Is Marvel Snap DYING? | Layoffs Hit Second Dinner | New Season Preview | The Snap Chat Ep. 179

This week, Alex is joined by content creation legend and Marvel Snap fanatic: Regis Killbin! The duo kicks things off by addressing the elephant in the room—the recent Second Dinner layoffs, the departure of the community manager, and Ben Brode's official response. They discuss how the community reacts to "doom posting" and why maintaining trust in a free-to-play economy is so crucial.

After reviewing last season's standouts (where Regis makes a bold claim that Archangel is the secret best card in the game), it’s time for a massive New Season Preview! Alex and Regis break down all the upcoming releases:

• Shadowlands Daredevil: Does the Season Pass card dilute your deck too much, or are 1/6 Demons secretly overpowered?
• Wilson Fisk: Why this 3/9 stat-stick has Alex cooking up a wild Spider-Man Noir deck.
• Karen Page: Regis goes on a hilarious rant about why normal "ladies at a desk" make for boring cards compared to giant dragons and superheroes.
• Punisher War Machine: Is this the ultimate ramp card, or does it telegraph your game plan too easily?
• Lady Bullseye & Akari: Evaluating the new Affliction package and a spicy Nightmare synergy.
• Muse & Stick: Why Muse might slot into Weapon X destroy decks, and why Stick is just a tragically worse version of Maverick and Forge.

Join Alex Coccia and special guest Regis Killbin 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

Regis Returns

Alex 0:00

Hey everyone, and welcome to the next edition of The Snap Chat. This week I'm joined by one of my absolute favorite people, not just at Marvel Snap, not just in Hearthstone, but in all of content creation. It's Regis Killbin. Regis is here, and you know it's a special day when Regis comes because either the sky is falling or we have a brand-new season of Marvel Snap to talk about. And in this case, it's both. Regis, how are you today?

RegisKillbin 0:25

I'm doing well. I, I was gonna say that I feel like every time I come there's been some recent, like, drama in the Marvel Snap world, and I wasn't sure if that was just coincidence or if you were targeting those times, or if it's just so common in Marvel Snap that it just it's like any time I'm here there just happens to be something gone wrong. I wasn't sure what it was, but, uh, I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having

Layoffs Spark Panic

Alex 0:44

me. So to answer your question, no, I'm not targeting those moments. It is qu- completely- coincidental. I would have you on every week if I could. Um, it's just one of those things where it's like, yeah, y- there's always something wrong, though. Like, that's the problem. There's always something happening in Marvel Snap. It seems like they got, like, a little pistol loaded and they just can't stop shooting themselves in the feet, right? And it's just like- Yeah and every time it's like... I think one of the things, too, is that, like, you're also someone who, like, has these very conscientious X posts, which, like, actually to be honest with you, the tweet I'm gonna read here, this Discord post, I actually just pulled the Discord post from your tweet to give you an example of how, like, I get my news. Yeah. I get it from Regis Killbin. But, um, yeah, like it's just, it's been a kind of a wild ride. I feel like the last time we had a maj- like, I don't think this is, like, Kid Omega level issue, but I think what we have now is, like, a shaking in the foundation of the confidence in Marvel Snap, and that's one of the things that as a free-to-play game you have to have an audience who is confident that you're gonna be around in the future. I don't wanna buy$140, well, Canadian dollar bundles if the game's gonna disappear, right? You have to have confidence if the monetization makes sense,'cause I ain't buying cardboard, right? Like, even if Riftbound stops being a thing, I still got my cards. But in this game, those servers turn off, poof, everything disappears.

RegisKillbin 2:07

Yeah, it's really scary because it's, it's like a spiral there, too, right? Where it's like once the confidence goes down, if people stop spending, then they... like, Snap sees that on their end, they make less money. Something else, they're gonna have to lay off more people, the confidence goes down again, right? It's this really dangerous spiral you get into. That's why I was so surprised with the layoff announcement news, that they didn't, like, get ahead of the messaging at all. Like, everybody heard about it because they laid off the community manager, who's, like, the, you know, the face of the c- the entire company in some ways to the community. And it's like he made a t- a tweet about it, right? And it's like that's the first anybody hears about it. Like, they could've got out ahead about it, controlled the messaging, put out a little statement like,"Yeah- we're gonna be laying off some team members, but a lot of, Ben Brode eventually came out with a statement that basically said that sort of stuff, but it was like two days late, so everybody's just going crazy doom posting and it's like, the game is dead. The, the Marvel Snap world is over and it's just like that two days or day and a half, whatever it was, gives people so much time to make decisions about the game. And I, I suspect a lot of people use this as a moment to escape Marvel Snap. I think they might be done because of this. Even if it doesn't mean the game is dead, some people lose that, the confidence, don't spend again, and just give it up. So here we are.

Ben Brode Statement

Alex 3:16

Yeah, there's a couple things to unpack there. First of all, everyone who's listening is probably like,"What are these guys even talking about?" Because I almost did an intro where I jumped into the meat and potatoes of the intro before even introing the intro properly. So there was a set of layoffs, and I will read Ben Brode's official statement that came a little late, which allowed everyone to spiral, and I didn't even realize what would ha- what happened because I was at my daughter's soccer game, and all of a sudden I got a Discord message from a friend of ours who was like,"Oh, we cooked." And I'm like,"What? Why?" Like,"Why? What now?" Like,"What happened now, damn it?" Like,"I've been gone for two hours. What could have possibly happened?" And sure enough, right, they laid off, uh, our community manager, and then more than that. So let me, let's just get some context here, and I'm gonna read out the official statement that was posted on Discord by Ben Brode, which I then copy and pasted from Regis Killbin."Hey, everyone. Tough news to share. We said goodbye to a few members of our team yesterday, including our awesome community manager. You know how much he cared about this community, and we're gonna miss him. We know many of you will, too. These decisions were painful to make and say nothing about the quality of the people leaving. Across the board, they're talented, wonderful people. This has been a tough time for our friends who are leaving, and we'll respect their privacy for everyone involved. For those of you concerned about Snap, we're still here, still building, and still committed to this game and to you. The ro- uh, roadmap we shared in March remains the same. This is us making hard decisions to make sure that we can keep going, not a sign that we're winding down. We're here to support you." Then they list a bunch of stuff where you can contact them if necessary, but I had it on the screen. Maybe. I don't know. It's a kind of a big paragraph. But long story short, that was the official statement. They're basically saying,"We had to lay people off, but we're still cooking." Regis, your thoughts on the official message.

Trust and Reputation

RegisKillbin 5:11

I mean, I, uh, number one, I guess I'm glad they finally addressed the situation. It would've been perhaps even worse if they didn't say something, so that's cool. I, it... These statements always feel a little bit like, PR heavy and it's like you don't really know what to take from it or make of it. I feel like some people probably got a little bit of confidence out of that back, but I'd say the people who were really doubtful about Marvel Snap already, I don't really know if that moved the needle for them. I feel like they're probably still thinking,"Oh, no. What else are they gonna say," right? Like, they're not gonna say,"Oh, yeah, th- everything's up in flames. The game's going out of business," right?'Cause they can't say that. So it's like, what do you, you know, what do you really take away from it? It's, it's hard, you know? It, I think a lot of the times, like, the proof is in the pudding, right? Like, you, like, let's see some things happen, right? Like, let's see some investments in the game. Let's see new features. Let's see s- a lot of these bugs fixed and a lot of these problems solved, and then, you know, you start to get some of that confidence restored. I think a few paragraphs on Discord or whatever that are, in my mind, like, late and kind of reactive instead of, proactive, I don't know how far it goes. Also, like, Ben Brode, like, we all know him as the face of Snap, but it's really only from the, like, seasonal videos, which he actually wasn't even in this most recent video. He wasn't. Which seems like bad timing, bad happenstance, whatever. You're like, I, I, that was just coincidence, I'm sure. But it's like, you know, Ben's not really, like, that involved with the community all that much. So it's just like he kinda just showed up out of nowhere, and it's like,"It's all okay," and we're just supposed to believe that. Like, I don't know. It was... I just came away from it wanting a little bit, I guess. I always want, like, more concrete statements, more, like, more than I guess what that offered. Do you feel the

Alex 6:43

same? No, I do feel the same, and like, for me, I always take these types of things with a grain of salt, like these, like, ChatGPT-laden, like, PR speak things, right? Like, I'm not trying to be disrespectful. It's not like, oh, you know, Ben's thing wasn't, wasn't authentic. Of course it's, like, authentic. I think that Ben Brode cares about the people that he employs. Like, let's make no mistake about it. I'll tell you that my interactions with the Second Dinner team have been nothing but positive. I've actually had the privilege of meeting a number of them at multiple different events, usually PAXes and stuff like that, and people on the QA team. I've met people who are game designers. Obviously, I had a, an opportunity to be Glen, uh, meet Glen Jones."Be Glen Jones," jeez. But what I will tell you is that, um, they were all wonderful people that really cared about the things that they were producing, and I even actually had a chance to, uh, speak to someone from Riot when I was at a Riftbound event, who is joining Second Dinner's team, and that was kind of cool. Oh. Right? So, like, you hear about the layoffs, but I actually have, like, some insight into, like, they are hiring, too, and I, I, I don't wanna, like, reveal too much about this person's position and stuff like that, but this person's moving into a position where I think they're gonna make a major difference in this company, and they're in- incredibly talented, coming from a very notable studio. So it's not all doom and gloom. And I can absolutely see why, though, laying off people could absolutely kind of really shatter the confidence of the consumer, right? And, um- The other side to that though, and I wanna touch on something you mentioned prior that, like, some people had, like, a foot out the door, and I think there are people that just, they need a reason to quit. Like, they need... And I don't, I don't say that in a negative way either. There's a lot of people that, like, that sunken cost fallacy. You've been playing the game for so long, you know if you stop you're gonna fall so far behind on collection level, you're never gonna catch back up. And so as a result you're like,"You know what? This is the thing. I'm, I'm uninstalling. This is it. I'm uninstalling." And then, like, a week later they're like,"Alex, can I make this deck without the last two cards," right? And it's like you know what I mean? So I think that, like, there's two sides- Yeah of where it's like, you know, these types of bad news, if they shake enough confidence in people, it might be the push they need to uninstall, walk away, and, uh, you know, look to greener pastures as they say. Uh, but the other side is, is I actually do believe the future of Marvel Snap is bright. I actually think they're working on new game modes. I think they're working on new stuff, and I think that, uh, I think they're still cooking. And then I don't want to, uh, I don't wanna raise the white flag, like, as the surrender flag yet. I, I'm still holding on hope that things will be okay.

RegisKillbin 9:04

Yeah, no, I, I agree with you. I, I said as much in, like, my big tweet about it. Like, I, it's definitely nerve-wracking. I had some moments this week where, like, you know, your whole world comes crashing down and it's like,"Oh my God, is this over?" You know? Like,"Do I need to start planning a new game?" And you, like, have all these moments. But I do ultimately think there are still cool things coming, some of which, you know, we do see some things, like, behind the scenes that not everybody has access to that we can't talk about. Like, they give us a little different picture and insight. But you never really ultimately know, you know? exactly what's going on. So I, I'm still hopeful. Maybe that's just bias'cause of the position we're in to some extent. Like, you know, we have a lot invested in the game too you know? We have sunk cost fallacy in a career sense. So maybe we're just, maybe we're trapped in our own, uh, bias there. But I, I do think that there's still some future for Marvel Snap and some time. And I will say too, like just contextually, the video game industry in general has been like this. Like, a lot of companies and games have had to have layoffs just, I don't know, the market forces, et cetera. You know, I- part of it might be that. Part of it might be more, you know, isolated to Marvel Snap's problems specifically. But I will say too, like you were talking about Ben Brode caring about his employees, I think that's true. Like, Second Dinner actually has some of the best, like, employee policies and benefits and bonuses and salaries, especially for a fully remote studio. It's actually kinda crazy how well compensated their employees are, like compared to the industry. So, like they definitely do care about their people, and I could see because of those expenses and because of those commitments to employees why sometimes kind of having to trim a little bit does make sense from an organizational standpoint, even though you never wanna see people lose their jobs, and of course you wish the game was getting more investment and more people to support it. Obviously that'd be better. But like, I can kind of logically settle all of that in my brain and say,"Okay, I get it. It doesn't necessarily mean the game is dead." So I'm like you, I'm, I'm hopeful and I hope I'm not just drinking the Kool-Aid. Like I hope it's real hope that, uh, there is still a solid future for Marvel Snap ahead of us.

Monetization Debate

Alex 10:58

Of course. And like, obviously I love Marvel Snap. It's one of my absolute favorite games in history, but this is obviously a very talented studio, and maybe I keep hope up in that, like, maybe the next thing they release is just absolutely incredible as well, right? And like a studio like this with the talent that they have, there's a good chance that their next project might be the next Marvel Snap. Maybe it's not even a card game. Maybe who knows what it is, right? But, um, I think that there's a lot of good things coming from the studio, and so I'm just hoping that, uh, they can get through this rough patch, learn the lessons they need to learn, and hopefully help to inform their future game. Which by the way, I will say there is something that has come up repeatedly about all this before we move on to the rest of the pod So when I'm just kinda browsing X and stuff, I don't, like, post much, but I like, I like to try to take in as much information. There is a very consistent message that I see. Because, like, this thing about the layoff wasn't just on X, it wasn't just on the Reddit. I felt like I saw, like, an article on, like, Kotaku and stuff. Like, it kinda made larger waves because it kinda took... Again, it shook the foundation of people's, uh, confidence in the game. And I had... I saw a lot of messages about like,"Oh, the game's so expensive, it has brutal monetization," and, like, it had a, a lot of fixation on the monetization side, which I feel actually has improved so greatly over time that, like, they have a bad rep. I feel like they have a really bad reput- reputation, and it's an important lesson to learn because it's like one of those things that, like, if you come out the gate and all of a sudden you very aggressively monetize and you make all these mistakes up front, it's harder to regain that trust back and to change that reputation, to rebuild that trust. Once it's shattered and you earn that mark of being, like, a company or a game that's way too expensive or too aggressive on monetization or gating progress, then you're cooked. Because, like, the way the new game modes work, the season four cards, which ha- series four, which have been very legit, by the way, right? Those types of things, man, like, I feel like the monetization has gotten so much better, and they still have this bad rep for being a game with poor monetization, and I think they've progressed so much further than that, if that makes any sense.

RegisKillbin 13:03

Yeah, no, I, I think we've generally, minus some missteps here and there, been, like, headed in a good direction for Marvel Snap over the last year or two or whatever. Like, a lot of small, little incremental changes in the right direction. But like you said, you know, it, it's so much harder to get somebody back. Yeah. Like, that first impression is really everything, and they're still just suffering from that, like a lot of decisions. I think initially the Marvel Snap team saw this as, like, a mobile game first and a card game second, but a lot of their players saw it as a card game first and a mobile game second. So they're like, you know, monetization was all gotcha and, like, all, like,"We wanna be a mobile game. We're gonna monetize like a mobile game." They've kind of been fighting that balance the whole time, and have finally started kinda looking at it a little bit more like a card game, but now it's like, the reputation's already established. So it sucks that we, we have all these little incremental steps up, and then just something goes wrong and it falls off a cliff, right? And the reputation gets just a major nosedive. I see it in my YouTube stats. Yeah, me too. Like, you know, things are okay for a little while, then boom, giant dip. Things are okay for a little while, boom, giant dip. It's so hard when they keep shooting themselves in the foot every few months or whatever with a major problem. It's so hard to actually gain any ground that way, uh, yeah. Yeah, I, um, I feel, you know, like it's sad to see some positive momentum kind of thrown away with, with one or two things here and

Back to Fun Gameplay

Alex 14:16

there. Yeah. But here's to hoping for the future, right? I mean, like, this is... I s- I still think this is a very minor blip compared to what Kid Omega was. I think Kid Omega was, like, an absolute catastrophe, of their own making absolutely, right? So, I think that of all the situations, this is maybe amongst, I don't wanna say the most minor, but does it have an impact? It absolutely does, right? Is... Are the optics poor? Yes, they are. But does the day-to-day experience for an individual player change? I don't think so. And I think that's what kinda gives me a little bit of, like, like, a little bit of solace in the fact that, like, okay, w- we can trek on. We can continue, and good things are on the horizon. And so, uh, maybe we'll leave it at that, because, uh, I mean, unless you wanna continue spiraling, I can go down with you if you want.

RegisKillbin 15:02

No, man. I, I... It's one of those where I get tired of talking about this stuff. I know, me too. Oh, I just wanna have fun playing the game, and I wanna make videos playing the game, and, like, play the stupid cards. I get so sick of, like, having to sometimes, like, be a representative- I know or a voice or whatever. Not that I'm the only one. You too, right? Like, we- people expect us to talk about this stuff. I just wanna have fun. Would they stop screwing things up for like... Just give us, like, two months of peace and quiet, that's all I want. So if we could do that in the video too, that'd be great.

Favorite Cards Recap

Alex 15:26

Yeah, if we could get, like, two months of just banger releases where everyone's happy, game modes that are sick. Yes. Maybe even a new game mode sometime, you know what I mean? Like, let's get some stuff happening. Yeah, yeah. Right? Actually, we're getting a... They're doing, like, a Sanctum Surge. Like, there's a new version of Sanctum Showdown, so that's kind of exciting. I'm sure it'll be fantastic. But, okay, let's get into the actual meat and potatoes of our conversation here. So before we get into the brand-new season, we gotta talk about the new cards that came out this past season which really stood out, the ones that you really liked and enjoyed playing. For me, Storm was remarkable, and I gotta tell you, this ref- this refraction border looks absolutely perfect. I... Listen, I'm very self-conscious- about my, my variants right now. I, I know, listen, known connoisseur of variants, Regis Killbin, to, to evaluate my var- I'm upset, Regis, because Dexter made fun of my variants, and now I am, like... I've been going through... Yeah, he said my variants suck. And so, like, I had to, like, try to, like, get some bangers. So the... Okay, Regis, give this a s- like a rating from one to 10. What do you think?

RegisKillbin 16:27

For the variant or the card?

Alex 16:29

I didn't... I'm not, like, responsible for the art. I guess all I did was I put a border on it. What do you think of this border selection?

RegisKillbin 16:34

Uh, it does match that card really well. I would say nine out of

Alex 16:38

10. Yes. Yeah. Success. We did it. Get wrecked, Dexter. Um, yeah, so Storm is probably my favorite of the, uh, of the new cards this month here. Um, I thought it was a ton of fun to play in, like, the skip one, turn one and two, Silver Surfer-type stuff. I really liked how it played. It's some very, very powerful... Uh, what are your thoughts on Storm?

RegisKillbin 16:57

Yeah, I did like Storm a lot. Yeah. It feels, uh, really nice to just get to turn your brain off for the first two turns. Yeah. Get a cool benefit from it. I like Storm a lot. Also just a, you know, beloved character.

Alex 17:09

And what was your favorite of the season here?

RegisKillbin 17:11

Boy, I don't know. But I will say I think everybody is sleeping on Archangel: Horseman of Death. That's a take. Wow. Uh, e- especially after his buff. Like, this... I, I just made a video about this. I feel like I am just crazy or something,'cause this card seems so nuts to me, and every time I play it, I win a bunch of games. It's like a two-nine at a baseline, and then if you resurrect something that was gonna d- be dead anyway, like you're getting like 215, two off this thing all the time. And I played it in a Nimrod deck, and it was just like, I was flying. So I think, no... I, like... Somebody smarter than me has to solve this card and deck. But then, like, three months from now, somebody's gonna be like, somebody smart is gonna make a deck with Archangel, and be like,"This is the best card in the game. Why aren't people playing this?" They'll be like,"N- how did nobody see this?" And I'm gonna be back there,"I saw it. I knew. I just didn't have the skills to bring it to life." So I, I don't know. Archangel's pretty sweet. I also was really surprised by Askani'Son. Was that this month? Oh, I don't know. It is this

Alex 18:08

month.

RegisKillbin 18:08

But Askani'Son

Alex 18:08

was- And Askani'Son is actually, like, legit doing really well.

RegisKillbin 18:12

I thought this was gonna be the worst card in months. I w- I said as much. I'm on record. It's been okay. I still don't really totally know why or understand it if I, if I, like, try to break it out, but it's been played a lot, and seems to be doing okay, so. It's- Big surprise there it's

Variant Roast Session

Alex 18:26

in, like, the Aurora decks right now, where it's, like, an extra activate you can do. Yeah. And then you generate a card, and then, like, maybe he gets hit with Aurora anyways,'cause you threw down another activate or whatever. Like, it kinda does make sense. Is it cope? I kinda think it might be. But, uh, you know, here's to hoping. And the other card I will say that I've been enjoying as well has been Polaris. I feel like Polaris is kinda starting to make- Mm a bit of waves. Not, it's not quite there, but I think we have some support coming for Polaris. I don't think this is the last time we're gonna be talking about Polaris, because there is another Affliction card coming out this month that Regis and I will be breaking down. So I mean, no one really wants to hear us talk about you know, these, these old cards. I just really wanna show you this Storm variant. You wanna see the variant that really upset Dexter, the one that, like, broke him and started this whole Alex's variants are terrible thing?

RegisKillbin 19:11

Yeah, of

Alex 19:12

course. Yeah. Um, so I have Victoria Hand. V- he... Like, look at this variant. He, it broke him. He couldn't do this variant. He was so upset when he saw it. To the point where he said, I think he said that he preferred the bananas one

RegisKillbin 19:24

I don't prefer the bananas one, but it is kind of like, um, garish, I guess is the word I would use. Like, I get it, it matches, you know? Like, it's... There's white and red everywhere. I get it. I see the angle, but it's, like, too Christmassy. She looks like she works at the mall, like, guarding Santa. She's like Santa's security guard at the mall, you know? That's what I see. So I, yeah, I would say four out of 10.

New Season Preview

Alex 19:47

That's very nice. I think this is a two out of 10, and I think it's just funny at this point, so I leave it there. But, uh, I appreciate- There you go that you're willing to at least give me the benefit of the doubt. As we move on to the new cards, why you're here. You wanna learn about the new cards coming to Marvel Snap, the bangers, the ones that are gonna be worth your hard-earned tokens. This season, man, I don't know. This is, like, one of those seasons where I, like, I read through them, I'm like, either I'm underestimating these cards, or they need to make these better. I don't know. Like-

RegisKillbin 20:16

No, I'm with you.

Shadowlands Daredevil

Alex 20:17

Like, I just... I'm not sure, man. Like, I'm not sure. Okay, let's start with the season pass. Now, traditionally, the season pass is one of those ones where like, you know they cook it pretty good, and there have been some season passes that come out a little weak. Like, Enfor- Ensabinor came out a little, like, ho-hum. And then a couple points of power change, and all of a sudden, okay, you got some legit Ensabinor. Some Ensaba-dump, as I like to say, was one of the most popular ways to play that card. So we have Shadowlands Daredevil. It is a 2/3. It reads, Regis,"On reveal, shuffle in three demons. When you draw a card with six or more power, plus two power." So you don't have to just draw the demons for the extra power. Anything with plus, uh, plus six power, or six or more I should say, will provide plus two. Regis, what are your thoughts?

RegisKillbin 21:02

Yeah, I think, I think it's okay. I think maybe I, I could see it getting a point of power like Ensabinor or something to make it better. I think it's okay. I, you know, I kinda mapped this out. You know, if you hit that every single turn, you're, you're looking at what four draws naturally? Turn three, four, five, six. That's eight extra power. That's a 2/11. The downside is that you're putting demons in your deck, so you're less likely to draw your real cards, which some decks would never wanna do, like a Wiccan deck or something. You, you don't wanna draw a demon instead of a Wiccan, so, like, that's gonna exclude some decks that have really specific needs right off the bat. But I actually think the demons aren't that big of a downside. Like, 1/6s are really good. You know, if, if your deck has enough meat that you can, like, fill out your energy while still drawing a 1/6 every once in a while, like, you're probably pretty happy to draw a 1/6. Like, that's just kind of a strong card. So I think this will find a deck. I'm not sure exactly what it looks like yet,'cause it's gonna need to have the right balance of stuff that's big to make sure Daredevil gets big, and that the demons don't disrupt too much. But I believe it's okay. Three out of, four out of five stars I'd say.

Alex 22:06

Whoa, four. Buddy, I thought we were on the same page. I- Maybe.

RegisKillbin 22:09

Is that too high?

Alex 22:09

Well, I th- I've got, I got three written down. Three out of five? I got three written down.

RegisKillbin 22:12

Okay. Three and a half. I'll say three and a half Boom That's

Alex 22:15

where I'm at Regis, three and a half, locked in. Okay, couple things I wanna say before I get in- I wanna start with the cope. Is this a good Crystal card? Go.

RegisKillbin 22:23

I don't think so, no. I, I- Crystal's symmetrical, so that's too risky. I don't think plus two points on... would you play Crystal as a three-six? Maybe, but you'd play Crystal because you wanna draw specific things, and this makes it less likely you draw specific things, so no, I don't- All right,

Alex 22:38

I just wanna throw it out there. I, I wrote it down. I was like,"Crystal, question mark. I wanna throw it at Regis." Okay, fine. Uh, something I will m- I will add, I believe Kingishri should pull the demons, first of all, right?

RegisKillbin 22:50

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's something I mentioned in my review. Yes. Yeah, I think that's a cool one.

Deck Dilution Concerns

Alex 22:52

So that's a cool little thing there. I will say that you did mention a good, important thing. The one-six demons, that's, like, a one-six with no downside. That's pretty legit. Like, that's legit. The one thing I will say, though, Marvel Snap has always traditionally shown us that deck dilution destroys cards. There is a reason why new Shang-Chi does not get played. There's a reason why Agamotto doesn't see as much play as he could, despite the fact that each individual skill, on aggregate, is pretty damn good, okay? It's because of the deck dilution. This is very significant deck dilution. And the only card that dilutes the deck and it doesn't matter, there's two, really. Ah, there's probably more than that, but anyways. Thanos,'cause it has its own draw mechanics, and also, of course, you have Airship, right? But Airship's his own beast. I would say that the upside of Airship is better than the upside of Shadowlands Daredevil, especially when you have two drops like Archangel that are basically two nines. Come on, now.

RegisKillbin 23:49

Hey, don't throw, don't throw my own Archangel against me. That's not nice. Yeah, I feel you. That's a good argument. Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, I think it depends on, like, how synergistic a meta is and, like, how synergistic decks are, which I will say we've had, like, I think a little bit less of a synergistic meta lately. There's a lot of kind of just, like, generally good stuff, just, like, dumping stats, but at the same time, those have big payoff cards, like an Aurora deck. You need to find Aurora, right? Like, you can't really run Aurora and Daredevil together. That's not gonna work, yeah, that's all... That's a good argument. Can't refute that.

Alex 24:19

One thing I thought about as well is it doesn't just have to be demons, by the way. It'll proc on just big cards, right? So if you think about the two s- slot, right? Like, let's say you're doing a ramp deck with big chunkies in it, right? You got, like, the Gigantos, you got things above six power. Every time you draw one of them, Shadowlands Daredevil's getting plus two. Does this occupy a similar lane in those decks as Chamber and Moondragon? If you think about it, they kinda do the same thing. You have a two-cost scaler that benefits from the drawing of the big chunks that you intend to draw anyways. So could you see this as a replacement for Chamber and Moondragon in, say, a War Machine deck?

RegisKillbin 24:57

Yeah, I- I think you could,'cause I still maintain that, like, that deck doesn't mind maybe drawing a one-six Demon. It perhaps depends a little bit on the specific curve how often you have that, like, one extra energy to float in. I think you can draw those and, like, they're kind of nice little flexible dudes just to dump in your deck that's already running a lot of power. So I don't know. I also thought about, like, can we get, like, a big Red Skull deck or something, right? Where it's just like, hey, I, you know, again, I just need some big flexible points. And you know, I'm playing Starbrand and a Demon, and I'm not mad about it. And certainly Sauron doesn't impact my Demons negatively in any way. You know, I'm already doing the no ability stuff regardless. There's also stuff like, um, Selene, Horseman of Famine, where it's like I need no ability cards to proc Selene, and Demons are good no ability cards. Even Patriot, I guess, technically, although I don't know if you wanna go that far. But I, I just kinda think something's gonna line up for this guy. I don't know exactly which way it is. I think something's gonna pan out.

Alex 25:49

What about Superior Spider-Man?'Cause if you think about it, you play Superior Spider-Man, and it c- you draw into the green power of Shadowlands Daredevil, right? Now it's less, it's less guaranteed as some other ways to play Superior Spider-Man. But you have that one extra energy, where, like, if you're drawing Demons and you're on curve, that extra energy is just a free Demon every single turn, right? So it could work in theory, right?

Season Pass Philosophy

RegisKillbin 26:12

Yeah, any deck that has that energy flexibility, basically. I think the Demons become good draws, not downsides. And that's where I think Shadowlands Daredevil lives. So I gu- it's just gonna I think it'll take some experimentation, basically. I don't think this is gonna be an every deck meta-dominant card by any means, though, like some of the old season pass stuff we've seen. Like, this is not Star-Lord, you know? This is not, we're not there. We're not Xu Lao, but I think it's okay.

Alex 26:35

Can I make a prediction? I bet you- Sure at some point this card was every time it draws, plus three power. And they're like- Mm"Every time we release a plus three card, we gotta nerf it. But we do sell a lot of season passes." And someone's like,"No, we gotta stop. We gotta instill trust in the community. We release a plus two, and we'll just, we'll buff it to plus three."

RegisKillbin 26:57

Yeah, it's, you can't win,'cause people are mad when they suck, and they're mad when they're too good. You gotta be exactly perfect or nobody's happy.

Alex 27:03

You're right, though. Like, sometimes I think about that. Like, what... If I was, like, the, the key- the head designer of these cards, like, what would I do, man? Like, you really can't win sometimes with the season pass cards. I don't like the idea that, like, oh, let's nerf them before become, they become free to play, basically, or not free to play, or accessible with tokens. Like, I don't love that either. They cl- the technology exists to buff or nerf them the first week. We've seen it happen. But they conveniently pretend like they can't. So I don't know, man. The season pass stuff is just... They should all just be four to t- four, uh, four-star cards. Four to fives, man. Just, eight out of 10s, if you wanna do that type of, uh, scaling. Just a good card. Don't screw up the meta. Don't break everything. Just make it good enough that people play, they don't feel bad for spending$10. They feel good. They're like,"You know what? Yeah, this is legit. This is a fun..." For me, man, like, I know it's not even a card we're talking about right now, but, like- Techno-Organic Virus is one of my favorite cards released in the longest time. That is a cool card. Like, that is the kind of cards we want released, man, and I don't know.

RegisKillbin 27:59

Did have to get buffed, for the record, but, it got a big buff.

Alex 28:01

I-

RegisKillbin 28:02

Techno-Organic Virus, you know.

Alex 28:03

It did get a big buff. But, like, I'm just saying that I think that it, uh, it was probably already still good. Going to-

RegisKillbin 28:10

I thought it was okay too.

Alex 28:12

Yeah, you did? Okay, hold on. Before we get into this then, c- are you a believer in the Techno-Organic Virus? I wanna hear about it,'cause I wanna talk about Wilson Fisk, but-

RegisKillbin 28:20

Yeah, no. Yeah, no, I like it because it's, like, a whole new deck basically that's not a whole new deck, and I think that's really cool. It let you build a whole new plan basically. I think that was really neat. In a single skill card, that's really cool. And I thought it was better than I expected it to be too. I thought it was gonna be really bad, and it was actually pretty okay.

Alex 28:34

See, I'm on the opposite side. I thought it was gonna be broken. I thought it was gonna be amazing. Ah. And it underperformed my expectations wildly. And the crazy thing about that is I got to play it when I did the PAX presentation, and me and Dexter were like,"Bro, this card's going crazy." Like, we got, like, we got the shnuts during those, those games. Man, we got, like, the draws. We were absolutely just pumping. And, uh, when I actually tested the card, I was like,"Oh, this is not as good as I thought." Still good. I still enjoyed it. I liked the challenge of it. I... Th- is there some awkwardness around Pixie, Mobius and Mobius? I don't know, man. Like, I don't know. The Black Swan gameplay, that was some cope. I don't know. I like it.

Wilson Fisk Breakdown

RegisKillbin 29:11

I think it's okay now.

Alex 29:12

Do you think Wilson Fisk is okay though?

RegisKillbin 29:14

I think okay is a really, really accurate way to to assess my feelings on Wilson Fisk. I think it's okay. I... It's, it's a three nine basically. Or two nine. Two nine. No, no, it cost three. Yeah, that cost three less. Yeah, it's a three nine. Uh, which is fine. Like, it's bigger than Gladiator or Debris, but it's also, you know, we've had some really high-powered, high-octane metas lately with some crazy big numbers, and a three nine is not that crazy big. So I don't know. I'm... I think it's okay, but I'm also trying to figure out what deck plays it, and really needs it is where I'm at.

Alex 29:47

So you're 100% right. I am, like, this is a card that I'm worried about missing low on. When I first look at it, I'm like,"Come on, there's no way a three nine's bad, right?" But we're in the stage of Marvel Snap where everything's so, like, aggressively synergistic that I'm like, I don't know if it's good enough, but, like, at the same time, how is a three nine not a good card? It just doesn't make sense. If you're playing, if you're playing Marvel Snap and you're getting the initiative, you're playing big bodies down, right? Even in the, uh, the little, the trailer they did, they played a Lizard down. Okay, that makes sense, man. You play Lizard down, play this guy, boom, we're cooking, right? Like, that's... How is that a bad card? I don't understand. And then I was, like, thinking about, wait a minute, they also just buffed Martyr. They buffed Martyr too. That's a one six, man. And then you get this Wilson Fisk. Like- I don't know. Like, I don't know how this could be a bad card. Like, I wanna give this a four stars, but, like, it's like my h- my heart's saying three stars, but my body, i- it's saying four.

RegisKillbin 30:47

No, I think, I think three is right. It's like, just compare it to, like, other three drops, right? It's... is it better than, uh, new Drax? You know, like, doesn't Drax usually get bigger than a three, than, than nine power? And also, like, these, like, general cards, these kinda like good cards, tempo cards, whatever you wanna call them, like, lately they kinda need an Aurora synergy to get played,'cause Aurora is, like, boosting all of those and bringing them up. This doesn't get hit by Aurora, right? It doesn't have any sort of, like, secondary synergy. It doesn't get hit by Silver Surfer,'cause it's not actually a 3/9, right? So you start thinking about all these little bonuses for it, and it's like, well, it doesn't actually ever get any bigger than a 3/9. There's no upside on this card. It's kind of capped at just a 3/9. And then you start comparing it, like, opportunity cost-wise, and it's like, I'd probably just rather run another three drop that gets about that big and has some kind of additional bonus that I can hope to scale into or, you know, some effect that's disruptive. You know, maybe just Cosmos sometimes is better,'cause it has, an effect you care about. So it, it just feels too honest to me in some ways. But then again, I, maybe put it in a Red Skull deck with Lizard on two and this on three, and you're not mad. So, maybe, maybe it goes in your, uh, your, your Techno-Organic Virus deck, right? Like, it's a three-drop body you don't mind erasing the text on. Again, it's fine. It's fine. And that's gonna be, like, my take on every card this month, by the way. It's eh, it's fine. It's okay. Not to spoil it.

Noir Fisk Curve Idea

Alex 32:04

Do you want some cope, though? I got one thing. It's not as bad as Crystal. Cope city. This is better than Crystal, though. I think this is one of the best cards in the game that does not get played, by the way. I'm about to show... Are you ready for this? Now, I don't know if this is gonna work. I think it should. I think it should. But if you play a one drop, and then you play a two drop, and then you play Wilson Fisk, it's technically a five-cost card. One, two, five, that equals eight, friend.

RegisKillbin 32:27

Ah.

Alex 32:28

Could Spider-Man Noir- Ah as a turn four play- Ah make sense? Regis, are we cooking? Is this better than Crystal?

RegisKillbin 32:36

Ah, you gave me my day one deck idea, at least. I know that. I'm gonna steal this from you. Just try this. Feel free,

Alex 32:41

sir.

RegisKillbin 32:41

Um-

Alex 32:42

I just wanna see your crazy thumbnail, honestly. It's... The thumbnails are worth it. I didn't

RegisKillbin 32:45

think about it. Yeah. Look, I would never bank a new mediocre card's success on a previous mediocre card, or even maybe less than mediocre, perhaps. This card

Alex 32:54

is sick. Like, I don't- Spider-Man Noir's so good. What are you talking about? That is complete- I... Well, it's like- We- that's the worst take ever. Spider-Man Noir's

RegisKillbin 33:03

sick. But what else are you putting in the... What are you putting in the deck?'Cause now you've got... the other times you're trying to play your Spider-Man Noir, you've got a Wilson Fisk that's, like, set to eight, and you're like,"Well, okay, crap, that's not that good." And you have to hit exactly... You know, I guess you run Quicksilver, Domino, or whatever, right? To hit your one-two consistently, and then you have to hit Wilson and Spider-Man on curve? I mean- And then you gotta have, like, an Iron Man in the deck to make it worth it, or whatever, right? Oh, the deck's

Alex 33:26

horrible.

RegisKillbin 33:27

You're

Alex 33:27

right.

RegisKillbin 33:28

I, I can't... I wanna try it. I think it's really smart and creative. I didn't think of it. That's really awesome, but I don't have the code for

Alex 33:33

it. I'll tell you what I'm so sad about, okay? I'll tell you why this even came to mind. This... It's a bit of a long story. You ready for a little bit of a trek, okay? Sure.

OTA Nerfs Spark Spiral

RegisKillbin 33:41

Take me

Alex 33:42

on a journey. So, I was thinking about the most recent OTA, which was a pretty big banger. They nerfed a lot of cards and stuff. Yeah. And I was thinking about how they nerfed the Invisible Woman from Task Force First Steps. And I was like, listen, if you're gonna nerf that card, like, I understand why you have to nerf that card. It was stupid the way the mult- the multiplication stuff worked. But if you're gonna do that can we please give the power back to Havok? And you're like,"Alex, what are you... Why are you talking about Havok now? Like, what does Havok have to do with this?" Well,'cause the last time I played Havok,'cause I don't wanna play that end of turn cringe, the last time I played Havok was in Agent Venom decks. And the last time I played Agent Venom, Superior Spider-Man was my... Not Superior Spider-Man. Spider-Man Noir was my favorite way to play Agent Venom. And so, as a result, I started spiraling around Spider-Man Noir, how I can't play Spider-Man Noir. And then I'm like, wait a minute, it's Wilson Fisk. I said his name wrong. I said, like, Wilskin. It's Wilson Fisk. He is the one. He is the one to bring Spider-Man Noir back. Is the deck possibly absolute filth, trash, 35% win rate just pure garbage? Yes, it is, it is, Regis. I'm glad that you identified that very quickly. But I didn't have much else I had to br-... Listen, I had to cook something, and that's what I came up with. I got nothing else, sorry.

How Strong Should Fisk Be

RegisKillbin 34:56

No, it's a good thought. Yeah, no, it's, it's better than what I had. You're very creative. It's not gonna fix the card. I think this could be 11 power, to be honest, like- 11

Alex 35:03

power? A 3/11? What are we talking about?

RegisKillbin 35:07

Why not? Why not? Why not? Drax gets that big, and he has upside. And this has a conditional downside. Like, it's not always gonna cost three. I think... I... Honestly, you wanna hear a real take? Put it to 13.

Alex 35:19

What?

RegisKillbin 35:21

I, I actually think this card would be balanced at 12 power. I'll say that. I actually think that's true. 11 would be safe, 12 is fair. I

Alex 35:30

actually do. So the 5/12, that could be a 3/12 super premium sa- season pass card. Yeah. No, no poor optics there. It's fine. Make it, just make it a 15 at that point. Well- Make it a 5/15,'cause it won't matter at that point. The game will be broken.

RegisKillbin 35:42

Like, re- let me count my money from the Marvel Snap finance guy real

Alex 35:46

quick.

RegisKillbin 35:47

Yeah.

Daredevil Tangent to Karen

Alex 35:48

All that Dogecoin they send us to, to shill their, their- Yeah. Yeah, yeah super premium season pass. That... Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. Anyways, yeah, this... I don't know. I really don't know this card. I feel like there's no way a 3/9's bad. Like, there's just no way this card's bad, right? But I also, I don't feel it yet either. Oh, I don't know. I don't know, Regis. But what I do know Is that this card, the next card we're gonna talk about is probably worse, but I actually think I like more. And I'll tell you, usually I have no idea who these cards are. Like, I'm like,"I don't know who these people are. I don't watch these shows." I actually did watch the first two seasons or so of Daredevil, which I actually think is an amazing show, by the way. And even my wife really likes that show, because it's not like... She doesn't like, like, the crazy superhero stuff where everyone has superpowers. Like, this has a grounding to it, where it's like, yeah, like, I could see someone actually doing this, right? Like, you know what I mean? It has a... It's grounded in reality in a way that other shows aren't necessarily. Karen Page. Karen Page. What, you don't agree with that? You don't think Daredevil has a-

RegisKillbin 36:45

Well, I just... Daredevil is a, a little, little superhero-y, right? It's not the most realistic, You know, he's blind, but he's doing a lot of- Yeah I mean, I, I, it's, it's not the most realistic premise, I guess I'll say. Yeah, but

Alex 36:59

like- I, I don't know compare Daredevil to, like, the Eternals.

RegisKillbin 37:03

Well, sure. It's not, like, cosmic. Yeah. No, I get you. I actually do like cosmic-level stuff more- I do

Alex 37:07

too, man than, like, normal stuff, so. I just can't get my wife to watch it with me.

RegisKillbin 37:10

Sure. Sure. That

Alex 37:11

makes- Yeah, so that's what I'm trying to say. Like, it's grounded- I understand that whole thing in this reality where, like, I can trick my wife into, like,"Hey, this, I know you don't love superhero things, but this is not as superhero-y as other stuff." Sure. Actually, I'll tell you, the other thing I was able to, I convinced my wife to watch, and then she refused to wa- but then she did, and she actually liked it, was Arcane by League of Legends, the League of Legends. Oh, man.

RegisKillbin 37:28

Oh. Oh, I tried to get my wife to watch Arcane so hard, and she won't watch it, and it's killing me.

Alex 37:32

Oh. It's...

RegisKillbin 37:33

I'm gonna have to wait for my daughter to be older. It's

Karen Page Card Review

Alex 37:34

so good. It's killing me. Dude, it's so good. I love Arcane, dude. Arcane is so good. It's so good. Oh, and my wife did like it. I love it. You can tell your wife that, like, Alex's wife didn't wanna watch it either, and then was absolutely happy that she did. I wouldn't say she was happy. She didn't feel like she wasted her time like the other times I force her to watch stuff. I'm like,"We're gonna watch this documentary about..." And she's like,"Oh my God.""I love documentaries." Anyways, we're totally off the beaten path here. Karen Page, the 4/5 that reads,"On reveal, give one of your 1, 2, and 3 cost characters plus two power each." Regis, I'll give you the floor. What are your thoughts?

RegisKillbin 38:10

I think it's okay. This is the cop-out answer every time. It does demand that you probably wanna hit a good curve on it,'cause you probably wanna play this on turn four, not, like, on turn six or whatever to catch up. You could, like, play a two drop of this on six and fill in a gap or whatever. But, uh, it's, it's like, are you doing the, you know, a Quicksilver deck to... A Domino to hit your one-two, and make sure you always hit your Karen Page. That doesn't seem worth it or good compared to, like, Wiccan or something. God, give me the energy, right? Like, this is way less impressive. Obviously, any, like, buff synergy cards, if you hit, like, Agony on one, Lasher on two, Captain Carter on turn three, you know, like, yes, I'm over the moon. That's never gonna happen. That's just so unlikely to hit that exact sort of sequence in a buff deck. So then I start comparing it to, like, other four-drop buffers, you know, Gwenpool and Galacta, and now we got, like, Wolverine, Horsemen of War even in that space, too, and it's like, well, it looks fine, but I'd rather play a lot of those other ones, I think, for most decks. So it's just another one where it's like, I think you could play this. I think you would win some games. I think it would fit in your deck, and you'd be like,"Yeah, okay, that's a pretty good card," but at the same time, should somebody go out and spend a bunch of tokens on it? I don't expect it's gonna create that sort of demand.

Alex 39:18

So what's your star rating?

RegisKillbin 39:19

Three out of

Karen Deck Shells and Tokens

Alex 39:20

five. That's mine, too, man. Three out of five. I, I feel this 100%, and here's the thing. Honestly, I don't think this is a bad card, it's just not good enough. The stats just aren't there. I don't know why this is not a 4/6. Like, it's just... It should be at minimum a 4/6. I feel like they're really understating this. This is a card people are gonna read and be like,"Yeah, I don't give a crap." You know what I mean? Like, it's just, it's just not gonna move the needle enough. Yep. And I tried to think. I'm like, okay, just like you, like, what can we do here? Can we make, like, a variation of, like, a Wiccan shell that uses this as a backup, where you're guaranteed, like, the Quicksilver. I wouldn't play Domino. I would play Shang-Chi, the new Shang-Chi, so that you can get the whatever his g- what, I don't even remember this thing. What is Shang-Chi's thing called? Pl- Regis, help me here.

RegisKillbin 39:59

The 10 Rings or

Alex 40:00

something? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I should actually know this, and I cannot remember it. It is the 10 Rings. Regis, you are correct. I'm a clown. So yeah, you get the 10 Rings. That's your turn two. You do dilute the deck a little bit, right? You are diluting the deck. That's a little sad. But you got a backup plan, because you got this, you got Quicksilver. If you're drawing the Shang-Chi, play Shang-Chi on three. If you don't, this is the kind of deck you play Superior Spider-Man in, because the Quicksilver into the 10 Rings guarantees the Superior Spider-Man. Boom, you got your ramp. And then you play something like Karen Page, which you have the consistent things. You have a bunch of good three-hits, and then you got Karen Page. Why not, right? Wiccan as the backup. Well, not Wiccan you might even prefer, but Wiccan as well. I- it might actually work, man. It might actually work. So for me, it's like, I feel like this might be able to go into a couple pretty decent decks, but it's not good enough. Like, I'm sorry, four, five's not good enough for this, and it's just... It makes me sad.

Lore Rant and Zoo Talk

RegisKillbin 40:53

Yeah, I feel you. I think, like I said, I think it'll work, too. It's just like, is it... You know, the, the buffs aren't, like, any extra. You know, they're just points for points' sake, if they're hitting Domino and a 10 Rings or whatever, you know? Then it's like, well, I need, I need a way to scale these buffs to make it feel worth it, and then I'm putting it in buff decks, and I got other options. So I'm the same way. Like, I think you put this in your Wiccan deck and you're not mad. You're, you're actually completely fine with it. But who's gonna spend 6,000 tokens or whatever on a card you're totally fine with? I just don't see the point. I will also say, like, no hate to Karen Page. I'm sure she's a great character in the Daredevil show. Like, I, you know, recognizable Marvel character, frankly, in some ways. But I- to me, the, like, normal human characters are so boring I want cool superheroes. If I'm gonna be excited about a card like this, a lady sitting at a desk, right? I need it to be, like, something really cool and different, or frankly, a little overpowered. You know? I almost think they should balance excitement around the character with power level in some ways. Maybe that's a trap, but... In other words, I- there's nothing about this card gets me excited. Not the effect, not the character. I just, like... This week is gonna be an off week for Marvel Snap for me. It's what am I gonna make videos on this week? I have no idea. Hopefully, there's no TA or something.

Alex 42:00

All I'm gonna say is that that take was wild. That was a wild take. Like, you actually, you hate, like, the lore of the card. Like, you actually dislike the entire premise that this card exists. That's wild.

RegisKillbin 42:12

She's boring. I'm so sorry. She's boring. I mean, nothing wrong... I mean, it's like I said, I- I'm sure people really like the character and she's a well-written, developed character. I believe that. To me, h- who has no attachment to this, she's a lady at a desk. She's no different than any other of a million ladies at a desk to me. I wanna see a big dragon or a cool, crazy superhero lady, you know? I want some, like, crazy Wolverine guy. Like, Weapon H is the coolest looking dude ever. I don't know. Give me something like that, not this lady. Have

Alex 42:36

you watched Daredevil?

RegisKillbin 42:37

My take. I'm sorry.

Alex 42:39

I was gonna say- that explains it then. It's hard not to love Karen.

RegisKillbin 42:42

I know, but, but let's... But, but you like the character in the show because it's, you know... But this is just a facsimile. Like, it's just a 2D representation of that awesome character. I don't know, I just don't get attached to that. I

Alex 42:53

understand. I get it, man. I

RegisKillbin 42:54

don't know.

Alex 42:55

I get

RegisKillbin 42:55

it. I'm sorry. I... This is my weird, weird rant

Alex 42:57

of the day. No, no, no. I, I welcome more of these weird rants,'cause I'm not even done with Karen yet. I'm gonna say that, like, I wonder if she can go in Zu decks. You're very consistently playing t- like, one, twos, threes. Could she go in there as a backup for Kazar? I don't know, man. She's probably not good enough there. I will say that, like, in those decks that want that blue power, like some... oh, you ready for, you ready for a, a really good, really good variant? Boom, I pay to win. Let's go. Last time I s- Oh, sick last time I spent, like, that kind of money on a variant. This was the last time I did that. I just couldn't help myself, and then I was like... Then they released more Gundams. I was like,"Nah, I'm done, bro. I'm just, I'm totally out of it." Theoretically, though- The guy on

RegisKillbin 43:31

the hook she

Alex 43:32

will hit Clea, she will hit Maverick. There is some things she can do. For me, day one, I'm gonna go to the Shang-Chi, Wiccan style package. That's where I hope she'll be good, but for me, I'm with you, man. Very mid three-star rating for Karen. Even lower, man. I might even change it to two. Like, she can't be good. I'm changing it to two. She can't be good, man. There's no way she's not a four-six by, like, the end of the month. There's no way she's, does, stays four-five. Yeah. Like, I just don't see it.

RegisKillbin 43:56

Well, it might take a few months, but yeah, I feel you. They'll buff her. I think

Alex 43:59

you're right. All right. Karen Page, one of the most hated cards in Marvel Snap according to Regis Killbin.

RegisKillbin 44:06

Regis hates

Punisher War Machine Reveal

Alex 44:07

Karen. Regis hates Karen. Confirmed. Does Regis hate Punisher, though? That's the question we ask

RegisKillbin 44:13

ourselves Bro, this character is sick. I don't know anything about this character. This is what I want. This is a sick character. I don't care if this is the worst card in the game, I'm excited about this guy. Like like, Punisher War Machine, that's sick. I, I wanna know more about this. Like I'm excited to play this,

Alex 44:26

yeah Honestly, I have no i- I've watched like some of Daredevil. I have no idea how Punisher becomes War Machine. Don't, don't spoil it by the way,'cause if it is legit, like if he actually like, if Iron Man walks in and he's like,"Yo, Punisher, I know you're angry, but how about this mech suit?" And he's like,"All right." Like I'm, I'm here for that story. I'll watch it. Maybe we should, we should do like, me and you should do like a, like a watch, like a watch party of like Dar... Actually, it's like super long.

Does Opponent See Mark

RegisKillbin 44:49

Punisher War Machine looks sick as hell. Like he's so

Alex 44:52

cool He is. All right, let's look at couple things that I'm not sure about yet. I tried to like look at the video. With Punisher War Machine, d- does your opponent know which location gets marked? I haven't even read the thing. No, Regis, you read it this time. You read the card out. Make it intense.

RegisKillbin 45:05

Oh, yeah, okay. Punisher War Machine. 2/2. When drawn, mark one of your empty locations. Objective: win that location. If you do win that, that location,+1 max energy

Alex 45:22

That was like a Ben Brode style read. Like it had that energy to it. Like, and I mean that, like that is- Yeah an absolute compliment. It had like an energy to it where it's like, yes. I like Punisher War Machine now too, but I have no idea if your opponent knows if the location's marked or not. I tried to look at the video, I don't know.

RegisKillbin 45:37

I don't know either. I couldn't tell either. It really actually changes the power level- It does of the card dramatically too, I think. If they know, it's gonna be hard to win,'cause you're playing a 2/2. It's like, well, most decks have pretty good two drops, so you know, some power output on turn two. Yeah,

Alex 45:50

you're not supposed to play 2/2s. So

RegisKillbin 45:51

it- You're

Alex 45:51

supposed to wear tutus.

RegisKillbin 45:54

I'd like to see a picture of that. That would be a delight. I, so really my whole rating hinges on that. I actually think this card's kind of great if the opponent doesn't see the location,'cause I think it's like a cheap way to get ramp out fairly reliably in like a turn earlier than normal, you know, assuming you draw it on time. But that's true of all ramp cards, I guess. So it's like, I don't know, that seems pretty strong to me. I sometimes think this is like four out of five stars. If the opponent sees the location though, I wonder how often you're gonna miss and it's just gonna feel like you've broken your whole deck,'cause you were relying on that energy a little bit and now you don't. So maybe it falls to like two and a half stars if they, um, see the location.

Ramp Lines and Deckbuilding

Alex 46:36

There's a couple thoughts I had about this one. First of all, I am kind of excited about this card. Initially, I wrote a four down for what it was, and I'm assuming your opponent can't see it,'cause it says,"Mark one of your empty locations." Mark one of your empty locations. I'm not sure if they'll see that or not, but if they do, the card's m- way worse. It definitely is. But there's another thing I was thinking about too. If you play like a Squirrel Girl, it just marks nothing. It's just a waste, right? So the other thing that you- Yeah run the risk of, you have to play Punisher War Machine in a location that you currently do not have a card in,'cause he will not make a location empty anymore. Now, that means that you could play him and your opponent could just randomly play a card into the other location. So imagine, like, an Ir- like a Iron Patriot where all of a sudden your, your opponent already has a card there, and you're like,"Ah, damn." Like,"What do I do? I guess I play Wilson Fisk?" But you're gonna have to have that Martyr out nice and early, right? It's like one of those things where it's like, man, they could inadvertently play into that location and already cook you if they can see it, right? So I don't know. There's so many question marks about this. I just, I'm just not sure.

RegisKillbin 47:40

In a weird way, I think this is still kind of a turn three ramp card,'cause, you know, like, you could definitely hit it on turn two. Uh, well, actually, also I guess you can have a card down on turn one, right?'Cause if you draw this in your opening hand, it'll mark it before you play your turn one card, right?

Alex 47:56

Yes.

RegisKillbin 47:57

And then you can play your one drop in that location. So you could actually have a big Martyr or whatever and play it on one, assuming it's drawn initially, right? I never actually considered that. You're right. And so then you get a head start. So you get a head start, and then you can play this on turn two, and you assume that holds,'cause usually if you have a big one drop, like a big 1/5 or whatever, that'll hold. So that could be the turn two option, but then the alternative is if you don't hit that one drop, you play it on two. It may not hit on two, but then if you have a good three drop follow-up, then you're gonna start your ramping after turn three, much like you would with Electro or Luna Snow or whatever. So is it a turn two ramp card, a turn three ramp card? The question is, I don't know, and, like, then you have to kind of build your deck around that,'cause, you know, you wanna play towards what you've ramped, you know, and if you have a bunch of three drops to support this on turn three, then... Otherwise, you'd be skipping turn three, right? You'd be going from two to four. So you've got this little, like, conundrum about deck building, and I don't know. I think you almost play this in more like a general deck that's like one drop, you know, and, like, has some threes and fours, almost like a Wiccan shell, and it's, like, this kind of Wiccan alternative or, maybe even actually literally a Wiccan deck. So I don't know. There's, like, a whole lot of stuff in my brain mixed up about deck construction on this one, where I feel like it's gonna take, again, a bigger brain than mine to solve it, but then once they solve it, could be kinda nuts.

Alex 49:10

So I was, like, emoting you,'cause I think I figured it out while you were talking. First of all-

RegisKillbin 49:14

Okay, go

Alex 49:14

for it. Yeah first of all, when drawn, mark one of your random two locations. You're right. And because of that, I bet you your opponent knows for sure. It has to. They have to, or else it's stupid broken. Like, I think it's so stupid broken that, like, if your opponent does not know what location you're targeting for what max energy, this game's stupid. It- they have to know. There's no way. And you're thinking,"Well, Alex, what are you gonna play, man? Like, you got the Martyr, then you got this," whatever. Like, you're right. Regis, you play this You play Wilson Fisk!'Cause if you think about it, right, if you think about it, what happens is you draw the Martyr, right? You get the Martyr you got the location, you play it down. If you're ramping, boom, Risk- Wilson Fisk is a ramp card anyway. Boom, he's a five cost, you get him down, extra energy, easy, easy peasy, right? Or you got the Martyr already, you win the location, you go to the extra power, boom, Wilson Fisk comes down regardless. I think you could actually put Wilson Fisk in this deck because it's a fallback. You can either ramp into the Wilson Fisk, or you can have the big chonking for the Wilson Fisk. Boom, you, you, you're good, we did it. Wilson Fisk is good, five star card, I think. Eh, not really. But I'm just saying that, like, I can see a world where you play big chonky bodies to win the location to get the plus one power, and at the very least, you're able to play Wilson Fisk.

RegisKillbin 50:25

Yeah, no, I You're excited about it, and I'm happy for that.

Alex 50:28

That is the most polite way of saying your deck sucks.

RegisKillbin 50:32

I don't wanna shut you down. Like, you know, you've got a, you've got a goal here, you're gonna push for it, and I believe in you, and you're gonna break the meta, and it's gonna We're all gonna hate you. You're

Guardians and Mind Games

Alex 50:38

all, you're all gonna hate me. At the end of the day. That's, that's the truest thing ever spoken. I do There is one thing, though, I had a thought of. I was like,"Okay, hold on, hold on. There is some synergy here, though." Rocket and Groot. Think about it. So they know the location when it's drawn. We need cards that are gonna, like, win that location. Rocket and Groot a great card. They're like,"Oh, they're gonna play it. Oh, get wrecked." And then you win the location, you get the plus one energy, and you move, right? Not just that, man. If you think about it, even just, oh, uh, he's right there. It's not really relevant to major victory, but it's the Guardians. The Guardians, right? They're gonna be targeting that location nice and early. You could play the Rocket, win the location on, like, when it's drawn. Star-Lord, it's actually a Guardians card, my man. It's a Guardians card. Am I cooking? Am I crazy? What do you think?

RegisKillbin 51:22

Uh, yeah, maybe it's a Galactus card, too,'cause they're distracted and you just Galactus over here, it could be great.

Alex 51:28

Are we, are we actually talking about Galactus, though? No I

RegisKillbin 51:31

Yeah, no, that's I love that variant. It's the

Alex 51:32

Penny Arcade variant. It's

RegisKillbin 51:33

so busty. No, I know, I lo- I actually legit love Penny Arcade. I've, I read Penny Arcade for, like, the first 15 years of its existence, like, religiously, but anyway. Uh, the, the, the Galactus deal is kind of funny, though. I gotta- Yeah like, I love Gabe's art, but that one's kind of busty. It's funny. Anyway, y- y- you're right. Like, the, um, the, the takeaway here is, like, manipulating your opponent has upside, right? Manipulating their location plays and stuff, whether that's directly through Guardians or just other mechanisms. It can, like, you know, forcing their hand can have kind of a secondary bonus, where they're, like, trying to keep your Punisher War Machine in check, and you're doing other sneaky things because of it. That's

Alex 52:11

pretty cool. Okay. So- Star rating. I'm gonna go four. I am gonna stick with four. I'm assuming they'll see it, but I think that we can work around it. I'm not excited about this four, but I think that one plus m- uh, plus one max energy consistently throughout the game... Like, think about how much better than Psylocke and Jennifer Kale this is. Like, really. Like, it is so much better than those cards, right? It has to be good. I'm going four stars.

RegisKillbin 52:31

Yeah. I- I'll, I'll stick to four. I actually gave it four out of four on my review, which is equivalent to five stars here. But, um, yeah, I'll say four.

Alex 52:38

Okay. We're at the, uh... Yeah, that's right, you have the four s- you have a four, uh, rating scale, which is really interesting. I think it was Red Snapper last week was saying that his... He does.75, so theoretically his, his point scale is, like, a 24-point scale. I'm like,"Why are we doing this? I don't understand."

RegisKillbin 52:53

I did four to give myself a forced, uh, decision. You can't cop out at three. You have to pick better or

Muse Destroy Payoff

Alex 52:58

worse in the middle, you know? Well, since we've copped out repeatedly since prior to th- this is the only four. We've gone three, three, three, three. I went two on Karen. You three'd everything, so I guess maybe it's right. Maybe you should just not give yourself that option. Um, Muse. Okay, uh, okay, this is rare. This is rare for Muse, because I actually don't have a rating. I'm not sure. I don't know. You gotta talk to me, because I, I don't... I'm not sure how I feel about this card. I feel like it's gonna be either the best of the month or one of the worst, and I need you to talk to me about it. So Muse is a 3/3 ongoing, which is good. We like ongoings. Ongoing, plus three power for each location where one of your cards has been destroyed. I'm not sure what to think. Regis, you can go. So

RegisKillbin 53:39

that's, like, plus nine points, which makes this a 3/12, which we know Wilson Fisk should be a 3/12 to be good. So does that make this guy good? I think... I hate this answer. This this is not my normal, not my normal strategy, but I think it's another card that's on the good side of okay, maybe even a little better than, than okay. But it's just gonna be a question of, like, clearly this is going in a destroy deck. Does a destroy deck need to run this? And alternatively on that, like, does it make the destroy deck actually better? Like, I think you could take any given destroy deck and you could put this card in, and again, it would feel pretty good, and you'd have moments where you're like,"Yeah, I really like a 3/12 a lot. I think that felt great to play. That's helping me win this game." But then you also ask yourself, like, would a different three drop have also offered me some great advantage? Would I be fine if I played a different three drop?" I think the answer's often gonna be yes. Also, like, some destroy shells in particular, like Deadpool stuff, are like, they have a goal. You know, I gotta get this Deadpool either buffed up or destroyed enough times. Do I have space to, like, run this random 3/3 or whatever? So I think there might be some, like, sideways destroy decks that have more room for this, but then, like, the really refined destroy stuff is like,"Well, I just don't really need this. It's not contributing to the ultimate win condition."

Alex 54:53

Yeah, for sure. Like, I totally see that. But, like, one of the nice things about this too is that, like, unlike Archangel, who's an absolute poo trash card this... You can destroy stuff like, like Headpool, Deadpool. It doesn't matter. It's just looking for that location to have that trigger happen, right? Like, you don't need, uh, the trash tier Archangel just cope to be like,"Oh, I gotta destroy something." It doesn't actually even wanna be in a destroy deck. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you can, you can just destroy cards, doesn't matter what they are, and the, the card, Regis, that I, I think is really good, it's so much better than Archangel. It's Weapon X. I think Weapon X benefits from this,'cause if you think about it, the Weapon X decks, you can play, like, Squirrel Girls, Killmonger them, and then, like, I think these types of decks have the room for something like a Muse, unlike having the room for something like an Archangel, which should just be deleted from the game. But long story short, I do think that Weapon X is gonna be a key way to play this card.

Dormammu Deck Fit

RegisKillbin 55:44

Okay, so wait a minute. Let's just talk about this. Archangel even deleting a Squirrel, right? If Archangel resurrects a Squirrel, you've got a 210, right?'Cause it's four plus five is nine, plus one is 10. So you think a 210 is terrible, but you think a 312 is g- is much, much better. I mean, obviously there's some spacing requirements- I guess. But, like, uh, come on. Archangel's a 210 in that scenario, with upside. It could be even bigger. Anyway, you're... No, I think that's, I think that's kind of what you're trying to hint at is, like, there might be some other destroy builds that have a little bit more space for a Muse-type card. I think Weapon X is actually a really good example. I like those kind of, like, go wide, destroy everything decks, and then, like, play death or whatever, right? I could almost see, like, a Weapon X, Moira, Killmonger, Squirrel Girl, Muse thing, where also sometimes you're getting, like, two Muses off your Moira. It's like, okay, yeah, actually, that's a sick, you know, turn six maybe. It's just like play two, three 12s or whatever. And- Yeah. I was gonna say, yeah play a Death alongside it, you know? So it's kind of more of, like, a swarmier destroy deck. Like, that definitely seems reasonable. I do wonder if this card's, like, strong enough to suddenly make that a meta deck, right? Like, does that push it up enough that becomes really strong? I think it's probably gonna be one of those, like, low tier two things where you can climb with it and it's good and it's viable and Muse feels pretty good in it, just maybe not, like, top meta contender type

Alex 57:05

level. I guess the only other place where I can think about him, but I'm not sure what that deck looks like yet,'cause I, I'm thinking, like, Weapon X is where I wanna go with it, is Dormammu a place for it? Like, I'm not sure,'cause, like, you destroy one card and you can use Dor- Dormammu's skill to destroy two others. Like, where do you destroy the second set, the third set, sorry, to really get the value from Muse? I don't know. What are your thoughts?

Podcast Banter Break

RegisKillbin 57:24

Yeah, I think Dormammu is fine. Yeah, you can... I mean, obviously those decks are gonna have other things going on for destroy packages. Dormammu, I guess, is only- really destroying one thing itself through its chain, but then, you know, you have to destroy something to kick it off. So yeah, I, I, uh, tha- again, I think that's probably a fine side angle destroy deck where it makes sense. I just, like, all of those sound reasonable to me, but also at the same time, I'm not like,"Oh yes, Muse makes that broken," or like,"Yes, Muse is perfect for that," it's like there's some gap there. I'm not super excited for some reason.

Alex 57:58

I was just saying, like, we just took a little pause here, just a little sip of water. I was saying how excited I am to get to talk to Regis all the time. Here's the thing, though, that you don't really realize. Like, I... Like, not only are you just a great dude, but I'm a huge fan of your content, too, so it's like, you know? Like, it's like one of those things where it's like I'm a content creator, and I'm making a podcast, but I get to have someone that I, like, actually admire on the podcast. So, like, I'm fanboying a little bit talking to Regis Killbin, you know what I mean? It's just like, hell yeah, man.

RegisKillbin 58:22

No, no, I... No. Like, you're like, you're like the ni- like, you're... This is not a slight to anybody else. You're my favorite Snap person, and I like a lot of Snap people a lot, but you're my favorite. Like, you're, your personality is just, like, uh, I don't know, like, effervescent or like, I don't... You're just, like, so positive and happy. Like, you could say it's the Canadian thing. I don't know, but, like-

Alex 58:41

It's... This is one of those pods where, like, I'm recording, and I'm like,"Hell yeah, man." Like, this is a fun podcast. Like, this is one of the ones where it's like, like, I'm just having so much fun. Like, we're already well past an hour. I feel like I could talk to you for another three hours, but we're both starving, and, like, we go- we got families to go tuck into bed. Well, we usually do.

RegisKillbin 58:57

We usually, like, talk for an hour afterwards, which I wish we could release those, too, man. Oh, man, I wish people could

Alex 59:02

see that. Yeah, that would be... Yeah, the, the after hours, like After Dark, Regis and Alex After Dark. That's a-

RegisKillbin 59:07

Oh,

Alex 59:08

man. Yeah. W- when, when, like, like- That's great"Hey, Regis, tell me how you real feel." You know what I mean? It's like one of those...

RegisKillbin 59:14

i, I love Karen Page. I have a Karen Page, uh, fan blog.

Lady Bullseye Hype

Alex 59:18

Yeah, you can't see the other angle of, like... So if you turn Regis's camera around and face behind his computer, it's actually just Karen Page po- posters. This whole thing was just trying to throw off everyone from his obsession with Karen Page. Yeah. Anyways, let's get back to business here. We have Lady Bullseye. I had no idea that there was a Lady Bullseye. I haven't gotten that far in the show. I didn't know... I think Bullseye's in it eventually. I don't know, man. Long story short, I think Lady Bullseye looks pretty cool. Uh, 2/2. On reveal, afflict an enemy card with negative two power. Repeat on a different enemy for each of your unspent energy. By golly, I'm telling you right now, if this is gonna be my five-star of the month, I think it is. I wrote 4.5'cause I wasn't, I wasn't, like, fully willing to commit to five star, like this is the card, but I think this is the card. Boom, Lady Bullseye, day one purchase for me. Every card's a day one purchase, but Lady Bullseye's a banger. Regis, what do you think?

RegisKillbin 1:00:12

Tell... No, I need to hear why. You just made a really bold statement. You go first this time. I wanna digest what you have to say about it- Oh,

Alex 1:00:17

incoming one-star rating- and then respond from Regis here. Okay.

RegisKillbin 1:00:21

No, not that

Bullseye Math and Timing

Alex 1:00:21

bad. Okay, okay, here's my thought. First of all, I, there's a question that I couldn't get answered from the trailer video. So I'm assuming the way this card works is that it'll only hit each card once, and it won't repeat once. Like, let's say it only h- they only have five cards out, and each of the five cards has been hit by negative two, it won't repeat even if you've gone, like, seven extra power. Like, you know what I mean? It's just not gonna do it. It's just gonna, it's gonna hit everything once, and that's gonna be it, and that's okay. But even then, that's an insane amount of power. Now, we could do the math and like,"Oh, what if they have the whole thing filled? You got the four, four." Yeah, I get it. It's a lot of power, right? But forget that. This can go in Abomination Afflict High Evo, which I absolutely love. And if I can put this in an Evo deck, I'm gonna play High Evo,'cause I love High Evo. So for that reason alone, I'm super excited, and this is probably the reason why Star-Lord had to get nerfed. I'll just throw that out there.

RegisKillbin 1:01:11

Okay. Yeah, no, that's fair. I... So w- what turn are you playing this that you're really excited about playing it? What turn is it coming down?

Bullseye Reality Check

Alex 1:01:19

I don't know, man. I'm kidding. It's coming out on the last turn. So the way I'm trying to figure it out here is like, okay, what can we do here? What can we do where we play, like... Okay, first of all, Star-Lord, right? Star-Lord's gonna generate that extra stuff, and you got the, you can do the stuff with it. Okay, yeah, cool. Great ex- explanation, Alex. Great podcast there. But Fallen One also. You think about Fallen One, right? Like, if we can get some cope happening with, like, Jim Hammond, Human Torch, and, like, Fallen One, and Lady Bullseye, you got so much energy. I mean, you could play, you could play, uh, Black Panther, Zola on that turn. Like, you can do whatever you want. And, like, I feel like Lady Bullseye can make a separate line where, like, you Lady Bullseye, and you play, like, literally you could play... Okay, hold on. If with Fallen One, if you have enough energy to play Black Panther and Zola, that means you have enough energy, friend, to play Ajax alongside the Diamondback, alongside Lady Bullseye. Boom, cooking, bam.

RegisKillbin 1:02:16

Yeah, but if you're spending all your energy, you're not gonna have any unspent energy left for her to do anything.

Alex 1:02:21

Yeah, you're right. Okay, hold on. Let me re-... Okay, wait. You don't- Okay, hold on. You're right,'cause it's the turn. It's not able to... You- you got lots of energy, right?

RegisKillbin 1:02:28

It's not per, it's not, it's not this game or anything. It's this turn, and if you're spending all your energy, there's no unspent energy left. You gotta float the turn. I know,

Alex 1:02:37

you're right.

RegisKillbin 1:02:38

So yeah, like you, you could do a big Fallen One turn where you have like 12 extra energy, but you need to leave that 12 energy to just Lady Bullseye, which means you're only getting two power per one energy effectively,'cause she's negative two, you know? But- Yeah, you don't believe me.

Alex 1:02:51

I see

RegisKillbin 1:02:52

so I, I feel like the extra energy I could do more with just playing Finn Fang Foom or Black Panther or whatever- Sure than this But, and so, yes, there's some Sunspot turns. Turn five, you know, if you float, you get plus three on Sunspot, you get three ticks on Lady Bullseye, you know? But your She-Hulk's not discounted as much, but it still might be okay. Like, I think that's still a pretty good turn. You know, you spend two, float three, so that's, like, negative six from the excess, three on Sunspot, three cost discount on She-Hulk. I see that as okay. I don't, I'm not as excited about it as you are. I'm so sorry to, like, kill your hype. I don't mean to do

Alex 1:03:26

that. Listen, I understand. You're b- you're a realist, right? You're looking at, like, my excitement, and you're like,"Alex, okay, listen. I know you're getting hyped up." I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."You're just excited." For what it's worth, I'm glad I didn't say five stars, 4.5, so I have, like, some, some degree of lenience there. Like, Alex didn't say it was a five-star card. It's 4.5. It's not... You know what I mean? Like, there we go. Not that everyone's forgetting that I gave five stars to, uh, what's it called? Uh, Techno-Grandfather that immediately had to get buffed'cause it was bad enough, so let's not bring that up at all. Okay, so, like, yeah, okay, there's, there's some bad... There's some issues with this, but w- okay, I mentioned it before. We already talked about this card. Polaris, Horseman of Pestilence, okay? Like, listen, you're gonna get way more than negative five out there. She's gonna pull Ajax from your hand. She's gonna pull a Big Chonk from your hand, probably Abomination, which is free, which is gonna be super frustrating. But she's gonna pull stuff from your hand, and the nice thing about it, too, is that, like, the way I think about it is that Polaris, like... no. Lady Bullseye's gonna be, like, the last turn. It's gonna be one of the things you play at the end,'cause that's the, one of the challenges, though. It has the same challenge, the same problem as Sage. And you're thinking,"Alex, you're all over the place here." I am all over the place. Okay? I, I wa- drank way too much, uh, hot chocolate today. So Sage has the problem, the same problem as Lady Bullseye- where, like, you can't play it on turn two. You can't play it on turn three. It has to be played at the end of the game, right? Sage suffers from that as well, but you put up a tremendous amount of points. The thing is, is that, like, with something like a Polaris and with something like a Lady Bullseye, it's like you have to wait for them to set up a big board. You're kind of reliant on them setting up their board that you can then take advantage of. That is a definite downside. So anyways, I change my 4.5 to a three. Three stars officially.

Bullseye Ratings and Art

RegisKillbin 1:04:58

Well, I actually, I actually think this is definitely not a great card on turn two, but it does have one afflict at a default. So it's kind of a two-four on turn two, which, if you hit a good... Like, you know, if they happen to have a Lasher or something out, you might be like,"Oh, hell, okay, I actually am just gonna toss this out on turn two." Or in a Heivo deck turn three or four, also. I- it actually could be ki- like, turn four, you float two. This is dealing four to base. Another four is, like, kind of a two-eight on turn four that's also potentially hitting your Sunspot, your Cyclops, your Misty Knight, whatever, right? So I actually think maybe okay earlier. Not... Y- you're right that, like, it's better later. You know, there's more targets. As long as there's, you know, a couple targets or whatever early. It's could backfire, but- You know, I, I think turns three through five though are all reasonable turns for this one. On turn six, on Hyodak, I'm thinking about, like, Hulk and stuff instead. But maybe you put together a turn of, like, Ajax, Abomination, or something on the final turn too. That's pretty cool. Or maybe, like, Abomination, Bullseye. But if you, if you Bullseye on the final turn, you miss out on those Abomination discounts, so I don't know. I'm, like, all over the place. But I, I actually think this card's pretty okay, like 3.5, maybe even 3.75 stars.

Alex 1:06:04

What? 3.75. I like it. Damn, okay. We're cooking now.

RegisKillbin 1:06:07

I just borrowed the.75. You, you, you gave me an in to the.75, so- Yeah,

Alex 1:06:10

it's, it's a pretty good in. I'll tell you, okay, there is something you brought up though. Okay, two, two power... No, two cost, four power. That's a good- You're like,"That's fair." Okay, fine. You know what's a better card that's two, two cost, four power? No one's talking about Archangel. This is a two cost, four power card- that no one's talking about right now. It can get up to n- it's a 2/9, Regis. It's a 2/9. No one's talking about this card right now. So if, if you're telling me that Lady Bullseye- It's bigger than 2/9 is a 2/4, but no one wants to play the 2/9 Archangel, like, I don't, I don't really understand. Like, I don't, I don't know how you could possibly rate this as a 3.75.

RegisKillbin 1:06:46

Dude, listen, for the... Archangel, unless he r- I guess resurrects a rock or a negative power, he's, he's 2/10 at least. I don't want... don't dare slight my man Archangel. You're being really unfair. And, uh, he also just looks cool, by the way. Like, I... You know, I just I... Lady Bullseye to me looks silly. She looks goofy. I don't know her pose

Alex 1:07:03

looks- I, I mean, okay, yeah, we're talking about the... Actually, I gotta tell you, the Archangel base art's way better than the Lady Bullseye one. The base art's been kind of getting better though. Like, there's been some better base art. Yeah, I agree. Like, I think that, like, like Eduardo Melo and Ryan Kinard have been, like, guys... People were roasting us, like,"We cook a little bit," and, you know, second years are like,"No, we got to sell variants. Stop making good, good..." Like, I, I always bring up, like, the, uh, Iron Fist one. Like, this is base art. Like, how good is this? Oh, you guys can't see it. Boom, now you can. How good is this base art, man? Like, you're not selling variants for Linley Iron- Right for real, no one's playing Linley Iron Fist, but this base art's actually really good. Oh, it's the sword from Sword Master, by the way. Sword of FU.

RegisKillbin 1:07:40

I knew that.

Alex 1:07:41

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So anyways, Lady Bullseye-

RegisKillbin 1:07:43

Sword of FU.

Alex 1:07:44

Lady Bullseye, I think I'm excited for. The only thing I can think of, of additional synergy right now for Lady Bullseye, it's not great... Okay, you play it on turn two, it's a 2/4. What if next turn you hit her with the good old Grandmaster? It's actually two additional procs, right? Because she does the regular- Yeah then she checks for the extra floated. So, I mean, there's a chance that Grand- Grandmaster's worth playing. I don't know, man, but I don't know. I'm, like, my heart of hearts tells me that Lady Bullseye I think is gonna be cool. Whether or not it's good or not, I'm not sure. Yeah, I agree with you. But I wanna hope that it's good,'cause for me it's one of the more exciting cards of the season.

RegisKillbin 1:08:20

Yeah, I think you're right. I actually think she's one of the maybe better actually and more interesting cards of the season

Akari 4 12 Debate

Alex 1:08:24

too. All right, I'm glad we can agree on something. Let's see if we'll agree on this here. And it is Akari. Akari, you know what? I've already too many... You do the read on this one, Akari

RegisKillbin 1:08:33

Akari is a 4/12. You can only play this where an enemy is afflicted with negative power, i.e. from Lady Bullseye. I was gonna

Alex 1:08:44

say Lady Bullseye. I... Okay, so I'm giving this four stars. I think this is actually probably nuts. Like, for a series four card, like, how is this bad? Like, it's... I understand that it's very rigid. It has, like, the Cull Obsidian problem, where it's like, yeah, you got, you got a big body, but there's got, like, there's this requirement, a card's gotta be there. And it's way easier to satisfy the Cull Obsidian requirement as opposed to Akari's requirements. But there's a lot of afflict cards out there, and this is a 4/12. And I heard someone say that if you want a really good card, just buff it to 12. Just buff it to 12, and that's enough. Right? So, uh, Akari, what do you think?

Nightmare and Afflict Setup

RegisKillbin 1:09:27

It's gotta be a 3/12, though. This is a 4/12, so this needs to be, like, 14 or 15, I think. I, I'm, like, really torn on this one, actually. I don't really think the restriction's a big one for... You know, an afflict deck is not gonna have any problem afflicting and getting this down. I'm a little bit worried that, like, since it has to be played at the same spot of your affliction, you might get in a scenario where you're kind of over-committing a little bit. Like, I've already afflicted them here. I've already got points basically committed to this location. Do I need to add another 12? That could particularly be weird sometimes at the end of the game, but you might also have, like, three locations, fully spread with afflictions, so maybe it's not a big, big deal. Like, I don't think it's a necessarily really prohibitive restriction or anything. I just come back to, like, points for points' sake again. Sometimes decks just need synergies and effects and abilities and disruption and so many other tools. I could see this one getting left out again, just because it's, like, just too straightforward or too dumb or... Actually, rigid was a really good word you used too. Like, I just... You're committing a lot in one spot, basically. So I think it's... I don't play affliction enough to really say. I don't think a high evo affliction necessarily makes room for this, but maybe a more committed affliction deck, like a, a full-on Ajax deck does still find room for

Alex 1:10:37

this. So when you steal this deck idea I'm gonna allow you to steal it, but-

RegisKillbin 1:10:42

Is it Nightmare?'Cause Nightmare's like auto pick.

Alex 1:10:44

All right, fine. Okay, so you're on it too. All right Nightmare's the, the call. Okay, so yeah, Nightmare's really good too. You got 4/12. All right, now you, you don't have to... Okay, Regis was on it too. Regis was on it too. So yeah, you got the Nightmare, which I think is incredible. 4/12 is gonna do that. And the nice thing about Nightmare, though, is let's say you're like,"Alex, but if you don't draw Nightmare, everything's cooked." Well, like you could also do something like the Red Guardian, who on curve will afflict a card, but then you're really committing to a very specific location. I thought about things like Silver Sable, Scorpion, and those types of affliction, but you can't really control... Like you can't, you're not gonna guarantee they play a card hit by Silver Sable. You're not gonna guarantee they hit a card, they play a card hit by Scorpion. So as a result, like it's not... Like I don't know. It is, it's rigid. It's rigid, which is exactly is. I think that Nightmare is gonna be the way to play it probably, which is kind of sad because it's like I think affliction is good but, like I don't know if something like a Lady Bullseye is actually enough to carry Akari,'cause keep in mind, Lady Bullseye also afflicts. So like are these two gonna be played together?

RegisKillbin 1:11:46

Yeah, maybe. You're right about the Nightmare, like there's no backup plan, I guess. I haven't really thought about that yet. There's no other like affliction cards you'd wanna run in a Nightmare deck.

Alex 1:11:54

No.

RegisKillbin 1:11:55

You know, like maybe a Scorpion or something is okay. I don't know. It is enemy specifically. Yeah, I was gonna say you can almost do Yellowjacket stuff, but it's enemy specifically, so that doesn't help. Yeah I will do Nightmare'cause I think Nightmare is underrated and super fun anyway. But I don't know if that's gonna be the saving grace for this card competitively.

Alex 1:12:11

No.

RegisKillbin 1:12:11

But I, I do think it's still okay. Like I, I think an Ajax build with Akari probably comes along, and probably again is like a low tier two deck that's like you can climb with it and compete. It's just not gonna be like top of the meta disruptive.

Alex 1:12:23

Um, I just had to think- That's your build stuff Nightmare does... I haven't played Nightmare in a long time. Does it just hit characters, or does it hit skills? Let me just take a look at it here quick. Each card. Okay, so if they make Nightmare- just hit characters, I wonder if there's like skills,'cause then you have... Well, Deafening Roar doesn't do negative anymore, so I don't know if there's skills that really take advantage of that. I mean, theoretically something like, um, like Agamotto's Winds of Watoomb will do affliction. I don't know. You're right. You're right. There's... Nightmare, it's like the card's dead. It's completely dead if you don't draw Nightmare. Like you will never... It has to be some sort of affliction mix, and I don't know if that's there. All right. What's your star rating?'Cause-

RegisKillbin 1:13:04

Lo- locations, locations could help

Alex 1:13:06

quite a bit Oh, locat- that's a good call, actually. Locations. So you run, like, Scarlet Witch just to, like, flip good locations to potentially negative ones?

RegisKillbin 1:13:15

Yeah. Scarlet Witch famously good Nightmare card, you know? Like, that's the problem, you just keep looping back and it's shoot." Yeah, you're gonna have to run something down. I'm gonna still give this, like, three out of five again- Oh, man cop-out,'cause I do think Affliction Deck's okay.

Stats Versus Synergy Talk

Alex 1:13:25

I wrote four, but there's... Oh my God. It's like, how can a 4/12 be bad? It's just no way. There's no way. Like-

RegisKillbin 1:13:31

I get it. You're like, you're stuck on stats. This happens in Hearthstone all the time, where people... Hearthstone is, like, 12 years old now. I still get in card reviews people saying, like,"Dude, it's a 4/6. It's g- you know, it's, it's... Or a four cost 4/6. It's gonna get played." And it's like, dude, no. You're thinking about, like, day one Hearthstone still, 12 years later, you know, where stats mattered that much. You gotta... You know, we're way we're way power crept beyond just Yeti stats or whatever

Alex 1:13:56

I was gonna say- 4/7 playing Yetis down. I remember those days, man. Those were the nice- Like- Those were good days, man. Those were good days.

RegisKillbin 1:14:02

I, I think we have that in Marvel Snap still, and it's, like, still fair Marvel Snap,'cause we're only, like, a few years on, right? Like, it's actually... Stats do really still matter to some extent, but there's... It, it just... I don't know, is 12 enough? It might, it actually might be, right? Like, 12 might be enough for four stars. I think some cards in the four cost lot do do more than 12 points now, do do. I

Alex 1:14:19

was gonna say,

RegisKillbin 1:14:20

but- Uh, but, I, so I, that's why I feel like I could add a point to every card in this, in this month, and I don't know that anybody would've been like,"Whoa, whoa. Slow it down." Yeah. Is that fair?

Alex 1:14:32

I mean, this is a 4/12. This, like, the numbers are so silly on it, but you're right. Like, I, like, yeah, I don't know.

RegisKillbin 1:14:39

Thryffe has been, like, a 4/30 all month with Fin Fang Foom, you know?

Alex 1:14:42

And no one's really that upset about it, yeah.

RegisKillbin 1:14:45

Yeah. So it's like, you know, different timing, different scenarios, of course. Like, it's not a one-to-one comparison. But it's like, how big is Iska as a four drop sometimes, right? Like, Iska's insane.

Alex 1:14:54

Like, you could make Karen Page a 4/8, I think.

RegisKillbin 1:14:56

Oh, yeah. I was like,"How are you doing that math?" I thought you meant, like, with her buff she turns into a 4/8. I was like... Yeah, no, 4/7 at least, I think. Yeah.

Alex 1:15:05

Yeah. Like, I don't know.

RegisKillbin 1:15:06

I think a 4/7, maybe 4/8, yeah. I actually think that's true, that you could bump one of, each of these up by one or two points and nobody would've noticed. I don't think people would've been like,"These cards are all broken."

Alex 1:15:17

What about stick, though? Have you ever broken a stick before?

RegisKillbin 1:15:24

This is why... This segue is why you are the man. You're so, 100,000 subscribers easy with those kind of segues, dude. That is no doubt. You've just validated any- doubts anyone had. Like, I mean, that probably erased any doubts anyone had. Like, that was unbelievable- I'm glad you liked that one or you should be working... You should be, like a NHL announcer, man. Like a, you know- Why aren't you doing the big leagues, dude? Stanley Cup, here we come with that.

Stick Card Review

Alex 1:15:53

Yeah. I'm glad you liked that one.

RegisKillbin 1:15:54

Stick, actually. Okay, Stick is a 4/3 on reveal. Give the next card you play power equal to this card's power.

Alex 1:16:04

Does this remind you of anybody?

RegisKillbin 1:16:06

It's bad Maverick.

Alex 1:16:08

It's kinda crappy Maverick, isn't it? Like-

RegisKillbin 1:16:11

Yeah, I think so

Alex 1:16:12

but at the same time, it's like, again, this is the problem. Like, like, I broke down 2/3. That's, like, the rating I have written down, but I'm like,"This can't... Can this be bad?" Like, is there a way that you can forge Maverick and then Maverick this, and then play Black Panther, and then Zola... Like, is there a way you can just chain the power together, where it's like it's just you just, just passing it on like a, like a hot potato, hot power potato? Okay, boom, that's the deck name, Hot Potato. Bam, got it. But just pass the power. Like, doesn't it make perfect sense? Like, you Maverick, you forge, and... But the deck just sucks, right?

RegisKillbin 1:16:48

Yeah. No, I mean, I... You're thinking about it the right way, I think, right? Like, magnifying on magnifying, creating, like, little loops of, of power scaling and stuff. It's just, like, you know, you've described a perfect curve that you're gonna hit one out of 10 games, basically, or maybe not even that often, honestly, for the perfect two, three, four. And then you have to ask, too, like, well, you know, for instance, like, Shulao Maverick has been the way to do Maverick, right? Like, didn't Shulao just get a million more points than you would ever get off of some Stick chain with Maverick or whatever? So it's like, compared to other things we've been doing, you know, that still just ultimately to me feels really fair. So that's like, you know, your, your ceiling. Your best case scenario to me is not competitive with how competitive Marvel Snap has been lately is my problem. And then I think about, like, the worst case scenarios for this card. It's like wo- actually, it's worse than d- what Maverick was when he came out. He was a 3/3. He was, yeah.

Alex 1:17:36

For, like...

RegisKillbin 1:17:37

It's a Maverick that's, like, more expensive, that's, uh, timing restricted. Like, it's your, only your next card. You can't, like, bank it for later like Maverick, right? So, like, you can hand buff this to get him bigger, you know, play a Gwenpool or Storm, Horseman of Famine or whatever first, but you can also do that with Maverick, maverick also benefited from that. This cannot benefit from onboard buffs like Maverick did, though. Like, Maverick got boosts from Shulao or Iron uh, uh, why can't I think of her name? Uh, what's the three-drop Iron lady? Iron... What's her name, dude? Ironheart? I'm gonna think of Iron Lady's name Ironheart, yeah, there you go I was

Alex 1:18:10

like, I'm not sure. Good

RegisKillbin 1:18:11

job, Iron Lady. Um, you know, you could buff on board Maverick. You- this guy's only gonna be able to be buffed in hand or, you know, like you said, forge or something in play like that. But it's just, like, so much more restrictive. It's worse than Maverick, where it's honestly barely better than Forge at a... if you just think about it i- in and of itself, Forge is a two buff, this is three for twice the cost. Worse than Forge, worse than Maverick, worse than Shuri in some ways, too. Like, they're doing similar sorts of things. It's just, like, worse than every comparison. I think this is easily a two-star card at best, in my mind. Y- again, yeah, you can force it. Like you said, you can make decks that'll make this feel okay, but you'd just be better off with, like, any other four-drop card. All

Alex 1:18:46

right, so I'm gonna throw a couple at you, mostly about the variants, but, uh, thoughts on this card with Stick, also variant. Boom. Awesome Andy. Theoretically, you give him plus two, he's a four-five that passes it on. No?

RegisKillbin 1:18:58

No, you can't. Y- you, you can't. He has to be... It, the on reveal's already resolved.

Alex 1:19:03

No, it doesn't work with Awesome Andy. You have to play him in. Oh my God, what am I...

RegisKillbin 1:19:06

No, disaster. Yeah, that's why it's worse. It's worse than Maverick. I just wanted

Alex 1:19:08

to show you-

RegisKillbin 1:19:09

You have to buff it before you play it Hey, what about the variant, though?

Alex 1:19:11

That's

RegisKillbin 1:19:11

what's so frustrating. The variant is sick. It kind of almost looks like Arnim Zola. It

Alex 1:19:15

does have a Zola feel. Okay. At first

Stick Combos and Buffs

RegisKillbin 1:19:16

I thought it

Alex 1:19:17

was. Unironic actual call here. St- it's Storm. He actually works with Storm.

RegisKillbin 1:19:21

Yeah. It, it, it-

Alex 1:19:22

That's still plus two

RegisKillbin 1:19:23

But again- It's a

Alex 1:19:23

four-five

RegisKillbin 1:19:25

yeah, it... So it, f- so that's, like, a 10-power card, right? A four-five that buffs five, right? You know, obviously, like, a Black Panther could scale that again, but then why not Shuri? You know

Alex 1:19:34

what I mean? You know who else can hit 10 power? Shuri's

RegisKillbin 1:19:36

better again.

Alex 1:19:36

By buffing cards? Her name is Karen Page. She's actually... That's a joke, because she's an odd number. She needs to be a four-six. Second dinner, please make her a four-six so my joke makes more sense.

RegisKillbin 1:19:50

Yeah, I will say, like, Stick is a card that's hard to buff, too, though, because there is a point where he kinda does get busted. A four-four is notably better, a four-five is, like, crazy better. A three-three's a little better, although still worse than Maverick and Forge. I, I will say, too, though, like, I don't know, man, like, there are some advantages of this. Like, you know, Shuri, for instance, you have to play the card in the same location. So, like, Black Panther Zola is a great example of where, like, yes, this does feed in a little more. Like, technically Galactus is probably how I'll play this. Try to create some big Galactus buff,'cause it is agnostic where this is played versus the next card compared to Shuri. So, like, there's stuff to do with it. I don't think it's, like, totally useless. You get enough hand buff stacking, it becomes okay, but I just think there's so many better

Alex 1:20:31

options

RegisKillbin 1:20:31

that this just-

Wrap Up and Goodbye

Alex 1:20:32

Yeah. When you're talking about better options, I mean, this is giving, at its base, plus three power to something. You can be giving plus five power With Archangel. So I don't really understand why anybody would be playing Stick when they could be playing Archangel for that sweet plus five. Regis, thank you so much for joining me on the Snapchat, man. It's, uh, it was honestly an absolute pleasure to have you, and, uh, I look forward to having you back sometime, man. You're, you're absolutely tre- a tremendous- Oh content creator. And guys, down in the description you make sure you hit that subscribe button for Regis Killbin, because he's an absolute beauty. You're probably already subscribed to him, but I just thought I'd mention that. Regis, it was an absolute pleasure.

RegisKillbin 1:21:09

It was, but I'm never coming back because the only, only thing I get here is, is, uh, besmirching of my beloved Archangel. No. I refuse to return. I demand a written apology letter to Archangel before I'll make it back

Alex 1:21:21

here. You know what? I'll work on the letter. I'll throw it into ChatGPT and ask, ask that computer what they think about it. Guys, thank you so much for watching. We sincerely appreciate each and every one of you guys. Have yourselves a good one, and we'll see you on that next one