Is Jeff the Baby Dolphin Catching Strays? | Quicksand & Monstro Previews | The Snap Chat Ep. 184

This week, Alex is joined by Golden Gauntlet caster, professional podcast haver, and top-tier competitor: KM Best! The duo kicks things off by discussing the joys of casting Marvel Snap tournaments, how the game compares to physical TCGs like Rift Bound and Magic: The Gathering, and the ongoing onboarding challenges for new players. Alex also comes clean about a hilarious YouTube scheduling error that had fans panicking about missing work.

Then, they dive deep into the current meta and the massive New Season Preview!

• Jeff the Baby Dolphin & Kitty Pryde: Alex and KM discuss how the new "Empowerment" green power meta is causing beloved cards like Jeff and Kitty to catch massive strays from Shadow King, who is currently dominating the competitive scene.
• Monstro: Why did this 8-Cost, 8-Power octopus result in Alex's worst-performing YouTube video in four years? They debate the clunkiness of top-deck reliance and whether Monstro is actually better than Howard the Duck.
• Jubilee (Silver Surfer): Evaluating the pass-through buff potential of this new 4-Cost card and whether she can compete with the likes of Maverick and Stick.
• Quicksand: They break down this brand-new 2/4 tech card (complete with a hilarious typo in the game client) and discuss why it might be the healthiest, most balanced disruption card Second Dinner has ever printed to combat bonus energy.

Join Alex Coccia and special guest KM Best as they chat about this and more on this episode of The Snap Chat—and catch Cozy and Alex every week as they discuss all things Marvel Snap.

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

Transcript

Alex: Hey everyone and welcome to the next edition of the Snapchat. This week I am joined by someone who I have the utmost respect for, someone who is on quite frankly too many damn podcasts, and now he's on another one. It's KM Best. KM, how are you, my man?

KM Best: I am doing great. As a professional podcast haver, this is a nice little thing to add to my collection of Infinity Stones in terms of podcast appearances. Gratified to be back here again. This is like the third time and it's been a blast every time and hopefully it'll be a Beach Blast, which I realized, you know, not actually the name of the season, but I'll try, this time as well.

Alex: Yeah, listen, the reason why I was like, you know what, we got to have KM on this week, was because I think that we've seen a pretty decent meta shakeup here, and we got a bunch of new cards that came out this week, including Venus and Jeff. And I'm thinking to myself, man, these cards feel like they've had quite an impact, right? But I feel like you and I operate at slightly different echelons of the meta. So like, I wanted to take a much broader view as to how these cards might be impacted. I'm like, who better than KM Best? But before that, my man, I got to ask, you obviously just came off casting the Golden Gauntlet. How was that experience?

KM Best: Every time I get to work the Golden Gauntlet, it is amazing. I was talking to ZapGazemani, the Golden Gauntlet world champion from last year, who was also a caster on this, and he made me familiar with his work from working on like Magic the Gathering Pro Tours and things of that nature. And one of the things he said was, "I have all these opinions. I have all these opinions, I love to talk, and the idea that people would pay me to talk about my opinions when my actual friends won't sit through me talking about my opinions is one of the greatest things in the world." And that's how I feel. Because if I try to talk to my fiance about this stuff, I would get 30 seconds in until she'd be like, "Look, I'm trying to watch this show," which is a completely respectable and appropriate response.

Alex: Man, I totally feel that. Like, it's one of those things where like when you're when you're doing content creation and stuff like that, sometimes, like although you interact with so many people, sometimes you feel like you're on an island by yourself at times, right? Because there's not people in your daily life that can actually really understand. First of all, your passion for whatever niche you happen to find yourself in, but just like the ins and outs of what content creation is like. And you're right, I joked about this with Joe Curly, actually, who is otherwise known as Specimen from the Marvel Snap days, and we do our podcast, Enter the Rift, for Rift Bound. And I said like, it's just crazy because we're just two buddies that would have probably been talking about this anyway, we just turn the camera on and just have like an hour meetup every week and it's fantastic, right? So I absolutely understand that. Sometimes it's like even when I teach, honestly, like I teach computer sciences and engineering, like this is stuff I'm interested in anyways. And it's like I just get paid to stand in front of my class and talk about stuff that I would have been talking about to whoever would have been listening, regardless of where I was.

KM Best: It's it's a baffling existence and something I'm very grateful for.

Alex: It's like when you when you get to do these types of things, it doesn't feel like work, right? And so like you keep motivated and like you keep the energy up, and I think people feel that too. Like when you're casting the Golden Gauntlet, like there is like a like a love for Snap that comes through, like you're not faking it. Like you not only are excellent at the game, well excellent is not... one might say the best. Um, but you're also like clearly passionate about it too. And it comes through, you cannot fake that. You cannot fake those types of things. People feel if you're faking it, and it's clearly not in your case.

KM Best: Yeah, in as much as I have a problem in terms of broadcasting and that, it's turning it down to an appropriate level, not getting it up to that level in the first place. You start here and then you gotta be like, "Alright, well, let's dial it down. Let's let's do a little bit less screaming. Let's do a little bit less 'Oh wow.' Let's leave that up to Guest, and I'll do the sober analysis," right? Like I if anything, that would be what I would identify as my biggest problem on screen is not that I don't have enough passion, but that perhaps there's a little bit too much bubbling out of me.

Alex: That's not a problem. I think that brings so much personality to the stream. No, no, no, I'm telling you right now it's not a problem. It brings so much personality to the streams, and at the end of the day, that's why people want to see KM Best there. They don't want to see some like toned down, like, you know, shut-in version of KM Best. They want to see KM Best. They want to see the hype, they want to see the rage, they want they want everything that comes with the brand.

KM Best: I mean like, sure, okay. However, the thing about me is, in relation to the previous bit about my fiance, I'm like this for kind of everything. We went to go see Anaconda. They did a remake of Anaconda. And I came out of Anaconda, I talked for like 15 minutes about like things I thought about that movie, and like missed opportunities, and things they could have done better. And my fiance just looked at me and she was like, "It's Anaconda, man. Like just watch Anaconda and stop doing this. Stop doing this thing where you talk about all of the stuff all the time, right?" And if I tried to like imagine having this conversation with someone in real life, right? You're like, okay, so what I'm going to do for my job is go evaluate the cards Jeff the Baby Dolphin, who is a twist on Jeff the Baby Land Shark, and Venus, who is a Marvel version of, I believe, the deity from Greek mythology. And these both tie into the empowerment arc- imagine having that conversation with someone in real life. They would just be like, what happened here? It just wouldn't happen. Yeah, it's just not a thing you can do. And yet, somehow, we get to do this. And people watch it.

Alex: I know. I know. It's it's incredible. And for that I gotta say, like, we are grateful. If you're watching this or listening to this right now, like we are sincerely grateful that A, you're still here, because you're one of the blessed few that have stuck out through the years of Marvel Snap, which honestly, I actually think Marvel Snap, like I had this conversation so I was in Vancouver for the Rift Bound regional, and I bumped into a lot of people that were actively playing Rift Bound that had come from Marvel Snap. In fact, Marvel Snap was one of their first card games they'd ever played. They kind of got brought into the TCG CCG scene and then now they're experimenting with some other stuff. I actually, like, there was there was a an absolute gentleman, Mr. Beefy, who I'm going to shout out here, because I know they listen to the pod and they were actually on the stream that I casted. They were one of the competitors that was on the stream there. Um, and it was awesome because they came over and they said like, "Hey like, love Snap and now I play Rift Bound." So I think that Marvel Snap has had like this very, very wide net that it casted, especially during its launch window. And I still feel like a lot of people ask me like, "Hey, is it worth coming back to?" And I'm like honestly, I think the monetization is the best it's been, it's never been better. You have more cards accessible through like limited-time game modes and stuff like that. You have limited-time game modes that kind of break up the monotony of the ranked system. I said, you know, the future is looking generally bright, but I can absolutely understand why you might like burn out on the game, but you burn out on every single game, right? But it is still a kind of difficult game to come back to because of how you have to just go through the massive collection. Series 5 is now bigger than Series 3. So it's like it's still tricky, but at the same time, it's like I can't help but still want to talk about Marvel Snap with people. And I feel like a lot of people hold like Marvel Snap in like positive memories, if that makes any sense. I feel like a lot of people would like to see a reason to come back.

KM Best: I think the thing about Marvel Snap is I have not found a single game I can play on my phone that is as good at being a phone game as Marvel Snap is. And I know that sounds like a bit of a ridiculous statement, but I genuinely just haven't. And I've looked. Like I play other games in this space. There are shockingly few things even in the sort of imitation space, but just in terms of like vertical card game with actual strategic depth, there are not a lot of things out there. And in terms of I think especially the segment of players you're talking about, like the segment of players who would go from Marvel Snap to another card game, or would come from another card game to Marvel Snap. One of Marvel Snap's biggest failings in terms of monetization is not necessarily anything related to high prices on individual cards, it's that those players can't play the game the way they want. They can't do what they do in Rift Bound and go buy a deck and then play that deck at a regional. They can't do that. There's no option for someone who wants to say, "spend $200, pick up a deck, and then just go do that." And I know that sounds like- you guys are like, "That's a ridiculous amount of money for a card game deck." That's like every card game is going to have a deck in the main format that people play that costs like $200. That's just how card games work at this point. Marvel Snap has never provided those people with an actual way to onboard themselves to the experience that they want. Because of the way they've set up the collection system, and because of the way they've set up all of these various things, like "Oh we have a season pass, we have a season pass plus, we have Series 1, Series 2, Series 3, Series 4, Series 5. There's 6,000 tokens, there's a carousel, you have to wait through the rotate to pick up any card." That is a big enough barrier to those specific kinds of players, and that has sort of by sort of necessity those players have said, "This game does not provide me the experience that I want. I am going somewhere else." And so while I agree that like monetization is in a better state in Marvel Snap than it has ever been before, there still remains this barrier for getting what I guess you would term "people like me". I played Magic. I played Hearthstone. I was able to do this in these other games. I can't do it in Marvel Snap. And if I were picking up Marvel Snap now, that would be a barrier for me.

Alex: Yeah, 'cause in like Hearthstone, you could like craft specific cards, like you just use your dust, target the specific cards, you can't do that here, which I think is probably a bit of a challenge. They have like that FOMO carousel of cards going in and out, which isn't great. I think they need to get rid of it. Um, but whatever, I don't do monetization. I've always said like I don't do mobile game monetization, if I was responsible for this game, buddy, they would have been out of business a long time ago. Like let's be honest, right? This game would not exist if I was responsible for monetization. Um, but you are right, like in Hearthstone, you could absolutely just like use your dust, um disenchant cards you weren't going to use, focus on specific decks. And even in like physical TCGs, I guess because like erratas and stuff are so invasive, you you tend to just be like, "Okay hold on, this is how this deck works, it's probably not going to change too much. But if you were to spend like $200 on like a Primo Shou-Lao deck, and it gets punted after it comes out of the season pass and stuff like that, you could feel bad with that too. So there's like that it's both a blessing and a curse that you've got like these frequent OTAs happening, cards are constantly shifting around. Generally speaking, I think like the balance is pretty damn good. Like I feel like for the most part, like I like when cards come out slightly spicy, at least to shake things up and you know put some energy into the meta, 'cause like when Kraglin came out, like literally no one cared. In fact, like we're going to talk about Monstro, none of you cared. It's by far the worst performing video I've released in like four years. Monstro, right?

KM Best: Is that actually true?

Alex: Dude, it is. I remember there was like a Monstro hive out there, but apparently it's just eight people in my Discord. I thought there were some I thought there were some hypers. I have to go back and do the math, but like I will do like I it's it's by far the worst video I've released in like probably four years in terms of performance. And it literally YouTube says like, "Your your subscribers don't give a hoot about this video." Like YouTube will give you put like a warning, be like, "Your subscribers just don't care, bro." And I'm like, "Okay, that's fine, I understand." That's what happens every time I try to do one of my sports Snap comparisons, is it's like one of the worst videos I've ever released and YouTube is like, "Never do this again," and then I do it again because I like doing them, but that's what happens every time.

Alex: I know, I know. It's just it's so funny how YouTube works sometimes. But uh, but yeah, like, oh, I should also mention by the way, this is something that fans of the show might appreciate. Um, so I was traveling last week, and so last week we did the season opener with Binks. And I totally released the podcast on the wrong day. And I didn't even realize I had done it. Because I had I'm like, "I'm going to forget to release it because I'm so busy," and I was like, "I'm going to schedule it." Well, I don't know why, but I guess in like my Google Calendar that I use for work and everything, my week starts on Monday, like I just have it so the weekends are chopped off. And so on this one, I I went quickly I just clicked the first first like thing on the left and just submit and hit the the schedule button, but that would have been a Sunday. So then like there were a ton of people like I didn't even realize till like I went to check, "Oh let me make sure the pod released on Monday," I look at my phone, I'm like, "Bruh, it's been out for a day," and everyone's like, "Did I forget to go to work?" Question mark. Like like all these random comments about like me releasing it early. So yeah, that's what happened. I literally made a scheduling error last week, but hey, it was a lot of fun. Baited engagement at the very least.

KM Best: I mean, releasing it early, like that's the good version of misscheduling, right? That's the good one. Where it's like, this came out early, everyone gets happy, you get some engagement, you come out if you if you done it the other way and released it late, people would have just been yelling at you until you released it as soon as you possibly could have. So that you definitely got the right direction to be wrong in.

Alex: That's true. I'll take that. I'll take that win and the accidental win every once in a while. It's good to get those. Alright my man, we got a lot to talk about this week. We got Jeff the Baby Dolphin in review, Venus in review, Monstro in review, which we kind of already just kind of reviewed, but we'll do it again. Jubilee, Silver Surfer in preview, and obviously we have Quick Sand. So my man, let's get into it. Let's start with Jeff the Baby Dolphin. This card last week I had given the five-star to. I was like really tossed up between wanting to give five star to Jeff or Venus. I gave Jeff five star, I gave Venus 4.5. I said they were just barely, barely, barely off each other, assuming Jeff would have had more uh more of like a kind of impact on the meta. I actually think I might have been wrong. Now, Jeff is still, I think, amazing. I think it's really good. I think Venus just might be absolutely cracked, but that's a conversation for like 10 minutes from now. But KM, I'd like your thoughts on uh Jeff the Baby Dolphin. Especially from like a high meta perspective, like high ELO, like what are your thoughts on this? Like do you think it has the ability to like really shake up the high-end meta?

KM Best: I think Jeff is a victim of circumstance, which is to say, if you look at the Golden Gauntlet that happened yesterday, the number one most played card was Shadow King. There were, if you look at the top 10 cards by play rate, very few of them were over 55% win rate. I think it was two. Shadow King was one of those two. So the most played card in the game was also one of the best performing cards. That's bad. It's even worse when you're Jeff, and everything you do gets got by Shadow King. And it's not even Jeff's fault that people are playing all this Shadow King. It's the Captain Carter Combo deck's fault, which he can go in, but it's not his deck by any means. And so what's happening to Jeff is functionally that there is another deck that is drawing fire exactly to the sector of the metagame that he exists in. And so... I'm probably gonna bring this up again with Venus because it's a problem for her too. And the difference for me between Jeff and Venus is that Venus goes in a lot more things that needed the help than Jeff does. And Jeff is a lot more generic so Venus gets to show up in like the Zombie deck or whatever, or like in your Weapon X deck, and just like does a lot more things in like relatively lesser explored spaces. But Jeff is a card that is a victim of circumstance in ways that I think are largely out of his control. Which is to say, at some point in the future, I can very easily envision this being a very powerful thing to do, but for now it more goes in the bucket of Drax Avatar of Life, where if this came out in 2024, it'd be the best card ever made. But Marvel Snap is a little bit more multiplicative, and these cards are a little bit more linear, and they tend to draw fire in certain ways that make them match up a little bit less well in the metagame than you would like. If you're playing your Jeff mid-range deck, well you run into TOV. What is the first non-engine tech card, Mobius is an engine tech card, that TOV plays? It's Shadow King. What is the first non-engine tech card that Supergiant plays? It's Shadow King. You're playing a deck that doesn't involve green power, you're playing Shadow King. And Jeff is just eating it to the Shadow King decks. And so again, it's not his fault. But being in the second best green power deck is really bad when the best green power deck is making your opponents play a lot of Shadow King.

Alex: So that's like an extremely elaborate and intelligent way to say that Jeff is catching strays.

KM Best: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's actually... I mean, you say extremely elaborate, intelligent, I would argue that, you know, what do they say, brevity is the soul of wit. I am witless, of course. But yes, Jeff is catching strays.

Alex: For me he feels like a great card that like is pretty solid across all collection levels. I think it's an excellent choice as a season pass card. I think that whoever designed the season very carefully thought about like, hey, what about Jeff? Everyone loves Jeff. I mean in fact, like Jeff has been popularized by Rivals, other Marvel properties, like this seems like it makes perfect sense for a season pass card, and I do like the fact that it has this like ability that honestly feels fair. This could have been a 2/3 all day long. They could have absolutely released this as a 2/3. Dude, I know you're looking at me like that, but there is a world where Second Dinner releases this as a 2/3, right? And I feel...

KM Best: I completely believe that.

Alex: Yeah, I feel like they took the road of like, you know what, this is clearly good. Like let's go to 2/2 +1, we don't need to break it, we don't need to nerf it. But like, I think that the thing I like about this card and you touch on it with Venus as well is that it's kind of bringing back some archetypes that really didn't see much love. And I want to talk about Kitty Pryde for a sec, 'cause it's kind of going to go into both discussions here. Kitty used to be at the absolute top of the meta, and then it started to fall off quite rapidly. You saw... you love Kitty?

KM Best: I love her. She's one of my favorite cards in Marvel Snap. One of my favorite characters in Marvel, big fan.

Alex: Yeah, I love it. I absolutely love her too. And uh when there was a point in time where like Angela was doing plus two, and like it was absolutely crazy, and Kitty Pryde was the best way to play. Um, and then you had the Athena Kitty Pryde stuff happening, and like it was absolute... at the top. And then slowly they just chipped away at that deck. And this happens in Snap a lot where you just slowly chip away, and then a new bad guy comes onto the scene, and then these things fall to the wayside, and then all of a sudden you get all this just ever so slight power creep that stuff like Kitty Pryde just don't see play anymore. And I feel like Jeff was a great opportunity for someone like Kitty Pryde to make a comeback, and of course Venus plays into this as well. But I'd be curious about your thoughts for Kitty, how she fits into this meta. Because with Jeff I feel like Kitty's a great call.

KM Best: I I say this with love. Like I said, Kitty Pryde is a top three card in Marvel Snap to me. Whenever people ask me what my favorite cards are, the two that are always listed are Kitty Pryde and Anti-Venom. Those are always on my list of just like, I love playing these cards, I love doing what these cards are asking me to do. I worry that they end up in... a lot of Kitty Pryde decks end up in purgatory because they are these green power decks that get sort of pushed aside by Shadow King. And so you... like part of the reason TOV is succeeding is not just that it is a good deck, it is also that it occupies that Kitty Pryde space without that vulnerability to Shadow King. And that's unfortunately really important. And so you end up with an archetype that is one of my most favorite, most fun ways to play Marvel Snap in the history of Marvel Snap, but it doesn't necessarily go tall enough to beat the super tall combo decks in this meta game, and it doesn't get to have as good of an interaction package because it's also a green power deck. And so you end up with an archetype that sort of is second place in two categories. And that's a really awkward place to be. It's not like you can't play this or anything. It's just that I don't know why I would opt to do it instead of the other two if my goal was winning. Which is again, not everyone's goal. I am a single-minded, laser-focused, dork-ass nerd. So it's not everyone's goal to just be like, "I got to play the best deck all the time." But if that is your goal, that is unfortunate for you as a Kitty Pryde lover, and it's unfortunate for me as a Kitty Pryde lover. 'Cause like I said, she's like my favorite card in the game.

Alex: I love playing Kitty Pryde, the experience of the card, of taking a bunch of game actions, of the things she synergizes with, of these scalers that get bigger over time, Zombie Scarlet Witch, Angela, these are cards that I love. I love that kind of playstyle. And it's just a little bit worse than doing Techno-Organic Virus stuff unfortunately, because the output is so much stronger on this card than it is on your Kitty Pryde repeaters.

KM Best: I'm glad that you said Techno-Organic Virus. You said TOV like four times. I'm thinking, there's gotta be someone in the comments out there who's like, what is what is TOV? What is TOV?

Alex: That's why I keep putting it on the screen, I just realized, you're like, I've got to add subtitles to KM.

KM Best: The Techno-Organic Virus. And of course, because it's an ongoing ability, it's gonna be resilient to Shadow King. But this is a key thing though, this is the difference. I got to be honest with you, right? I don't see Shadow King very often. I really don't. And I think that is a major difference between the ELO that I operate in and the one that you do. Because like I just, I don't see him. I really don't. In fact, it gets to the point where like I will go like days without seeing Shadow King. And I will like forget the lines of, I know, eh. I'll forget that like, oh, I'm actually kind of really vulnerable to him right now, and then he'll catch me. Right? I'm gonna suggest this, if you want to improve your Snap points, if you want to improve your ranking, if you're in like my like ELO, like the 7 to like 8k, 8 and a half k, like play some Shadow King and you're probably gonna climb.

Alex: Yeah, I mean if you're in a world where people aren't respecting that card... Like if you're in a world where like I've seen I've seen unironic calls that like Venus is amazing and they have to nerf her. It's like, brother, there is a guy for that job. There is a guy for that job. He can do it. I promise you. He is he is here. This is an absolute terror of a card. Like I said, the most played card in the Golden Gauntlet, and one of the highest win rates despite being the most played card in the Golden Gauntlet. He was at 58% and more than a quarter of the field brought him. Changes the horde rate to zero too. Like completely destroys it. A monstrosity. And this season, being a season that was about green power, about empowerment, I should probably use the correct term at this point. He was always going to be a threat. But that this season coincided with the rise of the Carter Maverick stick stuff previously, he almost came pre-loaded for this. Like people were playing him before Jeff and Venus came out and then Jeff and Venus showed up and now he is feasting in ways that I don't know we've seen a tech card feast since the days of Prime Shang-Chi.

KM Best: Yeah, I mean there was a point where I think Stardust was feasting quite a bit. Maybe like, but I can see what you're saying though. There's so much green power out there, and people get greedy. I think this is the other thing that happens though, people like look at decks and some like some decks get so greedy that like they just start cutting the tech out because it's not synergistic with what they're trying to do, right? So they cut it out, they cut it out, they cut it out. And they don't appreciate that it's the tech that ultimately gets you those four and eight cubers. Like when they're like, "Bruh, I got 25 in this lane. Look how big my horde is. I'm gonna play my my uh my zombie giant man. There's no way, there's no..." And they're like oh oh oh Shadow King. Everything's ruined. Right?

Alex: It's also like when you're there's terminology that I've borrowed from Yu-Gi-Oh, which is like engine cards and then like interaction cards basically. And if your deck is 12 engine cards, you better be really sure that you are the biggest engine out there. That's my best advice. 'Cause if you're playing 12 engine and your opponent is playing 12 engine, and they make more points than you, you are in serious trouble. And that's when you start thinking, "Okay, maybe I should be 11 engine and a tech card," right? Like maybe I need something for this matchup. That's when you start really figuring that stuff in. And that's sort of where a lot of the Kitty Pryde decks fall hard for me. Because a lot of the things that are bigger than them in terms of engine, right? If you're playing your zombies and your Venus and your Jeff, the things that you're going to lose to are other green power decks. But you don't really have a good Shadow King lane. Because all your lanes are full of green power. And so you end up not being able to use the best tech card against the things that might out-engine you. And that's sort of the way I I look at this.

KM Best: Absolutely fair. Very fair. Okay, yeah, I mean I'm an absolute fan of just making guys kneel, man. Just like hey, I know you did all this stuff for five turns, it didn't matter. It's really fun for you. It's really fun for you! Like there is something to be said for that, right? Like not everything needs to have the edges sanded off, right? It's okay to have a couple of these cards. It's probably not okay for them to be the third best deck in the game. Like that's sort of the the like dynamic I'm kind of drawing here, where it's like it was it's okay to have Clog, I don't think it's okay to have a lot of it. That's one of the things that I kind of run into.

Alex: I totally agree with you. I I feel that. But, my question for you, KM, is Monstro, who by the way, statistically, the win rate's actually really good. Because it is being played primarily in a Techno-Organic Virus deck, which just loves this free body just to to pop off on. It's running a near 55% win rate, ranks 80 to top infinite. Only a 6% popularity in terms of its meta share. And as I said, aforementioned video of mine, worst performing in the last four years.

KM Best: Is that's the real metric that matters. That's the real metric that matters, that's how I gauge the audience uh, the audience interest.

Alex: This is basically just being played in Techno-Organic Virus. Now I don't know if you had a chance...

KM Best: That's not true. Hold on. I'm pushing back. It's also being played in Hela.

Alex: Yeah, okay. Okay talk to me KM, talk to me. Dude, it costs 8. What do you want from me? It's an 8 that Hela can bring back and sometimes you play it for two. That's what it is. It's being played in Hela. Uh but I will say I'll push back I'll push back with some Golden Gauntlet stats. You ready?

KM Best: Yeah, hit me.

Alex: I'm going to ask you to guess what number Monstro's win rate starts with in Golden Gauntlet. 16 players brought it, what number do you think that win rate starts with? One through 10.

KM Best: One through 10? Yeah like it like it's going to be, you know, like, is it going to start with a five, like 50%? Is it going to start with a four like 40%? Three.

Alex: It's two. Starts with a two.

KM Best: Oh really, I thought I was shooting low. Two, no way!

Alex: I I missed to the upside at 30%. Unbelievable. It's tough, dude. It's tough. And now granted, you know, 16, 16 it's sample size and I could I could give you a million caveats. Uh like I just wanted to give, you know, I could also give those caveats about untapped data, right? So I just wanted to give a second data point here that like okay, you know you say that 55, I've got I've got a stat too that I can torture and just tell you that this is what it actually is. No, I think I think Monstro is a card where a part of me wonders how willing they would have been to change the numbers on this card. Because like the whole gag of this card, it's it's a giant, a giant octopus, and so it's got eight power, and so it's got eight cost. And when I ask myself things like what would it need to be a serious meta game contender, the answer usually involves changing one of those. And that makes me wonder like were they comfortable with the idea of doing that? Is this a card that they were just like we really want to do the octopus thing, we want to make an octopus, like I don't think Ben Brode's like in the lab cooking this stuff up necessarily, but that does seem like a thing he would be in favor of, like this sort of very top-down evocative kind of thing, it's his style of thing to do, right? And again, I I have no idea what level of involvement, but this is one of the things where it's like even if it's not necessarily him doing it, it's like people in the lab who've maybe been working with him, who are like, "I have a little Ben Brode that lives inside my mind and he's laughing really hard and telling me to put eight on the octopus card," right? And I I wonder about that because I don't think this card is actively bad. There is some utility towards getting the information in your hand, there is some utility towards playing a big cheap guy. There is some utility towards actually just being a card that costs eight even, you see that in the Hela stuff, right? But when you compare this card to Wilson Fisk, you start to really see some of the problems with it, which is like, okay, Wilson Fisk, much easier condition. Play the card Lizard, you have a 3/9, right? That's functionally what Wilson Fisk says. Play the card Lizard, you have a 3/9. That's pretty much it. Play play whatever, you you'll have the guy. And that is such a better value prop, because not only is it a condition you have control over, it's a condition that you can build your deck to meet in a consistent way. It is also just a bigger number. In order for this guy to be a 3/8, you need to have a five on top of your deck. And if you're building your deck with a bunch of fives in it, and a bunch of sixes in it, well that's cool and he could be the card you curve out with your fives and sixes, but the problem with that is you need to have effectively, to make me want to play this card in a ramp deck, you need to have a six on top on turn two. Because I don't want to play him on turn three. I want to play Electro. I want to play Luna Snow. And I want to do the rest of my ramp stuff. And I can't consistently get a six on top on turn two.

KM Best: For me, I think the thing that really stood out was that Monstro was like simultaneously a card I enjoyed playing but a card that I I would enjoy never playing again. If that makes any sense.

Alex: Yeah, makes tons of sense.

KM Best: Because like I was like, okay listen, I was playing like a Dragon Lord Jubilee type thing. And it was kind of cool there. Like not 'cause of Dragon Lord, but Jubilee specifically I would be like, "Hey look, I got like my untapped up, I know okay it's it's a 4/8, I know I'm hitting a four drop." Or "Hey, oh top of my deck, it's pulling Scar, or it's pulling Juggernaut, it's pulling 'cause I knew what was there based on." Like I thought that was actually kind of cool. I I'm here for that. But it just didn't seem like the payoff was ever worth it. And so often it just sat there in my hand. Because like, you're right, the timing never aligned properly. And as a result I'm like it just it just wasn't it. It just wasn't it. And like even in like the Techno-Organic Virus shells, they run the Scar, Sasquatch, Fisk, and all that stuff. Like it gets decent hits that you can combo along with Techno-Organic Virus, but for the most part it's like I also just found myself like having other stuff to prioritize over the Monstro, which wouldn't get to discount Scar unless you hit it twice or obviously you played Techno-Organic Virus twice, etc. So like there was things around it that I didn't love about it. It's not a horrible card, but it's definitely like of the cards this week, it's like Venus number one clear, number two Jeff, and then Monstro is so far down at number three, I almost feel bad for it.

Alex: Yeah, this is why I'm talking like Scar is a great example of why it's like how married to this 8/8 conception were they? Where it's like eight ten and suddenly this actually might go in my Cerberus Scar deck, right? I might be doing something with that. Like I I could play Sasquatch, I could play Scar himself, I could play some big guys that discount, and that's the wheelhouse this card wants to be in is big guys that discount. But then when you start getting into that, it's like would that even would that even like it would work, it would be better than what it is. Would it be good in like a meta game sense when your entire deck is cards that are literally unplayable if your opponent plays a Mobius M. Mobius? A card that is in every Techno-Organic Virus deck because of what it does with that card offensively. Like that's it's a tough ask. I I think they should have done it, but at the same time I can understand them looking at this and saying that will make no difference to this card. That would not change any of the statistics that underlie this card whatsoever. But like I don't know, if this card was like like what do you think the actual numbers this card should have on it if they wanted it to be good? 'Cause like if you asked me I would say ballpark 7/10 and then it would be like that's a good card.

KM Best: I'm not sure. I'm not sure honestly. Because like you have the inconsistency of like you can't control what your deck looks like. You just can't. Right? So when you lose that agency, then all of a sudden the card is just naturally worse. So the numbers have to make more sense. You're absolutely right. Uh, I think you go to like I think an eight ten... you said 8/10 before, maybe 8/9. It depends, it depends how like how much staying power Techno-Organic Virus has, giving it at least one proc, discount Scar. Um but like I don't know. I don't know how to answer that. And I think you're right, like they were absolutely married to the flavor of 8/8. Like there's no question, octopus 8/8 makes perfect sense, you ship that. And honestly it's not like that far off. It's just like outside of like Techno-Organic Virus stuff, like I just in Hela like I tried to cook like this Mole Man Kraglin deck. And I was looking at it before I went live on the stream and I'm like I can't play this. Because someone's going to play it, I'm going to manage a 41% win rate, and then they're going to get 25% win rate, and they're going to be upset with me. I cannot show people this deck. Like even though like it's kind of funny and it's kind of stupid, I cannot put this out in the world 'cause someone's going to unironically play it and then get upset. So I I'm like I can't play this deck. For the record, I played it it was horrible. Monstro, Kraglin, and friggin Mole Man was not was not cooking, okay? It wasn't the move. I would never have guessed. I would never have guessed.

Alex: Alright, let those are my favorite kinds of decks where it's like it's sort of relying on like the theory of negative numbers. Where like you take a bad card and then you add another bad card to it and you're like this is going to do it, right? Like that's that's my favorite kind of deck building theory. And like the thing is, it does work with those cards, but just because I think there's this thing that happens maybe where people confuse cards that have similar text for being an archetype. And it's like we need a payoff. We need a payoff. Here's my question to you. Is Monstro a better or worse card than Howard the Duck?

KM Best: Oh it's better. There's no question.

Alex: What if Howard was a 1/3?

KM Best: Damn. Yeah. Howard a 1/3 as an ongoing that can go in a spectrum deck with Iron Lad? It's tough right? Like suddenly Howard doesn't seem so awful there at 1/3. Still wouldn't play him though.

Alex: Interesting. Okay. Like that's one of those things that's been rattling around in my brain ever since I realized like two months ago that Howard the Duck was a 1/2. And like why? Yeah, I have no idea why. It makes no sense to me in any way. It's just one of those things where it's like huh, that I just assumed that had changed because it seems so obvious to have made that change. And people would say, you know, Monstro's power crept Howard the Duck. And it's like okay well at least Howard the Duck leaves my hand and contributes two power to a location. I'm not actually sure that's true. A lot of the time Monstro does not leave my hand. He's just in there giving me information which is cool, but it's not free. People act like that's free. That's not free. You paid a card for that. That could have been a card you played instead. You could have gotten points on the board with that card. And I don't know. I I I kind of think 1/3 Howard a little better than Monstro. Which is uh, tough sentence.

KM Best: That's a rough review. Like just that as the that is like the tagline of the review says everything you need to know. How would you rank these three? I did it before, I imagine you're going to be doing the same.

Alex: So, see I'm a little more torn on the Venus/Jeff thing where I think Venus is probably a better card right now, but none of what she does is Tier 1, and Jeff is basically the exact same card to me. Where it's like to me Tier 1 is rarified air, right? There's like two or three decks in there at any given time. I don't think any Venus decks are there. And I don't think any Jeff decks are there. And so it makes it's a lot harder for me to see the difference between them. They're very similar cards to me. And I have a little bit more faith in Jeff going forward, but in terms of what I want to be the best card from this season, oh my god, I want it to be Venus so bad. I love everything she does. All the things she does are awesome. I'm really excited about her. So I'm gonna cop out. I'm gonna say Jeff equals Venus and then several greater than signs Monstro.

KM Best: Alright, sounds good. And I guess the only thing left to discuss is whether or not you think that Jubilee: Silver Surfer will be a meta impactful card. I have my doubts, you're giving me a face that like I'm I'm having a hell of a hard time reading, like it looks like you're in pain. Did Jubilee hurt you?

Alex: Yes. I feel like this is either a five-star card or a one-star card. So where she hurt me is in my credibility because I'm gonna have to pick one, and if I'm wrong, it is just, you know, devastating, right? 'Cause you're wrong by four whole stars basically. Just so you know, the internet does not forgive.

KM Best: I know. I know. Now what I like about Jubilee is that basically every card that takes a buff and gives it to another card has been really good. I like that. Stick's been really good. Maverick's been really good. They compound with each other, they make each other even better. What I don't like about Jubilee is I don't control what's on the top of my deck, and I do control what gets my Maverick buff and what gets my Stick buff. So if she's good, it's in concert with those cards. And if she's bad, it's because she doesn't do a good enough job of putting the buffs on the stuff that matters as those cards do. If you forced me to choose, I would guess it to be the second. But there are some really cool things that this card can do. Like for example, if you play an Agony just on the board, you move a Jeff or a Nightcrawler into the Agony lane, you Prodigy, like you play that on turn two, you move it in on turn three, you Prodigy the Agony, then you play Jubilee on that gigantic Agony Prodigy, and suddenly you're getting, you know, if it was a Jeff you're getting a 10-power Jubilee, and if it was not a Jeff it was a Nightcrawler instead you're getting an 8-power Jubilee. And like that's pretty compelling. I just don't know if that's going to be better than my endless laundering of Maverick and Stick buffs, right? Like I just don't that's sort of my worry is that like if she does well it's because of Maverick and Stick, and if she does poorly it's because of them too. Because they'll just make her obsolete.

KM Best: That makes perfect sense. I will say though, Jubilee is a 4/2. When you draw a card, add this card's power to it. To give you guys some context. KM, are you okay?

Alex: I'm the worst podcaster on earth. I forgot about the audio medium. I just I just keep reacting to your reactions. Like I'm I'm not even finishing complete thoughts. It's just like every time I'm trying to do something, your reaction is so extreme, I'm like is he okay?

KM Best: This is what I mean when I say I have to turn it down! This is what I'm talking about! No, but I love it. This is good. Um so I was thinking about this. So first of all, your Prodigy line was more sensual than the line I was thinking. I was thinking like okay you go Agony and then you do like Forge Maverick.

Alex: Sure, yeah.

KM Best: Right? That's probably easier, but no your line is better. Um, it's just oh man, I just think that like the plus eight then you're drawing into it over like you're drawing cards, they're getting the the pluses. And then it's like okay, that's gotta be good right? But then you talk about like you talk about Venus. This won't interact with Venus, right? Because obviously these are buffing as it gets drawn to the hand, Venus is on the field of play, it doesn't count. You could try like there's cope things you can do. But because this is a four drop, I'm like okay you can't play like Mr. Fantastic first steps 'cause you can't guarantee it's going to hit her, and B, it's going to be a buff. Cards like Fastos, Okoye, Nakia, they're too slow. So it's like... what you're suggesting is exactly where I would expect it to do well. Which is these very fast proactive buff style decks. Still susceptible to Shadow King. You got some company there.

Alex: Please, please continue. This is normal.

KM Best: I know it's absolutely normal, it's awesome. But like for me I think that Jubilee is like I kind of copped out. You said it's either a one or a five. I'm like I gave it a I wrote down three. Because I'm like for very similar reasons, it's like I'm having a difficult time gauging where this will go, 'cause I also don't see like I don't I like could it be cool for like a Mr. Negative for instance? Like if you think about it. Like is that cope with Jane Foster?

Alex: I think it's a little cope, but not for the reasons that you'd think. I just don't think a lot of things are good for Mr. Negative unless they're adding a second Mr. Negative into the deck. And this is not doing that, this is just like my output is bigger. And it's like okay well that's your Mr. Negative, your output doesn't need to be bigger. Like you've solved that problem, you're good right? That's just not the problem I think Mr. Negative ever really has. So like I think it's probably cope but not because like this is actively bad, just 'cause it's not changing what the deck is, right? And in terms of like how this card plays out, I I'm leaning towards the lower end. I'm leaning towards it's not going to be good enough. That's sort of where my head tends to be at on this is like I I think it's probably more likely than not that it's going to hit that low end of like this is cool. But while we were talking I realized something. And here is my here is the thing I realized. This is the one that should be three cost and Maverick should be four cost. This is a much more balanced pass-through buff because you don't control what goes to it. Than Maverick is. Even though you get a bunch of repeatable ones and all of that. This should be three and Maverick should be four. That's my that's my theory just on the basis of it is going to be more powerful. And this is crystallizing my I don't think she's gonna land theory. It is going to be more powerful to be able to target that buff. Basically every single time. This should be a 3/1 and Maverick should be like a 4/2 or a 4/3.

KM Best: It's exactly what we talked about with Monstro. You can't control your deck. Right? So you don't know what you're going to be top decking. You can't control what you're going to be top decking. And for that reason there's a natur- like a natural clunkiness to it. Um which is obviously going to be particu- particularly impactful. I had this thought as well um, and I like again trying to cope a little bit, you said crystallize and my head I'm like damn, is this a Crystal card?

Alex: That sounds awesome, yeah.

KM Best: The disproportional, disproportionate benefit to drawing an additional card, Crystal buffing alongside Jubilee uh from 1 to 10 how cope is this?

Alex: Which which direction are we going? Like what's a one and what's a 10?

KM Best: Just just say zero.

Alex: Oh yeah, sure man, zero. You got it.

KM Best: It's I know it's pure cope but at the same time one of the problems with Crystal has always been that like, well they get the same effect, it's reciprocated and I feel like we don't really benefit. But then again Luna Snow is a reciprocated effect and we play a hell of a lot of Luna Snow because our deck is built to take advantage of it. With this card, Jubilee Silver Surfer, are you built for... but then like the powers are kind of messed up like you're when are you playing Crystal? Crystal really you're turn five play? Like that's you're snapping on Crystal turn five? Like I I could see this, by the way, I could see this maybe showing up in like a Zombie Galacti type thing. Like I don't necessarily know that that makes a ton of sense but that's another deck that just plays a lot of buff cards, right? Like just hitting a Maverick with this is pretty useful, hitting a stick with this is pretty useful, you're already playing Forge, if you didn't draw your Zombie Galacti just throwing this on there. Maybe it's like a functional backup game plan? I don't know if it's going to be enough but it's like I'm at least interested in looking in that direction. But largely the thing that worries me about Jubilee is that I think it'll fall into the Jeff Venus trap and not be as good as them, right? I think it is probably a worse card than them, and it also is going to, you know catch those strays as we as we learned earlier, I don't need to do the whole spiel. I can just say it's going to catch the strays of the Shadow King and things like that 'cause it is a green power card. There's also just like a, it reminds me a little bit of Captain Carter when she first came out, where it's like, clearly the numbers on this are bad because if they were better they're very scary, right? And you're looking at this and you're like this is tripling its own power, and it can get buffed and triple even further and things get really ridiculous with this card. And it took a while, but it turns out yeah Captain Carter actually is pretty problematic at 3/2. So I I wonder what the correct thing to do when you have one of these cards is. Is it to just like release it a little stronger and let it run? Like should they have just 3/1'd this and fired it and just been like "Here, here's your Surfer card, go nuts"? Or even if there was like a pretty like severe risk to that, which I think there probably is.

Alex: There's a couple thoughts I had as well, I'm just going to kind of throw out there that like again this card I'm very ho-hum on, like I think it's probably going to be ultimately mid. I absolutely think that Jeff and Venus are going to be better. Um one of the challenges is like it's literally only a 4/6 if you don't do anything with it. Like you have to commit to trying to do stuff with it, it doesn't stand on its own at all, which I do not think is a good thing at all. Um notable as well I think it's not a good Zabu card 'cause although getting it out on turn three for instance, but like if you Zabu Forge top deck it, it's like okay that's like one of the few circumstances where it might be decent, but outside of every other situation it's just not good enough even then you're looking at a 4/8 only, which is just not good. And it's literally, we have a bunch of cards like this, it's literally useless with Skrulls. And I feel like that can't be understated, uh Skrulls are actually kind of an important part of this game. And you draw a Skrull with Jubilee Silver Surfer down, it's just it's dead, it's dead in the water. And even like Silver Sable, like I think they need to do a pass on these types of things. Silver Sable's useless, I tried to play on my, oh yeah, right, it didn't get any power, hit a Skrull like that's stupid right? So like I think that they have to consider that as well. Uh last thoughts on Jubilee Silver Surfer?

KM Best: I'm leaning the more we talk about this towards her being kind of a bad card. And that makes me sad because she has really cool glasses. Like where do I get those? That's that's sort of my big takeaway from this is like I need someone to post a steal her look as to like where I get those glasses and where I get that jacket. Because I couldn't pull them off, but I would try and fail. And I think that would be entertaining for viewers. I need to go to her tanning salon, 'cause I think that like that silver sheen is a good look, it's a good look on her.

Alex: Yeah I don't I don't know where she goes, but wherever she goes they do work. Just like Quicksand does work. I had to learn, I had to learn the hard way via the comment section that Quicksand and Sandman, nothing they're not related at all. You'd assume they were like brother and sister, husband and wife, some sort of like through line. There's none. There's none. They're just completely separate people living their sandy lives.

KM Best: I mean, look at her and then look at Sandman. There's no way. There is no way, dude.

Alex: It's true. It's true. I can totally understand that. She's like the Instagram baddie of sand people. He's not in her league. He's like a petty criminal. She had like a she has like a Medusa look to her doesn't she?

KM Best: Yeah, it's the hair. She's got a she's got a lot going on here. I I mentioned this every time I see Quicksand by the way. Does it look to you like the cup was added in on a layer that is not necessarily the layer it was in? It like the cup gives me uncanny valley vibes in a way that I can't particularly explain, but I think is related to how photo realistic it looks and then it's being held by a lady made of sand.

Alex: I so the way I have my system set up is like the graphic is kind of small. I'll have to take a better closer look after, but I'll let the people in the comments discuss the uh the quality of the craftsmanship of Psycho...

KM Best: It's an incredibly photo realistic cup. And then she's just like a cartoon lady made of sand. Also I I I am obligated to report that it is spelled Quicksnad on yeah, which is how I'm going to refer to her for the rest of this preview. Um so Quicksnad is a card that I think first of all, I get people in my chat fairly often talking about I didn't get this card from the event. I didn't play the event enough. We have Mother Askani that came out of the event. We have Stick that came out of the event. I'm not saying she's going to be of a level here, but I am saying that it's pretty easy to play those events and get these cards. And if you're going to be the kind of person who's sad in hindsight that you don't do that, one way to prevent being sad in hindsight that you don't do that is to do it with foresight and just go do it when you can and play the events and get these free cards for free when you can get them, so you don't feel locked out because for some reason they don't put them in the pool until a month after the thing, so if you don't get them in the event, again I have no idea why they do this, but just you know protect your future mental health and go pick up this card now while you can because you might not need her but if you do you won't be able to get her. So make sure you don't put yourself in that situation. So a couple things. First of all, uh I want you guys to know that prior to beginning this podcast I did let KM know that I did notice the the Quicksnad. And KM actually preferred it this way so we kept it there. The other thing worth noting here is that like we've had and you've alluded to it, the number of high impact series 4 cards from limited-time game modes has actually been insane. Like Mother Askani, who is up top tier card. Askani's Son, who I was honestly like I'm still not quite a believer of Askani's Son. I know that he had his moment. He's better than I expected but also like whatever. Stick, right? Dragon Lord. These are series 4 cards from limited-time game modes and Dragon Lord was one of my favorite releases of like the last year. I think that is like perfectly balanced, I can't believe this card didn't exist already. Like that is such a damn good card. These have been very impactful cards. Now I will also say that I don't think Quicksand is Quicksnad is nearly as good as any of those. I really don't. I don't think Quicksand or Quicksnad, I gotta keep doing that, I promise. It's not as good.

KM Best: That's that's my take.

Alex: Great great great sentence. Uh I yeah, no I I'm a big I'm a I'm a Quicksnad fan. Because I think you can really see the development process here, which is the the first thing people think of when they're like, "We need to make a counter for having extra energy," is what if we made Mobius but for extra energy. Your opponent would get bonus energy, okay they don't, right? And then you start thinking about that a bit and you're like, "I have created one-sided Luna Snow." That is a very bad thing to do. So then you probably get to this, which is like the next time it would happen. So it's a much softer counter. And I think that's really good. Because I'm a big believer that cards like Mobius and Stardust make the game better in the aggregate. Not at their current power levels necessarily. Like if you told me what you should do is take a power off of Mobius, take a power off of Stardust, in basically any meta game I would be okay with doing that, right? But them existing is better than the problems that they solve existing. Even if it's not by much, it is better. And that is something I really like about Quicksand. Quicksnad, who is a card that would have solved Star-Lord, who is a card that in a world where Fallen One goes crazy, will help solve that, who is a card that is weirdly pretty good against cards like Arishem and Electro, again only working on one turn, but the Electro deck wants to go from three to five. So if you have a Quicksnad down, the Electro deck will not be able to go from three to five, and they're basically not even benefiting from their ramp at that point. And that kind of stuff, it's it's really good, it's a 2/4 statline, it's gonna be like whenever you want to beat one of those decks, you go out and you go into your your bag of tricks and you come out with Quicksnad and she's just going to be good. She's a little closer to Gorgon than she is to Mobius and that's also good. Because as long as she does the job, having her do the job in the least unfun way possible, that's all thumbs up for me. So I'm really excited for this card not necessarily for what it's going to do to any meta game, but for what it represents for how they design these kinds of cards. Less blanket no and more there are things that can be prevented and nothing's going to get too ridiculous here, but you have to actually think about it.

KM Best: I like that take, I do have some bad news though. I am now officially a terrible podcaster 'cause I forgot about the audience. You didn't read it out yeah yeah yeah didn't read it out man. Uh Quicksnad is a 2/4 that reads, "The next time your opponent would start a turn with bonus energy, they don't get it." Uh there's a couple thoughts I have here. First of all, I think you're higher naturally than I am on this card. I'm just I'm thinking like a two-star range, a five... don't love it. When I say don't love it, do I hate this card? I don't want to say I hate it, but it's like one of those things where like we don't need a tech card for literally every possible condition that exists in Marvel Snap. And it kind of feels like tech creep in some way where it's like, do we actually need this? Like is this something that has to... kind of yes, right? Like I don't see, other than like Super Tech God, like I don't see you know Fallen One going crazy or anything like that. But like does this absolutely kick Fallen One in the pants? Yes it does. Did Fallen One need to get kicked in the pants? No it didn't. Like if you're telling me like oh I want to stop a Luna Snow proc, well then okay cool, why don't you just play Red Guardian after you play Luna Snow? Like you can do that too I guess, and Red Guardian is much more of a tech card capable of catching other things in matchups that like oh they're not they don't have extra energy, I guess this is dead in my hand. And I feel like the 2/4 statline is absolutely indicative of their testing being like, "Yeah half the time this is just dead weight, 'cause if it was a 2/3 I bet you it would have like it would have been a better card." It not hold on, what I mean by that is...

KM Best: No I know what you're saying, it would have had a stronger ability.

Alex: Yes. Yeah yeah yeah. 2/4 shows that the ability is not as good as it reads.

KM Best: Yes. Yes. I but I that's sort of what I mean when I say I think it's good, right? Because for once in their entire history of making tech cards, they have not made one that is blanket. And because of that, they can put real stats on it. For the first time actually ever, they have made a tech card that is actually not Mobius, right? You talk about it being a kick in the pants to Fallen One? Kind of, and like yeah I don't agree Fallen One needed it. But this is one of those cases where it's like I just think that my big takeaway from Star-Lord was they should never make a combo card that doesn't have an answer to it. That is your worst case scenario is you have made a combo card without a ready answer. And we saw that they ran into this actually with when Invisible Woman First Steps first came out. And they were like "Oh god, we need to give them an actual answer," and they made Ghost and that didn't work at all, but the drive for them to do it is players I think would like to have a solution. If you are playing a game and something is dictating terms to you, things have to happen this way. I'm playing Star-Lord, you're not playing anything, sorry dude, none of what you do matters. I have fully dictated terms to you. Not only am I fin-fang-fooming you, I'm alioth-ing all three lanes. None of the cards you play matter, that's your worst case scenario, right? And decks like Mr. Negative do that with points, which is you know, on the scale of one to Star-Lord, like a seven, but it's still up there, right? Having these counter cards around so that people know there is an option to solve the problem is almost more important than them actually solving the problem. And I think that that is it's not more important than them actually solving the problem because that was the Ghost failure, but it's up there, it's important.

Alex: Buddy, you literally read my mind. I was literally about to bring up Ghost 'cause I was like what you're describing is like, "Hey you need an answer to some of these problems, right?" And Ghost, like end of turn was literally just slapping the crap out of the meta, and people still weren't playing Ghost.

KM Best: Yeah 'cause she wasn't a good answer to those problems. Yeah.

Alex: And then you get into like the hyper stuff that's like, "Alright, this is way too hyper specific. Like when was the last time you played Super Adaptoid?" Cerebro 5 two days ago. Fake fan. No, I was gonna say damn man, I did not anticipate this.

KM Best: Uh no he does go in the Cerebro 5 deck in as much as that's worth mentioning. Uh but yeah, like this is a this is a card that is very hyper specific and they gave it a good statline. If anything, Quicksand's lineage is more Ghost and Super Adaptoid than it is Mobius and them. But I think that just by virtue of being a 2/4 and being able to be put in more decks and like actually with the timing stuff that she has, be a solve to those things in some situations where Super Adaptoid is like a delayed solve to those things and Ghost just sort of doesn't address the thing that the deck is actually doing, gets sort of outdone by Supergiant in its own niche of beating up on Invisible Woman decks if you even wanted to do that anymore. There isn't another card that really does what this does. And I do think that like just having it in there is useful, and in a world where they need to really make this card strong and beat up on something, they can do that now. Like if there is a problem that Quicksand is unable to solve, they can just be like, "Oh well, Quicksand's not doing her job, let's make her do her job." And I think that that kind of thing, they don't need to go out there and find a ghost that they can change next time there's a Star-Lord issue. At the bare minimum, the card already exists that is going to be that change, right?

Alex: I do like that a lot. And I just will say as well that like sometimes I prefer the route of like, "Well what if you have like a soft punish the way like a Red Hulk will punish a use of additional energy." What if you had a what if you had like a sunspot in your hand that was sucking up all the additional energy that they had, stuff like that. Like I think that's kind of cool too and might even be more effective than the likes of Quicksand. Uh Quicksnad, my apologies. I have been messing it up too. No I promised you before, you want to talk more? I was just going to say I promised you we wouldn't go more than an hour and you naturally brought us well over an hour.

KM Best: Oh no I just wanted to talk about his like his neck. That's incredible. It's like there's a small version of him climbing out of his own shoulders.

Alex: Yeah but dude skips leg day so it's unbelievable dude. Uh but yeah no absolutely. I I am I am loquacious. It's what I do. I talk a lot, I yap, it's the thing that I do. I apologize for preventing you from getting to... was it a Rift Bound thing, are you going to a Rift Bound thing in like 30 minutes?

KM Best: Uh literally I have to be there in like yeah 15 minutes and it's 20 minutes away. I gotta go. But it's good man. First of all, thank you so much for being here. I think that uh you're one of my absolute favorite people to have on because you are obviously incredibly knowledgeable. And I feel like uh you bring a very unique perspective, right? I feel like we are able, when we discuss this game together, we're able to cover a lot of bases that we don't often get a chance to. Um and I do really sincerely appreciate that. And guys, I'm not just saying this, I absolutely mean it. You have to be subscribed to KM because the content he's producing is phenomenal, some of the most unique stuff in the Marvel Snap sphere. Like you absolutely crush it man, I'm not just saying this to be nice. No, no, no, I'm saying it legit, I think that your content's fantastic, you're doing stuff that other people don't do, you're putting in the work and I think that uh that needs to be credited.

KM Best: I uh I already I already compared you to Day9 once today. So you know my quota is done. I'm out I'm out of those comps but yeah man it's it's been crazy to see where both of us have come since the streaming to 10 people in the beta days, man. I know. I would never have guessed that it ended up here. And uh you know I'm grateful to everybody who has allowed that to happen. Uh for the both of us honestly.

Alex: It's true. We're we're really lucky. And you guys have made us the luckiest people on the planet. So thank you so much guys. Thank you so much for watching. As I said before, support KM, hit that subscribe button down below, and we will see you on that next one.