The Snap Chat: Marvel Snap Podcast
The Snap Chat: Marvel Snap Podcast
Kneel Before Galactus! Fastball Special & Maverick Review | Is Weapon H Worth It? ft. Bynx | The Snap Chat Ep. 161
In this episode of The Snap Chat, Alex welcomes back long-time creator Bynx to discuss the current state of Marvel Snap, touching on Bynxs' new content series and the community's urgent desire for Series Drops to fix the bloated Series 4 and 5 economy. The duo dives deep into the "Weapon X" season reviews, analyzing Weapon H as a fun but skippable addition for Discard loyalists, while expressing skepticism about the new "Hybrid" Discard/Destroy cards, Marrow and Wild Child, which feel too niche despite strong stats. The excitement peaks with Maverick, a 4-star pick for Surfer decks, and especially the Fastball Special, which earns a rare 5-star rating from Binks for its incredible potential to revitalize Galactus and Nimrod strategies. The conversation wraps up with a mailbag segment on the Grand Arena event, where the hosts praise the concept of pre-made decks but critique the poor balance execution, ultimately suggesting a hybrid format to improve future limited-time modes.
Join Alex Coccia and special guest Bynx as they chat about this and more on this episode of The Snap Chat and catch Cozy and Alex every week as they discuss all things Marvel Snap.
Have a question or comment for Cozy and Alex? Send them a Text Message.
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!
Hey everyone, and welcome to the next edition of the Snapchat. Today I'm joined once again by a guest who I have the utmost respect for, and that is Binks. It has been a while since we've, uh, had a chance to talk on the podcast here, and since you've actually released a lot of new interesting content, which I'd love to break down. But before that, how you doing? My.
Bynx:Dude, I'm doing so good, man. I, I really appreciate it. We had a, a really, really nice chat. Uh, a little bit catching up. Like every time I feel like we, we get the chance to just sit down and chat, man. It's like old friends getting like right back into it. But I've been really good, man. Uh, and yeah, you mentioned, you know, I've been doing, um, you know, we talked a lot about just like content and trying to, to improve stuff. I've been really, really impressed with, uh, a lot of things you've been doing with like consistency and everything like that. And yeah, I started actually, um, uh, a new kind of like weekly series called Binks Banz where, uh, I like go back and, uh, I look into something cool or interesting that's kind of happened throughout the, the lifetime as you've, been playing this game for a really long time too. There's just really cool things. So I've been, I've been going back and finding cool stuff like that, and then also like finding time to, to talk about things. So it's been really, really fun, man. I, I appreciate you asking about it.
Alex:Yeah,'cause I was watching, like, I actually watch a lot of Marvel Snap content and uh, I found Binks Bands to be like a really cool take on that type of like, that type of video. And also it like your personality comes through in it and obviously your domain knowledge. Like the fact that like, bro, this game has been here since the sorry, this bro has been here since the start of the game. You know what I mean? Your legit, legit, one of the OGs, one of the first people through the door. And so your perspective is, is super fascinating. So down below I'm gonna link the most recent video of Bink bands because I think it's absolutely worth watching. And, uh, Binks, I think your content has been phenomenal, dude. And for me it's been like, it's been wild. So, uh, I'm in a, the stage in my life right now where like my kids are in so many different sports and I've been trying my best to like really refocus on what I love about Snap. And I have to tell you, I gotta give second dinner credit. I really do like the game mode infusion that they're providing. Uh, sometimes it's at odds with like, you know, oh, they release the game mode as soon as. You know, the new season drops and uh, you know, you don't have enough time to kind of rank up and experience the ladder, so to speak.'cause you, you wanna get in the new game. We get the unlocks and stuff. But I feel like they're doing a really good job of keeping Marvel Snap fresh. And I think that like, there has been a lot of effort on second dinner side to not only improve the new player experience and the, uh, new player acquisition, but to make the game consistently feel like it's evolving and fresh. And of course there's always room for improvement, but for me I always get back to the fact that like, I just, I like playing Marvel Snap Man. I just have fun playing the game and, uh, you know, for all of its ups and downs and this and that, at the end of the day I boot up the app and I'm like, yeah, this is pretty cool.
Bynx:Yeah, dude, I a hundred percent man. I talk about that all the time. I feel like, uh, I honestly think me and you are maybe like two of the most positive four, like Marvel Snap people out there. I'm sure some people get annoyed by it, but like, I, I can only speak my truth, man. Like, yeah, it's legitimately like the, like just the most fun game. I always think back to, like, when it first came out, I was like. Because I've always liked games that are like bite-size and like you can get one in really quickly. Like I've always loved like, like Rocket League style games or like Pokemon Unite was the only MO I got interested in'cause it was like a 10 minute, uh, moa, like a really like bite-sized moa. So it's just like a super strategic card game that you can get done in four minutes and even if you lose, there's like ways to make losing feel less bad. And then if you do lose, you just say, ah. Whatever, go on to the next one. Yeah, man, I, dude, and it's always so good to talk to you because I feel like you, you also like share that sentiment. It's just, I just love things that, that I love and, and I smile about it. I'm always happy to, to boot it up and especially with like, man, the balance has been just so good. I feel like for like, the last six months, I don't know if you feel that way too, but like, there's been times in Snap where I feel like it's been kinda like up and down and sometimes it just feels really hard to be able to kind of just play whatever I want and like make stuff up. But like, I feel like for the last six months like sometimes they go, well, sometimes they don't go well, but you always feel like competitive when you're just kind of like throwing things together and making like cool ideas work. You don't really have to do exactly what you gotta do. You need,
Alex:yeah, no, no doubt. Like it always feels like even a deck that might be B or C tier of like any meta list or whatever, you can still get infinite with, you can still rank up with, you can still do well with, and I feel like one of the major challenges Snap has right now is that you're getting so many new cards. Like the game is, I don't wanna say the game's old. Because the game isn't old, especially when you think about like Tcgs, like magic and stuff like that. But Marvel Snap doesn't have rotation, right? And so as a result, every single card that comes out, like we're gonna talk about with weapon H, every single card that comes out has to be able to compete within the archetypes it's niched into for those 12 slots. And I think that's one of the challenges we have where like, I think that they're releasing cards balanced, they are, I think they're trying to create interesting cards, but some of them are like, I don't wanna say not worth the investment, but I feel like there's a hit and miss between like, okay, you can play, like for instance, zoo. Zoo is definitely like a, right now people say it's like a B, like a CT deck. I think it's actually probably better than that, but it has these linchpin cards like, you know, Giles Mockingbird and stuff like that. Because of the fact that like, those have hung so high in like the series costs and stuff like that. I think one of the challenges with Marvel Snap is that it's very difficult for people to like, experiment with all different archetypes. So like, we'll get right into it with like the review of, uh, of weapon, uh, weapon H for instance, right? So Weapon H came out this week and I actually really like the card. I think the card's cool. It's a seven 14. You discard at once. It's a five 14 basically red skull without the downside. It's a good card, man. But like, the problem is, is like, let's say you are a relatively new player. You're opening up Series pacs, and you're looking at weapon H and okay, discard first of all is relatively inexpensive to build for the most part, but do you have Corvus, gla? Do you have approximate Midnight? Do you have Concho? Do you have. Modoc, do you have scoring? Do you, and all of a sudden it's like, well, I can make like a scuffed version of a discard list, but it's not really gonna hold up. And I think that's one of the challenges that Marvel Snap has where you have this inflation of like series cards. Everything's series five, it feels like, which is actually a question in the mail bag. So we'll get into that too. But because everything is like kind of expensive, the result is that with something like weapon H, if you own, if if weapon H is the only card you're missing to kind of fill out the archetype, then like, cool, it's a cool card to get. Why not? But a lot of the players that I'm speaking to are like, well yeah, Alex, I want weapon H, but I also need Corvus. I need Proxima. I need you, I need, and it's just too much to get in. You know what I mean? So I think that's one of the challenges. But you are right, even if you can't build the meta deck list that people talk about, right? And you know, I will feature in a video or you know, whoever. There are so many ways for you to cook, so many ways for you to cook and you still be, you still can be competitive with even something that might be considered seed here at any given time.
Bynx:Yeah, definitely, man. No, I, I mean, I agree. I, I think that we're definitely getting overdue for a somewhat decent sized series shop'cause it is just feeling like so inflated the, uh, the upper level. And I do, I mean I, I, I feel like you're a little bit better at I, I guess seeing people from like their perspective or, or maybe like being more. Open or, or aware of it because I, I just kinda have a hard time because as someone who's, you know, been series five complete for so long I don't I I try not to, I guess like, talk about or, or give my experience on something that I don't really have experience with, with which is that side of it. So like I feel like when people ask me about it on stream and stuff like that, like I kind of, I kind of give some like weird and, and sideways answers, but at, at the end of the day, I definitely think like a, a big series shop would be really, really nice to get some things smoothed out. But I, I, I certainly agree that, um, there, there are a lot of ways to be creative and, and there's a problem I would say with like, like, let's talk about weapon h for example, where this can kind of be, it's like there, there are cards that come out that are good. Like regardless, or you can kind of like build a round, right? Or you can fit into like different things without having to have everything. But like weapon H definitely does feel like, like the deck that I, I found that I really like with them is more of like a very tempo focused discard deck where you're just playing like everything that can get discarded. And that does include a lot of like series five and series four cards. So I think there's kind of a, a give and take. It definitely does hurt with, with things like weapon H because this is something where if you don't have all those tools and you're just like, lady sing it like once, like, is that really worth it? Or maybe, you know, you don't like,'cause I feel like corvus is like, so important for this. So I feel like there's kind of a give and take because there's some cards that go out like Prowler where no matter what, what you know, you're looking for, that card can work for you. You can find a million ways to, to fit that into a different thing. Whereas cards that are a little bit more specialized, like weapon h that really require those two tools to feel like you're building a, a competitive deck. I could definitely see the, the problem like showing up there.
Alex:For sure, like a good card like that is like Merlin, Merlin can go anywhere, right? Like Merlin was a great season pass card. And uh, I know we want to dive into the review of, of Weapon H but I think we're touching on the series drops a little bit. So I'm actually just gonna throw the mailbag question out here right now because I, I really like what we're talking about here. It was Kai that said, and this was in reference to something that I had said on the prior podcast. I Bings, I was shocked and I stated, proximal midnight is still a Series five card and I was blown away. I didn't realize proximal midnight was still series five. And then Kazu had said, bruh, Jeff is still series five. And we literally had a season pass card spider punk, which plays almost identical to him. I can understand Galaxys or Thanos, but it still sucks that we have old ass cards from 2023 in series five. Uh, that was the statement. So banks like, I'll, I'll let you kind of take the floor on what your thoughts are on that, but like, they're right man. Like we really have not had series drops. The last major one we're almost on a year.'cause they did one in like December and I think they did another. What, 10 or 15 card drop like a couple months later when they, when they had just taken over like the, with the big publishing change switched and then it just stopped. Mm-hmm. Right. So yeah, man, there's cards from 2023. 2023 still in series five.
Bynx:Yeah. I, I think it's something that they should look at it and I think, you know, you talked about how they are making some, some steps with trying to get, you know, returning player acquisition or trying to work on new player acquisition. You, you know, I feel like they're definitely signaling that that's something that's important to them. And I think something that could really, really push for something like that would be like a really big series drop, you know, like something where. People will tell their friends, be like, Hey, you know, like, or, or like, will actually go around and be something that's like truly impactful. Now there's always the, the plus and minus, because I do feel like the Snap economy has gotten better almost consistently. Yep. The entire time. There's been a couple hiccups but you know, the graphs like, this, but it's still going in the, in the positive direction, I would say. So it's, so, it's hard and I, I understand a lot of their communication with, you know, if there was series drops and this then like, you, you know, what's it gonna do for things? And you, you do have to understand things for the OR or you don't. You can do whatever you want, but I, I try and at least understand things from the business side and try and you, you know, I guess give credit where credit is due, where, you know, having a digital trading card game that is successful is. Almost impossible. Ben Broad is like the only person who can do it with not like an existing property. It would appear, but it's very, very rare and it's very, very hard to do. But I do think that something like a big series drop or something that gets people talking is something that Marvel Snap definitely needs if they want to keep pushing that returning player, new player acquisition.
Alex:Yeah, no, for sure. Now I'm gonna jump on the heels. I'm gonna get adv in advance of the comments here'cause I know someone's gonna say it. I'm gonna beat you to it. Uh, bx I will tell you that Ben Broad did on in her stone, he was using the Warcraft ip and then here he is using the Marvel ip.
Bynx:So I I, I think to be fair, like, uh, e even that, I mean we've seen actually so many digital trading card games come and use ips that, that are like that and fail. I mean, we saw DC Tool Force. I, we, I've seen. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I remember playing Snap Bunch Snap. A bunch go up and down. Right. The only digital trading card games that, that actually end up being profitable are ones that are taking traditional trading card games and converting them. So you've seen it with like Yugi Master Dual Pokemon Pocket, which is like a simplified version of the Pokemon TCG. But outside of that, I mean, even though they are using really good ip, which I think is really important for the recognition and everything like that no one else is doing it, man. Like, there, there's like Shadow verse is like the only other example when I, I've asked so many times and tried to like figure out, like that's the only one outside of like Hearthstone and, and Marvel Snap that's really been successful. So I do have to like, give them credit or, or give them that eye that you know, it is a very hard thing to do and clearly they've done it so you, you know, they, they know what they're talking about to a bit. But I, I do definitely think like a big influx would be big. But I, I definitely get the IP thing you're talking about.
Alex:Yeah. I was on, uh, steam and I was scrolling through like the game awards thing, which was awesome. Cozy was actually at the Game Awards, which is unbelievable. He was with the rivals team there. What an awesome experience that must have been. And um, anyways, I was scrolling through the game awards section on, on Steam and sure enough Marvel it said past winners and you, you scroll down and Marvel Snap had like this big banner on Steam where I was like, oh yeah, like it won game, like Mobile game of the year. Mobile game of the year. Yeah. 2023. Right. Uh, yeah, it sounds right. I feel like, uh, they deserve it too. Yeah, I know the hell. Yeah. They deserved it. And it's funny'cause I feel like we're like, you know, Al Bunny taught about like, like his, his rushing average in Polk Kai we're like you know, Todd, about like the good old days. Like, you know, well remember when it won, you know,
Bynx:remember we won Steve, two guys sit down and name old football players. Yeah. Yeah.
Alex:But, uh, anyways, we are so off the beaten path, but I honestly thought that was a really good conversation about serious drops and kind of the state of the game. And for the record, I think that they've been very, very generous with the limited time game modes. Not only do you have infusions of like fun and interesting things, like they're clearly trying to cook with the game modes. Uh, but like they're giving away cards, man. And even if you're like, well, some, they're getting some stuff now behind this, the premium pass still tied with potentially two cards or a card behind 800 gold, which is a hell of a lot cheaper. Then 6,000 tokens I will add. So, um, I think that the, uh, the, the card acquisition rate has improved. It's just there, there are a ton of cards coming out like we're gonna talk about today. Yeah. Like, there's literally a whole whack of cards coming out. Yeah.
Bynx:We have a whole wall of them.
Alex:Yeah. But with that being said, weapon h Um, now in terms of weapon h review wise as I kind of alluded to prior, before we kind of went on a tangent, I actually like the card. I do, I like the card, but it was one of those situations where we needed to wait to see stats to see if it actually displaced the current versions of Discard. Now I'm gonna jump ahead here and I'm gonna steal a little bit of thunder and say that according to untapped based statistics ranked 82 100 over, well since it's released, essentially it would appear as though it consistently has a one or 2% win rate lower than that of just straight up apocalypse or straight up concho. And very consistently the cube rate is also lower. So it would appear as though the initial stats we are receiving is showing that weapon h on average, makes the deck worse. Now, it doesn't mean that, you know, we might not cook something unique with Weapon H, but as of right now, the archetype as you would expect it to be played is just straight up better with cons, apoch, right? So that's kind of a little depressing, but I don't know, they don't have really that many dials that can move on this card. I still like it. I still think I might wanna play it. Bx, how was your experience with weapon H?
Bynx:I, you know, I liked the card too. I originally tried it in like a black night list and it felt okay. It felt like it was probably best in slot in a black night list, maybe, or maybe not. I couldn't exactly tell, but I just, I just think Black Knight is. Terrible. Like Black Knight is like a way to make big power to get around Shang Chi that no one plays anymore. And it's just like that deck just doesn't feel very good. And I think that I do think that I'm, I'm not saying that it's better or worse in a way, but I do think a lot of that like wind percentage or just like. Putting them into like more classic discard deck. I don't think that works. I don't think this is the kind of card that fits into, you know, either like the deck and bullseye style of discard or the Dracula Apoch style of discard. Uh, I think this kind of like lends itself to a different style of archetype. And I really liked it in like a tempo. Uh, I think I mentioned this before, like a tempo style, discard. List where you're kind of just okay with all of your cards being discarded and then if you discard a card, you don't wanna discard, you're running concho. So you can revive that. Uh, and you're able to like push your, um, energy level with, um, with Corvus to just push ahead. It's a very solid body of three, five your discarding cards that can end up going out onto the board. And I feel like it definitely worked very, very well in that style of list where you're just getting like a three 14 to play alongside like a morus or something at the end of the game and just like blow out with power. So I think that some of it might come with people having this idea of what this card should be and trying to force weapon h into it as opposed to, I think he's a much better card. When you change the way that you're playing, discard to be a little bit, you know, different and have a bit of a different focus, then I think weapon H actually improves and makes that much more competitive than it was before because it kind of replaces like Wolverine that would've been in that list, uh, which is like a, a discard and then comes a five, which basically like a bad proxim in that deck to this card that could be super, super impactful at the late game.
Alex:I actually like that we do often find that like, you know, a new card releases and people just try to shoehorn it into like the existing archetype in some way instead of trying to actually brew around it. Now I was playing some Agatha Redshift with it, with Esan. I liked the idea of like Eson pulling the, you know, the. The Ebony blade pulling what Redshift generates generally was, uh, was good too. And then I found myself playing a form of dependable discard, where I was essentially using like Colonel America Power Zombie Man, or whatever the heck his name is Zombie Power Man. Zombie Power man. Yeah, that would be, that would be the name that I, honestly, for some reason, zombie Power Man and uh, oh my gosh, zombie giant man. Yeah. I can't get their names right, dude.
Bynx:I say their names wrong all the time, and people correct me and I just ignore them. I just, I'm just, I'm just gonna keep saying it wrong, I guess. I don't know. Yeah,
Alex:I, it's just, it's for me at this point, it like, doesn't even matter. People know what I'm saying when I'm saying, uh, zombie z Zion man, and people are like, oh yeah, I know what Alex is talking about there. But yeah, I was playing in that kind of deck and uh, even like, there was situations where like. It felt bad to like not play it as like a two 14 or three, four, whatever the heck it would drop down to. Three 14. I was like, you know what though? I have a Dracula on board. Dracula gets the power and then Mobius goes up still. So like there is still benefit to it. And generally speaking, like I did win games where I used it as a backup apoch, it felt versatile. It felt decent, but it felt like a card you don't have to chase if you are a discard. Stan, definitely
Bynx:agree with that.
Alex:Yeah. Like if you, if you're a discard Stan, like absolutely add it to your collection.'cause it's just, it's a good card. Like it is a good card. But I wonder if it's like, I don't know. I don't know if like you're gonna see weapon h be the premier version of this card. Not yet. But I wonder if it's like, I don't even know what ology there,
Bynx:there's a card, there's a card coming later too that we're gonna talk about though that might have, uh, some impact on a deck of weapon h might, might be in.
Alex:That's true. Uh, banks, any closing thoughts on Weapon Nation, whether or not people should be throwing their tokens at'em?
Bynx:Yeah, I think you hit it, the nail on the head. If you're love discard decks, you love the discard archetype, obviously you want this card. It's interesting. You can build different kinds of discard decks with it. If that's not super, your cup of tea, it's pretty nice to, pretty nice card to skip. And it's always, uh, we, you kind of mentioned this before, it's kind of funny where like every card feels like it has to be impactful, but then the moment it's a little too impactful, then people get mad. So it's like this impossible balance to always hit. So I think cards like this are good for the game. You know, it's good for a specific type of player that they can go out and get. It doesn't seem like it's gonna be something that's way overpowered or something that you have to feel like you, you need to have to compete. And I, I think that's the, that's a very solid kind of car to be coming out on Snap.
Alex:Yeah, absolutely. No question about it. And that is gonna take us too. Our new cards of this month. We have Maverick. Now I came in hot on Maverick in the preview. I got, listen, I gotta tell you, not, not only is Maverick spicy, the three three that reads activate give the next card. You play power equal to this. Card's power, right? Also, I always find that Marvel Snaps cards, they don't use like personal pronouns. It doesn't say like, Maverick, give the card my power. You know what I mean? Just give it my power. Could save some textbooks, but maybe there's a reason why that they don't do that. When I reviewed it on Dec, uh, you know, when I kind of gave it on the preview, this was my five star of the month. There were two cards that I really liked this month. I liked Maverick and I really liked Aurora. And Aurora for reasons that I, I can't quite get into. I will get into Aurora's Alpha flight, so hell yeah. I'm gonna get in on it and, uh, and your boy's making the Aurora video for the official Marvel Snap channel, so let's go. Congrats. Yeah. Hell yeah. So I'm actually excited. Well it was Alpha Flight, so I saw, I'm like, yo, you're releasing an Alpha flight video. There's only one Canadian you've gotta get on the screen here. So that's how, that's how uh, that happened there. I dunno if I'm supposed to reveal that. Did I just get kicked outta the Creator program? Possibly. I, um, I'm probably fine. I'm fine. I don't think they care that much about that, but anyways well, we'll find out if they care about that. So, um, so the three three Maverick, the reason why I'm so excited about this, first of all, I think in this given circumstance, it activate card, I think activates actually really good here. I think it's really good'cause with surfers sometimes you wanna sequence things in a very interesting way and it allows you to do that. Not only then, not only that, it is, I don't know, I don it is only that. I just wanna play it in Surfer. I don't care. There's probably a million ways. If you wanna see true Cooks, you go to B'S channel where he's gonna cook. If you wanna see Silver Surfer Degeneracy, you, you know where you're gonna find it. I'm not even gonna come with another deck. I'm literally coming with Silver Surfer. And only Silver Surfer.'cause I am so excited to pull up my, my, uh, my boy in, uh, in Silver. I'm
Bynx:just excited. Did I, this is a, this is a great Surfer card, man. I, I think it's a, a very powerful Surfer card. Especially ones that are using things like, um, like galata and, and you know, gwenpool and stuff like that. Like if you're buffing this in hand, it's even more impactful because if you do, if you wanna get like the Surfer buff on it, then you have to play a card after Surfer. And then the two points that you're getting extra from Maverick from that, they would've just gotten from being played before the Surfer anyway. So like, I don't think surfers impact on it will. Mattered like too terribly much. Maybe in like a Surfer abs man type thing where like you play the Surfer and then you activate it and then you get that power extra on the abs man to get even more power on onto it. What I'm excited for this with is the idea that I, I was not excited for this and people were actually asking me about this card and they mentioned Galactus. They said this is a card that you can play out that will give its power to Galactus before it generates. I'm like three power. You could try and buff it, but then you know, you might be trying to buff other things instead and it might not work. And then I remembered Joe Costa and Prodigy are in the game, and you could set up a lane with Maverick, Joe Costa Prodigy, trigger'em all in that Rube Goldberg machine and slam down like a 21 Power Galactus. So that's kind of something I'm really excited about. I think all activate cards, you really have to think about how they'll work with like the Jo Costa blender that goes on to just make a million activates for it. And I actually think that there is something here with a style of Galactus utilizing that, that Jo Costa trigger, which could be really, really exciting and really fun to play.
Alex:I don't know how you've done this, but I'll tell you, I think you've piqued my interest because there's something over the last little while that I've learned about myself. Is that if I can make people just kneel before Galactus, I will do it. In fact, it ruins so many of my videos. Anytime I'm doing a video about a card, like at Aman Human Fusion or fall on one or whatever it is, if Galactus in my deck, it's not even a, it's not a video about at Man Human Fusion. It's not a video before. It's like the Green Cobbin
Bynx:mask. Play me. Go ahead. Play me. Yeah. I'm
Alex:like, no, they're gonna kneel. That's what's gonna happen. Mm-hmm. It's just me snapping into making them kneel over and over again. And I love it.'cause everyone comes in, they're like, well this is not actually a Nana Man team infusion video. It's just like a tus video. But I'm okay with that. Right. You would have to, you. Okay, I swear this is what my notes say. So I have a bunch of notes for this card. One of the first note reads, and I'm gonna quote my exact note. I'm gonna play it in Surfer and only Surfer, I-D-G-A-F. And for those that don't know what I-D-G-A-F means, it's, I don't give a flip. And for some reason, I think you've actually convinced me. Otherwise, I might just try to bring something galaxys or I might just check out your video and then call it like Binks Neil and just play some of what you cook too. I didn't actually think galaxys, but if you're trying to do that, uh, the, the Goldberg machine, as you said, every time people say it's Roone Goldberg, is it, it's when you meet, do the really complicated machine rub. Rube Goldberg. Rube Goldberg. When I, someone says Goldberg, I always think about like the Mighty Ducks and how like he was like the worst goalie ever, ever thought about
Bynx:wwf.
Alex:Oh, Goldberg, that's another Goldberg. That was the guy that speared everyone, right? That's right. And he was undefeated for the longest time. Mm-hmm. Buddy, I wonder how much you got paid from the WWE just to like wander out, just to like, you know, do the entrance just to get speared by Goldberg and just never have a career after that. Like he just hit so many random, I'd be down for that man that I let you spear me for like 10 bucks, man. Yeah, I do it for
Bynx:free.
Alex:Yeah, it's true. That's true. But uh, anyways, yeah, I do think this card's really cool because there's a lot of like natural things you can do with it as well. Like again, leaning into Surfer a little bit here forge into it is perfect. And the reason why I like forge into it is because like sometimes with Forge, you play forge on two and like you're like okay, I don't really have a great plate. Next. I hope I top X Shaw. I hope I top deck Surfer. I hope I top deck blank. You play Forge into Maverick and Maverick's just like, don't worry bud. I got you. And he just like. Just he'll yeet that power whenever you need it. Like he kind of is almost like a, mm-hmm. Like a redirect, like a ricochet of forges power. So I kind of think that's cool. That might be some added versatility for Forge. So I think Forged Stocks goes up. I like the idea that you can actually play Maverick on Five Five's a bit of a weird turn for Surfer at times. You're not really playing Sarah anymore, so it's usually like, I'm just gonna play another three, or whatever. If you think about it, you can actually forge Maverick or you can play Maverick on Five after it's been hit with Gwenpool or Galata on four, you know what I mean? Into the mm-hmm. Into the, uh. The maverick. And so I feel like on turn five then you hit that on
Bynx:brood and then the brood gets huge and then the Surfer comes. Yeah, man. Yeah, exactly right. The, the idea with bro, with brood and Shai, I guess I didn't even like think about as much of how much that deck would really benefit from like that ping ponging of power where now instead of forge giving you just like two power on three broods, now it's giving you two power on something, which is then giving you five power on your broods. Like it, that, that is really, really nice how all those cards could, could really synergize together. Yeah.
Alex:So anyways, that's, that's my thought. I just, I'm excited for a Surfer card. Will it hit five star power wise? I actually don't think so. I'll be honest with you guys. When I say five stars, I'm talking, Alex is just super excited for this card and I can't wait to play it. This is my five, oh man. I'm. This or Aurora, which one do I like more? It's hard to pick. It's really hard to pick. They're both five. Like, I, I'm gonna get these cards no matter what. If I was a free to play player, I'd have saved for these cards for two months. You know what I mean? Like, I would've been absolutely okay. Whether or not they're mad or not. I want these cards. That's where I'm at.
Bynx:If I had to give like a power rating, what does Aurora do by the way, you, what does Aurora do? You've mentioned Aurora like three times now, and I, I haven't I don't. Aurora is next week. Video.
Alex:Hold on. I think, don't I have her here? Hold on. I can just switch to the, oh, buddy. Look at this Aurora. The six six that reads ah, on reveal. Give one of your other honor reveal cards at each location plus two power repeat for ongoing activate. And end of turn, that's what she does. Sorry, it, it was hard to read'cause it's like really, really small on my screen, but, um, no, I have
Bynx:seen this one. This one is, this is a sick card man. That they're the yeah, the deck building possibilities are endless.
Alex:It's, yeah, it's super cool. So I'm really excited about this card too. So Maverick and Aurora for me are just two absolute bangers. If I had to guess like the star rating power level, this is, I think it's an easy four, like five star excitement, four star power for me. Binks star rating. What do you think, bud?
Bynx:Yeah, I think like. Man, dude, the more you're talking about like Surfer, I, I think that this is a card that like, might actually really help Surfer get to the power levels. It needs to, to feel like kind of that like forever meta card that it had been for so long and it's still kind of is now. But like I, I do feel like the more I'm thinking about it with how it interacts with Surfer, I think it's really good. I think four stars is great. I think, I think I'm gonna agree with you on a four star power level for this. And it's just, I mean, it's just a really interesting card that like, you know, Galactus or I, I think that there's a lot of the ways that it could work with like taskmaster style decks. Like I do think that there's all these different things that having an activate card that can just add power whenever you need has, we haven't seen that in Snap, right? So I do think that, this card is very exciting and I do think it's gonna be very powerful.
Alex:I really like that because like I sometimes, especially with a card like this, I get my horse blinders on a bit like I see surfing, I'm just like, hell yeah, that's what I want. And you're like, no, Alex, I'm gonna think outside the box. Dammit.'cause that's what I do and I, I actually appreciate that perspective a lot. That is Maverick. But if you think we're done with new cards coming out this week, you are wrong because we have three more cards to talk about and um, we're gonna go to the series four straight up release coming out here. And I think that it is potentially really interesting and this is one that apparently I said the name incorrectly of and if I want to just farm engagement, I'm gonna say it wrong again on purpose, but I won't, this is Marrow. I said Marrow I believe and like, oh my gosh. I also said, Morrow, you said Mar and I warned you. I'm like, don't say Morrow'cause people are gonna back you. Did you, you warned me. Yeah. It's Marrow is a two three that reads when discarded or destroyed, randomly split negative six power among enemy cards. But Binks, we're not sure if this negative six power. Or negative seven because we're seeing like in data mines completely different reports and we just like actually paused the recording for a sec to like verify and we didn't actually find it. So it might be six or seven, we're not sure, but it's negative six or negative seven and we'll find out when it releases, I guess.
Bynx:Yeah. Yeah, I guess we'll see. Dude, I, I think this card's really interesting. I think, um. I think this card is kind of tailor made for Morgan Lafe. Uh, I think that, you know, the fact that you can destroy this, get the, the benefit of the negative six and then get it back into your hand is really good, or you can discard it. The fact that it does both, I think is, uh, really interesting. It's always weird to see these destroy or discard cards because it's like, does it go into one or does it go into both? Or does it, can it like what, what does it actually do? And this one, I'm actually not too sure. I think that, uh, from a destroy perspective, I think that they're just a little too saturated for like the more. Regular, like destroyed. Maybe there's a new kind of style destroy or again, maybe like a Morgan la or maybe like a dormammu, maybe style deck. Might, might mind a card like this a little bit more than, than like a core destroy deck. But from a discard perspective, it kind of hits that same level that I was talking about before of a card that gives you a lot of benefit when it's discarded, like hitting that, hitting that maximum swell. And especially if it's negative seven. If it's negative six, it's somewhat on part of wolfing, except it doesn't take one of your board spaces, which can be nice obviously week to Luke, week to, uh, shadow King. But, uh, it's just like a card that you can discard and not really worry about and gives you like an immediate pretty positive impact. And then there's also one other thing you can think about. There's a lot of cards that double, like specifically Daikin, right? If your opponent has just played one other card and then they play Daikin and you have priority. And you destroy or discard this card, you can just nuke that D and right away. So I do think that there's like some ways that this card could be really, really good. And again, with being able to be either discarded or destroyed, I love that they left that open-ended so that, uh, you know, deck builders can try and use this in multiple different ways.
Alex:In the original preview, I tried to cope a little bit with like, okay, could you make some sort of a version of this where you're running this in, like some sort of like, I don't wanna say toxic shell, but can you utilize the fact that randomly you're generating negative six or negative seven power? It reminds me of the original of the thing, the evolve thing where it hit three unique, no, sorry. Yeah, it would hit mm-hmm. No, no, no. It would hit the same one. But when they changed it, yeah. The
Bynx:original was just three. Yeah.
Alex:Yeah. But now it'll hit three different, which actually benefits the likes of, uh, you know, um. Ajax, but you're not really playing in that type of deck. More specifically, it's abomination that really likes that, right? Mm-hmm. Could this be played in that type of deck? But I don't know what that looks like. And even coming into this week, I'm like, I don't know. I just, I don't see it. So like, I'm just not sure where I wanna play this card, and I don't actually think it's toxic.
Bynx:I would agree that I don't think it's toxic. I, I feel like with most cards like this, you really want at least two enablers. You know, like getting any two individual cards in Marvel Snap, like having any two cards in a particular game is like just a little over 50%. So if you like, just have one way to discard this, or one way to destroy this, like. About a third of the time that you're actually drawing this card, you can't actually use its abilities. And, and that just, I mean, that just feels like pretty darn bad, right? So you'd have to have a couple enablers. I don't know if, I don't know if Toxic would wanna do that. Maybe there's some interesting trimmed down version of Toxic that also incorporates maybe like a smaller discard or a smaller destroy package. Again, like, it, it could be interesting, but I, but I, I, I just more look at it as you're afflicting, you know, the power. It's not like trying to get the points out of it. It's just like you're, like, you're making them lose seven power on those lanes, or six power on those lanes to get you ahead and just look at that as your advantage rather than trying to like then get more value out of the, uh, the, the affliction.
Alex:The thing that really came to mind for me was like, first of all, I, I don't think this is great. I just don't think it's a great card. Yeah. But I had two major thoughts. One. It's not a bad card, but I don't think it's gonna have a home. I feel like it's perhaps a little too niche. Now there is another card that has like, you know, this, this doubling of effect, and phantom X as well, that's gonna be coming out later. Could potentially, you know, care about these types of cards, this kind of hybrid archetype that's being built with what's being added. But I'm gonna throw out some massive cope, and this was like a shower thought I had. Okay? So I want you to just imagine me in the shower for a sec. So that's the important part. And then I'm thinking about Marrow and I'm like, you know what? There's a chance that these like hybrid cards are these draft cards. Because if you think about it, right? This is a card that in a draft mode, what if you did? What if you draft this for discard? Okay, what if you draft it for Destroy? Okay, it's a little less narrow and playable in two. I'm just throwing it out there. Now we have multiple cards that can kind of do that, just. That's a shower thought for you. I'm wondering what you think Binks
Bynx:I, no one wants my draft mode more than me. I am the quintessential like draft mode style player. I love playing different stuff. I love Aish, him. I love. Having random things happen. I used to love District X, I used to love all these things that other people hated because I want draft mode. So I mean, I would love to cope with you and say that maybe that is the case. Uh, it's, it's to an extent, I think it's that, or it is the the development team trying to make sure that cards can find a home. Because I tell you what, if this said discarded or if this just said destroyed, we would not be even a little bit excited about it. And now there's like some ways that you can try and utilize it. It's better if it does get gen, uh, randomly generated as well, like, like you mentioned, or, or, uh, you know, you get it through some other means other than having it in your deck because there's multiple ways that you might be able to, uh, activate this effect. But yeah, I definitely think like that more draft or a, a card that can be used in more different ways is definitely something that they're going with here.
Alex:There's no question star rating wise. Man, this is probably, first of all, it's a series four card, which is beneficial there. Right? From a standpoint of like how much it costs. I can't see this going over two, I can't see this going over two stars. I think this is a weaker release. Curious about your thoughts.
Bynx:Yeah. Two, maybe two and a half. Um, I, I'm really interested to, to try it in like Morgan Lafa.'cause Morgan gonna phase like one of the only decks that I can think of that even thinks about doing both discarding and destroy at the same time. So having a card that can fill that flex spot might make something like that happen. But is Morgan Lafe ever gonna be a top tier deck? Unless they make some pretty, even more significant changes than they have? I, I really doubt that. So, so I would say I, I gotta go with two and a quarter stars.
Alex:Two and a quarter stars. You know what, man, you had to come and cook that is. I think this is the first time we've had a fractional call on the star rating there. So, uh, banks, thank you so much for that much appreciated of, um, talking about hybrid cards. I think now would be probably a good time to talk about the next hybrid card, which is going to be a war child, war child, wild child, war child. Another, that's a different card. Maybe, I don't know. It does still kinda
Bynx:like, like, uh, warpath. It's kinda got the same vibe as warpath. Yeah, it's very angry.
Alex:He definitely has a, like a warpath mixed with saber-tooth vibe to him. War child two, one reading. Ongoing Wild child by the way. Sorry. Said it's wild child, by the way. Am I saying the name wrong again? Unbelievable Wild Child. A two one that reads ongoing plus four power if you've discarded a card. Plus four power. If one of your cards has been destroyed. So this is a card that's looking for multiple types of interactions. It's looking for a discard interaction, and it's also looking for a destroy interaction. So this is a high powered two, nine. If you manage to do both, what are your thoughts?
Bynx:Yeah, I mean, uh, again, I, I think to Morgan Lafaye just because that's the only deck I feel like exists, that that tries to do any kind of discard and destroy stuff. And I feel like this can make it a two nine. It really is. I feel like if you're a conditional two, five, like with an ongoing effect, like if you're only trying to discard or you're only trying to destroy, you're never gonna run this card. So it will. Pretty much only be in one of those like hybrid situations, but like at two costs with, with an ongoing like that is pretty strong. Uh, it's giving kind of Goliath like levels where if like you build your deck around it, it's this two one that can get really big with ongoing power, but it's just different, the requirements and, and what you actually have to do for it. Man, dude, this card is interesting. I do like that they've kind of made it on theme with like the Wolverine kind of like, uh, universe where, you know, Wolverine, X 23 dakin, they all have both the discard and destroy synergy. So we've seen this a lot and almost exclusively those things end up being that they're only used by one side or the other. You know, we have X 23 with destroy. Stacking pretty much only gets used with this card. Uh, and Wolverine pretty much only gets used with Destroy, right? So like this one is like saying like, Hey, you, no, not allowed. You have to do both. So maybe like a card like this, like a two nine is a really, really good card. So I think any deck that is going to be, on average destroying a card and discarding a card is going to absolutely love to have a two nine in their deck.
Alex:It's so funny you mention that. So first of all, wild Child is a series four coming out in Team Clash. The next two cards we're talking about Team Clash. So these should be relatively free to play achievable, which is exciting. Two, nine. Are we seriously sitting here scoffing at a two nine? Because like, think about Lizard, that good old, remember when Lizard was the most powerful two drop in the game and they had to Nerf it? Do you remember those days? And now we have a two nine wild child and we're not even sold on it. This is, this is power creep. Full on man. And even like two weeks ago I was trying to convince people, I was like, bro, like Chamber impressed me to the high side. I was getting chamber to like 2 15, 2 13, like really good power levels. Way over 10 power consistently. And people are like, nah, I don't want chamber. I'm like, okay. Like yeah, I guess you, you're playing Nick Fury and a little bit of cope there, but like yo Chamber's good. And I don't think people bought into it. And now we see Wild child and you'd have infinitely more hoops to jump through with Wild Child compared to Chamber. And so for me, I'm like, I think this card's minimum probably a three star card. Like the power's there, you cannot scoff at a two nine power card. But the fact that like Chamber didn't sell people on that, the fact that, I mean even Weapon X for the most part actually gets to astronomical powers, right? And even then people are like a little ho-hum on weapon X, man. I was getting weapon X to like 20 something power. I was a little all in on the testing and like we kind of make the decks to like see what the card can do, right? We send it through its paces, so to speak, but like this is probably a good card that just might not see play until this particular puzzle building deck archetype gets figured out. Then all of a sudden it's the one you need.
Bynx:Yeah, I, it's, I mean, I think that it could be really interesting to see like a destroy deck. Just like running like, I don't know, like a blade and a corvus or something, or watching a discard deck that's just running like a Killmonger and a carnage or something like that. Right. I feel like could be really interesting to, uh, try and make use out of a lot more of these cards. And especially, you know, you throw things like Morrow and then Wolverine works really well in that mix, and X 23 works really well in that mix because now you have multiple ways to do it. I think it's something that I, I don't know. I mean, like, I, I, I gonna be honest with you, I hadn't really looked into Wild Child until like, just a little bit before, uh, we sat down here. And having all these like more ways to really encourage that style of deck, I think could be really, really cool. It's, uh, it's always weird because you always have to balance the, like, yeah, it is a two nine when you do your thing and chamber, you know, chamber. Like you could look at it as like, yeah, it is a two 11 if you. You know, add five, five drops and two six drops to your deck and have your other cards like make them. So like there, there are steps that you have to, that have to take to get there. It really just depends, is the payoff worth the investment or the deck? And I feel like we might be hitting critical mass now of cards that get benefits from both discard and destroy with these two coming in that we could be seeing that I think it's really, really exciting. I think, uh, I think three stars is, is where, is where I would land too on this.
Alex:Cool. Uh, I will say though is like probably one of the first places I'm gonna take it into a like misery style deck because at the minimum, I'm just trying to figure out the discard side of that. But at a minimum, like this could be a backup to fire hair. You know, you do like a hood fire hair or a wild child, three drop misery type thing. Right. And I think that could be potentially interesting. I was also thinking about this, it's like, well it has to be one of your cards that's being destroyed. If it was just, if a card is destroyed, it'd been so cool.'cause you could do kind of like a, it could go into a gladiator deck, right, where you're trying to mill them and stuff, but it's not gonna work in that because it has to be one of your cards being destroyed. So I still think I'd want to cook a little more with this. I like coming into the week of the pod with like more concrete decks, but this one here is just a little weird and I'm not convinced it's gonna be an absolute banger despite the fact the stats are there. And I also wonder if like the next date data mine we're gonna get is gonna have more of these types of cards that starts to build out this archetype where like wild childs, just like wild Child and and Marrow are like the first steps and the first releases into what is now gonna be a different style of hybrid archetype. And can Morgan Lafaye bring them to where they have to be now? Like I kind of doubt it. I like Morgan Lefay. I think it's a really cool card, but it's a lot of hoops to jump through, man. It's a lot of hoops and you're adding more hoops now with Wild Child and Marrow. So it's like, I'm just not convinced it's gonna do what we want ultimately. But there is one card there I think is going to create some additional fervor, fast ball, special. Now, this is an absolute beauty, not just from like a flavor standpoint. Like you kind of discussed it earlier about how like Wild Child, Wolverine, saber tooth, they all have like a X 23. They have like this, this all lore flavor. Someone at second dinner is honestly on point with the lore stuff. Like they, they read the comics man because that is something that Marvel Snap does very well. Whereas like the cards, they kind of do feel like the hero in some degree. Right? Which I think is really interesting. With regards, I with that being said, I'm gonna say I still think, and I'll die on this hill. I still think Patriot and Captain America should have their abilities flipped.'cause Captain America inspires the average man, the man with no ability. That who's, who is inspired by Captain America when it comes to the Patriot. Patriot can buff the ongoing cards. It is Cap who brings out the best in the rest of us, right? Festivus for the rest of us. That's unrelated too. But also Happy Festivus for those who celebrate. Fastball Special, the two costed skill. It's a skill that the art's not indicative of that. I do apologize on Reveal. Destroy your highest power card here to afflict an enemy card here with that much negative power and that is fastball special Binks. I'm hype for this card, but I'm gonna give you the floor because I know you're hyped too.
Bynx:Oh man, this card is sick. And first, and it's kind of interesting because we, I talked about the Maverick stuff. You could set up with Galactus. This is the best Galactus card they. Have released since Galactus has been out in being able to, if you can, you know, wave into it or get a little extra energy, maybe on turn seven and you could fastball special, your one giant card that's on a lane, destroy it, put that into negative power and play Galactus at the same time. That is, you are adding a layer to Galactus. You used to be able to do this. I, I ran some Merlin Galactus stuff where, uh, you would play like once in future all to like, pull a card away from the lane and then have Galactus land in it both on the same turn. And like, that was like the way I feel like, uh, I could get people completely off guard with Galactus. This card takes that to the next level and it's two, it's cheap. I think that this car I, I'm having so much trouble thinking of other things to do with this card because I'm so excited about making people kneel with it.
Alex:That is the spirit buddy. That is the spirit. And you're right, this is such a beautiful Galacto card. It doesn't just stop there either. We'll talk about other cards too. Everyone relax. But I feel like this kind of occupies a similar space to what like the hob goblin did in Galacto, right? Where it's like that, that very insurmountable power differential you're creating. Except what this card you can actually, even at its worst. What if there is like a, uh, monster island and they throw up a monster there and you're like, well, now I'm cooked. Right? Like, I don't have any place to play Galactus, but now you do. You know what I mean? Now you do. It's, it gives you this extra out to allow you to force people to kneel. And at the end of the day, that's what Marvel snaps about. It's about kneel before collapses. It's solely becoming one of my favorite cards in the game. I gotta tell you. It's just, there's just something just ruthless about it that I love.
Bynx:Like it's amazing.
Alex:Yeah. It's, it's, but I like it when it comes outta nowhere too, when it's like, I like taking the high roll where like. I don't even have anything in like the right location and they have like, you know, something there. I'm like, you know what? They're not gonna, they, they think I'm giving it, they think I'm giving it. You know what I imagine, imagine if this worked. Yeah, exactly. Those are the best moments with it too. Um, and it's even better though, when you pull that move off, right? And they give you the Miss Marvel thumbs up and you're like, yeah, we broke their spirit today. Yeah. That's a phone rest in peace phone. Um, but uh, with fastball special, yeah, obviously beautiful with Galactus. And another card that you can often play in Galactus type shells is gonna be nimrod. Like Nimrod really benefits from this as well. Like this is a beautiful Nimrod card. I love those decks, man. I love the Nimrod decks. I think this also benefits the Adamantium infusion style deck with like the Black Panther. Obviously this is gonna destroy something and you can bring it back with Adamantium infusion, so there's that right? Two skills working hand in hand. Adamantium infusion's kind of expensive though, very expensive. Two times the cost of the fastball Special. I had this thought too. Fastball special. Wouldn't it have been hilarious if this card could be free if you had Colossus and Wolverine? Like if you on the field to play, uh,
Bynx:looks Holcomb Wolverine, right? Is it Holcomb? Wolverine? Not Colossus. That's what it is. In rivals in Marvel. Rivals. Maybe in the, maybe in the comics or something. It's a little bit different. But in Marvel rivals it's, uh, Holcomb Wolverine. Wolverine do this.
Alex:Wait, wait, hold on. Am I confusing Deadpool in, in, uh, Colossus.'cause Deadpool throws in Deadpool two. Yeah,
Bynx:he colossus throws Deadpool like the fastball special, right? That sounds, that sounds about right. I haven't seen that in many years, but that, that sounds like something that would happen in that movie.
Alex:Okay. Lore, geniuses down below hit us with the fastball special lore, because I'm thinking it's coming from Colossus throwing Wol. Hey. No, he's right there. Look, he's in the Art Colossus is throwing Wolverine like you can see him.
Bynx:I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, dude, that is definitely a Colossus arm. Maybe it is, man. Maybe in rivals they changed it. Yeah. Okay. So I'm not crazy that that is absolutely
Alex:colossus harm. You're not crazy. Alright, so someone down below is gonna let us know for sure. I'm reading through my office. Yeah, give us a
Bynx:paragraph. We get several paragraphs down below. Yeah.
Alex:And I'll have you guys know, I know there's people out there. It drives you nuts that I don't know as much about Marvel as I should. I will tell you, for Christmas, I asked for the house of X because it has become recommended to me over and over again. And I told, my wife, said, if you wanna get me anything for Christmas, the house of x, the trade paperback, all the comics in one, I would like to read that. Thank you. So see if I can get on the shelf and
Bynx:have you never read it?
Alex:Yeah, no, no. I, I'm gonna read, I'm gonna read, I promise. So fastball special, I'm going, I'm going, it has to be no lower than four stars. This is a four star minimum card. And I can see this being the card of the month. I could see this actually, overperforming, Maverick and Aurora from like an actual meta perspective, power level. I could see this hitting five. My excitement level for me, it's like, listen, I love Nimrod. I love G-Man. This is like 4.5 territory for me. Like I, I like this card a lot. I'm glad it's coming out. I'm glad it's in Team Clash as well. Not a series five card. They could have made the series five. They could have made fastball special, the super premium season pass card. And that would've made sense to me. But they didn't, they made it a game mode team clash card. So blessed second dinner.'cause I think this card's actually baller
Bynx:star rating Binks. Yeah. I, I actually have a, just a couple other things to say about this card because there's something very important about this. So think about this. We've been playing Marvel Snap a long time.
Alex:We have
Bynx:what is the cheapest way to destroy something instantly? Uh, lose a cubes phone carnage, right? Two cost carnage. You can, oh, we're talking different things right away. There's no other card that does that. There's no other card that destroys something instantly for two. This is the only, the second one they've ever released from Cartage, which was released in the original version of the game Killmonger. It's, it's more than that death lock venom kid, omega is two, but you have to play it and then activate it. So this is actually, I, I think even outside of, just like looking at Nimrod, I think destroy decks are really gonna look at this. And now often destroy, does like to destroy multiple things and carnage and death lock and venom are much better at that. Finally having another cheap way to get like an instant destroy is something that I think is gonna be very, very important for core destroy decks. For like fire hair decks are going to love this card. Like this is such a good card for like fire hair style decks because you gonna destroy the card, you get an immediate impact and you get, keep the space because space can sometimes get weird with that deck moving things around. So I think that like, I'm gonna put this at five stars. I'm gonna say this is a five star card. This card is going to be so impactful in so many ways. I think it's incredibly powerful. And I am so excited to, even though I was saying I'm only excited about Galactus, I'm really excited to, to utilize this card and do destroy in a different, unique and still very powerful way.
Alex:What about, and this hit me while you were talking, it's not even in my notes. What about if this is an additional trigger for Phoenix Force? Oh yeah. Destroy multiple man, right? Think about it. Destroy multiple man sometimes, like for Phoenix Force, you're hunting for that, that current, that death lock, right? That whatever you need to get that running. I wonder if fastball special, it could potentially bring back Phoenix Force a little bit, but I think Phoenix Force needs more love than just this. But it's kind of interesting, isn't it?
Bynx:I feel like there's like those phoenix force elixir, adamantium rejuvenation decks, which kind of started to pop up because they used to, I, I talk about like critical mass a lot in, uh, in this game. Like once you, a critical mass of cards, so many more things are possible because it makes your deck consistent, right? So I feel like Atium rejuvenation really did a number for that deck because instead of just having elixir, which is good, but it has to be the turn after and Phoenix force, which is good, but it's expensive. Now you have rejuvenation, which is also pretty expensive, but then you double the cards and now there's been so much going for that. And I feel like this is just adding another like cheap tool that doesn't take space on your side. I, I think that's really important too. Yeah, just so, so excited to see, uh, that, that like fire hair, phoenix force, adamantium, rejuvenation deck. Really probably becoming a, a real contender once this card comes in.
Alex:It's really fascinating as well is that like I remember when I was testing out a Manam infusion, I was playing with a magic deck, but I wanted to make sure we could do things on turn six as well.'cause magic is a little unreliable at times. Right? I will tell you that carnage into Adamantium Fusion was a play line that worked really well for turn 6, 2, 2 on the carnage, four on that Adamantium infusion fastball specialist is the same thing. Fastball special was six. You could play literally fastball special at a Manum infusion on turn six, six energy and you could actually make some magic happen, right? It's not crazy. And if you think about like something like a Black Panther, right? Let's say they're expecting Zola, you could maybe trade that location with a negative power from the Black Panther alone. Like if you throw like that much negative power to the other Lo, they might be just sitting negative one, right? And then you add'em into infusion to the other side and double the Dublin, right? You're Irish at that point when you're doubling and so Double baby. Yeah. Hell yeah. Double Dublin. So I really do like what Fastball special, uh, could potentially do. And that is going to take us into our Snapchat mail bag. Which we kind of actually disintegrated a bit'cause we already talked about one of the questions.
Bynx:Yeah, I was gonna say, do you, do you have another one or is it just a I have another question. Oh, hell yeah. Hell yeah.
Alex:Hell yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah. Actually, people have been asking fewer questions. I gotta tell you. The, uh, the Snapchat mailbag, fewer questions are being asked. But, so if you, if you'd like to ask a question, what the heck guys? Hey, you the one who's been thinking about asking a question, ask it.
Bynx:Yeah, ask it. Alex is the nicest guy ever. He'll answer.
Alex:Yeah. Ask, ask me anything. It's, this is an ma now. Anyhow, we did talk about the series drops, which was really cool. Actually. I think that was a really important conversation. I, I actually really liked your take on that too. And we do have another question. And it's from, uh, rp fsa and it reads solid episode. But I would've enjoyed if you guys touched on your thoughts on the grand arena decks. I think this iteration is lackluster, but having a fresh set of only pre-made with no ability to customize, I thought would be something Alex would be excited about. Additionally, it could have been a solid talking point on what's one or two cards you could change in each deck. But I understand it's a time constraint. Just some food for thought. I like the question a lot because I kind of wish I talked about the grand Arena last week, so we're gonna talk this week with, with our boy banks. Yes, you are right. I actually really like the pre-AIDS. I don't like the balance of them. I think that they missed the balance and I'm really concerned about this because I hope they didn't take away from the pre-made that yo. People were mad about grand arenas time around. It must have been the premade. Well, it was the premade'cause the balance sucked, right? You had one deck that was light years beyond, like literally 60% win rate versus 40% win rate elsewhere. And the only reason why it was a 60% win rate is'cause the freaking mirror match someone has to lose. So like, obviously it's super scuffed. If they were more balanced than the, it would've been such a better experience. And I really hope they don't take away from the fact of like, well, people don't like pre-AIDS f this, we're never doing it again. I loved the pre-AIDS after you fixed the balance. So I wonder if there's some sort of hybrid result where it's like, okay, maybe it's a pre-made for like the first four days and then they open up the customization or I don't know, man. I'm just kind of concerned. I love that idea.
Bynx:Yeah, that's a really good idea. Yeah, I, I love that because, well, my, my big thing is what I, I think that they, the big missed opportunity was releasing it on a Friday. And then being gone for the weekend, the dev theme, and then not doing any balance changes until Tuesday. That was the problem. Because if they had changed, if they had changed the game two days in like I feel like they, they did, they were a little bit quicker last time. If they changed it two days in, I feel like people wouldn't be so upset. It's the fact that like, by the time that they changed it, everyone was already like, all right, I don't even like care about this anymore. Right. But I, but I think that what you're recommending actually does the same thing where it adds these pre-made decks that you can try and you could play, and maybe they're a little imbalanced, but you can still go for it, and then halfway through then the flood gates are open, then you could start doing custom stuff. I think that that is a I don't know if you just came up with that on the flyer, even thinking about that, I think that's an incredible suggestion.
Alex:No. Thank you banks. Honestly, I feel like that suggestion might've been made a long time ago in a comment or something. I'm trying to listen. We read lots of comments. I don't think it's entirely just my idea. It might be my idea. I feel like I've said it before. The idea of only pre-made was something that I had been preaching for the longest time. I honestly wish it was executed better. Yeah. That's so sad. I think it was an ex,
Bynx:I think it was an execution and I'm happy they tested it. This is where when people are like. This, this is what gets me upset, is when people were like, oh, why would they do this? No one wants this. This is crazy. Like, it's like, first of all, people do want it. You don't want it, and that's okay. But there are people who, who do and who have asked about this every single time, these limited time game modes have come out that they would either like it to be multiple cues, which is always hard to split your queue up in a live service game at. It's always really, really hard for them to choose to do because it just makes it so that all of the other, all of the different queues in the game are have lower population, which is just not good for matchmaking and stuff like that. But, um, yeah, I, I think that testing stuff is so important, right? Because we would never know if we actually liked it, if they never did it, right? So I think that that testing is good. I just, I really think it was a missed opportunity releasing it over the weekend and not doing anything about the balance. And the Thanos, what the heck were they thinking with that Thanos deck? Man, the Thanos skill is the most ridiculous thing that I've ever seen. Like, you have a deck. An extra stone doesn't draw because the space stone can't draw Thanos.'cause Thanos is always in your starting hand and you have hand space issues because you're holding this forecast skill the whole time. And what are you supposed to do? You're supposed to draw all of the stones and play Thanos to get an okay skill that's probably just worse than Black Panthers without the requirement. It was. That was, uh, there, there was some big misses, but the Thanos one is the one where I'm just like, what, what were you, what did you think was gonna happen?
Alex:Yeah. Yeah. There's a, that's one way to describe that deck that I was like, what? But it's okay. I ultimately, I ended up, uh, trying to get the weekend mission out with the weapon X destroy stuff. And then I was like, I just wanna play some, another good
Bynx:thing is, is having both of those available for the weekend missions. Uh, they definitely didn't have to do that. And they did. And I think that's.
Alex:Hell yeah.'cause it could have helped people decide whether or not they wanna buy the season pass, right? For sure. That's a great idea. I ultimately ended up just playing the ongoing deck.'cause anytime I just wanna play for fun, just gimme some ongoing man, I just wanna just get some spectrum down, whatever. But I will say that, uh, I am, I do like what they're doing with the limited time game modes. I'm excited for Team Clash. I do like the idea of pre-made and I hope they do revisit it. I will also mention though, you did touch on people saying like kind of like getting in secondary's face, but like this idea sucks. Whatever. Something that like you would know and I would know and that they would know, but maybe you listening don't know, is if you were to try to listen to every piece of advice you get at any given time, you'd lose your mind. I will literally get a comment that says, Alex, this video is garbage. I'm unsubscribing. And then the next comment is, Alex, this is so helpful. Thank you so much. Like you cannot. You can't always, our brains are broken. Yeah. Like it's impossible to like appease everyone, so to speak. And um, sometimes the best thing that they can do is take a chance and then get internal data. See what all the casuals who are playing on their phones on the johns, what, what they do, like, what do they like, what are the super engaged people, right? As Binks is glitching like crazy on the screen? I don't know. He's just like nodding like crazy. I don't know what's going on. It was like some sort of discord glitch there. But uh, like we're the super hardcore engaged people. What are the people taking a dump thinking, right? And that's what second dinner needs to consider as well, right.
Bynx:Yeah, I, I do talk about that a lot. It's like when people like have these takes, it's like we are all in the top 5% of people who are engaged with and mess around with this game. I know that because you're sitting down and watching me play it. And that's you know, like that's what's happening. And like, it's very hard, uh, because people get, uh, especially like, you know, people who are super active in like Marvel, Snap Discords, and they're hanging out with other people who are even like in the top 1% of people who engage with and, and mess around with the game and get very hard to remember that this is a big, like, wide ranging mobile game that's trying to reach a lot of people and trying to appease a lot of people that's not just this super dedicated community. And I think that, compared to the size that we take up, I feel like second dinner is always over, like pushing and trying to appease I think this side of the community. So I, I think that, yeah, I, I think that that's something that people don't have that. I, I guess like, uh, the second to take a step back and, and remember that I think that that's always helped serve me in understanding things that second dinner does, is really taking that step back and trying to think about it from like a holistic standpoint, not just like how it affects you personally. And I think that that ends up giving you a much better understanding of like what's going on and why they're doing what they're doing, uh, as opposed to just thinking that it's because they hate you, which is what I think some people do. And that's kinda a little crazy to me.
Alex:As always. Down below I will have all of B'S content linked. Guys, you gotta follow on Twitch, all of it. I, I actually watch your stream all the time. Awesome streamer, fantastic content on YouTube. All of it's gonna be down below. And do me a favor, follow your boy because he's an absolute beauty banks. Thank you so much for being on once again and we will have you again because you know what, man? These are always absolutely wonderful conversations.
Bynx:Dude cannot agree more. Uh, always. I'm always here if you ever need, uh, someone to, to be here with you and, uh, what, what an absolute pleasure it is every time we get to jump on and, uh, and catch up and have a good conversation, man. I really appreciate you.
Alex:Thank you so much Bink, and thank you guys for listening and we'll see you on the next one.
