, I think it'd be, it would be rough, however. I wonder if like, do you change it to a two one, but then you're competing with Reid Richer surge and everything. Nice. Irrelevant really, I think. I think it's actually good that it's a three drop.

Cozy: 17:27

Yeah, it has to be a three drop. I want it to be a three drop to stay as that. I just feel like it's already surfer's already at like what a 60 plus percent win rate without this card in there and that's gonna go up even more with it. And there is some flexibility there, you know, of what you want to get rid of or what have you. So. We'll, we'll have to find out when this thing comes out, but this is definitely looking, looking pretty solid. Anything else to wrap up this conversation before we go into, uh, our Marvel Snap checkup?

Alex: 17:53

Not necessarily. I do think it's gonna be good in, uh, zoo. I believe I mentioned that prior. I think that it has potential to fill there. Uh, obviously surfer's a very natural spot for it, but to straight up passive power, wanting to have locations full things like ultra decks do that very naturally, uh, thing. And often, like Tron, you could play this on three honestly and still have time for Lars and Patriots and stuff like that. I also thought about like, this has a bit of cope from my notes, but I was like, huh, what if you tried something like a prodigy, right? You prodigy this card, you start with higher base power, it picks up as well. Then you fill it with with Tron or something like that. Then boom and it's like huge on two lanes.'cause you got your Tron lane, you got the Prodigy human Torch lane. I don't know, I was thinking about it. I think that like starting with a higher base power of Prodigy could actually do some cooks there. But overall I think this is gonna be a fantastic art. Like it would be very shocking to me if. This underperformed.

Cozy: 18:40

I like the idea zoo with it too. Just filling lanes quick. Gilgamesh like you there, there's a lot of synergy that can happen there with power boosted stuff. Potentially. I all, this is not gonna be as good as surfers. So like this is more like dipping into the fun stuff, I think. Right? Like it's pretty obvious when me Yeah, when we get to that. Um, but yeah, man, four and a half card. This is probably, I don't wanna say it's like my card of the month'cause we've already given that to others, but like mine was Reed, right? So Reed is obviously you already got that. So this is definitely the one that I would pull and it's early, that's the thing. You, you gotta pull it early, especially if you've been keeping up with the cards, you have so much better shot to grab it. So that's my review there on Human Torch. Let's do a little checkup, man, on Marvel Snap. So I wanna open up with, I was talking to some of the players of the Miami Dolphins, bro. Okay. These guys are making millions, right? Millions. No, no, no. This is important. And I was talking about they're Marvel fans, right? We're talking about gaming Marvel in general, and we were talking about rivals, we were talking about Snap. And funny enough, I was like, yeah, I don't think you'll know, but you know, there's a game Marvel Snap. Like, did you. I happened to play that at all. And one guy played magic. He's like, oh yeah, I played Marvel Snap like a lot. I was like, oh, did you stop playing? And he is like, yeah, I got too exp expense. It got too expensive for me, is what an NFL player had to say about Snap. And in that moment I literally just cackled. I was like, wow. And obviously this guy can afford whatever he wants. So like that's relative right to the person. But like you desensitize yourself when you continue to play something right? And you're kind of, there's sunken fallacy in it and there's like, oh. A$10 card and we'll get into that more with the fantastic card, but it's like, oh. It's like, it's only 10 more do, and it just you, you cope with it. Right. And I think when we did that episode about, uh, with Regis, it's like, man, the biggest thing I said is like, go look at your spinning. And it's pretty obvious, you know, how, how out of control it can get. And so when that was said, it's like, man, if that's a, a, a segment of, if that's a statement that he would say, it's like the general pop. It's gotta be 10 x that. And th that's not, all where I wanna take this conversation, but I thought that was like an interesting opener.

Alex: 20:38

No, for sure to hear that. Like someone who makes potentially hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Um, even if you're at like, let's be honest, even if you're at league minimum. You're doing pretty damn well in the NFL right. And, uh, snap's Too expensive. It's kind of crazy. But it also, like, it goes to show you just how expensive this game is. And it's almost made me wonder, have you ever heard of the old saying that like, if you get a, if you get a frog and you throw it in boiling water, it'll jump out. But if you put the frog in warm water and then slowly boil it, it'll just sit there. Basically the idea that like you almost become accustomed to the cost of things, the frog and almost desensitized. And I think that as Marvel Snap players, we almost get desensitized to the cost of each individual card itself. And, um, the idea that, you know. I don't know, like Kid Omega cost like a hundred dollars or just trying to be collection complete. Like you really, it's prohibitively expensive and that's kind of wild for a digital card game. It is crazy to hear that NFL players like, yeah, it's too expensive.

Cozy: 21:36

Well, it's like Disneyland prices. You get in there and you're like, oh my gosh, it's, you know, it's$10 for a soda. Oh, at least the water's only$6. You know, we're still paying$6 for a water bottle. You know, so it's like, it's the same thing. Yeah. It's like when you're in an ecosphere of that, you compare it to relativity. Or it's like, I don't know if you've seen the whole science behind like small, medium, large and how medium's always like, you look at the difference between small and medium and the gap from that, from medium to large. Like there's science behind that and, and to try to get the brand to be like, oh, there's value, but it's in its own ecosystem of value. Right? Uh, so that being said, what I wanna think about is like guys obviously. You know, I'm always thinking about, and Alex's too is just content in general and I made shift to rivals. Yes, definitely. Created a lot of content there. Things are going good and doing casting and whatnot, but you know, I've gotta look at anything I ever put my time to and like, is this making sense for me? At the end of the day, I'm supporting my family. That's gotta be number one. And am I having fun? If I'm not having those, if there's one of those things missing, I gotta evaluate. If there's two, I'm done. So looking at this, it's like, well, how does Snap get back or even stay on. Subtle ground'cause it's been staying level, right? Like at least there was like levelness to it. Now there's dip like period call what you want across content across, and there's been dip. Okay. But like way more noticeable dip. Okay. And when there's dip, it doesn't come back. We've seen that history repeat itself too. We've seen that now for a couple years. There hasn't been a feature, a thing that has brought them back. I think. I do truly think if there was a a, a mode that was new. That had enough in ingenuity and gameplay. Like a draft mode. I know we mentioned I think that would that could be something tied with marketing that could get people back. But other than that, it, it's a very tough thing to do. So my worry is like, it's, you know what it is, bro. It's a conversation. It's funny between these two games, so like, wow, Inscape, okay, so people are leaving. Wow. Because World of Warcraft. Has like, almost like the servers are about only like a year until it's like, okay, it's back to vanilla. Wow. Again. And people go to scape because your progress, they know it's gonna last a long time. And they're, they're kind of putting their investment into something that has a long shelf life. Okay. But then when you look at when you look at, wow, people don't wanna put their time in that because it's so short lived. Right. So with Snap it's like, obviously new players have their own thing to go through, but even people that have been playing, it's like. People are gonna be less interested in playing because they almost are looking at it as a sink and ship. And it's like, well, do I wanna even put more money, time, effort, talent, all that into this game? And that that's what has me worried.

Alex: 24:05

Oh, that's absolutely like the perfect way to kind of encapsulate what this issue is. Um, there's this idea of like this sunken cost where people will like, continue to invest in something even though like they should probably stop, right? Obviously that's a psychological thing that's much more complex than that. What I've seen lately has been a massive deviation from the norm. We're seeing way more drop off far fewer players interested in Marvel Snap as a whole, and I think that it's just, there's been though that that straw that broke the camel's back, as they say, that one push a little too far on a couple different things. It hasn't been one particular thing altogether. It wasn't just Kid Omega, it wasn't just fantastic car. It wasn't just, it wasn't just any one of those individual things. It's been the entire package that has been pushing people away. It has been a little heartbreaking. You know, we have seen a major drop off. Um, but I think you asked the most important question. What does Marvel Snap do now? What do they do to reengage their audience and can they even reengage their audience? Because in my experience, if you look at most games, like if you go and you check out like Google Trends on most games, most schemes, they have like a shark fin, right? They got the interest that goes up and then it kind of fades over time. Live service games tend to have a longer tail because they. The, obviously with updates and new releases, they kind of keep up and Marvel Snap. I would consider along that. Unfortunately, Marvel Snap is seeing much more of a drop off than others. But that's not to say that like, that's unique. You look up Pokemon Pocket, a very similar phenomenon. Pokemon Pocket was a great pop off at the start. I remember even at the start, I remember me and you had this conversation, I said, I think Marvel snap's a better game than Pokemon Pocket. And I love Pokemon. I got Pokemon all over my shelves. I buy cards for my kids. Uh, but at the end of the day, I think Marvel Snap was a better game. And like, so there is this like, I don't wanna say games have a shelf life. There is a bit of an expectation that things kind of, you know, they generally go down over time. There are some games that buck that trend. However, I'm really hoping that Marvel Snap can be one of those. I'm slowly starting to lose faith that it will be though. And because I think that there is this like repeated decision making that, um, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I just don't know, man.

Cozy: 26:10

So, so here is kind of what Alex is talking about and funny enough. Uh, you always gonna have big booms when games start. Like rivals had 700,000 players playing at first. You'll never have that. It's just a, it's a wave, right? That comes and then they stable out. So what you've seen here, this is the life of Snap, right? And you have the uptick. The other uptick there in the middle is, I believe when the TikTok shut down thing happened and, and Snap trended because it was one of the games that were banned in the us There's a very hot topic like Dexter. Everyone covered it, right? So that's that obviously huge pop off for literally one day, and then look at the, the steep drop off. And then after that you could see all time low without. Any question and and you could go back and continue to go back. And that line, if it follows, the trajectory goes down to below launch. Right. So like it's heading to a position of where you never want it to go. And, and that's what's a concern. I think for me, it that, listen, I've been a part of a mobile game, okay. That you get two reactions from players and you guys watching, you guys are gonna have this, like, we're not talking about this to bring doom and gloom. It's more of. If we don't, there's certainty that it dies, and if we do, there's a chance that there's maybe changes that be made, or at the very least, we can at least go out swinging. Right? Because you're gonna feel anger. A good chunk of viewers like, ah, you guys are so doom and gloom. But it's, it I've seen this song dance before. It was like, it's fine. Game's fine. And then before, you know, the game got shut down overnight, the other one. And so it's like, with this. Speak out now to try to get any type of a voice out there. And I think it's important to look at it and it's like, you know, we. Kinda stretched this conversation with Regis of like how we got here and everything. But you know, you had this like, game of, of mass performance and now it's just at this point, if I'm Snap or if I, if I don't wanna like cash it out as second dinner, it's like why not make, I, maybe it's not the most balanced, I don't know, but why not make a draft? Why not make something that you think truly will get players back? Throw what funds you do have allocated into a couple months into marketing all for that. And then try to build from there, right? Uh, because other than that, then, you know, this is gonna be an incredible, fun digital game that is always gonna be known for being one of the most fun times. But then it died too soon, right? And like that will be what its history is instead of lasting star Wars Galaxy Heroes is the most a hero collector dude. That thing still is, is beyond kicking it. It's been going on 15 years or something like that. Like this has every chance to go on for a very long time. But it's sad that this is kind of where it's kind of going to. And so I'm just trying to, like, I was racking my brain in the, in the flight man. I was just like, what can they do? Because it's not on us. Like, I could make the coolest videos ever for Snap and put all my time towards it. It's not gonna change anything. It's just not gonna, it is not how it works. So I just, it, it, it, it just, it's like, man, what else? You know?

Alex: 28:57

I've been thinking about the exact same thing. It's actually been a bit of a source of stress where I'm like, you know, you feel a little powerless, right? Like you're not quite sure, like obviously I cover Marvel Snap'cause I love Marvel Snap. And even like when I was originally making content in, in the the Dota universe. I only started making moral Snap videos because I loved the game enough that like, I remember being like, I'm, I'm done streaming doda. I'm just gonna play Snap. Yeah. I only have three viewers, but I'm having the most fun I've ever had, and I feel like I'm onto something special. Then the rest is history. Right? And so I deeply, I love this game. I do. And I really hope it can turn. I would love to see that graph. Go vertical. I would love to, I would love to see a parabolic change. I would love, I know you would love that too. Let's be honest. We would love to see that. But there's concerns and you know, what really keeps me up at night? I think there's my fear, my big fear for Snap is not like, oh, what are they monetizing That like, that's my fear is losing Glen. I feel like if, for whatever reason, if uh, someone as talented as, as Glen is like, you know what? Maybe the right writing's on the wall, maybe second dinner's next project isn't in, uh, isn't in his wheelhouse where his skills are gonna be utilized. He can go back to designing stuff for magic he can go back to do. And I think that would be such a catastrophic loss to this team. And I bring that up because I, over the last little bit, I was going through some of my, my contacts and stuff, and. A lot of the people that I had originally had like, uh, kinda like followed on Twitter, whatever it is, they've moved on from second dinner. So we, we talked about the major shift, like changeovers that have occurred there and, um. I'm concerned. I'm just concerned. Like I, I just wonder about like how devastating a loss of someone like Glen would be, considering how much I think that he holds this game together for the most part. But I, yeah, I really hope they figure something out. And you're right, we, we can't change. We can help if they include us in, in, in ways with new, exciting materials and allow us to provide feedback on new things. That, because we are in touch with the community in a way that I think is important, but at the end of the day. We can only do so much elbow grease. They, they're the ones that gotta release the finished product that, uh, compels players to come back and stay

Cozy: 31:05

and they're capable of putting out cool new cards and product. We've seen that the champions thing is really cool, like they have things cooking and that's awesome, but it doesn't matter how crazy if things you have come out. If a game is on its way down, I will say the one thing that can really help this game is like, whenever Force Awakens came out, I remember I got outta the movie theaters and I was like, man, I gotta play some star. I gotta get some Star Wars in my life right now. Right? And so Marvel, it's no secret, it's been on the downward trend for a while. Uh, thunderbolts, you know, I thought was really good. That's brought it up. Fantastic. Fours getting good reviews, whatever. If Doomsday pops off like crazy, which has been delayed now. But that's a long ways away. It's December, I believe, of next year now. But like if Marvel Cinema is going up and now they have a real healthy comp, uh, competition, I believe Superman got great reviews. I haven't seen it yet myself, but like. As the MC, if the MCU does really well, it does help out games like this. So there is that in free marketing almost that will happen, right? Say what you want guys. Rivals. It was a great thing to happen for Snap'cause it did help out get Marvel more hot and, and into people's lives and, and come over here to this game. I think a lot of people went from Snap to rivals, but there is to be said that people went from rivals to Snap'cause they wanna be, they, they love human torch in that game. They want to see'em in this game, right? Like that's just kinda the nature of it. But yeah, that's. It's the, the hope of it. And, and with that, I have with this is, is the future of the Snapchat guys, right? So, uh, obviously we've been now, uh, what September's three years, which is so cool to, to look at. In general, Alex and I love this love doing it all together. And it's, it's the content on my channel at the moment. There, it, the Snapchat is, will be out. We, we definitely love what we do here. I would say a hundred percent on my side, Alex. I haven't even like gone into Great. We've talked about discussion pieces between the two of us of what, what we want to continue to do with this thing. I would say it's almost a certain that there'll be really fun subjects moving forward, which we've been doing this forever anyway. We've been doing a zoo tier list back on our first year. Right. But I would say one of my subjects will definitely be reserved now for just pure fun, whatever that is. Dad, whatever it is. If you guys skip the intro, keep doing that.'cause that's what a subject will be. Probably will be reserved at the last one. Just video games at the nineties. Whatever it might be, that is probably going to more than likely happen. If you wanna come here for the new card stuff, new conversations. That's there too. But Alex and I wanna make sure that this is still something that we have passion about. And I can be, oh, I'm passionate about Alex Kocha. I could tell you that. But that can only go so far. Right? And so we wanna make sure that there's love between all of it. And it's not repeated subjects and things like that. And so, you know, the Snapchat's still gonna be y'all's Snapchat that, you know, uh, but if you guys want us to di you know, dive into Alex not knowing even the most basic pop culture references, awesome.'cause that's what's about to happen here over, uh, on my side. And, uh, and Alex as well. I know we're gonna just, you know, continue to have fun on both sides,

Alex: 34:02

yeah, I think that we, uh, we obviously have a formula that works, right? We, we figured out the Snapchat formula and, uh, it, it's definitely been something that has served us the community well over like almost three years now. It's actually crazy to think, like, I think that that's the case a long time, but I also think it's important that we do reinvent what this is in order to give it the staying power that I think it deserves. And so, yeah,'cause I absolutely do agree and, uh. We're gonna continue kind of like investigating ways to make this better, make it a compelling product, um, and, and, you know, come hell or high water. Like, I, I, the one thing I want to do is I wanna make sure I have an opportunity to come on here and, and have fun, talk about stuff that, like, you know, excites the both of us. And, uh, one thing that, you know, we don't want to Snapchat to be is just two dudes showing up for a shift. Like that's, that's the literally worst thing that can happen for us and for the audience. We want this to be a fun experience for everyone involved.'cause when we're having fun, we know that you guys can feel that. And I think that's really important to us.

Cozy: 34:56

Yeah. And I think that it was, whenever it came up with the idea of it, it wasn't even like ever only about Snap. Like I think it was maybe the first couple and then it was like, oh wow. The rapport between us two. It is so fun just to talk about anything. There's times when me and you were talking prior to our calls that like, I'm like, dang it, why aren't, why are you like, why are we not recording this? It's just such fun conversation. And so I think, uh, you know, I think someone said on a comment below, like, two dads cast or something, like, it, that will be one of the subjects, right? Maybe two, you know, maybe we split it between our two. We, we we're gonna dive more into that. Uh, but expect just more. Listen, if there's one thing I know that we will do with it is keep it entertaining because how can you not with Alex Cogi here at the helm. And, uh, and all. I still, yeah, he had a fish talk at once guys and he goes, what's a fish talk? I, I'll never forget it. Anyway, that, that's really it about the future of the Snapchat. You can expect more of that. You know, you are gonna get your, your Snap talk. P plenty. Get a little bit of both. If you like us going off the random cusp, great. Good news for you. It's more of that. If you want us to stick to Snap, well that's gonna stay the same about, right? So, uh, either way, that is what is the Snapchat's all about, guys. Human torch maybe. Too hot Snap. Not at the moment, as you saw from the thumbnail and the future of this, Alex, any closing notes bud?

Alex: 36:10

Oh, I, I, I think that we, we did a really good job to kind of break down like how we're feeling. And I think at the end of the day, like with regards to the Snapchat, we're gonna look for ways to reinvent it. We're gonna look for ways to, to make it the best it can be. And, uh, we don't have all those answers yet. Like, Cozy and I are still kind of brainstorming ideas and coming up with things. And, uh, there's also other avenues for like content and ways we can kind of approach content creation together and collaborative collaboratively. I, I think I made up a word there, but anyways, long story short, I think that like, um, you guys mean a lot to us. I think that I can speak on both behalf of Cozy and I that uh, as much fun as him and I have together. You guys are a huge part of this, especially those of you that still listen to this show. Some of you don't even play Snap anymore. You really are here because you like what we do and you're engaged with this community, and that does not get lost on us. You guys are very, very important to us, like beyond measure, and uh, we want to make sure that even if you lose interest in Marvel Snap, there's a reason to tune into Cozy and Alex because, uh, we just, we value your time. We're so appreciative of the fact that you've supported us through these years.

Cozy: 37:10

Yeah, dude. I think actually that says it really well. Like, dude I have been, uh, over the last like couple months probably stretched the most thin I've ever felt between casting and between rivals and outside of when this New season's launched. We launch, I do like four to five videos. I only get like four videos a month right now on rivals. I'm just not having time over there either. And without a beat though. There's one thing that I'm always making sure I have time for and I can tell you, I can promise you guys it does not make sense revenue wise for myself. It doesn't period, end of discussion. But that doesn't matter.'cause to me it's more about like. What we've made and created here over three years. And how important that is to me. And even if I just casted a grand final, like I missed the, what the first time and who knows how long. I couldn't even speak. Like, it was an absolute, like I was torn to shreds and I still was like, I can do it. And I'm like, you know, I have to take a step back and think about this. So it's something that is super important to both of us, and that's why we're, you know, why we're still kicking on this thing. I, if it was about just putting food on the table for my family kind of thing, I would just go and double up my rivals video. In, in the time that it takes to do one of these, I could do two, you know, rival videos. So it, that isn't it, it's about just carrying on this show, being with you guys, having a good time doing it. I, I think it's always important to, uh, and on the way back on my flight, I'm like, oh man, what are some, fun talking points to the Snapchat? And I'm always still thinking about it, right? And so just happy to be here another week, man, and, and we'll make it three years.

Alex: 38:36

Yeah, I can't wait. Um, at the end of the day, I, um, have full faith in our ability to make sure that we can deliver something, that everyone's gonna have fun and enjoying. And, you know, may one year from now, maybe this looks completely different, like we, we don't know. We don't know. But at the end of the day, we're gonna do the best that we can to make sure that we deliver a product that you guys, of course can enjoy. Cozy. I have a very funny story I gotta tell you. Open it up with, and you'll understand. Everyone with kids will understand how this works. So basically, my son, my 6-year-old, he absolutely loves Pokemon. Actually, they all love Pokemon. Now they're getting really into Pokemon and he's been asking for like Pokemon Plushies and stuff. And like Costco had like this big, like chunky snla. I got him. He loved it, but you'll never guess what his favorite Pokemon is. He absolutely loves Siter.

Cozy: 39:24

Loves Sthe. Oh yeah, dude, that's a, that was, I think that was mine growing up. Definitely mine growing up. Really? What? Oh, for sure. Siter when there was only 1 51, like it was a smaller pool. But man, I love sthe. He has such a cool, like, I don't know, I think he's just like a, like as a boy, it's like, oh man, he's cool. Like, and like the jungle packs came out like, oh yeah, man, I love Ser. He's not even good. No way. But he wasn't.

Alex: 39:45

Yeah, so it's so funny'cause like he loves sthe and like he, and now there's different versions of sthe. There's like sior and Cleaver and all this. He's all into it and he's been asking, he's like, he's like Dad. He's like, if I get a good report card, he's like, can I get a, can I get a SER toy? I'm like, yeah, well look. And I've been looking for like, I can't find a ser Plushie, I can't find a or toy. They just don't me. I was looking on like in China for stuff. I was like, there's gotta be something somewhere. Someone may can't find it. And I'm like, oh man. And then. Miraculously, I'm not sure how this happened. We're outside, right? We're outside playing in like the kiddie pool we've got. And he's like, daddy, look. It's ser man Mantis. And he yells. It's ser it was a praying mantis on our window, right? And anyways, the praying mantis seemed hurt. It wasn't flying away. It kind of looked like it was laboring. I'm not sure what was wrong. And it was like a kind of a small baby one anyways, so he's like, dad, it's, it's hurt. Can we heal it? I'm like, well, I can't put in a poke ball and bring it to the pokey center, but like, do you want to like catch it? Response, A plus response right there, you? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So anyways, what we did was is we had like. It like we had like this bug catcher that was really nice and pretty big and stuff like that. And we put it in there and we created a habitat for it and it was like pretty comfortable. We gave it a little bottle cap of water and all this stuff. We went to the store, we bought crickets, we fed it like little baby crickets and stuff like that. And we've had this for like two weeks. And when we went up to the cottage, he was like, he's like, and he, he called, he named Itsthe. He's like, we gotta bring sight to the cottage. So we're driving like three and a half hours up north, right? Like north of Toronto. And he's holding on his lap, like the little thing taking care of the, the praying mantis. Right. That's awesome. And he brought it everywhere. We went out for dinner, he took it with us, like he put it on the table and had like, we were having dinner at a little restaurant. Dad. He brought it with him the whole time. And, uh, anyways, long story short, he's like, Hey daddy, sight, there's flying again. Sight's flying. He's doing dude. When I tell you that this mantis actually looked like it got a little bigger, got a little healthier, and he's like, dad, I, I wanna let it go. Wow. And we said, okay, do you wanna let it go like here at the cottage or do you wanna let it go like at home? He's like, I wanna let it go at home so he can come back and visit me. So I'm like, borderline like tearing up. Yeah.

Cozy: 42:00

That's so cute, man. Anyways,

Alex: 42:01

it's so cute, man. It's so, it's so wholesome. And then, anyways, he, so long story short. We get home and he lets, he lets the mantis go. But he didn't wanna like force set a key. So he basically, at night he just opened the thing up and just let it leave. And in the morning he went and he saw that it left. And then he got really sad and he was like, I actually don't want Sthe to leave. I hope he comes back soon. And, uh, so we're still waiting Forsythe's return, but I just wanted to share that story'cause it, it was so heartwarming. That's

Cozy: 42:27

cute, bro. I know. I love that. Matt. I love too kids abilities to be. Fearless when they're young too. Like my son now will be, he's at the age where like, dude, he's going up when the waves come up and then they go back down. There's like crabs that dig under the sand. He'll just get one, he'll get like a handful of them. And he's like, dad, look crabs. And I just like look in his hand and there's all these crabs. And I'm like, dude, kids are crazy. Like, I love it. Like they just, they don't care. They'll just pick up anything. Right? And, and they're like, they don't have that instilled in them. But dude, that's a, I want to convince you, man, that's a good dad letting. Like, I had a great father, man, great dad, and I don't know if he would've let me bring a brain mantis in the car. I just don't think that would happen. But dude, what a what? A what? A dad over there. Man, that was a cute story, man. I love it.

Alex: 43:13

I'm glad you like it. And taught him about dads, uh, Mr. Fantastics a dad, right? Is he He is. Right? Richards, yeah. Yeah. To one of the most power.

Cozy: 43:20

Yes, he is. Wait, hold on. Who, who's, who's this kid? No, I, well, because the first steps touch into this, and I'll let that happen before we talk about it. Oh,

Alex: 43:28

that's like a spoiler.

Cozy: 43:30

She's known as Sue's pregnant in the movie. Oh, damn. I didn't know this man. Okay, hold on. I start, yeah, this is big. I can start reading some more. Man. This, it's not like Spider-Man is Peter Parker like common. But it is, if you, if you're a comic guy, you definitely know about if Read Sue's kid.

Alex: 43:47

Okay, so I, I do not know, but I do know, okay, there was one thing that came up. We're so derailed. So someone said that like, Magneto is scarlet Witch's dad.

Cozy: 43:57

Yeah. Is that, duh? Of course. What bro, what? You need to stop reading Jeff, the baby land shark and go into some of the basics over here, man. What? What do you mean? What you know? Quick Silver. I thought quick was no, there, there's multiple. You could have more than one kid. How many kids do you have?

Alex: 44:16

Okay. Fair. Okay. That's a, that's a great point. Cozy. Okay. I can't even, how do I argue that I can't, like, that's actually the perfect point. It's Cozy. You've done it, you've done it. You've convinced me that you're correct.

Cozy: 44:29

Alright. Talking about Mr. Fantastic though, uh, last week you gave him a, what, what'd you give him? 4.54. I gave him a flat four. And you

Alex: 44:36

gave him a Sterling five. How do you feel about that? Four. I'm a little sad. It's how can you be sad? It's so sad. You give something a four and it feels low. Isn't that crazy? This car's spanking, man. It's so good. To

Cozy: 44:49

me. To me it's like I thought after surge, I was like, okay, the fool me, one thing like Alex, he's gonna, he's gonna get it. He's gonna understand that the randomness doesn't matter. And then he, here, here we are, five star, bro. Yeah. I think, I think it just doesn't matter. Right. And very close to, uh, in fact, in your review video, you said it best, right? Different than surge, but also same in the sense of like, oh, even if I wasn't going to do X, I might as well do that because it is discounted or the power, whatever it might be. And it's a deck you built, right? And fantastic is just being that engine for it. And so this car's cracked bro crack.

Alex: 45:25

It's awesome. And what I really liked about it the most. Was that, um, it changed the way my decks played because suddenly when you know, a card got reduced in power, like let's say, uh, you know, Sarah, I play this hit, uh, on two. Yeah, it hits Sarah. Mm-hmm. Now my game plan changes. It hits Gwenpool. Gwenpool comes down on three. Now my game plan changes, especially with the discounts. The discounts it was applying. It felt like it was making every single game feel a little different. Like the cards that it was discounting, like suddenly like, oh man, my stronger is now only a two cost. Yeah. Or like whatever, right? Like, oh, it hit brood or it hit whatever I wanted and suddenly I have this ability to flip this lane, which I don't think they're gonna expect me to be able to gwenpool and go act to that after Mr. Fantastic got the pump off, like it's gonna be crazy. There's been a lot of opportunities to really lean into, like my opponent cannot predict what I'm about to do, thanks to Mr. Fantastic.

Cozy: 46:16

Or just like holding onto the ACEs where it's like, okay, you could play that thing that's now a three or four to a three, or you hang onto it, right? And then it's like you can combine that with another card that you discounted and maybe you didn't get Sarah down, but now in a Surfer play you can do something really big, play other stuff on curve, and then six now looks way better. So, agreed man, it's like you can either play it right then and there for the, you know, consistency ledge. I sometimes. Like the, the later place is always, sometimes, not always, but you know, you get more cube equity a lot of those times with the surprise factor rather than, you know, you play down something really good early, I don't know. Right. And we'll have to see how that kinda works with Torch, right? Like do you just play him down there right away?'cause you can get other things to pop'em off? Or do you kind of. Hang on, that Mr. Fantastic has buffed him up now three times and you just play him in that filler, right? Like that's gonna be interested in how it works out. But what's great about him, and this is where the conversation went last week, is it's not just Surfer dude, it's, it's just, it's all around that flexibility, pun intended, uh, is immense.

Alex: 47:09

No, it's incredibly flexible. It's in a ton of different shells. All the shells are performing exceptionally well. Now, keep in mind, right now we do have, uh, our untapped based statistics over the last seven days are gonna include bots because we don't have enough infinite based stats. So, ranked 70 and above he's running a 34% Medi-Share, which is massive. That, that's a season pass that's sold. It's running a 56% win rate in a highly positive cube rate. Every single shell that he's in is being widely successful. This is just an overall good card. And here's a fun thing too. I often have Mr. Fantastic and Surge in similar decks. And I'm looking at the two and I'm like, which one do I wanna play first? And I'm often looking at my hand and thinking to myself, okay, well what do I want hit in my hand? What do I wanna draw into to decide? But I'm generally finding that I enjoy playing Mr. Fantastic first, and maybe even following up with the surge on the next turn. But like the fact that it's displacing surge on turn two. Goes to show you how good it is.'cause S was a defacto like how do you not play this card on turn two? Well,'cause you're holding Mr. Fantastic.

Cozy: 48:12

Yeah. Not to get into like Herbie too fast, but I think that is ultimately, dude, we literally called this frame for frame like last week. I said to myself, my only fear for these cards is that they're all battling for the two slot. And we saw that with Soran whenever Star brand before Star Brand. Remember like Star Brand was a great car. So like we saw that happen with Soran and Star Brand and it was lackluster and then they changed that and then it popped off. You have something like Herbie, that's a really good card, right? It's a good card. But as you start to compete with now, whatever surge, Mr. Fantastic. Now you have to pick one, right? You have to pick one of these to work, and I think that's starting to be a bit more troublesome.

Alex: 48:49

Yeah. And when we talk about Herbie, we'll, we'll, like, yeah, we can actually, we could transition to Herbie now. Honestly, we, we will talk about both of'em at the same time anyway.'cause they're kind of in the same breath there. Now. Herbie's only running an 11%, uh, play rate right now. Similar statistics though, uh, the win rate is, uh, almost identical. Just a couple, um, tenths of a percent lower at 55.3%, whereas Mr. Fanta is at. 55.9. Again, that is with some bot inflation there. Uh, we both came in at fours on Herbie, and here's the thing, it is a two three and you said exactly what the problem with Herbie's been was that if I'm playing a deck with Herbies and Mr. Fanta, I'm never playing Herbie first. Yeah, if I'm holding surge, I'm playing Surge. If I'm holding Mr. Fantastic, I'm playing Mr. Fantastic. Herbie at best comes out on term three most of the time, and if he is coming out on term two. It feels like my less optimal play for Turd two. Like I didn't draw the cards I actually wanted, and that's not Herbie's fault because I feel like he actually does some pretty cool stuff.

Cozy: 49:40

Yeah. I mean between doubling in power, which is how I know Torch is gonna be so crazy'cause it felt good on Herbie. Right. So it's gonna be even more wild on him. Or the energy, like it just felt like, like if this was its own card prior to this month, it would've had, I think. Way more success. The fact that it's coming into with Mr. Fantastic is what I think is gonna be the tough piece with it. Like, I think Surge and Herbie can coexist when you have all three, it makes it even harder. And then you, there's way more too, that you can even bring into this situation. But with that being said, I think there is plenty of legs, even though, uh, Herbie here looks, uh, or you call it Wally, which I think, uh, underrated movie by the way. Very underrated movie. He doesn't have legs, but still definitely Herbie. I is a good card, but like does it just get out shadowed in the future?

Alex: 50:23

So basically Wally is like the trash compactor version of Herbie's, like the scientist version. I think they're from the same universe. They like, don't even try to convince me otherwise. Like if even Wally had a baby, it's Herbie basically. Or Herbie invented Wally and Herbie is Eve's dad. Are you impressed that I knew Eve? I, I just want to throw that out there. You know what? It's so funny'cause I had to like, think about what that was. I like, I knew who Eve was, but I couldn't remember what their name was, bro. Okay. But he says Eve

Cozy: 50:50

dude, for, uh, this Lego thing. When Lego's looking at sponsors, it's so funny. I already, I always know where somebody sourced me from because in the email it's like Cozy Snap, Cozy rivals, Cozy, Cozy gamer every now and then. And when this one said, uh, Cozy Snap. One person said, oh, this guy knows all the Disney characters too.'cause from that old Disney game, like, bro, one thing I could tell you in 10 years from now when Snap's gone, you'll still know all these Marvel characters. This stuff, it lives for you. And you'll know their weird nicknames you give them. So you're just gonna have that knowledge just sitting in there.

Alex: 51:22

I am glad, man. I honestly, I'll, I'll be honest with you, I think that having like an affinity for the universe makes a huge difference. It's why I still play rivals like admittedly, casually with my friends, but I do because I like the, I'm not gonna play over, I'm sorry, I'm not playing Overwatch. I'm just not invested in those characters the same way I'm invested. Rivals Charact. Same reason why, like I've been playing Mystic Mayhem for funsies because I like the characters, right? Like I just, I'm invest. That in, I want my Scarlet Wish to just blow stuff up. Like, that's pretty cool. Like, I, I love the character. It makes a huge difference. And, uh, we're kind of, we're kind of losing focus here. But I do, I will say that Herbie is a good card, but I don't think it, uh, it doesn't trade punches effectively with Mr. Fantastic. I don't think, I think Mr. Fantastic. Stronger. I do think that Herbie. Could find spots outside of the fantastic decks, which I think are gonna be great specifically.'cause I think the effects are super strong. It has a very high floor because you have like the plus each of the activate abilities is fantastic. They're all great. They're they all above, they all punch above the two three stat line and it's the randomness that kind of makes a little more fair. But they're all great

Cozy: 52:24

effects. Yeah, I think for me it's like, because Pedro Pascal is so flexible too, the problem with that is. If you put them in other decks that are going to have other twos for the most part, then now you're adding a third two. You know what I mean? Like that's still what, there are decks that don't have twos that they're gonna fit in, but the ones that do, that's when it makes it just a bit more tough.

Alex: 52:43

Yeah, and Herbie was getting like with the double up, he was getting into hunky range for me on a regular basis. Yeah. Like this was like a two 10 and more, more often than not. The one thing that we'll say about Mr. Fanta, it sounds like we're doing these together, but it sounds like Mr. Fantastic. The one thing that I found interesting is I wasn't sure how to quite counter him'cause you can't quite use Mobius and Mobius because he only does that half the time. It's like he kind of feels like hard to counter with the exception of Red Guardian given a good old pump. But like overall, he feels like his effect has enough variation where your opponent doesn't quite know what's going on. Yep. But each of the effects is so strong for you that you're able to take off. I don't think Herbie quite hits that, but Herbie still definitely a good card. Cozy, there's anything else you wanted to say to close off on either Herbie or Mr. Fantastic?

Cozy: 53:24

I No, I, I'd just like the note you said about Uncountable kind of, I mean, like it is like, obviously Red Guardian just continues to look like a really good card because it shuts down. You know, it, it, it can target some of these, these human torches, the, the re, the, uh, the Reed Richards. Right? But when you have something that's so powerful in two different ways, it's like, let's say it was plus one power, not plus two. Like at that point, it's like, okay, then you can lean more on Mobius, right? But there's two head of Dragon and you have to pick one to go after and sometimes none. And then everyone's running that too. So do you make space for that? It's tough. Because he's gonna be existing for a very long time in this game. Reid is a powerful card

Alex: 54:02

talking about powerful cards. Cozy, I suspect a fantastic car just might be powerful enough to perhaps present the problem in Marvel Snap. I think the card is doing very well and there is, um, the topic of discussion essentially, like, could ftaa be a problem like from a couple different perspectives? First of all. In terms of the card itself being a four seven, that on Activate gives you its end of turn, uh, turn carts plus two power. There's always a risk with expensive activate cards. A four cost to Activate has an inherent risk of just falling a little flat. Activate has always felt better on less expensive cards, but this one here really does feel like Silver Surfer for the archetype. In fact, its animation is essentially Silver Surfer animation, which is kind of crazy. Yeah, this card has been very good.

Cozy: 54:49

I think it's. As high Evo dipped outta the meta a bit. We forgot that was always a good deck. And if it had something that could supercharge it, which it has hit in the past, but nothing, you know what I mean? Like I feel like so many cars that have come out in the past were always like, oh, this could be a good high Evo card. And then it just kind of always like fell flat. We've seen different variations, but nothing really ever stuck outside of some obvious stuff. This is one of those that it just, when you put that together with already such a powerful deck and it just scaling to its size that it does and, and it winning with the big power and it winning with tear and skips, that's when you get something crazy. Four seven to boot is not a bad stat line when you have something like this with it.

Alex: 55:32

There's no question about it. And one of the things about it too is that this is the kind of card where honestly you can play it on turn five and keep those end of a turn of effects happening. Playing on turn five is absolutely fine. Yeah. Why? Because you're floating that energy. You're ping that Hulk in your hand, you're puking the cyclops, you're doing all the things you want to do anyways. You got the misty night ping, and this is still prime for the activation on turn six or seven. Um, I tend to prefer magic based versions. Of high Evo. However, I do think that the best versions of high Evo will likely not include magic, simply because Merlin is so prevalent in the meta. Merlin stole a good card and if Merlin's gonna be popular, you can't play magic with confidence because Merlin just loves to eat that limbo. Yep. Are you team Bruce Banner or no? I always play Bruce. Yeah. Ever since the buff I'd find that like he's cop,

Cozy: 56:16

but I like, no, I think he's coped, but in the way of like unpredictable, that can win you games. And I like that. Like I think. I think I've always leaned towards that. Right. It's like the copycat versus not the, although I did see Thaddeus was getting, uh, a little bit of a, uh, yeah. Have you, have you dipped your toe back into Mr. Ross?

Alex: 56:31

So I did play some Thaddeus originally, but my, because I was playing an ot, she Hulk and Hulk version of the shell. And then ultimately what I did was I decided to cut the infin and then I wanted to lean much more towards the smaller end of turn cards. And so I started including, uh, Adam Warlock. Because I felt like Adam Morelocks likely to draw cards anyways, and he also might encourage people to play into a Cyclops location to get additional value for Cyclops because Adam Morelock plays very similarly to Nebula. The reason why he played Nebula, an Evo shell was'cause it forced players to play into that location, which gave Cyclops and even the likes of the thing, the Evo thing, the opportunity to have that greatest impact, which then made the abomination free. These versions of those decks don't play the abomination. So you don't necessarily have to do that. But if you play something like an Adam Morlock, it's either drawing cards or baiting opponents into what could be a potential cyclops location where he can maximize his pew pupilage. So I did cut Thaddeus Thunder Bull Ross, despite the fact he was pretty good. I didn't mind them. And I actually wonder if she Hulk actually stays in these decks because Yeah, I actually think you could probably cut She Hulk and commit your turn five to fantastic car.

Cozy: 57:39

We were already not on the train with this car whenever we thought it was gonna be mid, now that it's even better than mid Right. I think it just, it's just tough because you have, you know, I talked about the video you did about the situation with it. You just set a precedent. And when you have something that is now a good car, it just doesn't gimme warm feelings for the future of it. And again, in the ecosystem. Sure. It's like, okay, you could get the value of it. I just, maybe it won't matter as much when all the cards aren't tied together. If this was an independent car, I, you know what I mean? Like, I think that's what has me more, even more so. There's just a lot and I don't know it just has me a bit uneasy.

Alex: 58:20

Dude, everything that kinda like smatter, like I, your thoughts being all over the place. It's exactly how I feel like it's so hard. First of all, we both came in, uh, I came in at four. You came in at three. So I came in a little higher. Get smoke Cozy. I gotta win one eventually, right? Come on. No, no. I gotta win one eventually. But but anyways. With the super premium season of past what you're mentioning here, and it's been such a weird thing because we've, we even talked about it on your side. We did the Marvel Snap checkup. It's not just about the fantastic car'cause in a vacuum, right? The Fantastic car does not seem like that. I don't, man, it's not an argument of value. I keep saying this. It's not an argument of value because Marvel Snap cards are so unbelievably expensive as it is an extra$10 for men relevant card. Doesn't feel that awful. Like in terms of a monetary thing. Now again, there's exchange rates. Money's different for all different people, right? It's a com. It's impossible to make a blanket statement with regards to value that fits for everybody. So you're right, we're on a slippery slope. Man.

Cozy: 59:15

It, they would never do this, but like just Ima and I would say they never,'cause there's just no way marketing wise it would work out. It goes down the slippery slope of, okay, let's say there's a season pass plus. Plus. Now you had to have the season pass plus to get the plus, but the season PA pass stay with me. Plus had 6,000 tokens for five bucks. Okay. Wow. That's a deal. That's a huge deal. But then all of a sudden now you're having to, it's like you, you can keep on discounting the value of it in game, but then it's adding up and adding up, and that's where it's like. They're gonna continue to do that so long as people buy it and, uh, Hey, spoiler, dude, this car was bought like this could clearly the people play this card a lot. Like we've talked about cards in the past, like new cards that have come out. And we'd be like, oh, it has a, I mean, it, it, it has up to what, it's getting close to a 10% popularity. That's up there, bro. That's up there for premium plus pass card.

Alex: 1:00:04

They sold a lot of these. And, um, here's the thing, there's a couple things that really. Hold this whole situation in check first. This is a Series four card, so if it's a good card, it comes down at 3000 tokens at the end of the season. That at least is much more affordable than the 6,000 of a series five. That's not to saying it'll always be a series four. They could change it to a series five. I dunno if that's their intention or not. The other thing worth noting here is that they're, oh man, it's, I'm nervous that they made a really good card. The purchase one.'cause now you have two paywall cards, one of which is very competitive both of which are competitive. Let's be honest. They're both competitive. And so for the$20 you have yourself a situation where like you can get two very strong cards and have an advantage for this month. Like, let's call it what it is, right? And so it, it does set a very dangerous precedent because, you know, before the season passed, you were talking about playing Marvel Snap cost you$120 a year, USD. Now it's 240 if you want this. And what's crazy about it is I'm a huge Evo fan. I've loved Evo since Evo was a thing. It's been like my go-to deck. That and Surfer have been my two archetypes and I have not been playing Fantas car or Evo. Because I just, I, if I feel bad, like I just, I don't want to go against the community that, uh, you know, has a, like a valid issue with, with what's been going on with Snap and it, it almost feels bad. And this is a, someone Cozy I'll admit openly. Even before Fanta, I bought the super premium season pass when it was introduced.'cause I just, I like the borders, I like having cool splits. I I just bought it'cause I figured I make content for this game. Um, the extra 10 levels is whatever, but you know what, if it, it makes it so I can take a couple nights off and still complete the season pass and all, I'm all for it. And so I was always okay with giving second dinner that, that extra 10,$15 or whatever it was, and in theory, this should have been an additional value for someone like me. And instead I just feel a little dirty man. Like I, I don't know how to even. I'm not sure how to feel about it. You know what I mean?

Cozy: 1:01:56

Yeah. And I'm the o the opposite. I wasn't buying the super premium and then now I did because of course, why, you know what I mean? It's like I'm not missing out on that. Right. For, for something so simple. So it it, they're catching multiple PE and then they probably, they might even be getting people that don't get the pass it all and they might as well just get two cards for whatever. Right. I, I don't know how many of that they're getting, but either way it, it's just. We already, we've said slippery slope so many times that the, the slope is already slipped. You know what I mean? So it, I just don't love kind of where this trend could go.

Alex: 1:02:28

No, I agree. And um, I know that we've been kind of like a little rambly on this. It's because honestly, like it's such a conflicting topic and I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it on the surface. Right. The value of spending$10 to get an additional card should be okay in Snap. That should, that represents a pretty good value. And the season pass from a value perspective has always been a bastion of value. It's just when you take into account the Kid Omega stuff, and that's ridiculous. The Kid Omega stuff's ridiculous and unacceptable. The game modes being heavily kind of like grinding and stuff like that, that's ridiculous too. I'm just hoping that second dinner takes a look at the information they've received. Take a look at the feedback and says, listen, I, I get it. They gotta sell cards. It, they cannot, they cannot keep the lights on if they don't sell cards. It's a card game. They have to sell cards. There has to be some sort of monetary hook. Like, I get that. Let's be real here, but let's hope that they look at these signals and say, okay, the kid Omega thing, that's not cool. That's not worth it. Get rid of that. No more kid Omega crap. But if this fantastic car, if it if people like, you know, if, if we can fix in some of the, the rougher edges of the monetization and we can make this super premium season pass, feel like it has some value for players while not alienating players who want the free to play route or keep it series four to make it so that those tokens are much more discounted when that thing comes up, they have to do something to find that balance. And then it'll feel okay, but they can't have all of this. They can't have their cake and eat it too. They gotta pick their poison.

Cozy: 1:04:02

Yeah. I don't know. I just feel like, listen, the lights are on. They got a hundred million billion funding, whatever they got, right? So like the lights are on just fine for them. It's like, man, how cool would it been if First Steps is coming out later this month? And to celebrate, if you log in, you know, okay, you got your login bonus, right? So you got people coming to your game every day. Maybe they weren't gonna come and make it steep. Make it 20 days, 25 days outta the 30. I don't care. Make it the whole month. Celebrate the movie, coming out with a brand new free card. Hey, how fun. Win for win. Why have to charge for it, right? Like, we keep on, I feel like comp, it is like, oh, it's okay, you know, they gotta make it, they got it just in this span of the lifecycle for the game. Like, no, I just, I, I think it's just crazy that they just keep, where's the bone? Where's the, where's the, like, Hey, thanks for playing players. Appreciate you guys. Right? And it's only when something bad happens. And I, that to me just feels icky. I don't like it. I just don't. And, and I, I. Feel like we, we can keep slipping and saying, well, you know, I get it and I, it just, it, it, yeah. I don't know. The whole thing's a little wild to me, but either way came out pretty strong. We'll see how it all settles up.

Alex: 1:05:02

Yeah. We'll have to see. And I, I do agree they could have gone the approach of trying to incentivize like players to return to the game by having a highly meta relevant card, perhaps in a login bonus. Something along those lines. I'm sure we'll talk about fantastica again in the future, as you can say a very, a very, uh, sensitive and, uh. Evolving topic in the world of Snap as that takes us store, Snapchat mailbag, Cozy. We have a few things here that we want to get through and uh, you know what? We just finished talking about Merlin and Drew Peterson comes in with a question all about Merlin. Here's one thing to point out about Merlin as a season pass card that I love. Usually you get the season pass and you're excited to use it for the first weekend mission and maybe the second. But Merlin did not feel that way at all. Even this last weekend. It was like, sure, I'd love to play some Merlin.

Cozy: 1:05:48

Merlin. I feel like, funny enough, remember what I said going into his season, how I was like, man, I'm just gonna be playing this car for a very long time.'cause I feel like there's just so many, there's so many decks, there's so many ways you can experiment with it. And the fun factor is tied by, and you look back at June, man, there's a lot of fun to be had. And that month, like Reed is awesome and better in terms of. Play because of consistency. Merlin's more fun. Like he just has you, you know, obviously getting things cheaper for cost is relative, so whatever. It could hit crazy stuff. But I feel like, yeah, Merlin's gonna always have that, that fun factor, I think. I think that's what it answers what you just said.

Alex: 1:06:24

Yeah. Yeah. Merlin was just a great season pass card. Applicable to all players of all collection levels. It was a great filler card and it had its role in Medex, so very well designed card there as Rim comes in with a fun fact, Cozy. You just finished saying that you're a Disney connoisseur of knowledge. Listen to this. Fun fact, the Underminer from the Incredibles is actually kind of based on Moleman, because the Incredibles takes a lot of inspiration from the Fantastic four.

Cozy: 1:06:51

Ah, that would make sense. Okay. That, yeah, that, that, in fact, that's a fun little Easter egg then, because I remember, yeah, it was like the first thing I saw from it.

Alex: 1:06:59

Yeah, because I was like, looking at Moleman. I, did you even bring up the Underminer? Did you use that particular name?

Cozy: 1:07:03

Yeah. It looked like, uh, no, I think I said he looks like the guy from, uh, Moleman, I think is what I call him or something. Maybe I said Underminer. Yeah. I don't remember,

Alex: 1:07:09

but I, I feel like you might've actually kind of brought that up. Which is funny because, uh, yeah, and apparently he has like, it's, he's just a small cameo role in The Incredibles, which I, I haven't actually watched with my kids. I kind of forgot that movie existed. Good one. Dude. That's a good, the first one's

Cozy: 1:07:21

a good

Alex: 1:07:22

movie. Yeah, I, I, I just remember the scene when he like punches his boss through all the wood, all the wood doors. It's like the opening where he gets denied. Yeah, it's like the opening. I just remember that. It's so funny'cause he's so like, just like the concept is superheroes

Cozy: 1:07:33

trying to blend in and then like using their power sometimes and people around him seeing it is the, is amazing. I love it. Like he gets upset and he picks up his car and like this little kid on a bike goes by and he's just like, you know, and like, dude, if I had super strength and you had to like, try to keep that in, bro, like, I'd be cracking up. I don't know. I, I break a couple times.

Alex: 1:07:51

Yeah. Yeah. It's funny'cause like yeah, there's, I love those fish outta water type stories. Like even with Thor, like the original Thor, I like the idea that like, he's just a dude, but he thinks he's still a God. Like, I love that like, uh, that, uh, plot mechanism. I can't think of what the exact word is that they used to describe those things, but I think it's really fascinating. Jamie Bignell comes in with something very interesting here and says, Hey guys, love your work and the Snapchat. What do you think about collectors reserves? I haven't opened a single once in second dinner, made the change to them way back when. I can't even remember. Despite being a casual gamer, I'm approaching 900 unopened reserves. I'm hoping they'd make improvements to them, but after so long, I doubt it. Should I hold on for a change in the future or just enjoy whatever pixel variants that, that they give me now? I look forward to show every week. Thank you very much.

Cozy: 1:08:34

Join in, man. Join the club. I'm, I'm there too. If they ever do an open all, I'm gonna be a rich man, but like I, for now, I just like watching number go up.

Alex: 1:08:43

I have like 1300, I think 1200 range. Like I have a ton. And I don't know what to do with them. I just hope that they one day make them a little better. And guys, we'll see you on that next Snapchat episode.

Cozy: 1:08:53

Guys, have a good week out there. Enjoy yourself until the next one. Happy snapping.