Guardians’ Greatest Hits Vol.2 Season Preview | Last Season's Standouts | The Snap Chat Ep. 167

This week, Alex is joined by the queen of unhinged conspiracy theories and daily streamer: Ninaisnoob! The duo kicks things off with a "muscle check" and a debate over whose Diglett plushie is bigger.

They dive straight into the OTA Balance Patch, discussing why the Shao-Lau nerf wasn't enough, the tragic death of Maverick, and whether the Merlin nerf is secretly a buff to the "Swiss Army Knife" of location control.

Then, it’s a massive Star-Lord Season Preview! Alex and Nina break down every new card:

• Star-Lord: The High Evo support piece we didn't know we needed?
• Magus: Is this Super Premium card actually unplayable garbage (1.5 Stars)?
• Kraglin: Alex goes on a rant about why "Banish" is a terrible mechanic and rates this a 0.9 Star card.
• Jack Flag: Alex makes a bold prediction that this vanilla-looking card is actually the Card of the Month.
• Drax & Moon Dragon: Are they mid-range bait or hidden gems?

Finally, they answer a Mailbag question about Limbo/Magik and whether locations should be "locked" to prevent rug-pulls.

Join Alex Coccia and special guest Ninaisnoob 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.

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

Transcript

Alex: 0:00

Hey everyone, and welcome to the next edition of the Snapchat this week. It's a whole new season, and for that reason, we are bringing back one of the most sought after guests in Marvel's Snapchat's history. And that is Nina is new. Nina, the last episode we were on together was by far, I believe, the most commented on video we've ever had on my channel. So welcome back to the Snapchat. How are you?

Nina: 0:23

Hi, Alex. Thanks for having me back. Um, you know, it's good to be here and I'm actually shocked that that was the most commented video on your channel, probably because it was just full of crazy unhinged conspiracy theories, which I have a few more of. If you're interested in,

Alex: 0:39

I'm always interested in your unhinged conspiracy theories, but the first thing I gotta bring up, and it's just so ever out of frame. Do you have a little diglett sitting on your microphone?

Nina: 0:51

I do have a little diglett. Wait. You can, oh, okay. Oh, you can see it. There we go. Yeah. Look how cute he is.

Alex: 1:00

He is really cute.

Nina: 1:01

Yeah. I got him from, um, the EUIC, the European, uh, international championship. You know the Pokemon one?

Alex: 1:08

Yep.

Nina: 1:08

When it came to London last year. So I went and got this one. I've got a bunch of sitting cuties like this. But don't you have one yourself?

Alex: 1:16

I do. It always sat on my back shelf. Is that where you saw it? Because I have it ready, but I think it's a lot bigger

Nina: 1:22

compare. Um, I, I don't know. I think it's just because perception.'cause my face is much bigger than yours, so clearly they're the same size, just little bit different than color.

Alex: 1:34

I think mine is

Nina: 1:35

significantly larger. But you person, you know, my face is like actually three times the size of your face.

Alex: 1:44

Maybe we should just do the whole podcast as Diglett.

Nina: 1:47

Oh, wait. Oh, okay. That's good with me.

Alex: 1:49

This is very hard on my arm.

Nina: 1:52

Oh, really?

Alex: 1:53

Yeah. Well, it's pretty far. The camera is kind of

Nina: 1:55

pretty easy. Me. Um, I'm just so much stronger, you know.

Alex: 1:57

It is, you have the strength that only I could dream of. But, um,

Nina: 2:01

oh, you know, I was doing cooking stream the other day and I showed my bicep and my child laughed at me. They said, I have no bicep. And that what I showed was a tendon and not a bicep.

Alex: 2:11

Really? How rude, first of all, secondly,

Nina: 2:13

I know, right?

Alex: 2:14

I wish I could do something like a cooking stream, but I would just embarrass myself. First of all, I'd like hurt myself. I would like put my hand in the boiling water somehow, or put my camera in the water. I would find a way to do that. But like, so how did this come up? Were you trying to showcase like your, your workout gains and just like, no.

Nina: 2:30

Yeah, well, I've been working out, I've, I'm doing a keto diet at the moment, so I was like, yo, look, I've been like doing my arms actually.'cause mostly I work my legs. You know how women are known for working lower body only. It's just so much easier for us because our load lower body, usually a lot stronger than upper body. So it's like guys. Who would just work out their, like chest and biceps and completely neglect their legs and end up with like little chicken legs.

Alex: 2:59

So I know nothing of any of this. I've been letting myself go for 39 years. But that's not true. When I played soccer, I, I only did leg day. Um, I never did arms or stuff like that. I only did like squat rack based stuff. I actually have very, very, very thick calves.

Nina: 3:15

That's good though. I think women appreciate nice mus legs.

Alex: 3:19

There we go. I've done it. Yeah, I heard the dad bought his back and I've been building it for almost 40 years, so I'm glad that, uh, you know, I got something. Right.

Nina: 3:28

You must have the perfect dad boat after like how many is it 14 kids?

Alex: 3:32

It's four kids. Um,

Nina: 3:34

okay. Almost, I.

Alex: 3:37

At 14 for almost, almost the same thing. But uh,

Nina: 3:40

yeah,

Alex: 3:40

I mean we got so much to talk about today, Nina. Mm-hmm. Like we're gonna talk about the OTA. We're gonna talk about last season's standouts that were released. We're gonna be talking about the season pass card star Lord, which I think is gonna be kind of cool. Magnus, the super premium season pass card. And we have a whole bunch of series five and a couple series four cards coming out as well. We've got the mailbag so much to get into. So why don't we start with the OTA, because the OTA had a major change to a major card, and that is shall Lao, the AM Dying, which went from Ahuh 5 8 2 0 5 6. Nina, there's a lot of cards and a lot of stuff to talk about today. So maybe just some quick takes on the, on these changes, but what are your thoughts on the Nerf to shallow.

Nina: 4:26

I don't think the nerve is sufficient. I've been venting, I've been raging about this card really the whole season because it's so ridiculously overt, uh, overt tuned compared to anything else we've had in a while. And I just don't understand how this card can buff plus three with almost like no effort from your part, just playing game as usual and still have eight power himself and be able to contest another location on his own with like few other support cards. You know what I mean? It's just so ridiculous.

Alex: 5:00

This card is likely still gonna take like two more nerfs. Okay. Now they did say in the OT note that they planned on making some additional changes that will impact shall allow in the future, but like. This card as it stands, is still wild. It's still really good. I'm glad that they nerfed it prior to it going into the sea. It's, it, it goes two ways though. First of all, it kind of feels bad for the Freeto play players who are waiting for the stand enter the Snapbacks.'cause now it got neutered prior to even entering the Snap packs. But it would've been worse if they bought it and then it immediately got unnerved after they purchased it. So at least they go into the Snap pack system knowing what the initial Nerf looks like. You know what I mean?

Nina: 5:43

Mm-hmm. I think they were definitely too safe with this Nerf. And I mean, I do understand that they don't, they're scared to nerve it too much because people did pay for the card. And I know there would be people who would complain about, oh, you know, the card I paid money for. Now I can't use it to dominate free to play players. You know, I can't bully people with anymore. And I feel like that's probably the stance of more casual players. Who don't play the game much, right? They buy the season pass, they play a few games here and there. They don't really consume like content on YouTube or Twitch. But for people who are more hardcore players and care about the balance of the game, not nerfing it for so long, and just nerfing cards around it honestly just feels really, really bad. And they do this all the time. Don't you notice like a broken cart comes out, they don't Nerf the cart straight away. The Nerf carts around it. Like with Merlin this time and like when Aam was dominating the, I think the Ner Nerfed blob and Lo Lokey was in, uh, in, in that deck lot before actually Nerfing blob. So I feel like you, you're right, it's gonna get nerfed in power and it's gonna get nerfed in like the power it adds. It's probably going to go to plus two power eventually.

Alex: 6:58

I thought where you were going was, remember in the Loki season where Loki was like dodging all the nerves and they were like,

Nina: 7:04

yeah,

Alex: 7:05

nerfing the collector. Just like, it's not his fault, it's not the collector's fault, right? You're right. Yeah. There's often some plot armor around the season pass card and there's, that's for two reasons. One, they wanna sell season passes. It's gotta make, gotta make them greenbacks, right? But the other side to that too, and I, there is a valid statement to be said that like. Part of what makes Marvel Snap feel fresh is that these season pass cards should feel impactful in their season. Like when we get season pass cards that don't impact the season, it's like the season never really rolled over. It's like that's, it's just who cares about what's going on. Right. So,

Nina: 7:40

yeah.

Alex: 7:40

And we've even said on the past, like, I'll take your take on this, but I've always leaned on the side of like, I'd rather them release a season pass card a little on the spicy side. I like when releases are maybe on the hot side, not broken side, but I'd rather them lean towards like the four star side of things as opposed to being too conservative.'cause when you're too conservative with the releases, it's not exciting. Like it doesn't really shake up anything. Nothing happens. Right. So yeah, with Shala maybe they were a little, little too hot.

Nina: 8:08

I think you're right. I would prefer the new car to be a little bit overt tuned rather than completely underwhelming. Like, um, what's his name?

Alex: 8:19

Weapon

Nina: 8:19

X, that Deadpool card. That's not Deadpool.

Alex: 8:22

Uh,

Nina: 8:23

you know the

Alex: 8:24

head pull?

Nina: 8:25

No, the, the, the

Alex: 8:27

Wade Wilson.

Nina: 8:28

Yeah. Yeah. That card. Yeah. It was so bad the put release, I honestly wouldn't mind if every new card was slightly overt tuned and just make it more exciting to play with. And then if it's too much, you can always nerve it,

Alex: 8:42

yeah, of course, of course.

Nina: 8:43

But yeah, because cars get nerfed all the time in Snap, and they don't have to worry about giving. Refunds or anything'cause there's no such thing in Snap.

Alex: 8:50

Another nerve that happened was one, it's a maverick maverick going from a three three to a three two. This was heartbreaking.'cause for me, Maverick was one of my absolute stars of the season. It was the, uh, it was my pick of the season for Best Card at the time. And that ended up being true. But with Shala, one of the challenges is, is that like you're able to like ricochet the power in a way. And it's actually similar to Scarlet Spider.'cause if you think about it, Shala gives Scarlet Spider all this extra power. Then you replicate that power. Well, Maverick does the same thing. You get all that power, then you replicate it onto the kitty pride or whatever you finish the game with. So, yeah. Maverick, I think paying for the sins of Shala a little bit, what do you think?

Nina: 9:28

Yeah, well, I mean, you are right. When Maverick came out, it was, he was already the best card of that season and I was really excited about him because he just enabled so many new different plays. And for me, I was super excited because, you know, he made gala playable again, and I love Galactus. But yeah, um, I think he was, his nerve was definitely not surprising. He definitely needed one because of lau, you know, cards can come out and they're like, good cards. Remember like when Wcan came out and we thought, oh, this card is kind of okay. Uh, not the best card in the world, but then they were a bunch of cards that were released. They were really amazing. Two drops, like, you know, SGE, Melin Kate Bishop was Kate Bishop after, or before, I can't remember that. They actually made Wicken really, really good.

Alex: 10:15

Yeah.

Nina: 10:16

Um, so yeah, a lot of the time cars come out, they might be okay. Like Maverick was amazing, but with Lau now he's just, yeah, broken

Alex: 10:24

and then they even, uh,

Nina: 10:25

I can see why he was nerve

Alex: 10:27

and then they even buffed domino. Domino ended up being a legitimate card. You can play in Wcan too, right? Uh, yeah. Wcan was one of those cards that age super well. Like you kind of got an idea. The card was pretty good. Remember it's been nerfs from its original power level too, right? Um, well still four seven. At first it was a four seven at first, which is kind of crazy. Like that probably was one of the cards that universally was missed on. Mm-hmm Until people start to actually really play with it for an extended period of time and realize just how good it was. Yeah. A card good enough to make Quicksilver an actual legitimate play. Also, nerfed is sad, but you know what? Spider ham going down from a one two to a one one snip Snap. Snip Snap because this card went from a one two to a one one, then it got buffed back up to a one two. Now it's back to a one, one. They can't actually, it was a two cost at one point. They can't decide what they want to do with spider ham and I guess they figured let's just make him a one one and see what happens.

Nina: 11:21

When he was a two drop, he was on reveal, wasn't he?

Alex: 11:24

I don't

Nina: 11:24

remember because he used to be on Reveal. I'm pretty sure that was before Activate even existed. I could be wrong. But yeah, that's right. The thing with spider harm, nobody plays him for power. We play him for his ability and intel. Because you can tell what card he hits if he hits something like, well, these days it show la if he hits your opponent, show la You know, you can just Snap and, and your opponent will retreat. You know, you can hit, hella can hit something like essential to your opponent's deck. I hate this card so much, to be honest.

Alex: 11:52

You hate him. Look how cute he is. Come on.

Nina: 11:55

He always ends up hitting something like, when I'm playing zombie galati, he always hits my zombie galati.

Alex: 12:00

Yeah. We can't have that. If you're playing zombie galati, you deserve success. Like, we cannot have oinks happening to zombie galactic. That just feels awful. I'm with you. Yeah. So apparently they felt like spider ham can't be good. He's a, he's a H you card. That just can't be too good. But apparently stardust can be just fine. Another card that got changed, which

Nina: 12:19

probably I don't, my stardust, Stardust is okay, it can shut down certain text, but it's a four drop,

Alex: 12:24

yeah.

Nina: 12:25

This one is like small, but menacing. Fair enough. And cheap. Fair enough.

Alex: 12:30

Do you care about Topaz now being a two three?

Nina: 12:34

It's kind of nice because now, uh, the curve with her works out a lot better. Right. You can play her out on two and then on three you can play, play out like human torch or something. So she could maybe replace like Mme. Webb if you don't have her, or you can play her alongside Mme. Webb, which is even better. Yeah. Because you can, you know exactly where the card is going to end up. So yeah. I really like

Alex: 12:56

her change. She think Topa is okay. I don't think Topa is that bad at all. I, even the original version, I'm like, this card's not bad. It just sometimes move. Like you're, it just didn't fit. Like when you have 12 cards, you gotta make sacrifices and Topaz felt like the first card to sacrifice. And this change I think, puts it on the radar at minimum. But I don't know if it changes too much For Topaz, I think it's a powerful effect for move, for the most part. We'll have to see if, uh, it's able to be kind of utilized. Alongside something like a Lin Lee who just got a massive buff, and Lin Lee can work with Topaz because you play Topaz on the ends, you play Linn Lee there and you have 50 50. Whether or not they end up together right off the rip. And I'm gonna tell you right now, Nina Lee, uh, Linn Lee, going from a two two to a two three. And then the sword of fsi going from a plus seven to a plus eight is a significant buff.'cause I'll be honest with you, I don't think this card was ever bad. I'm convinced that this card was good. It was decent, it was just a little too much work. I can see it in your face. You disagree, but I honestly think that now it's legitimately playable. I, I really think that Lin Lee was closer to playable than people thought. And now it's actually good if you're willing to play hellion or something like that.

Nina: 14:09

Yeah, I can see your point, his stats if you like, make him work. The stats are pretty good, right? Two, three plus, um, eight. And what is the, uh, sort of f.

Alex: 14:20

It is the plus

Nina: 14:21

11, so that's two 14. Right. If you make it work. That's quite big actually. But the problem with him is like, he takes up too much space for him and his sword, and you have to somehow move him to his sword. And it's like the probably easiest way to move him to his sword is say Mme. Webb or like Ghost Spider. Ghost Spider. But then if you use Ghost Spider, that's already three spaces taken out of four.

Alex: 14:48

Yeah. That's why you can use Hellion. Why wouldn't you just use Hellion? It's so much easier. You, you're likely to draw'em by turn. Yeah. I

Nina: 14:53

dunno. I just don't like this card because like, we've moved deck, you know, you are already short on board space move's. Biggest enemy is clog, like junk decks. But now with this card, you're kind of like junking yourself, like clogging yourself

Alex: 15:07

a little bit. So you're not a believer. It's okay.

Nina: 15:09

No, I, I don't really like this card.

Alex: 15:11

That's okay. I think it's better than people think it is. You think it's worse than I think it is. And I

Nina: 15:16

gotta tell you, it's also punky. Like you have to, he can't move himself. You, you have to have a card in there to specifically move him.

Alex: 15:23

Yeah.

Nina: 15:23

You know what I mean? It's not like, Sam Wilson. Right. You've got, he's like self-sufficient. This card is not self-sufficient.

Alex: 15:29

No, it's not.

Nina: 15:31

Oh.

Alex: 15:32

But that's what you get the payoff for. That's why it's not just a two, three, right? Mm-hmm. Like, that's why you could potentially add plus eight to this big boy, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because you, you just solve one Minoru problem, one Minoru problem, make them in the same location and you get plus eight power. That's all you gotta do.

Nina: 15:50

Yeah. I mean, it's not bad. Like it is definitely not a bad card anymore. Yeah, I guess,

Alex: 15:55

yeah. It's just not

Nina: 15:55

worth, I'm still not solving it. Like I'm not gonna willingly play it unless they pay me.

Alex: 16:02

They, they gotta pay you hard, cold, hard cash to play line iron because

Nina: 16:06

it's not cash. I'll take like tokens, I'll take, um, you know, some variants of gold.

Alex: 16:11

Okay. They just have to pay you. I see. Um, I will say though, best base art we've seen in what? Forever. This is amazing base art. Oh,

Nina: 16:19

it's good. Yeah, it is good.

Alex: 16:20

I felt like no one talked about that. This is phenomenal base art. Like this is, you are never gonna sell a variant of this base art.

Nina: 16:27

That's very impressive fisting going on there. Yeah,

Alex: 16:28

that's, yes, that's exactly where I was gonna go next, but I'm glad you said it and not me. Um, we got Merlin next. Merlin already got nerve from a two three to a two two, but then it's the Omniverse presence that took the next little hit there going from plus one power, sorry, going from plus two power to a plus one. What are your thoughts on Merlin in general and the nerves that have been happening?

Nina: 16:53

Poor, uh, Merlin has been catching so many strays because of, uh, Lau, like he was left untouched for months and this, this season alone, he got two nerves. But I kind of like understand the nerve of this card because, you know, location changes are, are just probably the most powerful ability in Snap because, you know, locations are so important it can affect your deck so much. So yeah. Uh, to be able to change the location for one energy only and then still buff your card like Merlin, that was kind of a little bit too strong. Like I can't think of any other consistent location changing card for this cheap. That also buffs your, um, your other card. You know, there is the nickel manure location change, but that's one in six. You have to get very lucky to get that change, to get that spell. And then the second cheapest is probably Scar Witch.

Alex: 17:48

Yeah. I totally see what you're saying. It's just like for Merlin, I understand that he was like a phenomenally good card, but I felt like he was like the best card in Marvel Snap. That wasn't oppressive like it was, how do I explain this? I was okay with Merlin having high play rates. I was okay seeing Merlin on my opponent side. I was okay with people playing Merlin because I felt like while it was a fantastic, if not one of the best cards in the game, it wasn't something that prevented me from doing the thing except it did prevent me from playing magic. You're not playing magic anymore. Yeah, I suppose, right? Maybe that's the major loss.

Nina: 18:23

It's such a cheap way to shut down magic. And the thing is, usually you would need to take up a deck slot. To add a card that would change location for you, right? Yeah. But with Merlin, he's like a Swiss knife. You don't even have to add anything like, you know, Legion or Scarlet Witch or what's that one drop that gives you like the bear and the The hawk?

Alex: 18:46

The

Nina: 18:47

haw. Oh, snow guard. Snow guard, yes. Yeah. Snow guard. Yeah. So with Marilyn, he's just, honestly, I think he's just too versatile. He can do everything.

Alex: 18:56

Yeah. Too versatile.

Nina: 18:57

You think you hardly shuts down like clock deck because, oh, you gave me, uh, a void. Thank you very much. Let me turn it into a show.

Alex: 19:05

Yeah, exactly. And al versatility deafening cord. Lost some deafening cord was a one costed skill that used to on reveal and take negative one away from your opponent's unit, as well as removing its text if it was three or less. And now it just does the text removal. So no more negative duff, no affliction here. What are your thoughts on that change?

Nina: 19:28

I hate this card.

Alex: 19:30

I hate it too.

Nina: 19:31

It's so annoying. Like he, I think this card single handedly just made red guardian obsolete. Like who still plays Red Guardian? When was the last time you saw Red Guardian? Because everyone just playing definite chord instead it's so much cheaper and I guess it only hits like three costs or lower. Whereas, you know, red guardian can hit like other things. But um, the other side was replaced by cosmic ghost rider. Right. So yeah. Red Guardian basically just useless now. Yes. So yeah, he definitely needed this car. Definitely needed a nerve.

Alex: 20:06

It definitely did. Um, but also at the same time, it's kind of funny to see someone like Maverick get nerve and deafening cord get nerve,'cause deafening cord is the counter to maverick. Mm-hmm. So it's like, well you can't have your cake and eat it too. It's like either maverick's a problem and deafening cord's not doing enough. Or like, what are we doing here? So that's, I found that a little interesting that they kind of nerf both at the same time. Where like literally deafening cord can prevent maverick from being too much of an issue for too long. But apparently, uh, second dinner. Thought else? Thought, thought a little differently. But before we get too caught up in the weeds here,'cause we got so many new cars to talk about. This is gonna come up later with one of the new cards too. But June, 2099 is the last change from that OTA. It goes from a four five to a four six. Uh, this is the what 20th change this card has seen in the game. They, they've been changing the bots, the powers, they've been changing the text, they've been changing the power on the base bot. I don't know what's going on anymore, but do you think that this matters?

Nina: 21:03

It, it probably will matter next season for that card you're mentioning.'cause I did, uh, write down earlier that new card is going to work really well Doom 2099. But at the moment, probably not very much. I, I don't really see this card at all.

Alex: 21:17

Yeah,

Nina: 21:17

because I think the power just cannot compete with the, the numbers that current meta cards can output.

Alex: 21:24

Yeah, I remember that, uh, with Doom 2099, there was some cope that like Aurora could be the answer for Doom 2099. And I happened to do the Aurora video on the official channel and I was testing well in advance. I was like, nah man, this sucks. Like there's no way that Aurora's answering the Doom 2099 question. It had to come from somewhere else. And they're gonna have Moon Dragon, which we'll talk about soon, which could potentially be the answer there. And before I forget, because I almost forgot that there was apparently I can't spell Colonel.'Cause there's like an sound, I dunno, the letters don't make any sense. I still don't understand why it's called Kernel and not like Elle. But anyways, that's a other

Nina: 22:00

Colonel Colon.

Alex: 22:02

Yeah.

Nina: 22:02

But then, you know, I had this conversation with Aaron the other day. It's like,

Alex: 22:06

pistachios, like the actual,

Nina: 22:08

some people call them pistachios.

Alex: 22:10

Why?

Nina: 22:12

I don't know why exactly. Where's the F coming from?

Alex: 22:15

I guess

Nina: 22:16

it's PI pachios, not pistachios. There's no h and it doesn't start with F.

Alex: 22:22

Yeah. I, I don't know man. I, someone at some point did explain to me like the history of why this is colonel, why it has the R sound inside, but I, I, I do not remember. Someone in the comments will, will state as to why it does make that sound. But this card got bought from a three three to a three four. And honestly it's uh, it's fine. It's good. It's a good card. It always has been.

Nina: 22:45

I feel like it was already fine.

Alex: 22:46

Yeah, it was

Nina: 22:48

like, I don't really understand why he got buffed.

Alex: 22:51

Nope. Neither do i, I

Nina: 22:52

thought it was really good. It was really, really strong in discard text. But people do, people still play discard only like hella.

Alex: 22:58

Discards in a weird spot. I think Concho Discard is still playable a hundred percent. Mm-hmm. It's still good. Um, it's just the versions of Discard that are popular right now don't play Kernel America. And as a result, the card disproportionately looks bad. Whereas if there is a version of Discard that's no longer that con based version that could use something like a Kernel America, like a swarm version or something that suddenly this card's gonna look amazing because it can put up a tremendous amount of power. But I just don't think it's a medical call right now, which I think is hurting it more than the actual text of the card itself. Before we move on to the new season, we wanna talk about the last season standouts. What were the cards from the prior season that really stood out to you as Absolute Bangers

Nina: 23:40

soon? We can probably assume you already clicked on it before I even mentioned it. The, uh, the season pass card. Completely broken. Too good. Too good. Still at Six Power might still be too good if it gave plus two power only. You know, this card is just bonkers.

Alex: 23:56

Yeah, that was a little obvious. Maybe that was one that I should have. Uh, not just laid up to you there, but I'm gonna tell you, I think that Dragon Lord is by far one of the best cars they've released in a long time. Not just from a like, oh, it's actually a really good thing, but like, no, it's very well designed, very fair. I feel like it's a good power level. Everything about this card has good effect. Everything's perfect. I love the card. I think it's a fantastic release. I'm glad it existed and they gave it away for free via a limited time game mode. Absolute wins across the board. Uh, dragon Lord is by far my last season standout for the Dragon season.

Nina: 24:31

Yeah, he was on my list too. He really surprised me actually, because if you think about it, his ability is so simple and yet we haven't had a card like this before. Yeah, we have cars that draw cards from our deck, like Jubilee. We have cars that draw like opponent's cards like Dr. Octopus. But aren't you like surprised that after three years, this is the first card that actually draws card from your hand?

Alex: 24:54

To the board. I said that and someone did correct me in Infinity Ultron, one of the, uh, it's this one here. Oh,

Nina: 25:01

yeah, yeah.

Alex: 25:02

One of the Infinity Stones technically would, does have the effect,

Nina: 25:06

actually you are wrong. Okay.

Alex: 25:11

Why am I wrong?

Nina: 25:12

Okay, fine. I'm card.

Alex: 25:14

Okay. I thought you actually

Nina: 25:15

had like

Alex: 25:16

a

Nina: 25:16

legitimate counter. I think it's well balanced.

Alex: 25:18

Yeah, it's,

Nina: 25:19

I write this card is well balanced. I like that it's a five drop. Um, I like the power. It's very reasonable power, you know, it's not completely broken and like you said, they gave it away for free and even if you didn't get it, it's a series four card.

Alex: 25:33

Yeah.

Nina: 25:34

So, yeah, this card is like, is just perfect.

Alex: 25:37

And, um, the last one I'm gonna mention here before we move on to the new season. I'm gonna tell you right now that I think Fang F is gonna have a lasting place in the meta. I think that Fing Fang Fu is a great card, and if anything, it's one of these seven costed cards that feels very natural to play in these ramp based shells. It's a good reason to have Luna Snow. It's a good reason to play Electro Blink. It's a good reason to do all the fantastic things that makes Marvel Snap fun, big chunky cards. It, and sometimes you're like, oh, I have a choice. Do I play Fing Fang F or do I play infant in this other location? Like, what's actually better? And it's all about reacting to what your opponent's putting on the board, which makes each individual game interesting. I think f fing Fang Fu is a fantastic card.

Nina: 26:21

I find that, uh, his name so hard to say.

Alex: 26:24

Yes,

Nina: 26:25

I've just been calling him like Foo FFI

Alex: 26:28

should have just done

Nina: 26:28

that, but yeah. Uh, he is actually second on my list. I think he. Changed the way I play the game a lot in a way that, you know how certain cards come out and they completely change the way you play, like Red Guardian or like, the deafening chord, you have to play around them. So Fin Fun is like one of those cards where you kind of have to play around it. If you know your opponents playing deck that has fing pong, boom, then you have to like make sure, you know, the front row cards aren't too big, otherwise you're just like helping them. So yeah, I I, I think this card you're right is going to, um, be here still. I think after Lau's nerve Fing F might be like the best card of the season.

Alex: 27:14

Oh, for sure. There's no question. Mm-hmm. It'll probably ultimately be the number one card going forward. I think it and Dragon Lord feel much more fair than shall Lao does and are much less likely to get nerfed. There's a chance Fang foo gets nerfed. I don't think Dragon Lord ever gets changed. I feel like that's a very good card to invest in. If you didn't pick it up, uh, during the limited time game mode. I think F Fang Fu might see a power reduction or something like that eventually. But even without that, I think that it's fantastic. But uh, yeah, that's gonna take us now into the new season of Marvel Snap that's coming. And I'm actually excited to talk about this because not only is there a new season starting, but Nina, February is gonna be really interesting for you too, because you're gonna be streaming every single day. Is that right?

Nina: 28:01

I know. I've committed now, like on the random whim on the stream, I said, you know, because my chat always makes fun of me, makes fun of me for not being consistent, and they're right. I'm really, really inconsistent when it comes to streaming. So I said, you know what? I'm gonna show you how consistent that can be. I'm going to stream every single day in February, and obviously I chose February because that's the shortest month of the year. You know, why make it more difficult than it needs to be? So yeah, there's gonna be a lot of Marvel Snap. I'm gonna do some RRL content, so I'm gonna do some cooking streams, maybe build some Legos, maybe do some painting streams, and a bit of a variety. So yeah, if you have nothing to do or if you want to have a stream in the background come say hi. Come say hi at Twitch TV four slash Nina isno.

Alex: 28:50

Perfect. And we'll have a link both in the description and we're gonna have a pin comment as well. Uh, Nina's a fantastic content creator, so be sure to go give her Twitch a follow because uh, if you're looking for any awesome content, you're gonna find it there. Star Lord. Star Lord. He is a four five. He's the season pass card and he reads on reveal. Next turn, you get plus one energy. For each turn you've ended with unspent energy. This gains that much power. This is star Lord, master of the sun. Nina, I will give you the floor. What are your thoughts on this card?

Nina: 29:30

At first glance, I thought he looked really bad, like he looked poopy, you know what I mean? It's like he's a four drop, so expensive to play out. But then if you think about it, like he can actually be really good in certain decks, like decks where you don't really play out anything until like turns 4, 5, 6 or decks where you want to have unspread energy, like, you know, high Evo. And I have like an idea. You know what I'm thinking? Like skip 1, 2, 3. I mean, you can play like a two drop on three, but on four you play magic On five, you play something like smaller than five. Then on six you play star Lord. Then on seven you have 13 energy, which means you can thinking boom into Zola.

Alex: 30:25

Whoa. Seriously?

Nina: 30:26

What do you

30:26

think

Alex: 30:26

of that? That's a cook. I like that. I like the fact that we're in a point in Marvel Snap where we can be like, skip the first five turns, screw the first like 75% of the game and then you win. You know what I mean? That's actually a cool cook. I like that. It's uh, it's almost like, it feels like a fall in one type thing, right? Mm-hmm. But instead of Black Panther Zola, you're talking Fang F Zola.

Nina: 30:49

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean you can Black Panther Zola, but Fing FFI think is bigger.

Alex: 30:55

Is he, I don't know. Probably. Maybe.

Nina: 30:57

Well, I mean, if you Black Panther into Zola, that's 2020 in like those locations, right? Yeah. And at the moment I feel like your opponent could probably be the 2020 with like Shola Fang F's a bigger source, but FFA has the potential of being much bigger.

Alex: 31:15

Yeah. Wow.

Nina: 31:17

But the problem is Merlin,

Alex: 31:19

ah, Merlin

Nina: 31:20

is gonna ruin our lives, but by removing limbo.

Alex: 31:24

Yeah. You know, that's actually the topic of our conversation later in the mailbag, just so you know. Um, okay. Which is so funny. It's come up so many times, but you bring up a really good point. So, first of all, that's an absolutely beautiful cook. I'm, I'm glad you came up with that'cause I didn't come up with anything like that. I was so fixated on the hi Evo side of it, which is where I wanna play the card the most, which I think is what you mentioned. It's the most obvious place for it, but sometimes the most obvious place for cards are where they are going to perform exceptionally well. And this card here, I think is a great support piece for vo. But a couple things came to mind. First of all, I think VO decks are already. Relatively solid and better than what most people expect. They're not like S tier decks right now, but they're actually closer to like the upper echelons of the like tier one because they got significant buffs, like the Misty Nights, the Cyclops the shockers. They all got significant power buffs in the holiday kind of uh, OTA, which made a big difference for them. And so now you're adding another tool for it. Now the problem is what you really want to take out is high evil himself and put star Lord in. High Evil occupies this really weird spot where he is like, he's in the deck, but you never wanna play it or draw him. Imagine if you could have the e evolved cards without high Evo and have this instead the deck would be insane. No, you can't

Nina: 32:38

eat your cake and have it too, Alex.

Alex: 32:41

Yeah, I know, I know. But like, yeah, I, I totally see where you're going from and as a result, I think that star Lord is just, it's just really good and it makes, it makes me feel bad for like Warlock because that card Now why would you ever play that when you can play this? Um, I

Nina: 32:57

think that you can play warlock with star Lord.

Alex: 32:59

Yeah. Probably.

Nina: 33:01

Let me think. Well, you play warlock on three, then you play something, you activate him on four, right? Yeah. And then on five you play star Lord.

Alex: 33:14

You could do that and even potentially Star-Lord could be discounted or whatever. The problem with Warlock though, is that he would hit stuff like she, uh, like the she Knot, not the she Knot. What am I talking about? She Hulk. Oh, she Hulk. Yeah. If warlocks hitting she Hulk, she just wastes that uh, that discount. Right. Which I think is a little unfortunate, but what this, here, you're getting that extra power not only on the card itself, which generates green text, by the way, which helps cards like superior Spider-Man that can work with it. Mm-hmm. But now you're just working with the game plan. You've, you're doing for star Lord, like, star Lord. You're not jumping through hoops. You're doing what high evil wants to do anyways.'cause on turn one you play sunspot, turn two, you play misty night, turn three, you know, you play your shocker or you know, your whatever. Or you play Misty Night Sunspot, it doesn't matter. Turn four. You play your cyclops, you pew, pew, right?

Nina: 34:01

Yeah. This is the be this is the perfect car to play out on turn five in the VO deck. Absolutely. Rather than skip you're thinking.

Alex: 34:08

Yeah.

Nina: 34:08

But you could be maybe like. This card or Warlock, you can have both. But yeah, making them work together is gonna be super awkward. But Star lot, if you play him out on turn five, that pretty much guarantees that your Hulk will still grow and turn six, which usually he doesn't unless you have extra energy.

Alex: 34:26

Yeah. And that's a great point too. And the thing I like about this card as well, better than Warlock, is that this car is non susceptible to Mobius and Mobius. It doesn't care if Mobius and Mobius is on the field to play. You could even make an argument now, this is huge cope and I don't think I've heard anybody talk about this. Jim Hammond human torch technically wants excess power too. And so I don't know if you ever make a deck with Jim Hammond human torch in it, in a Evo shell'cause like nebulous. Way too valuable, sunspots too valuable, missing nights, too valuable. But I'm just throwing out there. That's a card you could consider too. I just try to be thorough.

Nina: 35:00

Yeah. Yeah. I can definitely see him working. If you managed to play him out early, maybe on one of those turns, like on turn two, three. Where, you know, you still wanna skip, but you do wanna play something out, you know, just in case. So yeah, I can definitely see, uh, Jim Hammond working in, in that deck maybe instead of Nebula. I mean, how good is Nebula really in that deck?

Alex: 35:19

It's amazing. And I'll tell you why. So Nebula's actually a low key winner, and the reason for it is because I played way too much Evo in my life. But so Nebula is great because what it does is it actually pays dividends for Cyclops because it encourages cards to be present for a Cyclops, pew. So you put Nebula there and then they play turn two there, they play through turn three there, assuming it's not like a kitty pride or whatever. And when you play Cyclops on the Nebula location, it basically guarantees Cyclops will have things to, to eye blast, right? That's one of the benefits of it. And because Cyclops will be consistently eye blasting, it'll quickly lower the cost of your abomination, which is usually the goal. So Nebula helps Cyclops in abomination in like low key ways that wouldn't be expected.

Nina: 36:01

Would you still play Abomination in this tech though, with Star Lord?

Alex: 36:05

I think you could, I don't see a lot of people lean towards She Hulk. I would lean towards Abomination over She Hulk Uhhuh. Yeah.

Nina: 36:13

Yeah. Maybe we'll have to see. But the thing is with, with Nebula, because of how popular Merlin is, people can just play, play, uh, skills into her location.

Alex: 36:26

Yeah. They can

Nina: 36:27

definitely court without putting anything there.

Alex: 36:29

Yeah.

Nina: 36:29

Or play that stupid card. Definitely. Court we talked about earlier.

Alex: 36:33

Yeah. There's a lot of ways to counter Nebula, but I just think that like if you forget about all the sad stuff that could happen to her, for the most part, I think that she actually helps a high shell quite a bit. Mm-hmm. Specifically'cause of Cyclops and you're able to spread. Spread that negative power. Yeah.

Nina: 36:47

She probably works better than Jim Ham. Jim Hammond.

Alex: 36:49

Yeah. Well, Jim Hammond was cope.

Nina: 36:51

I don't know. I feel like Jim Hammond has the potential of growing bigger with Star Lord, if you play him out early. Like if you play, if you skip every single turn, like, um, say it's just a six turn game, right? You skip every single turn and then you play out star Lord on turn five. How much extra energy is that? Five.

Alex: 37:15

Yeah. So, yeah, but like I, I like the fact that I know there's players out there listening and they're like. Who the hell is Jim Hammond? Like they can't even remember that this card exists. Like I know for a fact. And he's basically, he's a one. Is he a one three? He's a one three or one two. One

Nina: 37:29

two, right?

Alex: 37:29

I don't even know or so anyways, no one something. He's one something. And he basically gains power for every extra energy you have. And the only place where he's really playable is in fall, in one deck because you play mode early, then you. Fallen one with like, uh, that's like the Zola planter fall in one deck and you start with so much energy so often that you get him to some decent power. But, uh, star Lord is an interesting card because I think that the season pass tends to be worth it for players. If you're gonna spend any money on Marvel Snap, the$10 us that you spend on the season pass tends to take you the furthest, especially when you consider what you unlock in the season pass. You get a Series five car, which is technically worth 6,000 tokens, you gain access to the weekend missions. It's, it really is the best money you can spend in the game. But if you're free to play, you're free to play. Right. And, uh, I don't think that Star-Lord is going to be as meta warping as Sha la for sure. And for that reason, I'm gonna give him a baseline four star rating. I think Sha la is a far more superior card. I think this is a good card, but it's much more fair.

Nina: 38:34

I don't think we should use Shala as like a baseline because that card is, is like a trillion out of 10.

Alex: 38:41

Yeah's

Nina: 38:41

true. So yeah, star Wars is more, is a much more reasonable card. And I feel like most of the season pass cards we've been getting have been reasonable. Uh, yeah. It's been, I, I like scrolled past, you know, a lot of the season passes and it took me a while to get to a car that was like completely broken. That's good. Which was like Galata, I think even then she's like nothing compared to Shola.

Alex: 39:05

Yeah.

Nina: 39:05

I can't think of a car that was this broken. Maybe like Loki, but Loki. What was Loki? Even a season pass card.

Alex: 39:12

Yeah. Yeah. Loki was a season pass card.

Nina: 39:13

Oh yeah. Okay. Oh, you know what I was also thinking?

Alex: 39:17

Yeah.

Nina: 39:18

About Star Lord. He is gonna be quite good for newer players because high Evo is such a cheap deck to build. If in order to like improve it, if you just need the season pass card. You know, you just buy the season pass and then your cheap deck is a lot like, is much better.

Alex: 39:36

Yeah, no, you're right. It's a great season pass card for new players. Mm-hmm. For that exact, it is the same reason why Merlin was so great.'cause they can go, Merlin could have gone pretty much anywhere, but with the Hi Evo, you just buy one series five card.

Nina: 39:50

Yeah.

Alex: 39:50

Which is, it's crazy. VO is still series five. But then like, boom, all that garbage you have in your collection, like, like you look at cards like Misty and you're like, why does this have nothing? Like, why does she just do nothing? This clothes so sad. Why would I ever wanna play Misty Night? And then you realize mm-hmm. It's like, well it's not just Patriot, it's Hi Evo. That's the real magic, right?

Nina: 40:07

Yeah. He unlocks their potential.

Alex: 40:09

Yeah. So what's your star reading?

Nina: 40:11

Like 3.8.

Alex: 40:13

What the fuck? 3.8. You did this last time too. You came in with like really obscure numbers. You turned it into a 100 point scale.

Nina: 40:22

Well it's just, I don't think it's as bad as three, but I don't think it's as good as four. So it's like in between, but closer to four than five.

Alex: 40:29

So 3.85. I will say 3.85.

Nina: 40:33

Okay,

Alex: 40:34

that makes more sense. We're gonna go to the thousands columns. But, uh, anyhow, that's actually a hundredth column. Good job Alex here. I'm glad you're a teacher. But we have another card to top of and that's, that's the season pass card. That pass card, it's gonna be, I think it's gonna be a good one, but I think it's gonna be fair. A little more niche and narrow in its application overall. And then we have a Magus Magus is the super premium season pass card. This is the, uh, the pay to win card that you gotta pay the extra money for to unlock in the season pass. If you, so do you get a variant that'll unlock the base one as well? So you get a bit of a double dip there. I think this card, oh, I should read what it does first. It is a three five that reads, activate copy the text of a character in your deck with cost equal to your unspent energy. And this is without using, it's on reveal. So the way I, first of all, the text is really strange. I read this as when this copies the text of a character and it hits an on reveal card, it will not do, its on reveal. So if you hit a Doctor Doom. Magus will not just sprout dune bots. Is that what you understand as well?

Nina: 41:51

I don't know. I thought, yeah, the wording is super confusing, but I thought it means that it would not steal that card's own availability. So you, it would use the sum availability, but no, you're right. Literally says without using its own availability. What this card is complete crapton. No.

Alex: 42:09

Yeah, it's garbage. I, I put it's

Nina: 42:11

so

Alex: 42:11

bad. One to two star rating. Like I, I don't think this is

Nina: 42:14

plenty. Like, and you have to skip energy.

Alex: 42:17

Yes.

Nina: 42:19

Yeah. It seems really, really bad.

Alex: 42:22

If,

Nina: 42:23

and also this is one of those cards where like you, where you have to have a deck tracker.

Alex: 42:28

Yeah.

Nina: 42:29

Yeah. Because like if you play on your phone, it's like, I have no idea what's left in my deck.

Alex: 42:34

Yeah, so this is an untapped sponsored card apparently. Um, so I'll tell you, like this card, it strikes me as a bad card. This is like a very unenthusiastic two for me. And even then, it's like I, I think it's a two'cause someone's gonna figure out something that's kind of cool. You could play it with like ongoing cards, like Ironman and stuff like that, where you skip turn five and you could potentially hit Ironman. But what if you draw Ironman, right? Like, what if you draw Ironman? Then you like, the thing is, is that like you're, you're asking for a couple hoops to jump through. You're jumping through the hoop of like, well, something's gotta be in your deck that you want to hit. You gotta be in a position where you can float the energy you wanna float to hit the thing you want to hit, and the thing that you want to hit can't be drawn into your hand. So I think it's a little, it's just a little too cute. Yeah. I would be so surprised if this card saw significant play.

Nina: 43:24

It's very clunky. Yeah, you have to play out. You can only activate starting from turn four. You can't use that card's own reveal and best cards. Have own reveal abilities.

Alex: 43:35

Yeah.

Nina: 43:35

And uh, what else? Yeah, you have to skip the exact amount, the cost to play out the card. You want to copy. Yeah. It's just way too clunky and too hard to make it work. I think. I'm gonna rate it like 1.5.

Alex: 43:50

Yeah. And I don't even know. Yeah, I agree with you. I'm like 1.5 as well. Like I said, no, you can't

Nina: 43:55

be 1.5. I'm 1.55. You

Alex: 43:56

said two five? I'm 1.55 get correct. I'm 1.55. I'm slightly higher than you, I guess, but, um, yeah, the card sucks. I just don't see where it's gonna see play. If it did the on reveal, then fine. I could have potentially seen it somewhere. Mm-hmm. But I don't see it. Like, I just don't see it working. The one thing I really don't know yet, and I tried to find an answer and like they asked the teams, no one asked it yet. And I should have asked prior. But I don't know. What happens if it copies an Activate card. Like if it copies the text of an Activate card, will you be able to activate it again? Like if it turns into Maverick, which is kind of interesting'cause it would start at 3.5. Would you be able to then use the Maverick ability to then siphon that energy to someone else? I don't think it'll

Nina: 44:40

work. I imagine so. Because the text is similar to Prodigy. Right. And the Prodigy copies the card. Exactly. But that is not an activate card, I guess.

Alex: 44:49

Yeah. But like Syme Spider-Man doesn't work that way. Right,

Nina: 44:52

that's true. But Symbio Spider-Man doesn't copy the card. He merges.

Alex: 44:56

It's true. Yeah. I guess.

Nina: 44:58

But even then, if you want to copy Mar Maverick, you have to skip, you have to have float three energy in order to copy it.

Alex: 45:05

Yes.

Nina: 45:06

And for three energy, I have better things to do.

Alex: 45:08

That's the thing, right? Like you usually have better things to do than just like float out energy. And I think one of the key things that really hurts this card is that because you don't, you don't do the on Revealable card like this would've been insane in Mr. Negative because it would've guaranteed on turn three, or sorry, you play this on turn three, you don't draw Mr Negative on turn four, you would just hit your Mr Negative and flip the whole deck. That would've been perfect, but now you can't really do that.

Nina: 45:35

Yeah. And the not copy on Reveal thing is really holding this card back.

Alex: 45:40

Yeah. I, unless

Nina: 45:40

we're wrong about it. And, and they can use the, he can use the on reveal.

Alex: 45:45

I don't think we're wrong. Like the, the bracket text is pretty without using, its on reveal. Like it doesn't seem like it would steal it sounds like. And what the point, I don't know. There must have been something in testing where this card, at the last possible second they realized, had a broken interaction and they felt, felt with reveal this is a massive nerve. I bet, I bet you they decided like late in their development that this, they probably OTA this just prior to the, the video coming out. Like the announcing It's possible. Yeah. Very possible. Because that text change is very, it's curious, right? Um, mm-hmm. The last thing I'll throw out, I think we're both really low on this card so I don't wanna waste too much time on it. Is this C five cope? Like, could you make this work in a cerebral five deck flow, three hit cerebral? I don't know.

Nina: 46:31

Maybe

Alex: 46:33

it's not crazy. Is it worth it though? I mean, probably not, but there's people who love cerebral.

Nina: 46:40

I can kind of see it working. I mean, anyone who plays C five is coping. C five is coping hard, I think.

Alex: 46:47

Okay. If

Nina: 46:48

you wanna play Cerebra to play C two or C3.

Alex: 46:51

So you're already this deep into the, into the cope, I guess. There's people that have kind of maybe suggested this could go into high evil. I'm gonna say I, I don't think this will ever be in High Evil. I don't think it makes any sense. I don't think there's any time you're gonna float the energy that you're gonna want to hit. Things like what you're gonna hit She Hulk, like why or are you gonna hit like, uh, evil himself? Like, why? Like, I don't think there's many good hits there. Um, you could consider Misty. The only one that I was thinking about was like, you play it on three. You haven't drawn your, um, you have not drawn your, what's his name, Cyclops, yet. You play a Misty Night or a Sunspot Turn four and then activate this. You hit your, your Cyclops and it's a, it's just Cyclops.'cause he's also three five, I guess. But I don't know. I don't see it working. I'd rather just

Nina: 47:35

play the Cyclops.

Alex: 47:36

I also would rather just play some cops, but uh, yeah, I'm not a fan of this card. And so as a result, low ratings for us. I'm at 1.55 and Nina at 1.5. Moon, dragon, not to be confused with the dragon of the Moon. I'm glad they decide to do those two, uh, back to back months. Uh, Moon Dragon is a two, two that reads end of turn, plus two power. If you played one card, this turn and spent all of your energy, Moon Dragon will be entering the series five packs on February 3rd. What are your thoughts?

Nina: 48:11

Oh, this is the card you meant when you talked about Doom 2099, isn't it? Yeah, she's gonna work really well with that card. I feel like she's already a pretty good card because her ability is basically what you want to do in Snap most of the time anyway. You know, you want to play out cards and use up all your energy, but I guess you limit it to one card. Per turn. So no show LA and no Marlon for you.

Alex: 48:36

You know what? I don't know if technically we're limited to one card per turn because in Doom 2090 nine's case, it says if you played exactly one card, this one says if you played one card, this turn, so if you played two cards, you technically played one card, right? Because there was a card plate. I don't know, maybe I'm just thinking a little too hard. Tcgs and CCGs, the text has to carry weight. Right? To me, it almost sounds like you could play multiple cards per turn. Although I think that would probably be against the spirit of what the designer meant. I don't know. I think, know what I mean?

Nina: 49:08

They would say at least one card, this turned done.

Alex: 49:12

Maybe it,

Nina: 49:14

it's just inconsistent. It's just inconsistent wording to be honest.

Alex: 49:17

Because I think that does Doom 29 9, no, sorry. Does Doom 2099 say Exactly? It doesn't it? It does say exactly.

Nina: 49:24

I'm not sure.

Alex: 49:25

Yeah. I, my game crashed and at some point, like when we stopped talking, I clicked off the screen and the game crashed, and I'm like, okay, and you'll notice you want to check my screen changed. Now let's just look at my desktop. Super bright on my head. That's why I took my glasses off because my desktop is like some picture of a rock with a bird on it. And so like, it just, uh, oh yeah,

Nina: 49:43

it replaced my, uh, my camera at one, at one point. When we were talking earlier.

Alex: 49:47

Yes. But, uh, with Moon Dragon specifically, it's probably really just one card per turn. By the way. I was playing playing devil's advocate as they say. I think that this is potentially cool because I feel like it can do for Doom 2099. What Chamber did for Ramp like Chamber did a number for RAMP as a great two drop that could be consistently played in that deck. And I think that Doom 2099 would benefit from something like Moon Dragon. The only thing though, is that Moon Dragon would be stepping on the toes of sidewalk, who loves going out on turn two to get those doom bots out on turn three, which I think that, uh, those decks like to do.

Nina: 50:24

That's very true. But you don't have to have one like wind condition, not wind condition. You know, you can have Moon, dragon and s lock in the same deck, of course. So if you don't draw one, you can play the other. If you draw both, just, look at your hand and, and decide on the situation what's best to play. It's not like you have to play Cylo or you have to play Moon Dragon.

Alex: 50:45

Yeah. I feel like her power level's probably consistent with that of Chamber though. Chamber I think can get higher a little easier. Um,

Nina: 50:52

I can see, oh, chamber can get huge.

Alex: 50:53

Yeah. So actually I'll take that back. I think the Chamber does get bigger overall. But you could theoretically get her to a two 10, like on a pretty, as long as you play her on turn two. Right. You can get her to a two 10 pretty consistently.

Nina: 51:07

What about do you think she would work with, um, invisible Woman for steps? Um, in which way Doom 29 9, you know, like double the, um, the plus two, I guess.

Alex: 51:21

Yeah, you could. And she actually counts herself too. Too much effort,

Nina: 51:23

doesn't it?

Alex: 51:24

Like in the, uh, in the Reveal video when she played herself, well, not when she played herself, but when she's played on turn two, she actually becomes a two four right off the start.

Nina: 51:34

Mm. She could also work in Wicken. Since in that deck in Wicken Deck, you want to be spending exactly the amount of energy, you know, uh, you have at least with the four first three turns.

Alex: 51:47

Yeah. But unlike speed, she doesn't take into account prior turns. Right. So, um mm-hmm. Like you would, you would have to, yeah. That's the old Wicken style deck then where you have like Quicksilver and then a whole bunch of two drops.'Cause most Quicksilver uh, wicked decks now are actually running domino. You could theoretically use the Newhan Chi because it stuffs your hand, but then your deck sucks. I don't know.

Nina: 52:08

Yeah. Ugh. I hate the han. I hate the Newhan Chi. Why is it so bad?

Alex: 52:13

I actually had hope for it. I, I like, I kind of liked it'cause I, I've had a, I had a good deck. Clea was doing really well in it. It worked really well with Clea and in that one deck it gave me hope and everywhere else it felt bad. And it just so happens that that one deck just wasn't enough. That the whole card just fell on its face. It's just, you can't dilute your deck and Marvel, Snap and not draw through. Like, if you're gonna dilute your deck like a, um, like an AKA Moto does, like AKA Moto can draw himself through his temporal manipulation. If you're gonna dilute your deck the way Thanos does, the Stones for the most part draw through themselves. This card just didn't do that. And I mean,

Nina: 52:50

it's easy to make him good. Just make the uh, 10 rings, not take up a draw slot

Alex: 52:56

and then suddenly it's the best card in the game.

Nina: 53:00

Well, not the best card, but maybe actually that's irrelevant.

Alex: 53:04

That's such a huge difference though. Like, it's such a huge difference in the cards design. Like it's actually crazy that takes it from like two star to five star, like right there.

Nina: 53:13

If it's not, not five star, like Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. It's something like you're guaranteed to have to play on too. So it, that can actually replace Domino very consistently.

Alex: 53:25

Yeah. It

Nina: 53:27

does. Okay. Maybe that would make him too good.

Alex: 53:30

Yeah. Back to

Nina: 53:32

Moon Dragon though. I checked and Doom 2099 does say if you played exactly in brackets, one card Exactly. Is in brackets.

Alex: 53:41

That's what I figured. So I'm assuming Moon Dragon should be one exact card too.

Nina: 53:47

Yeah. But who knows? We'll have to test it out.

Alex: 53:50

Yeah. One thing that's worth mentioning with Moon Dragon that does hurt her is that, uh, if you play this card's unplayable late, like it is a really, really, really bad card to play anywhere after turn two or three. Right. And this is one of those things where if you don't draw early and you like, because she's not like speed that keeps track of prior turns, it just doesn't matter because it's end of turn and not ongoing. If it was ongoing, that's different. Right. But because it's end of turn, it's significantly weaker in this case,

Nina: 54:20

oh my God, you're so right. She's actually just bad. Any turn except turn two.

Alex: 54:26

Yeah,

Nina: 54:27

well, I mean, I guess you could play out on turn three and then like 4, 5, 6. You get plus two. That Okay, turn three is still okay.

Alex: 54:34

Yeah,

Nina: 54:35

but 4, 5, 6 is just, yeah. The later, the, the worst she gets, the later you play out. The worst she gets.

Alex: 54:42

But if you play her on turn three, you'd probably hope you played something like a Kate Bishop on turn two or else you're not gonna get her plus one. Right. Like you're gonna wanna make, but

Nina: 54:50

you're not gonna get it anyway because it says play one card. This turn.

Alex: 54:54

Oh. See, either way you're scammed. So if you play her on turn three, she sucks too.

Nina: 54:57

One card. You can't just use up all your energy. You have to play one card only.

Alex: 55:01

Well, I'm taking the 0.5 least that's how I understanding my three story. I had her at a 3.5 stars. She's now a three. You've convinced me.

Nina: 55:08

Okay.

Alex: 55:08

What's your rating?

Nina: 55:10

2.8.

Alex: 55:11

2.8. Okay, we're going for it. 2.8. I

Nina: 55:13

was gonna go three, but you took three.

Alex: 55:15

Well, I was at 3.5 at the start for what it's worth. And then I, you, you talked me down at the end there. But,

Nina: 55:22

uh, she's actually worse than, uh, I thought you took me down too, because I didn't think about drawing her later than two in my head. I always draw her on two.

Alex: 55:30

I know. That's the one thing about Marvel Snap. Like every time I evaluate cards, I picture me getting them at the exact spot and then I'm like, oh, I picture myself playing the card. And then you kind of forget about like, oh, you see Sha La You're like, oh, hell yeah. Like, it's gonna be so fun to play. Then you were like, wait a minute, this is not fun to play against. Dammit. Like, this sucks. Like, other people were, how dare you use the new card on me. Like, who do you think you are? You know what I mean? Like, this game was built for my enjoyment, but, uh, but yeah, that's the truth. Boot Dragon February 3rd and it it's, it looks like it has Promise. I don't think it's the new chamber though. I think that Doom 2099 needs more help than just Moon, dragon and Chamber is probably ultimately gonna be a better card. But then

Nina: 56:10

Chamber actually really surprised me.

Alex: 56:12

Oh yeah. Surpris. I didn't think he was gonna be

Nina: 56:13

this good.

Alex: 56:14

Surprised everyone. Drs, the avatar of life. Is this the new surprise card of Marvel Snap, A three four that reads, end of turn, plus three power. If your opponent played a card with greater power, this turn, move to that card. Move to that card. Move to that card. Oh, yeah. It does say move to that card.

Nina: 56:38

I am so confused by this wording.

Alex: 56:40

I read it so poorly that I confused myself despite the fact I read it correctly. I am so embarrassed. I'm gonna read that again, just for clarity's sake. Okay. I, I could edit that, but I won't, but I'm gonna read it. Read it. Drex. A three, four, end of turn. Plus three power. If your opponent played a card with greater power, this turn, move to that card. If you'd be winning its location.

Nina: 57:04

Can I have, can I ask a question?

Alex: 57:07

No, go ahead. Aren't you

Nina: 57:11

a teacher?

Alex: 57:13

Yes,

Nina: 57:14

I would like to ask a question.

Alex: 57:16

Okay. You, you over there with your hand up

Nina: 57:19

greater a card with greater power than what

Alex: 57:23

itself, I think,

Nina: 57:23

than drags.

Alex: 57:24

Than Drax? Yes.

Nina: 57:25

Than drags.

Alex: 57:26

Yes.

Nina: 57:27

Okay. Okay. That makes more sense to me. And then so say you played out three, four, right? And your opponents played out like, um, gladiator three eight.

Alex: 57:37

Yes.

Nina: 57:38

So we would get plus three power on the drags and he would move to the gladiator location

Alex: 57:43

if he's winning, if he can win that location.

Nina: 57:46

Oh wait. So it wouldn't even move. He would, if he wouldn't move that, uh, win that location, but he would still gain the plus three power, which is not bad.

Alex: 57:56

Yeah, he would still gain the plus three power, but he would only move if he's capable of winning the location. So imagine like a Captain Marvel who kind of like Captain Marvel moves if you can win the game. He will move if he can win the given location. But he might throw the game,

Nina: 58:13

but he would also move End of game is also end of last turn. Right. So he would still move that turn if he, if he could.

Alex: 58:20

Oh, I had, I would imagine so, yeah. End of turn happens then. End of game triggers happen.

Nina: 58:26

Mm.

Alex: 58:27

So

Nina: 58:27

yeah, I kind of like him, but yeah, I don't know. He's not very predictable is he? It really depends on like what your opponent plays out.

Alex: 58:38

Yeah, absolutely. It's an interesting card Nonetheless, I think that he is likely to have. I think he's a solid card. He's likely to get excessive stats. One pro sends him to three seven. It's very unlikely that they ever play something that's like not bigger than a four. Like who's play like, okay, you, you go against C four and you cry. Fine. But like even against C five, he gets at least one proc, right? Mm-hmm. Um, that's true. The agency is in your opponent's hand for sure. But I'll tell you, I think this card's coming out at the perfect time because one of the best archetypes in Marvel Snap right now is ramp. We just finished talking about Fig Fang Fume and how RAMP is so good. RAMP is playing big chunks the whole game. And Drax loves that.'cause every big chunk that comes down Drax is like sick plus three easy. Thank you so much. And he's gonna get absolutely massive against ramp. He's a bit of a ramp, uh, release valve to some degree I think.

Nina: 59:35

True. But ramp cards are so big. Usually. Yeah. If your opponent manages to ramp. It is gonna be, it is gonna be hard to compete with those numbers and imagine like a lot of the ramp decks are now playing what? Dragon Lord. Dragon Lord, into like Zola or something. And that's zero, zero cost card or Dragon Lord into, um, what's the one, oh my god, the one that

Alex: 1:00:04

Grandmaster

Nina: 1:00:05

Yes, Grandmaster.

Alex: 1:00:08

I've done, I've done quite a few of that. So yeah. Okay. I hear what you're saying. But also the other perspective on that is they play something like, remember it's end of turn two, right? So it just checks the end of the turn. So they do like electro and he just gains plus three. That's true. He becomes a three seven with their electro play. Very true. And then they play vision that, or they play war machine. He gains another plus three. He's a three 10, right?

Nina: 1:00:31

Yeah, you're right. Hmm. You know what, he's also kind of good against

Alex: 1:00:37

who

Nina: 1:00:38

say your opponent's playing like a. A lockdown deck.

Alex: 1:00:43

Okay.

Nina: 1:00:43

He could help you with that. If you don't have like war machine or something, he could move to a locked location or like a hard to get location.

Alex: 1:00:52

That's true. That's true. Hmm hmm.

Nina: 1:00:56

Very

Alex: 1:00:57

interesting.

Nina: 1:00:57

But your opponent will, can easily play around it to be honest.

Alex: 1:01:00

You saying that reminded me that Professor Xavier exists in Marvel Snap?

Nina: 1:01:04

Yes. Professor X.

Alex: 1:01:07

You remember that card?

Nina: 1:01:08

I do, but I don't see him anywhere but aam these days.

Alex: 1:01:13

You've seen him even in aam?

Nina: 1:01:15

Yeah.'cause they can play him out on turn four.

Alex: 1:01:18

That's even low for Irishman players.

Nina: 1:01:24

I don't know. I don't expect much from Irishman players.

Alex: 1:01:27

I don't even remember the last time I saw Professor X and again.

Nina: 1:01:31

Oh, I've, I've seen it a few times.

Alex: 1:01:32

Really?

Nina: 1:01:34

Irishman. Yeah.

Alex: 1:01:35

Okay. As you, yeah, as you did say,

Nina: 1:01:37

cause there's so many locations where you kind of want to play into, into them, you know, like the one that gives like plus eight power split, uh, amongst all cars on turn four you know, the car locations that kind of buff your cards. So you are obviously gonna want to play into those locations. So professor on four can catch a lot of people by surprise.

Alex: 1:01:59

It's true. Are we not putting a nudge enough value on the fact that Drax can move to a location if you can win it? Is that something that you, you want to pursue more? Like is that something that you think, like, is it gonna impact your, the way that your opponent's playing? It does, right? Like it has some mind game elements to it. Like it might actually affect where your opponent plays their turns, right?

Nina: 1:02:20

Yeah. But then again, zombie Captain Marvel,

Alex: 1:02:23

well that's the one that just destroys cards. Regular Captain Marvel. Marvel,

Nina: 1:02:27

and then she moves to a location.

Alex: 1:02:29

Oh yeah. That

Nina: 1:02:29

she can win. No. I

Alex: 1:02:30

don't think it, I don't think it moves to a location that she can win. It just moves, doesn't it?

Nina: 1:02:35

She moves to a location you're losing.

Alex: 1:02:38

Yes. That's what it's, yeah. That's another card that I saw absolutely no place since it got released, which is a shame. I actually was excited about that card, to be honest with you.

Nina: 1:02:47

Yeah.

Alex: 1:02:48

But, uh,

Nina: 1:02:49

I don't star reading. I know I'm not a hundred percent sold on this card, but maybe I'm not seeing something. But I guess like you are right. Even if he doesn't if we ignore the moving part completely, he's definitely gonna grow like at least plus three, if not plus six most games.

Alex: 1:03:05

Yeah, for sure. They have to play power. Like how are they gonna win the game if they're not playing anything?

Nina: 1:03:09

Three 11. Oh, I guess that's not bad at all.

Alex: 1:03:12

Three 11.

Nina: 1:03:13

I just don't like giving up control. This card kind of puts control in your opponent's hand. I like to be able to control my own cards,

Alex: 1:03:23

I guess that's true. Um,

Nina: 1:03:25

do I sound like a control freak?

Alex: 1:03:27

No, no, no. It's, you sound like a card game player. So yeah, this is coming on February 10th. I'm leaning 3.5 stars. What are your thoughts?

Nina: 1:03:35

Mm, mm Uh, maybe 3.7,

Alex: 1:03:41

three point.

Nina: 1:03:41

I'm gonna go higher for you, uh, than you for the first time.

Alex: 1:03:43

For what it's worth, I could see this card being an actual four star card. I can see this card being a legit one because like it's floors pretty low. Mm-hmm. Like who's winning games other than C3 and C four without playing cards over four power

Nina: 1:03:58

yeah,

Alex: 1:03:59

he's gonna be a big body. It's the movement side. I want to see work in practice. Like, am I getting scanned when he moves? You know what I mean? Like, is he screwing up my board or

Nina: 1:04:08

sometimes probably.

Alex: 1:04:10

Or is he always moving and we're like, we're we're good. He's gonna be making moves and we're gonna be like, hell yeah. We're gonna be able to win this game. You know what I mean?

Nina: 1:04:16

Yeah. I see the potential definitely. But I just find him a bit boring'cause he's kind of just like. Put on a board and be done with him kind of card. And it's for your opponent now to interact with not you. You can't do anything with it. You can't move it, you can't activate it, you can't control where he goes. I guess you can kind of control it with like the cards you play out in different locations.

Alex: 1:04:39

Okay. Alright. Well that's interesting. Drax, avatar of life getting a mid-range pick from, uh, from both Nina and I And that moves us to our next card. Cracklin what? You had

Nina: 1:04:54

something you wanna say? I was gonna say before we move on, can I just say that as bad look, obviously I didn't say he was bad, but I still think he's better than Captain Marvel.

Alex: 1:05:03

You think he's better than like actual standard Captain Marvel?

Nina: 1:05:06

Yeah, he's a three five. Isn't she a four or five?

Alex: 1:05:12

Oh man, he's

Nina: 1:05:12

so, oh, sorry. He's, he's a three four. That will definitely grow at least once. Unless you're playing against like C two or something.

Alex: 1:05:20

Captain Marvel has seen absolutely no play for so long. And it's a shame, especially since we have cards, like we have agony, we have like, we have merger cards that have really come out that like should in theory help her close games out. But I don't know, we not seen. But I mean, why would

Nina: 1:05:35

you play Captain Marvel if you can play Scarlet Spider?

Alex: 1:05:38

True. Exactly right. That's the problem. And the thing is though, is like we have a couple characters. Captain Marvel's a good example of this. Uh, Spider-Man's a good example. Like I think they need, they need to be like retooled a bit, like they need to be playable. We wanna play Captain Marvel's, we wanna be playing Spider-Man. Like we wanna be doing this stuff. And some of these classic cards are just not playable in the current state of Marvel Snap. Which is unfortunate.

Nina: 1:06:03

Yeah. Very sad.

Alex: 1:06:04

But now can we actually, can we actually move on to Craig land or no?

Nina: 1:06:07

Yeah. Yes. Sorry.

Alex: 1:06:09

It's Craig Land's time. It's Craig's time. Craig land a three three that reads. He's coming on February 17th. By the way, series five packs on Reveal Banish the top card of your deck if it was for cost or higher, plus two energy next turn. Otherwise give this plus four power. Nina, if I can take a second. I just want to tell you how much I hate this card. And it's not because I think it's bad, which I think it's not good. But this card pissed me off when I read it and like, I don't usually get that type of reaction where I'm like, f that card man. And that's what, that's what this card didn't. And the reason why, why did they have to use the banish keyword? Banish keyword pissed me off because the only reason why it exists is they neutered the interaction between yondu and death to prevent yondu from creating destroy counters. And so they banished the card and they're like, okay. Banishing just pisses me off.'cause Yondu used to be a playable card, now it's like, whatever. And then I guess, yeah, cracklin is like yondu adjacent, so they figured they continue to include it, but like the card just sucks because of it. Like the banish keyword makes no sense. And until the banish keyword means something, this card is trash and yondu is trash. It's like, it's just the design bothers me because you're using a keyword that just doesn't carry any weight in Marvel Snap. And as a result, I think this series five release sucks. I want to give it a one far, a one star for vibes and maybe even a 1.5 for playability.

Nina: 1:07:49

I actually don't think it's that bad. I mean, it's obviously bad, but not as bad as you make it out to be. Okay. And going back to the yo nerve, I kind of. I know it's like messes with the death discount, but if you ish your opponent's cards, there's no way for them to bring those, that card back. Whereas there's so many cards these days that can bring back your discarded cards. You destroyed cards and a lot of time you'd be actually helping your opponent if you were to destroy the card. You know, that's like Morgan Lafe. There's other cards that bring back destroyed cards. Uh, you know what I mean?

Alex: 1:08:30

Yeah.

Nina: 1:08:30

Um, but yeah, banish the top this when you want, why would you ever wanna banish your own cars? That kind of blows my mind. It just doesn't seem worth it. That's the card I carefully considered and added to my deck, and now you want me to banish it? What if it's the card I actually needed to play out in order to make use of that plus two energy?

Alex: 1:08:51

Imagine you're like coping so hard with this card, right? Like, Alex, you're so wrong. This card is five stars. It's cracked.

Nina: 1:08:58

No, no, no.

Alex: 1:08:58

Craig, I'm not saying that Raglan Surfer cope. Here it goes. And then you're like, I'm gonna just clap so many cheeks with this crackling Surfer deck. And then you play crackling and it just banishes your Surfer card. You know what that is? That's a Snap condition for your opponent. Yeah. Like imagine playing a card that just force feeds your opponent unnecessary information about the state of your game. You're like, Hey Mr. Opponent, madam opponent, you wanna know if I'm screwed or not? I'm gonna play crackling. Oh, I just blew up like my Silver Surfer. What am I gonna do now? Thanks for snapping. I am gonna retreat. I'll see you later. You know what I mean? Like it's like

Nina: 1:09:35

That's true. That's very true. Wait, your opponent can see what card got banished.

Alex: 1:09:40

I'm assuming it can like you can use like,

Nina: 1:09:42

oh that really sucks man. What you giving them unnecessary intel.

Alex: 1:09:46

Yes, that this card is absolute straight through. Man, that's

Nina: 1:09:49

so dumb. Oh my God.

Alex: 1:09:51

Okay. And like, I totally understand if you're like, okay, Alex, but if you're playing a Surfer deck, you're running raglin, you discard something, you're not okay, you discard anything other than like, you know, you discard your maverick, whatever, right? Big, sad, but Maverick's gone not a big deal. They're not gonna Snap on that discard maverick. He turns into a three seven. That's pretty legit, right? Alright, that's pretty legit. Um, let's say he discards a, um, galata or a glenpool, okay? You get additional power, right? You get that, uh, that plus two, meaning that on turn four you have six. Energy, you can play two, three drops. Pretty cool Surfer deck. That works. Alright. Maybe you can cope there ever so slightly, but you're literally taking out cards in your deck, man. You are begging to get embarrassed. You're begging to take out your Silver Surfer, like you're gonna kill your brood. You're gonna do stupid crap. It's gonna piss you off and you're not gonna wanna play this card. It's not, you're gonna see your brood go poof and him go to plus seven and be like, I did it. And you're like, thanks 88 and you're gonna leave. You know what I mean? It's gonna feel awful. Okay. This card sucks.

Nina: 1:10:51

I could see maybe one youth for this card.

Alex: 1:10:55

I'm here for this cope.

Nina: 1:10:57

Okay. Playing him out on last turn with Silver Surfer.

Alex: 1:11:01

Okay, that makes sense actually. Okay.

Nina: 1:11:03

Yeah. Only playing him out on last turn. So you discover something that you didn't draw anyway. And then he's a 3 7, 3 9 with Surfer. So he's like Shaw if it were to play him out on the same turn basically

Alex: 1:11:15

or you play sage. Who is an infinitely better card?

Nina: 1:11:20

Well, yeah. I'm just trying to maybe make this card work, you know?

Alex: 1:11:25

Yeah. Because s

Nina: 1:11:25

sage is like, there's so many cards that you don't want, you want to play out early, but this card you actually want to play out later.

Alex: 1:11:31

Yeah, because like Sage is like the one that I thought like, you have to play late. Like you can't just curve sage out'cause then you look like a drunk kid bot just playing sage out on turn three to an open lane or whatever. But like, um, like the, like if you're gonna do that, then like, I don't know, Sage will always outcompete, ragland, but I guess ragland theoretically though, unlike Sage could be played on curve on turn three and you roll the dice. If you get rid of Galata and you're holding Gwenpool in your hand, like you probably don't care, right? Like maybe wait. Yes,

Nina: 1:12:02

I have an idea.

Alex: 1:12:03

I have another idea too.

Nina: 1:12:04

The perfect solution to this card.

Alex: 1:12:06

I have a solution to

Nina: 1:12:08

Howard the duck.

Alex: 1:12:10

It's actually a good idea, Howard. The duck synergy. I never thought of it. I never thought of it.

Nina: 1:12:17

Finally. That card's gonna be playable.

Alex: 1:12:20

I was thinking that you play this with shachi, the new Shachi.'cause Shachi adds a card technically. Right. And then this gets rid of a card, so you're back to 12 cards. Shachi, playable again.

Nina: 1:12:37

Perfect. Brilliant.

Alex: 1:12:38

Yeah.

Nina: 1:12:39

Genius. No notes.

Alex: 1:12:41

What are your, what's your star rating? 4.8.

Nina: 1:12:44

What's my lowest star rating so far?

Alex: 1:12:46

You're at, uh, so Drax, you gave 3.7 Moon, dragon 2.8 Magus. You gave 1.5.

Nina: 1:12:55

Okay. This is gonna be 1.2.

Alex: 1:12:57

1.2. That's a bad, that's a bad

Nina: 1:13:00

radio. There's so many better three jobs you can play. Why would you ever play this card? There are better ways of generating energy and there are better ways of, of growing, getting plus four power, you know?

Alex: 1:13:10

Yeah. This card sucks.

Nina: 1:13:11

It's just unnecessary. This card.

Alex: 1:13:13

Um, I guess there's the argument that could be made that like, if you hit a 4, 5, 6, whatever, it's like, oh, you get ramped that your opponent can't really take advantage of. Like if you wave, they can take advantage of it. If you play Luna Snow, they can take advantage of it. This is one sided, but I think this card's way too poo. I don't like the idea of vanishing cards and if you're gonna be playing Howard, Howard the duck to try to mitigate downside for a crackling it's just like, what are we even doing at this point? Like, I, I don't know man. I Yeah, I'm with you. I think this card's bad and I don't, I don't quite know what they see in it. And I like in the comments if you're like, you know what, no, you guys are wrong. This card is sick. This is the five star of the month. Like, I want you to call me out on it. Come at us, like, tell us if we're missing cracklin. Like, I want to know how, because I just don't see No, I don't

Nina: 1:13:59

wanna know. I'm sensitive. I'm gonna cry.

Alex: 1:14:01

Okay. Don't, don't, nevermind. Don't let us know.

Nina: 1:14:03

I'm joking.

Alex: 1:14:04

Don't let us know. Keep it to yourself. We do have more cars to talk about. I know it

Nina: 1:14:09

sounds like a lot. Wait, you mentioned Electro and you mentioned Luna Snow, but those cards consistently give you plus one en energy every single turn. It's true. After you play them, this just gives you plus two energy. Next turn. And that's it.

Alex: 1:14:20

It's true. You're

Nina: 1:14:21

right. This card is, you know what? I wanna change it to like 0.9. It's

Alex: 1:14:25

less than

Nina: 1:14:26

one star.

Alex: 1:14:27

That is a kick right in the pantaloons. 0.9 star rating for Craig Lynn. That is awful. Mm-hmm. That's an awful rating. Uh, we have one more series, five card. Before we get into the two series four, February 24th, we'll see the release of Jack Flag, a three three that reads ongoing. Your cards here with increased power have plus two power. Nina, I'll give you the floor on this one and I'm not gonna bait you in any way. I'm just gonna say the floor is yours. What are your thoughts?

Nina: 1:15:02

It seems kind of boring to me, but I find a lot of ongoing cards kind of boring. You know what I mean? The last interesting ongoing card was probably, uh, Victoria hand before that moonstone. But usually ongoing cards are just so like vanilla. I just feel like the ongoing archetype's probably the my least favorite in Snap.

Alex: 1:15:24

That's heartbreaking. Do you know why? Because I think this is by far the best card of the season. You

Nina: 1:15:29

know,

Alex: 1:15:30

this is the card of the season. You heard it here first. I think the jack flag is gonna be the card of this season. It's not gonna be the season pass card. It is gonna be Jack Flag. I'm going 4.5 stars on this one. I think this is an absolute banger card. It is one of those cards. It's like Dragon Lord, where you look at it and you're like, that's not that impressive. But then when you put it in your deck, you're like, ah, damn. It's actually doing things and I don't have to work that hard for it. This card kicks ass and it's an ongoing card. You, you could put this with like Captain America and he just completely dominates that lane. You could put this with Spectrum and it completely dominates the entire ongoing archetype. He works with Moonstone this is such a good card. I'm telling you right now, an ongoing is legitimately meta right now. It's legit. You know, I might say, oh, high infinite, no one's pulling ongoing. I don't care. Because you can easily get to Infinite with an ongoing spectrum deck right now. You literally can. I've been talking about it for weeks in my top 10. Like seriously, I think that this card is gonna be such a great pickup for so many players in Marvel Snap. This is my card of the month. Boom.

Nina: 1:16:41

I see it. I actually see your vision. I see it. Thank you. It's gonna be amazing in, uh, ongoing spectrum spectrum. And it is gonna be pretty good in Surfer too, I think.

Alex: 1:16:50

Hell yeah.

Nina: 1:16:52

Yeah, you're right. This card is actually much better than I I thought

Alex: 1:16:55

I did it. I did it. I

Nina: 1:16:57

changed your mind. Yeah. You, you have persuaded me. I have changed my mind.

Alex: 1:17:00

Yeah.

Nina: 1:17:01

I don't know whether it's gonna be the best card of the season, but definitely top three.

Alex: 1:17:06

That's such a low bar considering we've talked about absolute garbage. Like some of these cards are crap and you're like, top three, Alex. It's good. It's

Nina: 1:17:13

exactly. I can't be wrong then. People can't be like, you were wrong when you dead, blah, blah, blah.

Alex: 1:17:18

I can't wait for crackling to be the best card of the month, by the way. Somehow. Ugh. He's gonna get B for sure. Yeah, no, they're getting B for sure. Uh, but yeah, Jack flag, honestly, I think it's good. And I wish it was a

Nina: 1:17:32

two drop.

Alex: 1:17:33

Two would've been crazy.

Nina: 1:17:34

You could now be too good.

Alex: 1:17:35

2, 2, 3. That gets plus two p actually will it buff itself? It doesn't say other cards here it says your cards here with increased power. If it gets increased power.

Nina: 1:17:45

Yeah,

Alex: 1:17:45

I think I bet you he'll get plus two itself.

Nina: 1:17:47

Yeah, I think so. It doesn't say your other cards here. Yeah, if it's other cards only, it usually says your other cards here.

Alex: 1:17:54

That's

Nina: 1:17:54

so, I think he will buff himself. So combine that with Moonstone and you've got yourself one big location.

Alex: 1:18:00

Ant man, this Captain America Moonstone,

Nina: 1:18:04

captain America. Yeah. Huge. You definitely winning that location until they pull out Entra.

Alex: 1:18:11

Yeah. That's sad. They'll do that. That's fine. Chance will be popular, but it's okay.

Nina: 1:18:16

Okay. I, I like it. I, I like I like your vision. I'm gonna give it What did you give him?

Alex: 1:18:21

Four, five? I gave him 4.5. That's like my, it's not meta like game breaking, but it's gonna be good. I think this is a good card.

Nina: 1:18:28

I'm gonna give him 4.1.

Alex: 1:18:30

4.1. That's fair.

Nina: 1:18:31

That's the highest I've given so far.

Alex: 1:18:33

It is. And I think this is the best card I'll tell, tell you that right now. I think that you've made the right choice to give this one your highest rating. I will mention there are some other archetypes. Silver Surfer is good too, obviously.'cause if you hit stuff with Silver with the Surfer, this is gonna love that. Right? This with broods or whatever, it doesn't matter. Um, but I think it's worth mentioning maybe even stuff like, uh, there's a card coming up too, we'll talk about in a sec, star Hawk, but that's gonna help. Uh, but even hoard decks hoard tend to have a lot of like green energy. This buffs technically the hoard, right? Which will then buff the, uh, giant zombie band because it'll have increased power. So that could potentially be played there too, which is interesting. I think it's way more viable than you might think. Even something like, like Kitty pride, DDEX, like those chord just get green power. Anything with green power effectively gets plus two.

Nina: 1:19:25

Han Chi 10 rings.

Alex: 1:19:27

Oh hell yeah, that's right. But you gotta banish the extra card first, which will always be Han Chi. The 10 rings.

Nina: 1:19:36

No, you have to, in order to make it work, you have to activate. Oh, sorry. Unlock the potential.

Alex: 1:19:42

That's right. What I mean is you, you play raglin and then he, he murders shachi every single time. So you never get the actual, why would you

Nina: 1:19:50

ever, you know what? I might not even make a video on Raglin,

Alex: 1:19:54

just take the week off.

Nina: 1:19:55

I'm just gonna be like, post a photo that says he's poo don't get him.

Alex: 1:20:00

He's gonna, he has to get buffed or there, there has to be something we're missing.

Nina: 1:20:04

Maybe

Alex: 1:20:05

he just sucks.

Nina: 1:20:06

Maybe.

Alex: 1:20:08

Well,

Nina: 1:20:09

maybe there's something really obvious we're not seeing, but there's no card that actually benefits from being banished. That's the thing. Right? There's loads of cards that benefit from being discarded or destroyed. There's not a single card that. Benefits from being banished. Is there?

Alex: 1:20:24

No, not that I can think of. Let's do this two series four cards, then we're gonna do a conversation I think is really important and relevant. But, uh, first is gonna be major victory. A three four of the reads on Reveal. Add two members of the Guardians Crew to your hand, and I should have written it down. Oh, I did write it down. Eligible Guardians include Star, Lord, rocket, raccoon, Groot, Drax, Gamora, and Mantis. Here's fun fact of the Day Challenge. What does Mantis do? Boom. Ga Ya No one does. What do

Nina: 1:20:56

you mean? She, no, she gives you a card that you, gives you the card that your opponent played in that location if you played Manchester in the same location, right?

Alex: 1:21:04

I don't even know. I don't remember.

Nina: 1:21:06

What do you mean? Of course that's what she does. But is Nebula not on the list?

Alex: 1:21:10

Nebula is not on the list from what I have recorded.

Nina: 1:21:14

Oh my God. The disrespect.

Alex: 1:21:15

Yeah, mad disrespect,

Nina: 1:21:16

unfortunately. Oh, you know this. I know Comic book fans are gonna be like shaming me in a comment saying Bla was never part of the Guardians. She's only part of the Guardians in the MCU. You should read the comic. You show ignorant, blah blah, blah. I'm ready for that. But also this card seems bad. The guardian's cards themselves are not great, right? Not, it's not like the best cards they, the game or anything. Nobody plays them except people who just started playing the game or bought, or if you're playing like a limited time game mode, like sanctum or team, team clash or something. But I guess I could maybe see him working with like Quinjet and Victoria Hand, you know? But again, there are better card generating cards.

Alex: 1:22:04

There's pretty much no reason to play this card, especially since like as it is. Like when was the last time you're like, oh, you know I'd be sick in my deck right now. Groot, right? Like when was the last time you're like, yo, mantis is gonna solve all my problems right now, right? Like, no, these cards are bad. And like the problem is the only card in here that's even remotely playable is rocket raccoon. And you play'em in like bounce based shells, right? And that's kind of cool. I love me some rocket. And you're like, oh, well there is sanctum showdown, I guess, which is, well then you're just gonna put these in your deck. So for me it's like major victory just doesn't make sense. It needed something more, it needed to like, like it needed to negative one, these costs without quinjet or something. It needed one more layer of like, yes and give them negative one cost. It just needed a little more.'cause as of right now, this car just sucks. I don't see why you would use it. Like of course, Victoria Hand has always been good and will always make these things better. And Victoria Hand is going to disproportionately benefit inexpensive cards because like with anything that does plus two power, whether it's Surfer or Spectrum or whatever, Aurora who we probably should have mentioned a couple times today actually, but Aurora is benefiting from a couple of these cards here and there. But like with Major Victory, it's like, I just don't, you're not gonna play this. Like, you don't want just like, like Mantis is literal unplayable garbage. Like you're making your game state worse by playing major victory and getting mantis. Like, it's like, I don't know this card is not great. Can

Nina: 1:23:36

you get the new cards, the new, um, like guardians, like the New Star Lord, or the new drugs?

Alex: 1:23:43

Based on what I see and what I have noted, the answer is no. But that could change. And I could be wrong, but according to what the information I have as of recording, it says Eligible guardians are star lord, rocket raccoon, GRU, Drax, Gamora mantis.

Nina: 1:24:02

Damn. That seems bad.

Alex: 1:24:04

Yeah.

Nina: 1:24:05

He should have been a two drop, I think. And then you can play him out in Irish him.

Alex: 1:24:09

He could have been anything else and it would've been better than this. It's bad for me though. It's not total garbage. I'm doing two stars just because I have hope. But even then it's, no, it's like a 1.5. Really. It's this. It's a 1.5. I

Nina: 1:24:23

like two stars, maybe two stars.

Alex: 1:24:25

Two's fine. Okay. We'll stay two. But yeah, this is not great. Better

Nina: 1:24:28

than Cracklin.

Alex: 1:24:29

Yeah. Probably,

Nina: 1:24:30

at least you're not banishing your own cards and giving your opponent intel. Right.

Alex: 1:24:35

True star hawk INE game mode series four coming February 26th. A two two that reads on reveal on odd turns. Give your cards at the left location plus one power on even turns. Give it to the right location. And this is, it sounds almost like an end of turn ability. It's actually an on reveal that's just does plus one. Anything on left? Oh my God. Anything on the right? I think it's actually kind of cool. It like, I like it and it actually works well with uh, Jack Flagg because all those cards will get buffed and Jack Flagg will be like yo plus two to everyone else too. So this with Jack Flagg is like plus three, which is kind of cool. Yeah, I don't think this is that bad. I think this might low key actually be an okay card. Three stars for me.

Nina: 1:25:13

I actually thought, like you said, it was end of turn. So you play him out on two. Then he's gonna buff the cards on the right and then on turn three he's gonna buff the cards on the left. Then turn four on the right again. I was like, wait, this card is actually really good.

Alex: 1:25:26

Oh, that

Nina: 1:25:26

would be super. It on reveals is only one turn. That's so bad.

Alex: 1:25:30

Yeah, you'd have to do it near the end of the game where like you have most of your cards down.

Nina: 1:25:35

Mm.

Alex: 1:25:36

I don't think it's terrible. I don't think it's great. I think it's okay.

Nina: 1:25:39

Plus one power. You know what? I've been spoiled by Lau. Gimme plus three. What is this? Measly plus one. Pathetic.

Alex: 1:25:46

Two. Two. That gives plus three to four cards in a location. Jesus. Okay. There's a reason why Nina is not a game designer. Series four. Limited time designer. Game mode card plus 12 in a given location for two costs.

Nina: 1:26:02

If I was a game designer, I think the every card would be like power creeps in in, in two months.

Alex: 1:26:10

Yeah. Shall I would've been doing plus six.

Nina: 1:26:14

Crept.

Alex: 1:26:16

Yeah.

Nina: 1:26:16

Plus six.

Alex: 1:26:18

I don't know. I think this card's fine. Are we done talking about cards? It's

Nina: 1:26:22

okay. It's

Alex: 1:26:23

okay. I think we're done talking about cards.

Nina: 1:26:25

Alright,

Alex: 1:26:25

we're done talking about cards, but we do have one important topic to talk about. And it came up multiple times. It came up in the Merlin conversation. We talked about magic specifically, and so I wanna bring up this question from Jace, the comic source. Alex, I'm curious about your thoughts on this idea regarding limbo. I think limbo should have the added text that the location cannot be changed. If magic has the text that it cannot be played to surprise your opponent with an extra turn, then why is it okay for your opponent to surprise you by turning it off? Perhaps it is only because of the prevalence of Merlin in the current meta that makes magic feel so bad right now. But still, the unfairness of the restriction for playing the card on turn six feels bad when your opponent can turn it off so easily. Now with so much location change in the meta. Nina, what do you think?

Nina: 1:27:22

I think if you weren't allowed to turn off card limbo, magic would be absolutely bonkers and we would probably see magic constantly. Yeah. Remember when you used to be able to play magic on turn six?

Alex: 1:27:36

Yeah. That was awful.

Nina: 1:27:38

Yeah. And I don't know. I feel like when you building, you, when you add magic to your deck, you specifically have your deck built for either energy ramp or to benefit from seven turns, and that's not the norm. Most decks don't build around having seven turns. I think that would just make her completely overpowered. I

Alex: 1:27:58

had this conversation with someone, I, I think it was at like Pax, someone asked me about this,'cause I know I'm a magic enjoyer, especially'cause I'm my Evo prowess. I, I said that like the problem with magic and the idea of playing her on the last turn. The real problem was that when you're going into the last turn of a game and you play it like it's the last turn of the game, sometimes you reveal more about your hand, right? And so as a result, imagine like you're in the NFL and you're, you know, the game's tied and the kicker kicks a field goal. It goes through all the. Dallas Cowboys win. And it's like, wait, the other coach played magic. They're getting the ball back and it's like they get to march down the other way. It's like, well, they already shot their shot. They did their thing, they thought they won, they had everything. And then like, oh, we have another turn to play. And you're like, well, I, I already played my Dr. Doom Odin combo. I got nothing left. Like I, I did the thing already. Right? So magic felt like you were ready for turn seven. Your point was just like, well, what did I top deck? Great. It's Groot like, you know what I mean? It's like, um, so that's why it felt so bad. But like, as someone who loves magic. Maybe we need something that defends locations because they're right. Like limbo just getting wiped off when there are so many like restrictions to how magic is played. Because not only that, like Magic's a three too. Like she is so woefully powered. Like you're basically taking a knee on turn three or four when whenever you play magic, you're basically punting that turn. Mm-hmm. So your opponent can play more tempo. You're already so behind, and they get to play turn seven. I agree. It's just like there's something that has to be given to magic considering how much she has taken away from her.

Nina: 1:29:41

Yeah. Maybe she could be given more power, but her ability is inherently, like I said, location manipulation is one of the strongest abilities in the game. And her ability is bonkers. Like if your opponent has nothing, they can control locations themselves, then yeah, she's just. Kind of like she's gonna win you the game. And you're saying like you're playing magic and you're kind of sacrificing that turn. But this is, it's true for like Mr. Negative deck too, right? You're sacrificing those turns so you can come back a lot stronger. And that's why you would even play magic. That's why you invest, you invest in her and hope to like grow much bigger later on.

Alex: 1:30:23

I don't quite remember what deck it was, but I had this really psychotic deck that ran magic just so I could turn it off myself with Legion and like

Nina: 1:30:31

just was like CC three or something? No, there was like, no, sorry. Not Legion obviously.

Alex: 1:30:35

Yeah, yeah.

Nina: 1:30:35

But it was one deck that ran magic and also, um,

Alex: 1:30:39

Scarlet Witch

Nina: 1:30:41

Rhino.

Alex: 1:30:42

Oh, that's, remember that card

Nina: 1:30:43

Rhino used to change locations?

Alex: 1:30:45

Yeah. Rhino. Good old Rhino. Yeah. Those were the days. But, uh, but Nina, you have to start streaming soon. Soon. Actually, you'll be streaming today when this comes out live. Right?

Nina: 1:30:57

I think so. Yeah. 1st of February, my first day.

Alex: 1:31:00

So you guys have all the reason to use the link in the description and the pin comment. Find Nina live on Twitch tv. Hit that follow button and say Nina. Fantastic Snapchat. Hope to see you on again soon, Nina. And that's, I'm serious. I hope to have you back on soon. It is honestly such a pleasure to speak to you and, uh, just to catch up with you in general. We actually spoke for like, we always do. We spoke for like 40 minutes before we actually started recording. I know, but, uh, it, it's just honestly great to kind of get, get back in touch with you and, uh, have you on the show.

Nina: 1:31:32

It is been such a pleasure. Yeah. I feel like whenever we record we just run over so much. I feel like we've been recording for like two hours now. Always.

Alex: 1:31:41

I know. It's because Always fun. We've been talking for like three hours.

Nina: 1:31:44

Thank you so much for having me back.

Alex: 1:31:46

Of course. And guys, we'll see Nina again For sure. And thank you so much to each, everyone of you for supporting the Snapchat, the content and all that you do in the Marvel Snap community. We'll see you. On the next one.