The Truth About Marvel Snap's Economy | Submariner Preview | The Snap Chat Ep. 185

This week, Alex is joined by the host of Snap Judgments and dedicated daily content creator: Pulse Glazer! The duo kicks things off with a life update from Pulse, discussing his massive move to Vietnam, the joys of having a personal chef, and enjoying world-class meals for just six dollars.

Then, it's time for a massive OTA Balance Patch Review. Alex and Pulse discuss the targeted nerfs hitting the top of the meta. Has Mother Askani finally been reigned in? Did Techno-Organic Virus lose its incredible flavor with its recent cost change? They also break down the surprising disappearance of Martyr, and celebrate the buffs to Kraglin, Zombie Sentry, and Crystal.

Next, they dive into new card reviews:

• Quicksand: Is this 2/4 energy-denial card a completely unplayable skip, or a necessary safety valve?
• Jubilee (Silver Surfer): Why Alex thinks this 4/2 is a massive miss unless you run her in a highly specific Thanos shell.
• Submariner: Pulse declares this 1/2 the best card of the bunch, predicting it will be a powerhouse in Clea and Marvel Boy decks alongside Venus.

Finally, the hosts tackle the elephant in the room: Marvel Snap's Monetization. Pulse passionately defends the game's economy against "dead game" doom-posting, pitching the $10 Season Pass as a highly generous subscription model, while Alex critiques the Token Shop carousel and questions the future of Series Drops.

Join Alex Coccia and special guest Pulse Glazer 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 Snap Chat. And this week we have a very special guest, someone who I've been looking forward to having on for the longest time. It's Pulse Glazer. Pulse, it is great to have you on The Snap Chat. You are a connoisseur of the podcasting format yourself, and it's great to finally have you here.

Pulse Glazer: I am unbelievably thrilled to be here. You're my first, I told- just told you this, but you're my first Marvel Snap content creator. I wouldn't be here if not for you. That actually means a lot to me, trust me. Thank you so much. And, uh, I actually see you as one of the OGs. Now, you actually told me, like, actually I didn't start right at the beginning.

Alex: I know you weren't in beta, but my memory, which is getting a little fuzzy, I thought you had started earlier on, but actually you had a little bit of a later start in Marvel Snap. 

Pulse Glazer: I did. Around March four, five months into Marvel Snap, I decided to start doing daily YouTube videos. At first it was gonna be, like, three times a week, and then pretty quickly it was five times a week, and then within two weeks it was seven days a week.

And right now it's been seven days a week for, the three-ish years that Marvel Snap has existed. 

Alex: Yeah. That's absolutely wild. And, uh, Snap Judgments is what you're most known for, and, uh, that is an absolutely incredible show. And something that I think you do really well is you highlight a lot of the players who are, like, performing exceptionally well competitively and otherwise that, uh, are creating some of the most interesting decks.

You seem like, no pun intended, have an, an excellent pulse on the, uh, the competitive scene and just the overall, like the deck building scene in Marvel Snap. 

Pulse Glazer: So that was actually a really weird accident. I was just doing really fun decks at first, just having a good time. And then one season, uh, the first season Sizer finished number one.

He was in this, like, battle against Zoons the, like, 14-year-old Chinese player that went to the last day of the season, and both of them just happened to be viewers. So they kept sending me their decks, and they didn't send them to anyone else. So I just started covering the top of the infinite leaderboard by accident, and the response was great.

So I was like, "Oh, okay. I know all the top infinite leaderboard players at this point 'cause I've been doing this so long," so I just kept going. 

Alex: And I actually found that type of content super helpful, 'cause it helped me keep a pulse on, like, the absolute top of the meta. Because the top of the meta often trickles down to the rest of the meta.

Sometimes it takes a while, right? Because, like, for instance, Sizer is, like, you know, a balance move special, especially in that time, and, like, balance move was, like, not an easy deck to play. Like, and if you knew how to master it, you could produce incredible numbers. But, like, I remember doing videos where I'm like, "Guys, move is really good.

Like, you should be trying move." And people are like, just like, "Nah, man. I'm not gonna play move. That stuff looks complicated. I'm gonna do- ... whatever happens to be meta at the time," right? So sometimes, like, that kind of stuff happens. But at the end of the day, eventually things do trickle down. People start saying, "All right, this is not scary as I once thought it was," or it just gets nerfed into oblivion because, you know, Sizer or someone at the top absolutely breaks it, which is what happened with the Human Torch bounce move stuff.

Pulse Glazer: It's a shame. I really love Spider-Punk, too. And, like, I still play old versions of move and move bounce just because I wanna play Spider-Punk, and I'm always so sad as I'm like, "Oh, I did the whole combo," and everyone still has more points than me. Now, on that note, though, what is, like, one of the pet decks that you go to to play?

Oh, um, so I love bounce. Bounce is my favorite thing. Bounce hasn't been gr- actually good in forever. I play a decent amount of Surfer. Right now I'm all about Fantomex. I just hit Fantom- Infinite with Fantomex yesterday for, I wanna say, the fourth time in the last five seasons. I don't know why. I really enjoy, like...

I enjoy the intricacy of it. I enjoy, like, playing in and around Pryo, trying to figure out, like, the actual math of what's gonna happen. Fantomex has been my jam for the past, so far in 2026. 

Alex: So when I recorded my decks video on Friday, my Silver Surfer video, uh, deck that I had featured in my Jeff was actually, uh...

in my Jeff video kind of, like, on the first day of the season, ended up being the second highest win rate deck in Snap, uh, which is super exciting. 

Pulse Glazer: So that deck is what carried me through the 80s. Thank you. 

Alex: No way. Yep. That's awesome. It's, it is a lot of fun. Hey, listen, if I can find an excuse to play Surfer, I absolutely will.

Yeah. And for me, it's the one, by the way, that has Nova in it too. And like, it's like, oh, it's just like... Re- do you remember? Oh, no you don't, 'cause y- you weren't playing Snap- No ... at the time. Nova used to do plus two, and it was literally the most broken card in the game, like one of the most broken cards in the game.

Pulse Glazer: I remember how broken original Surfer was. Original Surfer was completely insane. And I al- and I always heard how good Nova was, and all anyone talked about was like, "Oh, Nova used to do this too. You don't understand, Nova used to do this too." And I was always like, "I wish I could experience it."

And now I have. And it is broken. It's absolutely... It puts up points with absolutely anything. 

Alex: One day I would like to, like, almost go back in time. I pitched this to Second Dinner. I'm like, "Guys, you need to have, like, a limited time game mode- ... that's just, like, all pre-con, like pre-c- like pre-con decks, and they all function as they were when they were completely broken."

Break the game completely limited time game mode. Like OG Shuri, OG Hela. Who cares if it's, like, broken and frustrating to play against? OG Surfer, OG Zabu. Like, it's probably harder than it sounds to actually do that, but it'd be cool. 

Pulse Glazer: I tell them they should do like almost the opposite of the Techpocalypse.

I pitch it all the time, where I'm like, "Do the un-nerfening," where you just un-nerf, like, 20 old cards and see what happens. Be like, "Yeah, Surfer's a three-oh that gives plus three. Why not?" And Hit-Monkey's a two-oh. And just do, Oh, look, they can't do Loki, 'cause then Loki's just the best, right? 'Cause then Loki gets everything else broken.

But like, basically everything that's not Loki, put it all back and see what's best. 

Alex: Nah, I'd even do Loki too. Come on. 

Pulse Glazer: Nah. 

Alex: What's the worst that can happen? It just ruin the game and everyone 

Pulse Glazer: uninstalls? They, they would never do anything that would cause that. I don't know what you're talking about.

Alex: No, never. Never would they do anything that would cause people to uninstall in mass. Now before we move on to the actual content of the show, which is, obviously we're gonna talk about the OTA, we're gonna talk about Quicksand, we're gonna talk about Jubilee, Silver Surfer. We're gonna do a Submariner preview, and then we got some...

A conversation that actually I'm gonna hit you I did not prepare you for this. We're gonna talk about the Snap monetization, because we got a, a bunch of- Oh ... questions about it. So we're gonna talk about that. Before that, though, you made an absolutely massive worldwide move, and I'm actually curious, as someone who just, like, follows your content, about, like, how that has gone.

Because, like, you have completely been like, "You know what? Yeah, I'm moving." And, like, you made a drastic life change. So I'd like for you to fill us in as to how that's been going. For those that are curious, you are not in the United States of America anymore. 

Pulse Glazer: Yeah. Uh, 11 months ago, coming up on a year and I think about three weeks, I moved from New York, where I lived the first 44 years of my life, to Hanoi, Vietnam.

I've been a high school teacher for 20 years, and I just, honestly, it was time to go. And living in Hanoi has been the single best decision I've made outside of my wife and child. It is unbelievably great to live here. There's a real sense of community. Everything is absurdly cheap. I went back to visit the States last week, a week and a half ago and in that, like, four or five days I was in the States, I ended up spending, like, $1,000 going out to eat.

The day before I left, I went out to lunch with a friend. I ordered a giant platter of steak and salmon, and it was about $6. Just life is so much easier when you're not spending a bajillion dollars on everything. 

Alex: $6? $6. You can't even get a Coke for $6 anymore in a restaurant. That's crazy. That's fantastic.

I mean, I've heard from so many people. I have a friend from high school who, uh, he wanted to become a chef. And I don't know if this is true, so you gotta, you gotta collaborate this. He wanted to become a chef, and so he actually moved to Vietnam to do his schooling there because he was told the best food in the world is in that area of the world.

And he absolutely was like, "You have no idea." He's like, "The quality of the food, how healthy it feels." He's like, "You'll f- you eat in Vietnam and you feel like a million bucks as opposed to, like-" Mm-hmm ... having a Five Guys burger and just blacking out in your car," you know what I mean? Like it's just... Is that true?

I need, I need to ask. 

Pulse Glazer: Look, there's nothing against Five Guys, but yeah, um, I've lost 15 pounds since I've been here. I've had, um, high cholesterol since my early 20s, and my cholesterol is now completely under control. It's just good now. Just everything about my life is healthier. And in the, uh, things that are utterly ridiculous sphere, I have a personal cook now, a personal chef that comes a couple times a week and prepares all the meals for the week for, like, about 150 a month because, again, life in Vietnam is absurdly cheap.

And so I'm eating healthy Vietnamese meals for every meal. The food is not just healthier and, like, cleaner, and I'm, I was always like, "Clean food? What does that even mean? That can't be a real thing." Oh no, it's a real thing. I live here. I'm wrong. I went back to the States and I could taste the difference.

Everything was just a little sour, I could tell. But there's, like, four or five dishes here. There's a million dishes, right? But there's four or five that are just some of the best food I've ever had. If you ever go anywhere and you see bun cha, B-U-N space C-H-A, just immediately order it. Don't look back.

It's, like, a sweet and sour noodle soup, and it's unbelievable 

Alex: We're moving to Vietnam. It's confirmed. To Viet- Yeah, no, that's awesome. It's g- that's awesome. I love to hear that because man, I don't know, for me to hear that you're having so much success there and, like, you're loving it that's the best move imaginable.

So congratulations to you, your family. I'm glad you're having so much fun. We gotta talk about Marvel Snap, though. Let's do it. Marvel Snap is a card game that we all play, and I just realized I had the wrong card up here. But we gotta talk about the OTA. Mother Eskani was the highlight of the OTA, I think.

This is the card that got really hit hard by the OTA, and as I said, we're gonna be starting with the OTA discussion here. Then we'll talk about Quicksand, Jubilee, Silver Surfer. I mean, you guys can read down below. Mother Eskani goes from a 4/4 to a 4/3 pulse. What are your thoughts on the change? 

Pulse Glazer: This is gonna kill its play rate at lower, uh, ELOs, at lower ranks, because the card has been dominating high infinite.

But that... We talked about trickle-down earlier. Mother Eskani hasn't really trickled down in a major way, or at least not as much as you would expect for something that's that dominant to high infinite. The version of her deck that is fundamentally built around Grandmastering her on turn five, that runs on Silver Surfer, it runs Stick, it runs Maverick, so on and so forth, has been the best deck at top MMR in, since, I don't know, basically since she came out.

That's no longer... okay, that never fell. That never went down to the lower ranks. That deck seems to still be doing really, really well at high MMR, but the card has fundamentally disappeared from lower ranks. I think that this is the newest... It's not as hard to play as Bounce Move, but this is the closest thing we get to Bounce Move, where, like, if you take the time to learn this deck, it's gonna be something that pays you off even with her at a 4/3.

But with that said, you're gonna have to take the time to learn. You're gonna have to take your lumps. So take it into Proving Grounds before you take it into Ladder. 

Alex: I think the Mother Eskani's a fantastic card. It was one of my absolute favorite- Mm-hmm ... of that season. I think this card is so good, and I think it caught a lot of people by surprise that it even, like, buffs the card it hits.

Like, you think it would replicate and buff only that card? No, no, no. You're getting two discounted Sebastian Shaws or Surfers or whatever have you, right? So yeah, I think Eskani's fantastic, and I think one of the things that really illustrates how good she is is you see less Frigga now because Mother Eskani- Mm-hmm

is doing the thing that she does. So yeah, Mother Eskani, a very notable nerf here, but I think the card is still absolutely fine. However, as we continue through the OTA, my question to you becomes, not all the cards are as fine. Do you think Martyr's fine, going from a 5- sorry, a 1/6 to a 1/5? I mean, it started as a 1/4, got buffed to a 1/5, got buffed to a 1/6 just conveniently in time for the Daredevil season.

Daredevil season has now passed. Very conveniently, once again, he gets brought down to a 1/5. Very convenient. I don't know, just- I'm just throwing it out there. I'm not saying anything. You guys are... Get those conspiracy thoughts out of your head. What are your thoughts on Martyr? 

Pulse Glazer: She's still good. She's disappeared.

She shouldn't have disappeared. She's ... Look, one-six to one-five is a really, really huge nerf. Her being basically a play on one, it can do whatever on turn two, can do Iron Patriot, can do a Skani Son and still guarantee a Kingpin, was insanely strong. And now if your opponent plays a Lizard, you're no longer guaranteeing that Kingpin.

There's going to be a new card we'll talk about later in this video that's important for guaranteeing Kingpin. But that change is really, really relevant. What we got from her buff, though, was people realizing and learning how to play her even without the techno-organic virus, people learning how and where to play her, what type of decks want her and can use her as a really important tempo piece, and I think that she's still really good.

She has utterly disappeared from the meta game, and I honestly do not believe she should have. 

Alex: No, I actually agree. I think one-six she was probably over two, and that was definitely a call on the, "We're releasing a season pass card that probably wants to deal with this," right? Actually a super premium season pass card that also would like this.

So I think that was definitely what you saw a little bit there. Um, she probably deserves to be a one-five, 'cause remember, with her, every incremental power also reduces the chances you can fly over and lose another lane, right? So- Mm-hmm ... it kinda double dips in a way, much like a Gladiator double dip. So I do like this change.

I'm ... You know what, though? I'm gonna be honest with you. I do not love I'm conflicted on Techno-Organic Virus. So Techno-Organic Virus now costs two instead of one, and it never gets increased in cost, right? So before- Hmm ... it was a one that increased in cost every time you played it. Now it's just always a two.

Now, this card, despite being incredibly meta impactful, eventually that is, this was even in the season that it was released when everyone's like, "Ah, it kind of sucks." I was like, "It was my favorite card." I loved it. I loved the design challenge of it. I love how it played. I thought it was incredibly novel.

And now I'm like, okay, now it got popular and now it got taken out behind the shed a little bit. Still good, but for me it's like, okay, I get what they're going for here. Did they make it worse? They absolutely did, but what they really did was they removed Mobius and Mobius from the equation. You remove Mobius and Mobius from the eq- the equation, who really sucks a lot of fun out of the meta, you still have a card that's playable, but it's not nearly as good.

Where do you think Techno-Orga- uh, Organic Virus lands ultimately? Because for me, it's one of my favorite cards in the game right now, and, uh, I don't know. I'm kind of like hurt a little bit by this nerf. 

Pulse Glazer: So first, I just wanna say they killed the flavor. The idea of Techno-Organic Virus was this is the virus, as you can tell from the card, that Cable has, and whenever he uses his telepathy, i.e.

whenever the techno- the Techno-Organic Virus gets bigger and takes over more of his body, right? So that's why it was costing more. It was costing more to use his telepathy every single time, and it was this really cool, like thematic thing that the card did, and now that's completely gone, which is really, really sad.

Um, it's still got the, like wording for that, but it no longer does any of the, like cool thematic stuff that it did. The card is fine. It just gets played with Quinjet now. The, ... Butt, who's one of the top players in the world, just put out a Loki deck with it. Uh, Regis covered it in a video. It ended up in one of my videos.

I think Cam covered it also. But like the card is fine. Is it as good? No. A lot of what it was doing by the end was f- making you play really, really big stuff with tech, and now it seems to be being played more with like Gambit, Horseman of Death stuff. It seems to be playing more with like decks that would want a Victoria hand because it wants Quinjet.

After the first Techno-Organic Virus, every other copy will still cost one if you have Quinjet. Uh, if that deck is beating you, by the way, I strongly urge you to run Killmonger. Killmonger still beats that deck badly because it runs a ton of ones, and I strongly urge you to just keep running Mobius, which is annoying, but it is an answer because then it costs two and it's harder to play.

But The card is really good. It's still really good. It's just no longer, I think, in the best deck, which is probably where we want it, a powerful card, but we don't want... It be- it started pushing closer and closer to tech piles being the thing again, and that's not really what they want in Marvel Snap, right?

If your Cosmic Ghost Rider can c- and have nine power, that's not great, and Techno-Organic Virus was fundamentally reading Cosmic Ghost Rider is nine power. Mobius ends up at the end of the game six or seven power when you play the Techno-Organic Virus on his lane on the last turn. That's not really what we were going for, and I understand why they moved it out of that space.

I do think it's a major flavor loss, and it is worse, but I still think it is really good. 

Alex: Now, Zombie Century did see a significant change in comparison to some of the other cards. I mean, I would argue that the Tech- the Techno-Organic Virus change is equivalent. It goes from a three-four to a two-one. Now, the Zombie decks have really seen new life thanks to Venus.

Uh, we're seeing a lot more play on them. Their win rates have been, like, somewhat middling, I think surprisingly low compared to some of the top meta contenders. Still super fun to play. Like, it's a big infusion of power that I think the Zombies archetype needed. But In higher brackets, you get Shadow Kinged and everything falls apart rather rapidly, right?

What are your thoughts on the changes to the Zombie Sentry going to a 2/1? 

Pulse Glazer: Look, it's a great change. It's weird to see a Sentry that has one power. That just feels wrong. But it's a good change. It's an ultimately positive change. If we're ever not in the Shadow King meta again, I think it'll be really useful.

I... A lot of my trip to Infinite was me seeing the zombie decks, people trying out Zombie Sentry, and just being like, "Well, I run Shadow King," then they're snapping me, so I can snap back and just steal eight cubes. And just Zombie Sentry is facilitating that, like, play pattern. HuskyPuppies, HuskyPuppies35, great player has been f- trying different versions of the deck that only run Giant Man, don't run Absorbing Man.

They instead run Elsa Bloodstone, Prodigy, um, along with Hope Summers, and just try and do sort of a smaller ball version of it. That version's harder to Shadow King, but that version also doesn't bother to run Zombie Sentry. So at the end of the day, I think this is a good change, but it's also not one that ended up being, I think, in the current best version of the deck, which is a little disappointing.

Alex: Fair enough. Now, I got a question. Do you care about Magus? 'Cause I absolutely don't. Goes to a 2/4. Y- you're looking like you might wanna have something to say. I do. I know that everyone says the same thing. They're like, "Alex, make it hit on reveals." And I'm like, you really don't want that. Like, if you- Yeah

if you have... If it's starting to hit what, on reveals, it just, like, makes... Like, oh, now it's just free negative when you don't draw it. Now it's just enter the blank card you didn't draw free. I think this card is probably fine the way it is. 2/4 power is kind of like a good baseline, but, like, I don't know. I can't see myself playing this.

I just don't like the play pattern. Then you're like, "Oh, I'll flow for..." Then you top deck the card you're gonna try to hit anyways. I don't know, man. What are, what are your thoughts on this one? 

Pulse Glazer: It's got one home that I found that I really, really like it in. I didn't find it. I... Sorry I keep saying all these other players' name.

I like to give credit where it's due when I can. If I know who made a deck, I like to say it. This way, as many people as possible can support as many creators as possible. But BullseyeQWERTY is a Twitter u- Twitter Marvel Snap creator, and he put Magus in a Thanos deck. And he put it in a Thanos deck with the new Jubilee And that has been the best home that I've seen for Jubilee Surfer, because if you end up passing turn four, your Magus is always that Jubilee.

It's the only four-drop in the deck. You can still play Jubilee, right? You can still just play Magus as a two-four, it's fine. But then you got an extra Jubilee Surfer, and because it's Thanos, you've got all this extra draw. So you're using your stones to draw more stones, and every single draw is getting plus four, so you're playing seven power stones and you're just like, "Oh, wow, what is happening here?"

Like, then you've got a 13 power Mockingbird and seven power stones, right? And that's assuming you don't get an Agony or any other buffs on anything. Uh, I think Magus is generally a very bad card, except that I think Jubilee Surfer and, with Venus potentially, Galacta might give it some life. 

Alex: Cool, and I should say, as a terrible podcast host, I didn't read out that it went from a two-three to a two-four.

One power. It started as a two-one, two-two? What did it start with? I don't even remember- I- ... 'cause it got buffed already ... 

Pulse Glazer: very low. Yeah, very low. I think it was a I wanna say it was, like, a two-one. It was really low. 

Alex: What were 

Pulse Glazer: they scared of? I think it was even three cost. No, it was three cost. Uh, so early data mines had this hitting on reveals, and I don't think they adequately, like, understood what it meant when it stopped hitting on reveals, would be my guess.

They, like, didn't actually... Like, they ch- made that change relatively late in the game, and they weren't confident that there wasn't still something broken that they were missing. And when there was nothing broken that they were missing, we ended up, like, just with a really bad card. No one has done this to the best of my knowledge, but I'm very curious if this could work with Professor X.

Alex: Ooh, good call out. I wonder. I wonder. I guess someone out there is gonna have to find out, 'cause it ain't gonna be me. I'm not, I'm not playing Magus. But I almost found myself enjoying playing Kraglin at a three-five. Kraglin goes from a three-four to a three-five. I know there's a lot of, uh, Monstro believers out there with the Kraglin Mole Man deck, and it's not...

So it- ri- last time I checked, it was running, like, a 57% win rate, ranks, like, 90 to infinite. It's not, I don't know. It's not my preferred way to play Marvel Snap. I still think Kraglin is a little awkward, but he's definitely better at a three-five 

Pulse Glazer: So if you like Kingpin, right? Like, if you like the new Kingpin, the, sorry, Wilson Fisk, technically, not Kingpin, right? If you like the new Wilson Fisk, you like Kraaglin. Three nines are good. He's a 3/9 on turn three. That's what he- That, like, if you're running a low curve deck, 80% of the time he's a 3/9 on turn three. And if you're running a deck that occasionally gets him to be bigger, then you're just playing a ton of stuff the next turn and you're pretty happy.

But generally, the way I've seen him played right now is as a 3/9 with Wilson Fisk. I said earlier we would get that extra Wilson Fisk enabler, and Kraaglin is that extra Wilson Fisk enabler. If you play him on three, you're all but guaranteed to be able to go one and Fisk on turn four, and now you're really, really cooking.

I think this card is genuinely excel- excellent, which is awesome, because I really, really, really wanna be a Kirk from Gilmore Girls main player, and so I'm gonna play Kraaglin in every deck for, from now till the end of time now that he's good. But I think he's actually great, which is wild, because it's one point, but nine power on a three drop is one of those weird break points that I've never been able to adequately explain.

But there are certain break points of power in Marvel Snap. Nocturne went from a 3/5 to a 3/4, right? And immediately was, like, the best card to dead. Three, uh, 8 to 3/9 is one of those break points where it goes from, like, this could be good, to oh, my God, this is now real. Kraaglin is now real. I don't know if it stays at this power, because it's that good.

Alex: It is good from a power perspective. I don't love... I'll be honest, I don't love the inconsistency of am I getting +2 power, am I getting the plus... Sorry, +2 energy or the +4 power. You're right. If you build your deck in such a way that your curve will facilitate the constant +4, that's fantastic. I found in my testing that getting the +2 makes it feel a little worse.

And then the thing was, though, is Monstro really did take this to the next level, because Monstro feels way better to play than something like a Howard, and I thought that Monstro was actually a lot of fun. The only thing is, though, is when Monstro's on the field of play, you actually don't get to keep tracking, whether or not you're hitting what you wanna hit and stuff like that.

But yeah, Kraaglin going to a 3/5, 3/9 is an absolutely disgusting stat line. It really is. However, you are banishing that card, right? And we don't currently have a way to utilize banished cards effectively. 

Pulse Glazer: Yeah. Pr- I like to just pretend that the banished card was the bottom card of my deck that I would never draw anyway.

Like, I'd just start telling yourself that. If you have an opponent play Yondu against you, if you have an opponent, um, banish anything, if they Gladiator and you don't get any value out of it and it just destroys a card, just pretend in your head that was the bottom card of your deck that you were never gonna see.

Because you've s- there's still, uh, those cards in your deck at the end of the game. It might as well have been one of those. It's just, it doesn't matter. It wasn't drawn. It doesn't exist. 

Alex: Fair enough. Now, Lockheed goes from a 2/1 to a 2/2, and I actually really like Lockheed. I like this card a lot. I think it's fun, especially now that you have, like, a Kitty Pryde meta.

Eh, I'm not gonna say Kitty Pryde meta, but Kitty Pryde feels more playable thanks to Venus. Do you see a world where Lockheed starts to see more play? 

Pulse Glazer: Submariner is coming, so we can take it now or we can talk about it with Submariner. But Submariner is gonna be amazing with Lockheed. Kitty Pryde is amazing with Lockheed.

It's an end of turn card, so we have that synergy. We have Marvel Boy with Venus as a synergy. Yeah, I think Lockheed is a real card. It's very hard for me to imagine him, if you play him any time reasonably early being less than a 2/8 or so. 

Alex: Yeah. And the last conversation, I- you're right, we're gonna have to talk about Lockheed a little later.

Is it cope to be excited about the best Pixel variant in Marvel Snap, which is Crystal, going from a 3/4 to a 3/6? And I love this because Second Dinner legitimately listened to the feedback. We were like, "Hey, don't just do a +1. It's not gonna do anything. No one's gonna play a +1. Give it the +2." If you've broken the game with Crystal getting a +2 buff, like, I'm willing to take that risk.

Pulse Glazer: So Daredevil, this is our Shadowlands Daredevil change. They took out Martyr and they added Crystal, right? Like, now Crystal not only obviously is six power herself, so she'll buff Shadowlands Daredevil, but she's gonna draw you an extra card, which helps you get those extra buffs on Shadowlands Daredevil.

She is literally and fundamentally replacing how, um, how Martyr was working in those decks. Uh, it's obviously not as good because of the tempo things with Kingpin. Sorry again, Wilson Fisk. Keep calling him Kingpin out of habit. But again, uh, it's not as good for those. However, it is still a really, really good card in those decks, and eventually some combo decks will want it, too.

Great change. I hope they leave this forever. Yeah, I like this change a lot. Crystal is criminally underplayed, and, um... Not criminally underplayed. She deserved to be underplayed, and now finally she has a reason to be played, I guess, is h- what you'll, uh, the way you'll see it. Let's move on to the reviews.

Alex: We'll start with Quicksand. Now, this is a card that I was absolutely not excited about, and it has a 1% play rate according to ONTAP. Apparently no one else is excited about it either. And it was one of those ones that, like, people, there was some discussion about, like, this card, "Oh, I think it's better than you think it is," and like...

No, I don't think it is. I think this card is not really that playable. Even at a 2/4, I pl- I'll, I'll be honest with you guys. I, I don't wanna, like, misrepresent. I played, like, four games and drew Qu- I drew Quicksand and I was like, " Okay. There's no reason to play this," and I just didn't play it. And I had...

Yes, I had Luna Snow in my deck. Like, I was trying to do some stuff. I just... It just was like, okay, I'd rather play anything other than this card. And my experience was that. I don't know if you have another take on Quicksand, but, like, I came away, like, I don't know why I'd play this card 

Pulse Glazer: Maybe there's a metaphor at one day.

Maybe Fallen One breaks completely. But the problem is it's only once, so like if Fallen One breaks completely and people are like playing Lunar or something into Fallen One, then she's just gonna stop the Luna and then Fallen One's still gonna be broken. So I don't know what we're supposed to do with this.

I was hopeful, not like excited, but hopeful. And okay, so what they seem to do generally speaking is they give us two limited time game mode cards a month now, right? Which are two free cards a month. We'll talk more about that later. But it's two free cards a month, like completely free. All you have to do is play the limited time game mode.

Usually one of them is really, really good and one of them is kind of mid. We got Mother Ascani, we got Stick. I don't even remember what the other cards are. They weren't that- Ascani's Son was legit. Oh, Ascani's Son was legit, true. So yeah, every month they seem to be giving us one really, really great free card.

Uh, it seems like they whiffed this month 'cause I don't think either of the free cards are gonna be great. But- No ... I think Quicksand was meant to be. 

Alex: You think... Okay, so that's funny. When I saw Quicksand, I'm like, "There's no way this is good." And like I almost... How do I explain this? When I go into Snapchat discussions, I almost wanna see the positive side of a card, right?

I wanna see it, and with Quicksand, I couldn't find it, and I was like, "I just don't really see the cope here." Like, I don't see... And I think that the 2/4 stat line, I said this to Cam last week, the 2/4 stat line to me k- like just kind of illustrated that even the devs know that this effect sucks. They wouldn't have...

They don't give 2/4 stat lines to cards that have good effects. And so, like they tried to mitigate the downside with the stat line. I still think that, like if you're gonna try to punish extra energy, I like the approach of what like Red Hulk does, how you gain power. Like, I like that type of punish. Like, what if we had a reverse Sunspot, that like you play Luna Snow and then every time they floa- like they float energy s- he, it steals that energy to actually ga-...

That makes more sense to me as a punish than Quicksand. 

Pulse Glazer: Thunderbolt Ross

That's what he does, right? When your opponent passes extra energy, he does that. I was like, "We have something else that does that," and I'm just sitting there going, "What's the card? What's the card?" Thaddeus Thunderbolt Ross, if your opponent passes energy, you draw a card. I was like- Yeah ... are you suggesting that Thaddeus gains power?

Alex: No, no, no, no. I'm like, what are we talking about here? No, no. Sorry, sorry. I was like, we have another card that does that, and I'm just trying to think of it. I forgot he exists. I haven't thought of him in so long. Look, they're gonna change Quicksand to say when your opponent would start a turn with bonus energy, they don't get it.

Pulse Glazer: I would all but guarantee. They'll either buff the crap out of its stat line, right? Or they're just gonna say when your opponent would start a turn with bonus energy, they don't get it. And at that point, we'll revisit the card, and it might be good. We'll have to mess around a little bit. 

Alex: We'll have to mess around indeed, and f- for what it's worth, I don't think that the card will be playable in its current form.

But if they change it to when, that's a significantly different card- Mm-hmm ... and a significantly better card, to the point that if they do that, they have to nerf Luna Snow. Luna Snow goes down to a 3/4 or 3/5 or something. It won't sit at 3/6. On that note, I still think that Luna Snow is probably one of the...

There's a couple cards that really stand out to me as being, like, really good that nobody really complains about, and Luna Snow is one of them. That's a 3/6 stat line. That's stupid. I can't even believe Electro is a 3/5. Like, it's... I can't believe we're in a world where that is even happening too. So, like, I don't know.

I... The ramp options we have in Snap, and not to mention they're... I'm gonna use air quotes of "nerf" on War Machine. I don't know, man. I just think that if it, if Quicksand changes to a when, then they have to start taking off power from Luna Snow, 'cause it's gonna be too good 

Pulse Glazer: I could see that 100%, especially because she's so good.

Luna Snow is one of the better cards to get that just enables stuff, right? Like, if you wanna play different decks, getting Luna opens up a lot of stuff. 

Alex: And for what it's worth, talking about Luna Snow, I am so not taking that bait second dinner on that Varying in the collection track. I'm not doing it.

You're not gonna get me. 'Cause, uh, no. I know what you're do- I see you there, I'm not doing it. So I just wanna put that out there. Let's talk about Jubilee Silver Surfer. This was a card I feel like I said this a couple times already today. I was, like, struggling to see the upside. I was looking at it, I'm like, "This is a four-two.

This is a four-two." If you play it on curve, it still sucks. Like, you're never taking, like, a four-six. So, like, what do you do to make this card worth playing? And it's... You brought up a great point earlier about, like, a, the... But you said, "I found the one deck that I've..." Something along the lines of, "I found one deck where I felt Jubilee was worth playing," and, oh, Magus to that extent.

But everywhere else, uh, everywhere else I felt like Jubilee was absolutely horrible. And it, it kinda surprised me. I was, like, not sure. I was like, "It's either gonna be horrible, or someone's gonna break it that's not me." It was one of those videos where I'm, like, doing a review video, and I'm like, "Either this card sucks or my decks are horrible, and I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure the card sucks."

'Cause sometimes, I'll be honest with you, Paul, it's like sometimes, uh, you make a deck, you just miss. You just miss, right? Like, it just happens, right? But with this, I'm like, everything was missing. And I was like, man, like, I think this card's actually, like, just, it's just coconuts, man 

Pulse Glazer: So on what planet is this a 4/2 but Stick is a 4/3?

Some- someone will explain that to me one day in a way that makes sense, because this should be a 4/3 and Stick should be a 4/2, and then I think we're in a world that makes sense. Because Stick lets you target and Jubilee just says, "I'm gonna hit something, you better hope it's good." So Jubilee is worse than Stick.

She's worse than the free card they gave us last month. That's worth knowing, it's worth keeping in mind. So in order to make her better than Stick, we need to do something extra, right? Yes, she can hit two cards, but the odds of those being the exact two cards we wanna see aren't great. That's why she's so good with Thanos, because you play her, you buff her somehow, right?

Like Thanos, there's plenty of buffs in the game. You buff her, you play her, and then you play stones, and then your last turn of the game is just whatever the heck stones you draw. Um, I drew her as a 4/6, uh, with various buffs throughout the game, and then I played a mind stone on turn five. And my mind stone on turn five drew me two stones that had pluf- plus five power.

That's really good. Now we're cooking. Now I have something to do. I'm playing basically a card that turn- gives me, like, Dr. Doom plus in terms of stats for the cost. Is that worth playing? Is that worth buying the card? No. But it is something to do with it, and now it's not a card that's gonna sit in my collection forever, because I'm always gonna have this really cool Thanos zoo deck that I can whip out whenever I wanna play Jubilee 

Alex: And for what it's worth, like, there could come a time where she gets more support.

The power is there when things align. Like for instance, I did an Atlantis game. I played Jubilee on Atlantis, and now suddenly seven power is just being applied to every card I top deck, and I happen to be playing Thanos as well. And I'm like, "Wow, this is actually pretty crazy." It had its moments. The gameplay highlights were there, where like you had these, like, highlights, but like you can't live off the highlights in Marvel Snap.

You have to live off the consistency, and I feel like Jubilee just doesn't have that. Not only can you not control what you draw unless you're playing Eitri, for the most part, or the Stones, like you mentioned, for the most part... Actually, you could play King Eitri in, in a Thanos deck. Yeah. Maybe we're cooking here.

Pulse Glazer: He's in that deck. He's in that deck. Oh, he is. There you go. He's in that deck, yeah. King Eitri, Agony, yep. 

Alex: So what you're telling me is I gotta play this Thanos deck before I, I poo-poo too hard on Jubilee and Magus. 

Pulse Glazer: I'll send it to you as soon as we're done. Uh, again, you- are you gonna be crazy about it?

Is this the best deck in Marvel Snap? No. Are you gonna win some games and have r- a lot of fun? Yeah. It's like a real deck. It's not gonna start beating the silly Captain Carter nonsense. It's not gonna beat the... It's not gonna start beating the 18 techno-organic virus Gambit decks, right? But it's still really good.

It's still a lot of points, and it's really fun. So every card's not gonna be a home run. I'm fine with it. Again, this should really be a four-three. I'm worried they're gonna make it a three-two. I think it's probably gonna be too good as a three-two. But a four-three version of this in that Thanos deck I think is a real, real card.

Alex: Yeah, for sure. They could prob- I mean, there's so many dials on this card, right? Yeah. Like, you can go, you can go four-three. You can change to a three cost. There's a lot you can do to this. But we'll have to see. For me, though, it's a massive miss. 

Pulse Glazer: Yeah. You know what my preferred... Make it a, keep it a four-two, but when you play a card, when you play Jubilee: Silver Surfer, both players draw a card.

Hack crystal on her 

Alex: okay. That's interesting because... All right. Okay, hold on, hold on. I'm just thinking about that because both players draw a card, but you have the additional benefit. 

Pulse Glazer: Hmm. 

Alex: But then what's the point of having Crystal? I guess Crystal's a 3/6, but- 

Pulse Glazer: Crystal's a 3/6, and now you have extra chances of drawing her, extra chances of doing your stuff.

You can now draw your whole deck playing both of them. 

Alex: Yeah, okay. All right. For the time being though, I'll say that, uh, I don't think Jubilee Silver Surfer is worth your tokens. Absolutely not. Yeah, don't- You agree? ... 

Pulse Glazer: get her. Yeah, don't get her. Unless you have, like, a million tokens and just want something fun.

She is fun, but she's not very good. 

Alex: Yeah, if you're, like, collection complete and you're just keeping up, then okay, that's fine. But if you're someone who values your currency, then this is definitely a skip. Now, I guess the next thing to talk about is not Quicksand. I just had to, uh, adjust my scenery here.

We have to talk about Submariner because this is one of my top-rated cards of the season. I rated, just so you know, Pulse, I rated... Number one, I thought it was gonna be Jeff. Number two was Venus, and I put them close together, and then third I have Submariner. I gave it a four out of five stars. I think this card has the potential to be very good.

It is a 1/2 that reads, " When this is empowered, add a random 1-cost character to your hand with that same increase if in hand or in play." With the same increase, meaning that whatever gets empowered by, the buff is applied to the random 1-cost character. Not that, like, oh, Submariner's been buffed a bunch of times and now it's a 1/7.

It doesn't get the plus five applied. It, like, whatever instance of the empowerment gets applied to the new card

Pulse Glazer: This is gonna have a bad first week because everyone's just gonna run Killmonger, and people are gonna wanna run Kaiera, and Kaiera's terrible. You don't wanna run Kaiera. Just wait a week and then play Submariner. Submariner's gonna be great. Clea decks are already good, but Clea decks needed one more piece.

They need one more thing to do to buff ones for them to really matter, and Submariner is that thing. Submariner immediately acts as, like, a second Kitty Pryde for your, uh, for your decks that are running Lockheed in ways that are both ... That are very, very powerful and very, very useful. I think that this card is going to be very good, and it's going to be a card that you're gonna be like, "How did I lose that game?"

And the answer is very often going to be, "That Submariner generated 17 power over the course of the game." And you're just gonna look back at it and be like, "How did, how ... On what Earth is this Submariner this good?" But you add in that Venus exists, and I think Venus is the card of the month for me right now.

Um- Oh, for sure. I- I agree. Yeah. Venus is wild. But, like, you add in Venus, and this starts getting plus two. This starts getting plus five, and we're cooking. We're just absolutely cooking. 

Alex: So, like, I'm 100% with you. I think this card is really, really good. I'd like to call it for Venus here. One thing I wanted to mention though is I had this ready as you mentioned it- Ooh

so I feel like we gotta talk about it. So, like, I think you're right. Kaiera is gonna be cope but also necessary for the first week. This is a great example of a card that is very hard to get the analysis right on that first week. First impressions videos are gonna be difficult. It reminds me of every single time we have a, a flick card comes out, and everyone- Mm-hmm

and their grandmothers puts Luke Cage in their deck. And it's like, "Well, I can't tell if this card sucks or if the entire meta hates me." It's probably 'cause the entire meta hates you, to be honest with you. So, like, Kaiera will absolutely be necessary, especially for all the gamers running that Silver Surfer Killmonger Nova deck.

Pulse Glazer: Yep. The problem with Kaiera is you wanna play Marvel Boy, who costs three, and you wanna play Venus, who costs three. So, like, I can play Kaiera and then not do what the deck wants to do, right? Like, if I play Kaiera, I'm getting nothing out of my ... I'm n- getting nothing out of my card. I'm getting nothing out of my, uh, Submariner.

Or I can- like play the other cards and then get Killmongered, 'cause they'll take Priam 'cause I'm playing a bunch of one-drops. So I'm not sure how to play Kaera in this deck. I don't understand. I've never understood why Kaera isn't just a two-cost card. Just make Kaera a two-cost card. But she's not, and she never has been.

She's always been three-something, and if she's gonna be three-something, then we're gonna constantly run into trouble because all the important cards... There was a point in Marvel Snap at right around when Elsa Bloodstone was the season pass when they moved a lot of the power in the game from two-drops to three-drops.

And the surest way to know, like, a card is gonna get nerfed is whenever the best card in the game or one of the best few cards in the game is a two-drop, they almost always nerf that card. They want tho- that power in three-drops, not two-drops. But that means that there's so much power in three-drops that a card like Kaera that would otherwise be really good becomes unplayable.

Alex: Yeah, 100%. Um, I've actually seen the argument before, and I'm gonna throw it here, that armor should be, like, a one-three. Oh, yeah. Because that would make more sense, right? That would make more sense. Mm-hmm. Um, so I just wanna throw that out there, try to will that into existence. And for what it's worth, I gotta tell you, I, I like armor.

I think armor's a really cool card that, like, it was a staple of the OG meta that we don't actually see anymore. Not that relevant here, but what is relevant here... And listen I'm bringing this up again because Binks actively made fun of me for this. I'm saying that this is not total cope here. Shang-Chi, Master of the Rings might actually at least be worth experimenting with with Submariner because not only do you get the r- hit right away, right?

You get the initial hit right away. But if you play Shangers, you get a consistent little run up of all these one drops you get to play. What are your thoughts on this? I know it's cope, but I'll be playing it. 

Pulse Glazer: It's not that bad. Fazer Snap has a deck that runs Shang-Chi Master of the Ten Rings right now with Venus, and you're, when you're getting plus two a turn, that lane is just won.

You win that lane. That, that deck already runs Clea. It will just slot Submariner right in. You slot Submariner in, you have now two ways to hit with rings that you're very, very, very happy about. You're getting extra benefit every time you do it. You're very happy with that interaction. And then wanna hear the best part of that deck?

Guess what five-drop it runs as top end. You'll never guess. Oh, I actually don't know. Gilgamesh. 

Alex: Okay. '

Pulse Glazer: Cause you're putting a million ones on everything. Makes sense. So Gilgamesh is, like, a 5/20, and then you just have this giant Gilgamesh. That lane of the Ten Rings is won, right? Because you played Shang-Chi, you've played, um, all these super power ones.

You're getting plus two power a turn. It's a one-sided double Muir Island. You win that lane. Unless they have Shadow King, you win that lane. And then your Gilgamesh, you're just dropping, like, a shock 20, 25 points on another lane on the last turn. It's so much fun. I cannot wait to play that deck with Submariner.

I... That's what I used to climb in the 70s this season, and then I was like, "I'm gonna keep playing this," and then I looked and Submariner was coming, and I was like, "I'm putting that away until Submariner comes out." That deck is gonna be great. 

Alex: There's a couple things I wanna send your way before we move on.

First of all, we didn't get your star rating. I said four stars, so I want you to think about it, 'cause I'll let you close it. No, no, no, don't say anything yet. We'll let you close the discussion with a star rating. But Viv Vision naturally could potentially work here, would have to stay in hand, but there's two cards specifically I wanna talk about here.

One is obvious that we have not discussed, and it's obviously new Jeff. Uh, new Jeff I think is going to, uh, benefit this, get an original hit. Mm-hmm. Buff the card. It's not great, but I think that once you start adding Jeff, Venus into these decks, then all of a sudden Venus has that additional proc, and so you can start to sneak things in, and it might make it worth it.

If you're like, "Okay, hold on. I have Submariner. It's turn four, but I can do Venus-Jeff," and suddenly it's not as bad. So I just wanna kinda throw that out there. But the real card I wanna talk about, and I... Listen, if this is mad cope, 'cause I'm probably gonna put it in my Shang-Chi deck, I want you to talk to me about it, but can we just take a moment to say that this card, who I've not even split yet.

I do have other variants for her. So I just haven't, I just haven't even bothered to split her yet. Black Swan. Is Black Swan actually gonna be a legitimately reasonable play here? Because she's gonna make your handful of one-costs that have all been empowered for free, and then whoa, what if you play all those one-drops with a Gilgamesh like you mentioned?

You get to fill the board with them and then slam Gilgamesh for free basically.

Pulse Glazer: I'm in. That's all I can say to that. I'm in 100%. Hell yeah, let's go. Uh, let's l- uh, I love Black Swan, 'cause I love Hit-Monkey, bounce being my jam. I... Black Swan, if Black Swan worked on turn five, if you could play Black Swan on turn five and still be able to activate her, would be one of the best cards in the game.

That you could only- You can, but you would never run it like that. You can- Right. What's it... Where, what's her name? Uh- Well- ... Jocasta. Go ahead ... oh Jocasta. Yeah, but at that point, like, your deck is falling apart, right? What are you doing? Yeah. Yeah. If you could just play her on turn five, like, natively, right?

Like, if she was like activate or on reveal. I don't know how you would do that. But, like, it, like, right, that doesn't make sense. I understand what I'm saying doesn't make sense as, like, a d- as from the current way the game is currently built. But if she could be played on turn five and still do the thing that she's doing, she would be one of the, like, five best cards in Marvel Snap.

And I could easily see her being absolutely insane with Spider-Man. Just, like, if you can get her going and then you can get, uh, Viv Vision going, and then you play Hit-Monkey, you're gonna get so many points. So many points. 

Alex: Wait a minute, hold on. Why can't you play her on turn five? You can play her on turn five, then activate going into turn six, no?

No. Am I missing something? 

Pulse Glazer: Yeah, it doesn't work. 

Alex: Wait, how does it not work? 

Pulse Glazer: If y- if you play her on turn five, there is no spot to activate her. You, by the time you activate her, it just doesn't work. Oh. 

Alex: You're right, oh my God. Yeah. It's been so long, I forgot. You're right, because sh- when you activate her, she then discounts the cards.

Oh, you're right. So yeah, she has to be down on turn four. Mm-hmm. That's right, Paul. It for a moment, listen, I... Forgive me, it has been a long time- It's okay ... since I played Black Swan. And, uh, no, you're absolutely right. You would have to Jocasta it because of the way... It's almost like a double delay, because you have- Mm-hmm

the activate delay, but then the activate is to then, for the next turn after you've activated. Oh my gosh, you're right. 

Pulse Glazer: She could be good. We'll get there. We'll get there soon. 

Alex: Yeah. I had a momentary lapse of judgment, we'll say. Yeah. And I was like, "Wait a minute. Hold on. I never considered this turn five."

But then again, you're right, every single time I've ever played the card, you have to play it prior to that point, right? So, there is one other card I wanna mention here before you give your final star rating here, and that is V Hand, Victoria Ha- I just typed hand, apparently that's not... What? I typed hand and these are my options?

I guess that does make sense. But there's only one Victoria, and that's right, friends, there'll be at least four comments about the candy cane border on this card. Just so you know, Pulse, this is a long-going gag. Uh, Dexter said this was the ugliest variant he has ever seen. And so as a result, I left it here, and, uh, it is horrible I'll admit, but it's horrible in a beautiful way.

What are your thoughts on Victoria Hand buffing up all these cards being generated to Hand? I see no reason why we wouldn't do that, right? Like, that's very easy to do. It's also, um, it's not, you didn't mention it, but the recently nerfed Mother Askani get two of this card at plus two to start with, and then you've got Victoria Hand in that deck also.

Pulse Glazer: That's a plus four card bonus, right? Like, 'cause you're gonna get the second... Sorry, plus three card, I guess. You'll get the second, um, Punisher, and now they're both buffed, right? Because it says in hand, so you're empowering it in hand. So then you're also gonna get the two extra cards. So you're getting three cards that way.

That's a lot of Victoria Hand buff. I think that's probably worth doing. 

Alex: For sure. All right. Were there any other cards you wanted to bring up or you wanna go right to your star rating? 

Pulse Glazer: I think it's a four-star card. I think it's gonna be a three or even two-star card week one, but I think this is a four-star card.

This is a card a lot of decks have wanted for a long time. However, for newer players or players who are still on their journey through becoming collection complete, who are missing about 50% of series five cards, I think they're gonna wanna skip it, because a lot of the cards we're talking about, your Marvel Boys, your Victoria Hands, your Black Swans, so on and so forth, are all series five cards.

Almost everything that makes this good and worth playing, your Viv Visions, are series five cards. However, I'm gonna note that a lot of the cards we talked about, from Black Swan on down, are former season pass cards. A thing I like to say, and we'll talk more about this, I believe, in the next segment, but is I consider Marvel Snap fundamentally to be a subscription model.

I think in order to get the most out of the game, you don't have to buy the premium, but if you buy just the season pass and are patient, you can either get every new card as they come out or, with enough time, and that time could be two or three years, you can get every card in the game With just buying the season pass.

I consider this to be a subscription model. I think if you play it as a subscription model, you spend your $10 a month on just that cheaper than Netflix, right? Then you're going to end up getting so much more out of Marvel Snap, assuming you play an hour, an hour or two a day, in that general area. At that point, you have all the cards that Submariner goes with if you've been playing long enough.

And all of a sudden, the thing that might be a skip that would be really cool and really fun becomes a buy, and now you really have something that would be interesting for you to play with. 

Alex: You know my man here makes lots of Marvel Snap videos and has mastered the art of transition, because that is the perfect transition into what is Snap's monetization.

You almost, like, just talked about it right there. So you might have to bring that up again. And the reason why this came up was because I made a comment, and I've made it a couple times now. And every single time I've made the comment that Marvel Snap's monetization's the best it's been in years, there's always been a couple people like, Alex I get where you're going with here, but I don't, I don't love this statement."

And I think there's some validity to that. I don't wanna pretend like, "Yeah, you're wrong gamers. Everything I say is right." So I wanted your take on it, 'cause I know you care a lot about this game. You're a very outspoken member of the community. I know you do your best to kinda give meaningful feedback whenever possible.

And so I thought you're a perfect person to talk about this. And it all stems from, first of all, I had a bunch of comments that came in about this topic. And one comes from Malvenu, who's been an extremely longtime supporter of my channel, both on Twitch and on YouTube. Malvenu, you know I love you. And this is what Malvenu said.

And it's funny, 'cause they said, "Alex, you know I love you, and thank you for the video, but I have to say monetization is the best it's ever been is like saying that the music on the Titanic was the best it's ever going to be. The card acquisition absolutely sucks. It's all RNG. Who's going to spend resources after resources rolling dice and hoping that they get the cards they actually want?

Until they come up with a card crafting system that guarantees you get the cards you want, I'm afraid this game is going to continue to decline." Which I guess is what KM Best said immediately after I responded to your comment. So KM must have you know, mirrored that sentiment. But long story short, I've been saying that the monetization's the best it's ever been.

But a lot of people are still frustrated with what, what's been going on. So I would like for your honest take. If you disagree with me, I want you to roast me, Pulse. Like roast me. But like, I want, I just want your take, 'cause I, I, this is something I wanna talk about 

Pulse Glazer: So the first thing to know, the first thing to note is the central premise that Marvel Snap is dying is false.

I just did a video. Nothing suggests that Marvel Snap is dying. For the first time since I'm gonna say the dirty words, Kid Omega, for the first time since Kid Omega, players are up month over month on Twitch, on YouTube. Viewers are up on... Sorry, viewers are up on Twitch and YouTube. Players are up on Steam.

We are actually increasing for the first time in a long, long time. That speaks to things being done better. And as much as everyone likes to complain about monetization, there is no more generous model in a card game that d- has not died That just, you can wish it was more generous, but at that point you are at least arguably wishing that the game stopped existing.

Because every game, every time I make this comment, people are like, "But what about Runeterra?" And I'm like, "Oh, a dead game? The game that died because it couldn't monetize properly?" And then we go over all these different decks that are dead because... Like, all these different card games that are dead because they didn't monetize.

They didn't monetize at all. Snap has to monetize. Snap's big frustration, and I say this to Second Dinner all the time, is that the carousel showing one card a day is absurd. It needs to show, like, three to five cards. It needs to cycle quickly. M- Having to wait months to see the one card you want. I know people that have been waiting for Techno-Organic Virus, right?

Since it came out, and they feel like they haven't seen it, and they just have to wait and wait and wait and wait, and keep logging in and refreshing. And they know they want you to keep logging and refreshing. But it is amazingly frustrating, and it drives people off the game when the one card they need for the one deck they wanna try just will not show up in the shop.

That is the big monetization fail. That's not a monetization fail, friends. That's a UI fail. That's a way of displaying their game fail. I'll agree to that. But if they just showed you the cards you want, you don't have to roll in Snap Packs. You'll spend full price and get the card you want for the deck you want.

They've also improved this a ton with the with the featured deck thing. What do they call it? The deck carousel, where, like, they feature the Golden Gauntlet-winning deck, they feature the deck from a content creator who did a video about the deck, and then you can use your tokens to buy cards that way.

They've done a much better job. This isn't the Titanic. This is the Phoenix. 

Alex: Okay, I like that. This is not the Titanic which sunk, by the way, in case, that... The Phoenix is rising from the ashes. I just wanna say that I think that, like, what you're discussing is exactly in, what in his comment, uh, Malvin you had mentioned, that, like, a targeting system for c- being able to isolate cards that you wanna get, much like the Hearthstone dust but Hearthstone also, you dusted extra duplicate cards. You don't get duplicates in Marvel Snap. So there's, like, there's other sides to it, too, right? But I do absolutely agree that, like, what you're seeing there is, like, a lot of that mobile game monetization still kinda showing through, where it's like we don't see this as, like, a mobile game.

Like, when you play, like, a mobile game, and it's like, "Yo, boom, ad, boom, boom." And you're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm just trying to..." You're, like, actively trying to get to, like, your deck collection. It's like, "Wait a minute. Boom." And it hits you with another ad. You're like, "Oh my God." That, we don't have that in Marvel Snap.

We don't have, like, "Oh, you wanna play another game? Boom, here's an ad that you gotta watch to get more energy." Like, Snap doesn't do all those things, but it does have a lot of those FOMO hooks of, like, oh This card's in... If this card's rolling through your shop, get it now or it's gone, right? And you'll, maybe you won't see it again for months and months and months.

So it does have those small FOMO hooks throughout, which I think are definite sources of frustration. But one thing that really stands out to me is that, um, the limited time game modes, which honestly I think they do a lot to reduce the monotony of the ranked system. They... Those new cards that they're releasing I think are, like 800 gold, while still is like a monetary expense, so you do, you do get some gold.

But you do... 800 gold's way cheaper than 3,000 tokens for a Series 4, right? And so I do appreciate that, and we've got some cards like Mother Skani, Dragon Lord, by the way, who's one of my favorite cards they've released in the longest time. So I think the limited time game mode the drip of cards has been better.

And the other thing that I think people have, like, I don't want to say forgotten about, but has not been discussed too much. And I know I'm sounding like a second inner shill right now, but it's... Trust me, that's not true. I, I roast when I gotta roast. But I just wanna give some flowers here too, is they were releasing so many freaking cards.

Do you remember, like, we were getting thir- like 12, 13 cards a month? They dialed that back. Yep. And now they're doing the limited time game modes, which makes some of the new cards being released a lot more accessible, right? And oh, don't forget that the Super Premium Season Pass, right? There's been...

Actually, there's some confusion around that. Like, I'm still not sure if it's available with tokens on... I always just buy the Super Premium Season Pass. But is- It's, it's available ... can you buy it with tokens? Or like, I don't know. There's been some, like, reports that, like, people can't get it for that first month.

I'm still not 100% sure how that is working. But anyways, that's my spiel on it. I just generally think that we've made improvements. Could improvements be made? Absolutely. But we're definitely in a better spot today than we were when Kid Omega dropped, which was a absolute self-inflicted wound- Mm-hmm ... that almost took this game out completely.

You could look... Pulse, you know this. You could look at a chart, and you could look at Marvel Snap's trajectory, and you can be like, "Oh, that's when they released Kid Omega. That's when they did the thing." You know why? 'Cause it looks like a crater. Okay. Not even a crater. It's just a hill, because craters go back up eventually.

But yes, they've made their mistakes, but it's better today than it was months ago, is what I'll say 

Pulse Glazer: I said it in the last section, but because this is in chapters, I just wanna say it again. If you spend your $10 a month for the season pass, you can eventually get every card in the game, and that might take you two or three years, but if you spend your gold wisely, you will be able to be collection complete.

Or you can take that same resource and just always get the new cards as they come out. Check snapcomplete.com, check fourthlocation.com. Laurenwhatevs does all the math for everything in the game. Think about all this stuff carefully. Like, I know some of you don't want them in max, but also if you're gonna be casual and don't want them in max, then you're gonna have a casual experience.

If you would like to get everything, the cost is $10 a month. That's unbeatable. That's just... It's unbelievably good for the value you get in this game. I think this is the best card game gameplay ever. I keep trying new card games, desperate to find another one that really hooks me, and I'm always like, "This takes so long.

This is so boring. I have to wait forever to get cards and deck build." Marvel Snap gives you a curated experience where things work. It gives you ways to get into decks, ways to get into cards. It's just, I think... Look, if you go look at my podcast, 'cause if you're seeing me for the first time, you're like, "Well, who's this shill that Alex has on?"

If you go look at my podcast comments, the comments you're gonna see are like, the, all my low comments are like two stars. "I wish he actually liked the game," right? Like, and it's just like I'm gonna be honest with how I feel about things. I think this is the best the game has been. I'm waging a one-person positivity drive about Marvel Snap.

They just... Look, they're throwing support right now into Golden Gauntlet left and right. They just hired a major community member. This is akin... They hired ItsGuestGaming. This is akin to when Hearthstone hired Ridiculous Hat. They hired one of the beacons, the pillars of the community to work for them and be our voice within the company.

They're releasing, eventually, draft mode. These aren't things they do for a game they're not serious about the long-term health of. If they don't care about the long-term health, it's very easy to just not have a tournament scene, to not throw money at Guest as fundamentally, like, Mr. Fix It in the background, Mr.

Community in the background, and it's very easy to not throw a ton of resources into draft mode, right? You just sorta let the game sunset. You milk us. You don't give us more stuff that costs you resources, that costs you money instead of making you more players, but they keep doing that. They've never listened to the community this much.

They've never listened to content creators this much. If it weren't for Kid Omega, seriously, I believe we would be in a golden age right now. It's just Kid, Kid Omega was such, like, this amazing downfall for the game, for viewers, for players, for everything that I don't know if we're ever gonna reach the pre-Kid Omega peak, but I think outside of Kid Omega, we're in a golden age.

And things aren't perfect, but I'm an English teacher and I tell my kids all the time, "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Don't let perfect be the enemy of improvements. Your job isn't to be perfect, it's to get better." And they are consistently, singularly working on getting better. And what's really nice is they haven't even shot themself in the foot in a while, and we know how much they love to do that.

Alex: One thing I will say though, as professional podcasters, is that we have baited you guys in the comments. Yes, there is a major, major pain point, and that is series drops, because Series 5 is now definitely bigger than Series 3. That's a disaster in and of itself. But also, like I, I gotta be honest with you.

If I look at this game from like the bird's-eye view, I don't think series drops in and of itself fixes enough of the problem. It does stretch the token, like the token expenditure for people, but you drop all those cards in Series 4, you still have the RNG-generated stuff. Dropping a mass amount of cards to Series 4 is always gonna benefit people in general, but until you can like target cards specifically or have a greater carousel or something like that happens, then it's...

I don't wanna say it's a moot point, 'cause it's still important, but I think that the value you get from series drop is still reduced until we fi- 'Cause listen, you still don't wanna random roll Series 4 packs. You don't wanna do it, right? You'll do it if you have to, but you don't want to. We need some sort of correction for like this, this absolute monstrosity that has become Series 5, and I'm just saying that like I don't know if series drops is even the response anymore it's so big.

It would help, but it's not the solution anymore. Like, Series 5 is so big that s- like series drops can't fix it, is I guess what I'm trying to say, 'cause it's gone so long. If you had been doing it recurringly, then series drops would've been something you could've gone to. But I don't think it is, 

Pulse Glazer: I just think finding ways to sell us cards in chunks is probably the answer. Just be like, if you spend... Like, you'll get five Snap Packs for this, like 30 bucks, and then you're getting a decent discount, and then you're just like, "All right, I've got a bunch of random cards and I can b- and I can try and catch up that way."

There needs to be more ways to do that. Again, it's not perfect, but these are things that they're working on. These are things they're considering. They just have to do the math. No one's gonna do that unless they determine it's not gonna break the system. And a lot of the problem is us. A lot of the problem is the content creator community, and like, it's in combination with the card release model.

They release one card a week. What content do we make every week? New card content. Should we buy the new card? And that increases the FOMO. A- and like, people are like, "Make more decks with older cards." I made those decks already. You can go watch the old videos. They're still there. They didn't go sour, right?

They still exist. But like, we make new card content because that's the new thing. That gives us something different to talk about. I don't have much new to say about Black Swan. I've been talking about Black Swan for two years, three years, however long it's been. We just talked about Black Swan today.

What are you talking about? Yeah. Well, 'cause a new card came out, because a new card c- that came out to give it new reasons to talk about. When's the last time you thought about Black Swan before, uh, this card came out? It's 

Alex: true. Valid point, yep. 

Pulse Glazer: So there's these cards that just, like, no one talks about that fundamentally are even in series five don't exist, but part of the reason they don't exist, even if they're decent, is that we've talked about them and we have to keep making content, so we're gonna talk about the new thing.

The new thing means new decks. It means new ways to discuss things. But the community sees us do that and then they go, "We can't get all these new thing. Why can't we get all these new thing?" And like, that's sort of just how the card release model works. Uh, I've said for a long time that I wish they just sold seasons cards for a discount, right?

Like literally not gold, not tokens. F- you pay whatever it is. There's seven card, five cards that release in a season. You pay 30 bucks, 40 bucks, you get the new season. Congratulations, you're done Like just they would make so much more money if they did that. And like season pass can even still be separate, I don't really care.

But like they would make so much more money that way. It would increase their revenue so much, at least I think. Maybe I'm wrong. Again, I'm sure they've done the math. But like if you could just say, "I bought the new cards and then all my resources go to catching up because I can just spend cash on the new card.

And then if I play the game more with all my new cards, which is now really, really fun, right? Because I have all the new cards to play, so I'm always having a good time with my new toys. I can use all the resources I'm getting from playing the game to try and catch up with the old stuff." And I think that would fundamentally clean things up.

I'm told that doesn't work, but I don't know why yet. 

Alex: That's fair. The only thing is though, is like a $40 buy-in monthly, that's a big ask, right? That's a, like- No cap ... there's a lot of people that I think like... Yeah, I, I know what you're saying. At the same time it's like, okay, like even 10 bucks a month, like Marvel Snap I buy the super boom season pass, but other mobile games I play and stuff like that, you really gotta sell me on that season pass.

I'm not just giving you 10 USD for funsies, right? But you are right. Like if you're, if you're a TCG or CCG player, like man, money does not go far in these games. Like I, I play too many TCGs and I'll tell you, you buy a box of product, it's gonna co- Man, I, I sometimes like, uh, Rift Down boxes are $169 Canadian.

Just for one box. I can't build a deck with that, right? I get a bunch of commons, some random rares and stuff like that. Like the TCG, just general card gaming as a whole is filled with all this gotcha and just like, it is a monetization nightmare for someone who's trying to take care of their wallet.

Like, that's just, it's unfortunate. It's one of the realities of our, our hobby. 

Pulse Glazer: And that's for card games. And everyone always goes, "There's physical value to those cards. I don't really own these." And that's true. It's true. Yeah, I agree. But like, let's be honest, we're n- we're not making that much money on those cards, right?

They tend to just sit in binders. There's like a theoretical value there, but they sit in binders and we go, "Ooh, look at our old pretty collection." That's not like real value most of the time, and then the game goes under and they all become valueless sooner 

Alex: or 

Pulse Glazer: later. 

Alex: And like- You don't have a Shadowless 

Pulse Glazer: Charizard?

No, I wish. I wish. I wish 

Alex: too. 

Pulse Glazer: I could have. But 

Alex: I know. I, I think back those days, man, I remember my buddy sold like a Shadowless Char- Charizard for like a, to a local game store for like 20 bones. He thought he was like a millionaire. I'm like, "Bro, we should have known better." I bet... How many of you guys in the comments had like OG Pokemon cards, like in your bike spokes and stuff like that?

I bet you there's a lot of people that did stuff like that. 

Pulse Glazer: Who back then thought Pokemon was gonna be the biggest card and video game franchise ever? It was supposed to be Beanie Babies. Like that silly little Game Boy? That silly little game for the Game Boy is what took over the world for the next 30 years?

I would have never guessed. There's... If you gave me 100 guesses back then, I would have guessed so many other things. What are you gonna do? But hey, if you really, really wanna appreciate Snap this helped change my perspective. I played Raid: Shadow Legends for six months. And uh, let me just tell you, you would spend real money there and be like, "Oh, I got literal garbage."

Like, not even commons, right? Like, literal, or literal nothing to do. I got things that I could then do more work so that I can use them to make more things not very good. The sheer amount of money you have to spend on most mobile games to be remotely competitive, the sheer amount of money you have to spend on most card games to be remotely competitive, Marvel Snap is generous.

It might not be as generous as you want it, and it's certainly not perfect But when you compare it to everything else that exists in its space that has not died, it is generous. 

Alex: So what we're gonna do here is I want to encourage everyone in the comment section. This isn't just like fake YouTuber engagement bait.

I actually would love to know if you guys have ideas or thoughts on, first of all, your experience with the monetization of Marvel Snap. If you're free to play, your experience is honestly super valuable to hear how you manage to be competitive. I would legitimately like to see that. If you're someone who buys a season pass once in a while if the cards are out, every single one of your opinions matters.

I would love to read through them and I'm sure perhaps Second Dinner might take some time to read through them as well. Would love to hear what your experiences are and how you feel the monetization system can be improved. Because at the end of the day, if everyone listening right now does try to put their minds to resolving this ongoing challenge, then there just might be some gold in the comments that might actually change the course of the game.

So I do encourage you guys to let your voices heard, both negative, positive, whatever constructive feedback you have available. Would love to absolutely see that. And what I also would love to see you do is check out Snap Judgments because I think that Pulse is doing an absolutely phenomenal job. You have been absolutely committed to this game and I think you're doing remarkable work.

Pulse Glazer: Thank you, my friend. I'm going to go one step further on your reply to this video. Reply to this video. I promise to read every comment for the first week or so. I'm not going to come back in a month. But for the first week or so, I'm going to read every comment. And any idea that I like, I'm going to send to Second Dinner personally.

I will promise that if you present an idea or a point that I haven't heard before that I think is a really good idea, I will personally take it to Second Dinner. Let's go. There you go. You got the avenue to make change. Be the change you want to see in Marvel Snap. Thank you so much for watching, everyone.

Alex: We sincerely appreciate each and every single one of you. Down in the description and in the pinned comment, you're going to see Pulse Glazier's Snap channel, Snap Judgments, and of course, definitely follow along on YouTube and Twitch. Pulse, once again, thank you so much for joining us this week. And for you guys listening, we'll see you on the next one.