The Hot Location Conspiracy | Are OTAs Too Weak? | The Snap Chat Ep. 178

This week, Alex is joined by UK content creator and food-review connoisseur: Rez Snapper (MJ)! The duo kicks things off with a deep dive into physical TCGs (Pokémon and Riftbound) before jumping into some highly anticipated new card reviews.

Alex and MJ break down the latest Objective cards hitting Marvel Snap:

• Polaris: Why the clunky timing of the "Objective" mechanic completely ruins her synergy with Malkuth in Affliction decks.
• Archangel: Is this 2-Cost resurrect card a total skip? (Plus, a hilarious "cheat code" involving Colossus).
• Mother Askani: The absolute star of the show. The hosts rate this card a massive 4.5 Stars, detailing how copying a juiced-up card in your hand breaks open decks for Sebastian Shaw, Daken, and Hit-Monkey.
• Storm: Can you afford to skip turns 1 and 2? Alex pitches an insane Surfer/Hit-Monkey hand-dump synergy to maximize her +2 buffs.

Later in the show, Alex puts on his tinfoil hat to discuss the "Hot Location Conspiracy"—is Second Dinner intentionally placing Hot Locations right after a season launch to buff the Season Pass card? They also vent about terrible High Voltage missions, demand more impactful OTAs (Justice for Spider-Woman!), and clarify the pricing math behind 1200 vs. 800 Gold Event Passes.

Finally, they wrap up with what MJ does best: reviewing bizarre UK food creations, including Bacon Double Cheeseburger Pringles.

Join Alex Coccia and special guest Rez Snapper 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

Welcome Back Rez

Alex 0:00

Hey everyone, and welcome to the next edition of the Snapchat. Today I'm joined once again by a popular and often requested guest, mj, otherwise known as Res Snapper Res. It's great to have you on the podcast once again. How have you been my man?

Rez Snapper 0:14

Yeah, I'm doing really well. Thank you very much for having me back on. Yeah, I'm doing great, man. How are you?

YouTube Goals and Support

Alex 0:19

Oh, buddy, I'm doing fantastic. Great. That we're recording the podcast together. We are, uh, we're two peas in a pod. You and I, not only are we connoisseurs of chicken balls, but uh, we find ourselves, uh, consistently releasing content on YouTube, which, uh, you know, I am a frequent visitor on your YouTube channel. You're actually doing a major push to the next milestone on your YouTube channel. Seven K. Why don't you give us a breakdown on, uh, what your goals are there?

Rez Snapper 0:44

Yeah, so I'm, I just wanna grow as much as possible. And yeah, I think I've been really fortunate in just the recent growth that I've had and appreciate all the support that I've been getting, especially the few times I've been on this podcast. It's like, just had a massive spike on my channel. So, yeah, massive shout out and thank you to it. All of the viewers that have come over and, uh, yeah, supported me, I really appreciate.

Today’s Agenda Polaris Storm

Alex 1:04

Yeah. And so for those of you that may not realize, we will have all of re's links down below, but also the subscribe button, because we're gonna be doing that like collab YouTube thingy. When you hit the subscribe button, you actually subscribe to both of our channels. You can check to make sure you are subscribed to me, but also in doing so, you subscribe to our man Rez Snapper, helping with that goal of seven K'cause you are really producing some of the best content out there in Marvel Snap. And the way I see it. The gamers that are still producing content out there, we have to support because Marvel Snap is, uh, we'll say long in the tooth in the content creation game. And so we gotta support those that are making content as good as you are. With that being said, we got a lot to talk about today. Not only we gonna talk about Polaris. I almost feel like I should bring up Archangel at some point'cause we forgot to review him last week. It's not even part of our topics, but like I literally forgot to review Archangel whatsoever. Not that he's even relevant anymore. We're gonna talk about Storm. Yes.

Rez Snapper 1:53

It's easy to do.

Polaris First Impressions

Alex 1:54

Yeah, it's an easy one. So we'll do that. We'll talk about Storm and then we have a bunch of like, comments and stuff that are gonna be queuing our next discussions as well. Pain points in the community that like, I felt like you're very in touch with kind of like the community and you're active on discord and you kind of really have your ear to the ground so you have a good conception of like what people are concerned about. So I figured it'd be a good time to have those types of conversations as well. Res. Uh, so why don't we get started with Polaris because I think that this is a card that has been a little bit of an interesting one on its surface. I don't think the card's bad. I just don't think that it's good enough to warrant your hard earned tokens right now in Marvel, Snap. So Res. I'd be curious to know what your experience with Polaris has been.

Deck Testing Results

Rez Snapper 2:37

Yeah, I think that's a really good summary. I have, so in preparation for this podcast I was doing a few, I was, I playing her a lot more, did a few different decks with her and had some wildly different experiences. Uh, so I played one deck, which was, it was essentially like a hand dump with like Dragon Lord, and it had Inor and even Red Wing even Topaz and Zorn. Um, I did want to try and squeeze in some like move disruption stuff with like the original Polaris. Because I had Zorn in there, uh, wanted to see maybe if I could fit in like spider punk and that sort of thing. But anyway, I just kept it mainly as the hand dump stuff. And I did have a couple of games where I did obvious Misplays that definitely cost me the game, but I still, I, I think I played seven games and I won one. So it didn't go well. Like, and it was just when I saw I'd only won one. I was like, that. That can't be, that can't even be true because I, I felt like it went better than that. Like she was doing her stuff and it was, it was like it was happening. It just wasn't, it just wasn't winning games. But then I played a sort of high evolutionary deck, which had the likes of age, like just a bit of like a more affliction and. Stealing leaning high evolutionary deck with Laie and Ajax. Uh, and that did phenomenally well. I think I played like something like five games and won four. And sh she felt so natural in that and just worked really well. Like you could, especially when you've got cards like wasp in there, you can really thin out your hand and make sure that her pull is gonna consistently be a decent one. So she, she felt really good in that. So I think. In the right deck. I think she's totally solid. But in the wrong one she can be a disaster.

Why Polaris Falls Short

Alex 4:19

Yeah. The deck you're talking was actually a pretty solid one, running a 57% win rate 0.31 cubes. Um, it's honestly not all that bad. The challenge though, with Polaris is that it feels like. As with many of the cards released this season, in my opinion, it has a couple key things holding it back. First of all, existing competition. So when you compare this card directly to something like Dragon Lord, right, uh, dragon Lord does not have a condition that needs to be met. So for those that don't, uh, remember Dragon Lord is a five five that reads on reveal. Put a card from your hand here. Pretty straightforward stuff. The advantage to Dragon Lord specifically is that you're playing him in decks that naturally have big, chunky guys that wanna get thrown down. So if you're playing him in a ramp style deck, right? You're going from electro turn three to dragon, Lord turn five, and you're pulling the uh, finite, you're pulling the red Hulk, you're pulling the whatever big chunk is next, right? Even Fang F or whatever. And he works naturally in that order of things. The challenge that I see with Polaris is that. When you're playing these decks, it often feels like you don't have that many big guys to pull down. Like even in the deck that you were discussing there, pulling down Ajax for free. Awesome. Pulling down Estar Lord early. Awesome. You don't wanna pull your abomination though, because that's kind of like your surprise. Zero cost or inexpensive, reduced card Hulk is a good pull down too. Even high Evo to some degree, but there just aren't that many. Completely meta warping pulls for Polaris in the deck as she's kind of being plating because you have to satisfy that affliction requirement. And so when I was thinking about what this deck looks like, I was trying to say like, okay, well what automatically. Conceptually just defeats this requirement, and I actually started playing with AKA Moto. The reason why I was playing with amo, I kind of wish I'd thought of it in time for the, uh, the pod itself, but I hadn't, and when I was actually deck cooking, I'm like, wait, eight AKA Moto is a pretty solid choice because the wins of Wood Tomb in and of itself is not only an amazing card, but it immediately satisfies the requirement. But then again, the problem with Polaris is quite simply that she does not have targeting. It'll pull any card from the hand. It'll pull images that liken, it'll pull a skill, it'll pull temporal manipulation, it'll pull whatever it wants. And for that reason, it felt lackluster on paper. The card should be good, and it is largely. Fine. But in Marvel Snap it feels like the fine cards aren't the ones that see play. They need unfair advantages. It's just where we're at in the meta. So as a result, that's the first thing that I think holds Polaris back. Before I get into the second, I wanna kind of pitch it back to you as to what your thoughts are.

Objective Timing Problem

Rez Snapper 6:49

Yeah, I, I do largely agree with that. I think there is a certain amount of. Like building around her that you would want to do to ensure that she's not just pulling random stuff. Especially because some of those, like some of the timing things with objective make things really difficult, especially specifically in affliction decks where, where you've got options like hazmat that could come down, like you, you wanna. You almost can't play her early unless it disrupts the, your plans for the rest of the game. So I think you do wanna build around her a little bit. I actually did have spiderwoman, uh, like in my deck and, and she felt good as well, is just either a late game enabler or to be pulled down just a good card that, that, that feels good in it. So yeah.

Alex 7:31

And I guess the second thing that I kind of wanna mention is that. It is the way objective itself works. And I have a huge problem with this. Even in the video I produced in my review, like one of my first clips I did was in conjunction with Polaris and Caliban. Now Cali and Polaris are kind of two peas in a pod. It's that the second time I've already used that in today's video. I'm not even sure

Rez Snapper 7:51

there's an absolute P fest.

Alex 7:52

Yeah, it's okay. That's one way, that is one way to describe this podcast. Only MJ could describe it as such. Um, yeah. But Cban is a Caliban. Okay. For the record. Both Caliban and Polaris or Polaris, I don't know. I, both of these names, no matter what I say, someone in the comments like, bro saying that name wrong. And then like they al they also correct me in contradicting ways throughout the comment section. If someone could tell me how to say Caliban properly, which I think it's Caliban or,

Rez Snapper 8:20

that's perfect to me. Yeah, it's, I'm sure it's definitely about

Alex 8:23

so, so how do you see this then?

Rez Snapper 8:24

Definitely Polaris. I think

Alex 8:26

Polaris.

Rez Snapper 8:27

Yeah.

Alex 8:27

Okay. Alright. I,'cause this is one of those things where like, if you say like, tomato, tomato, you know, the Internet's gonna come after you. Right? And like I've, I've been like, I don't know how to say any of these names properly, apparently. So I just, now I'm all self-conscious about it. Long story short, we have Caliban and, uh. So he, first of all, objective, if you have three cards with four or more cost in play, afflict the highest enemy cost card with negative seven power on paper. Really cool card. I actually really like it often played in Doom 2099 style decks. Couple other places too. What I'll tell you though is that. The pestilence to the horseman of pestilence were designed to work together. I know this because we even talked about it in the interview. I did four Marvel on the main channel. They were designed to kind of go hand in hand together. It's not coincidence that Caliban is a three. Polaris is a two. However, the way objective checks is, it does not work the way it traditionally has worked in Marvel Snap in like forever, where it's like card order and play. Order matters to determine which effects get checked at the end of the game or whatever. Right? In this case, objective is checked at the exact same time. So let's say on turn six you're playing a 2099 deck. You have both Polaris on the field of play. You played on turn two, Calvin. On turn three, it's turn six. You play Dr. De. You satisfy the requirement of Calvin. Okay. The way you would think this would happen, right? Would be that I actually, the way Marvel Snap currently works is that Polaris would check to see if anything's negative five. It doesn't, it would skip and then Caliban would check it, would see that it would have the four, the the, like the requirement met, it would do the negative seven power. So right there, Polaris wouldn't actually work. So I was like, okay, we can't do it that way. So what I did was, is I actually played Polaris before, sorry, or after Calvin, which is not great either. You're already off curve, but then the way objective often checks, and it is the way it checks, is it'll check at the same time at the end of the game or at the end of the turn, whatever ha, whatever its check window is, it'll check both at the exact same time. So what happens is, even if you play Caliber first, if Caliber applies a negative seven to something and that is done, Polaris will not see that even if the play order's correct because they check at the exact same time. These cards functionally don't play at all together unless you satisfy the requirement for Caliber first. In a prior turn, you need to satisfy this a whole prior turn prior. To Polaris before she can even check, which I think is really frustrating. And um, apparently it's something that second dinner was aware of and they actually tried to correct but could not find a seamless way to correct in their code. And it's maybe part of the reason why they're taking a look at trying to improve their spaghetti code that's in the game, right? They're trying to do that tech catchup or whatever they, they want to, they called it. I don't remember the exact phrasing they used. Right. But you know what I'm talking about Tech. Sorry.

Rez Snapper 11:20

Tech debt, I think it was.

Verdict and Meta Stats

Alex 11:21

Yeah. Yeah. So they're try the, the, yeah, the, the debt for the tech. They're trying to improve. But yeah, for, for that reason as well, I found Polaris to be particularly frustrating. So for me it's a skip res. What are your thoughts?

Rez Snapper 11:34

I, I think I like her enough to recommend her if people like the look of her and like, maybe they already like the kinds of decks where you're pulling big stuff. So may demonetized, um, where, what did you even say?

Alex 11:47

I don't even know what you said. Is this

Rez Snapper 11:48

some sort of like UK

Alex 11:50

thing,

Rez Snapper 11:50

pulling big stuff, man, we're pulling big stuff.

Alex 11:53

Oh,

Rez Snapper 11:53

that's, that's, we've

Alex 11:55

done

Rez Snapper 11:55

way worse than that before. Okay, fine. Yeah, like maybe Dracula stuff, like if you like that style of play, then, then I, I do think she's good. I completely agree with your, uh, like comments about the objective stuff. And I think just in general, I really like objective. But the timing stuff is, is so weird sometimes, especially how it interacts with end of turn stuff as well. And then you throw like super giant stuff into the mix and it all just goes one key and it's like, hmm. It's, it's definitely can be frustrating sometimes.

Quick Archangel Review

Alex 12:26

Yeah. And on, on aggregate, it's running a 51% win rate in a 4% meta popularity according to one tap. So not a popular card, unfortunately. Which is like, it's sad because it's kind of cool, right? It's kind of a cool card, but it, it's just not catching on with the people. This might be a good time. Do, do you wanna just quickly Okay. Go. Boom. Thoughts on Archangel. We gotta do it. Archangel, what are your thoughts?

Rez Snapper 12:48

I was expecting him to be bad slash then I did a review and I was like, actually, he might be kind of all right. I'm kind of, I'm kind of interested, how many times can I say, kind of, and then, yeah, when I got him and played him, I've had basically a dreadful time. And I don't think he's, I don't think he's that good, but I do think there's hope for him. I think he just needs to find the right deck.

Alex 13:09

I think that he's not good. I think there's no hope for him and I think that you should not even try him in any deck. I think he's poo man. This is like the problem with him is that like. The way to play destroy right now does not need this. He feels like completely wholly unnecessary and destroys game plan. And maybe just, maybe cards will come out in the future that we're like, that's it. That's the one that Archangel wants to be a part of. Right? Or that's the card you want to bring back. Whatever. Did I enjoy bringing back Moira and stuff? Yeah. It wasn't that bad. Right? But as a whole, this card just felt like it did not have a reason to be serious. Five, or like it just. There's just not enough there for me, unfortunately. Especially with the fact that like you're not resurrecting a Deadpool. There's tons of destroy cards that don't even enter the destroy pool, right? And so those are the cards that end up carrying you at the end of the day. So like you're bringing back like incidental cards that like you might not even care about at all. So for me it's definitely like, well you've already skipped it now'cause we're a week late. But yeah, this card to me was complete poo. What do you give it from a star rating wise? This for me is like. If it may be like it's not one, but it's not even two, it's a 1.5.

Rez Snapper 14:16

I'm, I'm probably closer to two. I think I, whilst I do think he is not great yet, I do think potentially there's hope for him. I do think he would benefit greatly from just a very small text change just to make him more targeted. So maybe re resurrecting either like the cheapest thing or the highest power thing. Like, so at least then you'll know what he's bringing back.'cause I think the mystery of what he could bring back is just it disables you from making future plays and like planning your turns a bit more. Uh, I'd probably go two stars.

Alex 14:44

And I just wanna shout out all the people on the Snapchat that commented about the Archangel Review, the inside joke to that I was laughing all weekend long. So what happened was I actually recorded the Snapchat before the Dex of the Week in a weird circumstance because, uh, Cougar last week had to record very, very early on Saturday. And so as a result, I recorded the deck week after and realized while I was recording that we didn't even talk about Archangel at all. And so I made a comment like, hopefully people aren't looking forward to that archangel review in the Snapchat. And then like literally every single comment, all the top wood to ones were like, I can't wait for the Archangel Review. Oh, this AR Angel Review is gonna be absolutely inspiring. I cannot wait like ev all the comments right down were all about like the anticipation of the Archangel Review. Oh my gosh, this community's too good. Amen.

Rez Snapper 15:29

Yeah. Honestly, absolutely elite.

Alex 15:32

It's so funny you guys honestly make me laugh nonstop and I appreciate that so much. Thank you.

Rez Snapper 15:37

I'm getting so much abuse. I'm so, I've been uploading videos of me splitting cards recently and I'm currently on Karni son. I get so much abuse for just liking Karni son. It's crazy.

Alex 15:49

What's crazy is you liking a SK son?

Rez Snapper 15:51

No, he is good. Good card. Not. He's cool.

Alex 15:54

How's he?

Rez Snapper 15:55

Good? He generated a, he generated a jubilee for me today in a location with three other cards. It was cool.

Alex 16:01

Okay, so like, alright. In that very specific circumstance, he was good. No, that

Rez Snapper 16:08

was bad.'cause it, it Jubilee didn't pull anything. There was no room.

Shield Trap Deck Explained

Alex 16:12

Oh, so it, it still did nothing.

Rez Snapper 16:14

Yeah, no, it did nothing but that, that, but that was a, that was a bad one, but I, I do actually like Acar Sun.

Alex 16:20

Can you explain why?

Rez Snapper 16:21

I like the randomness. I like, so I play this style of deck, which I think I'm the only player in the world who does it.'cause I sort of invented the archetype and it's I, I mean it's probably, people would probably say it's not good. I'm actually doing quite well at the moment. I call it shield trap. I block the right location as soon as possible with cards like. Agent 13, Maria Hill. So, you know, I'm coping, uh, Karney son, Viv, like they see the Viv come down and they try and compete with it, but then I'm, I'm filling it that next turn, they're not expecting anything to come down to me to fill the location by like, turn four. But I'm like, now screw it. I'm locking that down, get it locked down, and then I win it on the final turn or win the game on the final turn by playing things like gambit, horseman of death. Like some cards that I've generated with Iron Patriot, like I'll activate a Carney sun. And this is the big starhawk. I absolutely love Starhawk. So I'll play that Starhawk on the final turn alongside the gambit or whatever else Mockingbird as well. Get that plus four power in that. They think they're gonna just like smidge it. They're like, oh, I only need to play like six power in there to win it. They do that. I'm like, no, I've got an extra four in there and I'm destroying some of your cards as well. It's cool.

Alex 17:27

Can you, uh, can you make a video of this deck so that we can like

Rez Snapper 17:31

Yeah, we can watch this. Yeah. I plan to, yeah, I will do one too, because

Alex 17:34

this is like the most ridiculous cope I've ever heard in my life, but also Uhhuh. I kind wanna see it play.

Rez Snapper 17:39

It's cool. Uh, the, the, I've got a, something like a 60 to 70% win rate with my current version. Uh, the, the version before was doing really badly, but I've slightly tweaked it and yeah, I'm, I'm cooking with it today, so, yeah, I'm, I will do a video as soon as possible.

Alex 17:53

Do you think you're winning?'cause your opponent thinks you're a bot.

Rez Snapper 17:56

That's what I think every time I win, to be honest.

Alex 17:59

I just love the fact that you're using all these cards that no one wants to play, and you're like, no, no. We're gonna cook

Rez Snapper 18:03

with

Alex 18:03

this. No,

Rez Snapper 18:04

and I'm gonna, I'm on like my third star hawk split, so I'm gonna start uploading videos for me splitting that, and I'm gonna get absolutely rinsed.

Storm Preview and Synergies

Alex 18:12

Let's be there long. Let's be along for the ride. When you get rinsed, make sure you make that video. That's awesome. I can't wait to watch. Yeah, I will. Uh, we're gonna go to Storm. Storm, the horseman of famine. It's a three, one that reads objective and two turns in a row with unspent energy. Then give your other cards here and in your hand, plus to power. So this card, I'm actually kind of excited for. Because I think there's variations specifically of Silver Surfer that allow you just to not play. Turn one and two, like that's actually a thing that exists and that'll automatically fit this requirement. High Evo can very easily do this, and plus two power is nothing to scoff at in hand and at the location, especially when you think about like. What Akia is like, this is a three one that does plus two in a location and plus two to the hand. Did you even remember what Nikias stat line is?

Rez Snapper 19:10

She's a three four. Well, she's a three four now, but I only know that'cause as you've heard a second ago, I play bad cards.

Alex 19:17

Yeah, so Nikias a three four. That gives everything, everything in your hand. Plus one power storm is a three one. So yeah, three difference there. But it buffs the location, so if you play it late, it'll also buff the hand. Pretty significant in my opinion. And the nice thing about the objective mechanic is you can satisfy the objective mechanic just by skipping turn one and two and then play her on three and buff everything in your hand by two. So there's lots to love here.

Rez Snapper 19:44

Yeah. I really like the sound of her. Not only does she seem really powerful, I think she's gonna fit in a lot of decks. I think there's loads of really cool synergies with her. It's, it's a shame that we didn't get. Mother Ani yet.'cause I think that could be an interesting one. Getting like double, double the buffs. I mean that could be in a Surfer deck as well. Imagine hitting the Surfer with, with Mother Ani. Absolutely ridiculous.

Delays Bugs and Mother Ani

Alex 20:06

Hitting Sebastian Shaw with Mother Kinni. Mother Skai was the card I was looking forward to all month. Now in second dinner's defense, they had to push back Grand Arena. For reasons like that, they're like, we just have to, they didn't want to. And I'm glad that they had actually, to be honest with you, I'm glad that they had the processes in play that they were able to identify the issues in advance. And before releasing it broken, we already had the broken, oh, that's the other thing. What about the broken boxes, the mystery boxes that everyone had? Oh my. So we had not even spoken about that.'cause we didn't even know that that was happening at the time last week. Like literally people were locked out of Marvel Snap completely because they had like this mystery box loop. Like what are we doing right now? Like mj, can you believe that Marvel Snap has bugs?

Rez Snapper 20:52

It's crazy. Yeah. First time ever. No, um, these things happen, man.

Alex 20:57

Dude. Anyways, yeah, so Mother Scon, I'm actually heartbroken'cause it was actually one of my favorite cards of, uh, the month, but Storm,

Rez Snapper 21:04

unbelievable.

Storm Rating Debate

Alex 21:05

Storm. I still have hope for now. I, it's funny, I've talked about this so many times. I don't like doing half ratings, but like I am, I've been really torn. My heart says I want to give storm a four, but my body tells me three, right? And so I'm not sure what to do. I don't wanna do 3.5'cause I think that's like cheap. I really don't like doing the point fives, but I end up doing it nonstop anyways. I've been called out on that many, many times. So, like for me, like, I think this card might be good though, right? It has to be good. Mg. Like, what are your thoughts?

Storm Synergies Explained

Rez Snapper 21:36

You're gonna hate this. I've been doing 0.75 ratings recently. Why? Basically, and I, I do also, whilst it's a five star rating system, I do sometimes go up to six when I'm like, this card is crazy. So technically if I'm doing six up to six with 0.75, it's like. It was like a 24 rating scale anyway. Um, I'm sorry. Um, yeah, no, I think she's, she's really cool. I think I really like the. She's just very interesting. The fact that you need to skip two turns in a row. There's not many cards that demand as much planning or like restriction as Storm Wicken is probably one of the, one of the other ones. Obviously you've gotta do stuff for what, three or four turns. Uh, with storm you need to. I think the interesting thing about her is sometimes there'll be situations where. If you're playing her, her in hi Evo, you're obviously skipping all the time anyway, so that's fine if you, if if you've got more of a deck where you've built around her, you might not have drawn her. So you might be in that situation where you don't know if you need to like skip the energy. Uh, so I think that might be a little bit difficult. But she gains, she gains decent power at the location. I mean, she, she's wolf splitting, so maybe not decent, but or rather I should say, gives the power, but what she does to the hand is just, it's so filthy, it's so much power, and there's so many, there's so many good synergies you can do with that. Like, we play Forge sometimes just to do it to one card, right? Yeah, I think she's gonna be really good. I, I'd probably go four stars with her, I think. I think that's why I gave her an Snap or pass.

Surfer Builds Return

Alex 23:13

I, I like that call on the forge because you're right, forge not only does it only do plus two power, but you have to like draw into it and then you have to target something where targeting on turn three. So you're right, like there is that, that nuance play there, which storm doesn't really care about and forge will not buff. Its given location. So even if you play storm late, right? You could technically buff a location, like you can use Storm as like an inverse Surfer. Like you could play Storm into a brood location and then Surfer in another one on turn six or whatever, and you'll actually double pump that location because Storm will buff the broods and everything and then get hit with the Silver Surfer. So it almost is like a. Like objective Surfer, but not across the entire board. You, you mi like you don't do the hand part, but you're able to do the board part. So there is some flexibility. Flexibility there that I think is kind of important. You touched on brood. Brood isn't always played on like turn. Free. With Forge, you often play brood on turn three, but you can also use Forge or brood as a closer. And I'm actually starting to think that with, specifically with Storm, tell me if this is pure cope, but if you're gonna play Storm, I wonder if it's time to bring back Sarah Surfer.

Hand Dump Hit Monkey

Rez Snapper 24:29

Yeah, I think if you look at those decks, there's some really interesting five costs.'cause I, I'd also put forward something like, um, the fallen one as well.'cause uh, and then you look at the. You then got some decent forecast options like GPO and uh, ma ney like this, this server deck, which has got four costs and five costs. I think there's some really decent options there. So I a hundred percent I'm totally with you. And when you are doing that, Sarah, you're getting even more value from her because all of your cards, all of your cards in hand now have two more, which might be with things like, sure, it could be even more than that. I, I want to counter, counter offer though. I don't really know what the name of the archetype is. I call it hand dump, but stuff like warlock skip and turns, uh, like either Moon Girl or Mother Ney, uh, black Swan and just dumping like Martys and other cheap one cost cheap, one cost brilliant, one cost, all cost the same. Other high power one costs along with like a hit monkey. And if you, you could have like Mother Karney the hit monkey and it just goes absolutely crazy. Like, I think that's gonna be so fun with, uh, with Storm.

Final Storm Ratings

Alex 25:38

I was not expecting you to bring up hit Monkey. I like where your mind goes sometimes. I like, you're like, you know what? Play all the cheap one costs. You can. Use. Use Black Swan, get'em out there and then hit monkey. I like that new one.'cause no one's gonna expect that they're gonna be sitting there and be like, yo, this bot hasn't really played much yet. And then all of a sudden, MJ with the eight cubes. I like that buddy. I like that a lot. Alright, we gotta do it then. Final star ratings. I'm gonna go with four. I'm not gonna go 3.5, I'm gonna go with four. Despite the fact that you do have to kind of integrate storm aggressively into the overall game plan, whether you've drawn her or not, I think that there are variations of Surfer that can skip turns one and two, which give me enough hope that I wanna play this card and I'm gonna be playing Surfer baby on Tuesday. You can't stop me. So I'm going four. I'm, I'm hoping that I'm coping, but I'm gonna do it.

Rez Snapper 26:27

I didn't mention this actually, but yeah, I haven't ever been a big Surfer gamer, but when they released that carnage Surfer variant recently, and then I think I, I think I asked someone to show like if they'd unlocked a steel metallic finish on their Silver Surfer, and I told them to show that on the carnage Surfer variant with a Silver, and it looks so good. I like, sometimes I'm really inspired by the artwork in this game and just have, look at that. Just look at it. Sometimes I'm inspired by the artwork in the game and it makes me want to play like specific cards and stuff. And thi this carnage Surfer. I'm like, I need to like, get a Surfer deck that I love. So yeah, I'm, I'm also excited to like, explore a Surfer deck that I really wanna fall in love with. I think she is a hard, sorry, my god, my voice sort of broke then. Uh, she is a, she's a hard four for me. I think I'm I believe, I believe.

Hot Locations Rant

Alex 27:21

You believe? Okay, good to know my man. Let's have a couple discussions with some very interesting things. First, hot locations suck. This has been something that's been discussed many, many times and I will tell you right now, there was a comment from Shaqs who is a absolute wonderful person who continues to just breed positivity in the community. They commented almost every single video saying Thank you for it, and I appreciate it so much. I look forward to every single one. They said this re just had a bit of a rant in one of his videos where Alter of Death was a feature location and how it warps the meta and more or less forces players to play a specific deck in order to win. I agree with him. I know it's probably a low priority, but I would actually really like if feature locations to be revamped or done away with entirely. I would also like for them to take a look at locations in general and perhaps get rid of half or more of them. Mj, what are your thoughts on hot locations as a whole and whether or not locations are actually starting to become a bit of a distraction in Marvel Snap.

Rez Snapper 28:24

Yeah, hot locations. I am generally not a fan of, I completely agree. I think they do warp, uh, the meta or like certainly warp the games that you play, like too much. You do feel a hot location is that 60% of the time. Right. I, it's just because it really is like you either have to participate in either, uh, a counter to those types of deck or that location, or you play along with it. And yeah, it's that forcing you to change the way you play. I especially don't like it when I'm trying to climb. And I'm like, okay, cool. I was doing really well. Like I try and fit in my climb before the hot location day because like I could be doing really well with a deck and that hits the hot location and I'm like, okay, cool. This is gonna basically reset my progress for the next day. So yeah, I definitely think they are not the most enjoyable. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead.

High Voltage Mission Frustration

Alex 29:16

No. And also, I was just gonna say as well that, uh, I, I absolutely hate them. I won't, I don't wanna play on hot location days. I don't wanna stream on hot location days. I won't. In fact, uh, there's a couple things that Marvel Snap's been doing where I'm just like, all right, I'm not engaging with the game now. Like I'm over it. And I've given my feedback with regards to that. Like in hot locations is one of them. Here's a fun fact. I dunno if anybody else has realized this. I dunno if I'm, what, what's it called? The taking the bunny outta the hat when I say this. Is that one of the phrases? Anyways, here we go. Ready? Hot locations are actually very intentionally positioned if you think about it. So when they release a new card at the start of the season pass, so you get a brand new season, why is there hot location on the next day? Isn't that so unbelievably frustrating that a new season comes out on Tuesday and on Wednesday there's a hot location? We have all this new stuff to play with. We've got three new cards to play with, and yet for some reason, we need a hot location on that Wednesday. Well ask yourself this. Is it con coincidence that every single Wednesday the hot location is extremely favorable to the season pass card? Is that something that people have not realized that, oh, if you want to get to Infinite, nice and fast, you get the season pass, and then on Wednesday you basically have an entire period of time where that season pass purchase is advantageous to you to play? It's actually crazy that occurs. And really no one talks about it. So for me, hot locations has gotta go completely. I don't like what they're doing to the game at all. And for the record, the other thing that really has upsetted me, that grinds my gears, and I saw it today and I was like, I, I've said this so many times, and they just, and by the I mean secondary, just like, nah, I guess, I guess we don't care. Um, so high voltage is active today, right? We got high voltage today. This is the wrong window. This is the right window. I've not played a single game. You know, why win all three locations in a match? I've been telling them for almost an entire year. Every single time this happens, I'm like, get rid of this. This is it's such a poor decision to have this in high voltage. What you're basically doing is you're denying people's progress through this track for what is the dumbest reason possible. Is it a little easier to accomplish in high voltage? Yes. But is it fun? No, it's not. In fact, what's gonna happen is people are gonna accomplish these two goals and have this one sit there for like multiple resets. It's garbage. Get rid of it. The programming can't be hard to get rid of this. Okay? Whatever binary true is here. Change it to false. Get rid of this mission. It's for over a year. I've been saying this, I saw this today, uh, not today when, uh, high voltage rolled over. And I'm like, all right, I guess I'm just not playing high voltage and I won't, I won't play it. I mean, I'm at that point with Snap that if you do things to actively discourage me to not play the game, I'm not gonna play it. I played Dota two this weekend instead. I don't even care. I'll say that out loud. I played Dota two with my buddies this weekend instead because I saw this, I'm like, I'm not playing high voltage. If that's what you want, second dinner, then all the power to you. But I'm telling you, it's a bad choice. Start making better decisions for your players. This is garbage. I've been telling you for a full year. Get rid of it.

Rez Snapper 32:11

Yeah, I agree completely that, I mean, that's really unfortunate for you that that was the first mission that you are presented with, with there.'cause that that mission absolutely sucks like I do and especially it. It's, it's less bad for this particular high voltage because it is just a, you know, a cosmetics one. So people can choose whether they want to engage in it or not. I personally do want to get those extra cosmetics, like the borders mean a lot to me and stuff, so I do want to engage with it. But like, for example, last night. This is not an interesting thing for me to say, by the way, but I, I've started to, I guess I'll finish, uh, last night, uh, I can't remember what we were doing. Oh, we, S-N-L-S-N-L has just launched in the UK, SNL uk and it's really good. It's really funny. Um, so we're watching that. It's on at like 10:00 PM so it finished at like 10 past 11 or something. And I'm, I'm old now, so like I, yeah, I'm ready for bed by that time. So I was getting tired. I was like, oh shoot. I haven't ordered by chicken bowls yet. Yeah, exactly. So I haven't completed my high voltage missions yet, so I had a look in there and I was basically like brushing my teeth and just like wly trying to get these missions ticked off. Uh, and actually I was, I dunno if you'd call it unlucky or unlucky, but all three of them, my missions I think it was like player to spend a total amount of energy. So I did like hope Wiccan Loc Penny, and just tried to rinse through it. And, um, yeah, I, I eventually got there, but like, uh. Yeah, I don't even know what my point is. It wasn't an interesting thing to say and I dunno what my point is. So that was, that's good. That was good.

OTAs Need Bigger Swings

Alex 33:36

But yeah, for me it's like the reason why I got so upset about like seeing that mission is'cause it's been feedback that I've been giving for like, literally over a year every single time. And, uh, like, not that I, like, I think I'm so important, it should be listening to what I say, right? It's one of those things where it's like, this is, it's like Marvel Snap has been dying by death, by a thousand cuts. All these very small issues that seem like so preventable. Why make it so that players don't want to engage with your limited time game modes when they come out? You know what I mean? Like why take those steps, especially when it's as easy as just removing a mission. Another thing that's often been identified as a pain point. Uh, Mr. G brings this up and this is something that's been commented on a lot and it's the ineffectiveness of OTAs. So, Mr. G says they keep going with the lazy one power tweaks on older cards when they could have way more interesting changes. Why is Spiderwoman still a five? Cost for real? With the current medicine, she could be a three cost with no problem at all.

Rez Snapper 34:30

Yeah, I totally agree with this. The, the OTI just don't, I don't think they're interesting enough. So often I think there's there's a few key things that I think are big problems. One, they don't address cards quickly enough. Like how, how shall allow, remain as it is for so long is crazy. Two, they're not interesting or exciting enough. And three, we just don't seem to get enough updates for older cards as an offshoot point from that one. So I think would be really nice is if when we get a new season, not only do we have the new cards and stuff, but why can't we have like a thematic OTA then to just bring some really old cards up to like a slightly better standard. I was thinking about this when I was creating the slides for the upcoming dead or crim. Is it crimson, Twilight season? Like looking at Punisher, Punisher is one of the variants in the season pass. Just give him a little, just a little notch up, just a little bit of power. Yeah. It might not make a big difference, but at least it, you're giving players a reason to play that, that like it, like my mate, Gossie absolutely loves Punisher, but punishes, basically unplayable. So he can't play him. Just give him that little tick up. And just older cards like that who just, who have fallen behind, be a bit more sprightly and, and be a bit more generous in these OTAs to make them more interesting.

Alex 35:46

Yeah, and the fact that you can give ksr, go from four, four to four, five, then to four six, just like rogue went from three, one to 3, 2, 3, 3, like you could just make the bigger swing off the get go, right? Like, I, I understand like incrementally trying to balance the game, but like, it's one of those things where it's like perfect balance shouldn't always be the goal. Like it should also be about like rejuvenating the experience sometimes. And uh, something like a KR going from four, four to four six is not gonna break the game, but does it potentially give a little more life to something like zoo? I think that overall the OTs haven't been misses but I find myself desperately hoping, like for like Marvel Snap needs the, do you know, I dunno what they're called, those like medical things you see in movies, they go v clear, boom. Do you know what I'm talking about? Those things? Yeah. Where like they, they do the,

Rez Snapper 36:37

yeah, I've been watching the pit like season one and two for the past like month. So I dunno why, I dunno what it's called, but like the CPR buzzer electrode. It's pump. It's,

Alex 36:47

that's exactly what it's called. You guys feel free to Google that. You'll see exactly what he's referring to. It's on the tip of my tongue too. I feel like. I used to work at a hospital.

Rez Snapper 36:56

Oh, defi, defibrillator.

Alex 36:58

Defibrillator. That's, that's what it is.

Rez Snapper 36:59

That's it, right?

Event Pass Pricing Clarified

Alex 37:00

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And then like in some movies, someone will crank it up all the way and. Hit venom with it or something like that. That's, yeah. It's, it's always, it always turns into a weapon at some point somehow, which doesn't seem viable. I don't think that's a, I don't think your nurse can be like, oh wait, what if we turn this, dial all the weapon? You're like, no. But you can't even respond'cause you need to be defibrillated, so you, you know, you're just cooked, I guess. But, uh, but yeah, so the OTAs I think could use a little more love for sure. And then, uh, next we have electro blade. Came in with this here and then, uh, this was kind of interesting because it's, it's a mistake that I had made that was corrected, but it goes to show you just how second gender was testing a few things. Hey Alex, absolutely love your content and you're a big part of the reason why I still play Snap. I hate to be the um, actually guy, but you've mentioned this enough times and I wanted to clear something up. There have only been two 1,200 gold premium event passes since they started doing those. And they both occurred during the first run of new game modes that were introduced. Grand Arena in July, 2025 and Team Clash in December, 2025. These passes were only 12, uh, hundred Gold because second dinner wanted to run the new game modes for two weeks instead of one week, which made they included more rewards for the passes to make them make more sense. Over a longer period of runtime, more rewards equals more gold. This is the only reason why those passes cost 1200 instead of 800 that they do now. Every one week event has been 800 gold. Second dinner didn't revert anything or make those changes to formulas. It's likely that we'll see another 1200 event pass when second dinner introduces another new game mode, assuming they wanna run it for two weeks as per tradition. So this is something I'd mentioned a couple times where it's like I felt that they had been testing the 1200, uh, event pass and then reverted to an 800 gold, which feels like pretty good value considering you're often, like you pay 800 gold, you immediately unlock a car, get a whole bunch of rewards. I feel like the limited time game modes have been a hit for Marvel Snap. In fact, it's the way that I prefer to play the game for the most part. And I'm actually so sad we already discussed it. Grand Arena Mother Scon. Well, where are you? Was looking forward to that, to be honest with you. But, um, yeah, it, it's good to see that like. There is some rhyme to the reason there, it wasn't a discount being applied, it's that they decided to experiment with one week versus two week timeframes. I think I'm okay with the one week timeframe because it two weeks kind of really takes away from the ranked experience, even though that honestly, I'd almost rather play great rank, uh, grand arena for two weeks. But yeah. Interesting. In your thoughts, mj.

Rez Snapper 39:25

Yeah I confess, I didn't realize that was what the. Like the 1200 gold passes were attached to those longer events. My brain just never, never realized that I figured it out. But yeah, I, I agree. I think, um. Bit as you suggest, like being pulled away from the other game modes, especially ranked for a long time. Uh, especially when the game modes happen earlier in the season. Uh, that can be frustrating.'cause I do want to just, I, I, I mean I wanna do everything. Uh, and sometimes the game modes can get a little bit stale if they do do go on for a long time. Um, so I think a week is generally a good, a good amount, but yeah, similar to you. The main thing that I love about the game is the limited time game modes also, like, they kind of have different like goals as well. So we recently had Deadpool's Diner. I was absolutely grinding it and happy to grind it for all those borders. Uh, so good. It felt so generous. The fact that if you were willing to grind and put that time in, you could get rewarded for it in like, in a different way from some of the other ones. And that was one that didn't have a gold pass, right? So yeah. I dunno if that quite answers their question, but

Food Talk And Outro

Alex 40:31

Yep. The longer I can stay off the ranked ladder, the better my experience is. That's what I have found. Like I basically rank like my first couple days, like playing on ladder during the, uh, like you got Twitch drops, all that stuff. I will rank all the way to like 88, 90 range, right? And then I just stop ranking every, all, every season. I'm like, I don't wanna play this anymore. And again, I'm only engaging with Marvel Snap in a way that I find enjoyable's the way that I keep making content. If I just continuously grind, like I'm, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna burn out. So I want to make sure that I play the game, uh, in a way that like, is fun for me. And the ranked ladders is not fun. It's not fun anymore. So I just don't really engage with it all that often. So I'm a huge fan of the tine game modes. Deadpool's Diner was a breath of fresh air and I, I glad, I'm glad that they like went back to that like relatively generous rendition of it. Not nearly as generous as it was last time. Still convinced that was a bug. Um, and the next time I think they're gonna over the next couple years, like gradually bring it back a little bit. Uh, but anyways, uh, yeah, that was great to see. And we're gonna close the pod today with one last comment. And this is from from res snapper who said chicken nuggies are goaded. That's the real cuisine knowledge.

Rez Snapper 41:38

Yeah, it's still true. I tell we've just got an absolutely crazy product in the uk. They've just released two flavors of Burger King Pringles. One of them is Acel Bacon double cheeseburger, so like beef. Bacon cheese. Uh, and the other one is the chicken royale. And they're, they're both incredible. Like they're both the most impressive, like imitations of, of like a flavored crisper I've ever had. Or chip sorry, I shouldn't be like, that's fine. But the chicken royale one, you can literally taste the bread and you can taste the sesame seeds. It's crazy. They're so good.

Alex 42:18

I what I would give for like an, just like a res food channel, like exclusive. Just like, like you reviewing and talking about food is like the funniest thing to me. Like I even go through some of your old videos and like, it's so good, man. Like honestly, I feel like this, once Marvel Snap has run its course you are gonna be like the num the guy in the UK doing food review and I know it's gonna be full circle man. I know that's where you started, but it's where you're gonna end up for sure, because it's just, it's too good.

Rez Snapper 42:46

I reviewed tho I did review those Pringles on the channel so you can actually watch reviews for those Pringles. So I'm, I'm squirming around because my back, I'm, God, I'm in so much pain. It's insane. Like my back, I've been sleeping funny the last few nights. Sorry. That's why I'm wriggling. Yeah. Anyway. Cool. Good. Also had a burger recently. That was where we went to a burger restaurant where they put the, there. Cooked burger like patties and like caramelized onions and stuff inside dough. Then they wrap up the like basically pizza dough and then bake it in an oven. That was incredible as well. Yeah, we got some good food in the UK now. Oh, it's unbelievably healthy. I had a cheese dip as well,

Alex 43:24

just saline all the way into it. I love it, man. I love it. We, I gotta fly to the UK and you gotta just take me to a bunch of restaurant spots. Just

Rez Snapper 43:31

let's do it

Alex 43:32

a hundred percent. That would be so fun. But, uh, anyway, mj, you know what? You're so, so funny. I love having you on the podcast guys. As we said earlier on, use the Lincoln description down below. Use the subscribe button to get MJ past seven K subscribers. We gotta do it for this guy. It's an absolute beauty. We'll definitely have you on again. And you know what? I want you to do the outro. You do the outro to the podcast.

Rez Snapper 43:56

Thank you very much for listening or watching however you choose to consume the Snapchat, and we will see you next time. You better make sure you subscribed.