Best Anti-Venom Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide

Anti-Venom is the next Series 5 card joining Marvel Snap for the October season We Are Venom. It is a 4-Cost, 7-Power card that reads: On Reveal: Set the Cost and Power of your deck’s top card to 0. Today, we will take a deeper look at the new card and, of course, the best decks to try it out in.

Spotlight Cache

Series 5 cards can be purchased for 6,000 Collector’s Tokens from the Token Shop initially as a Weekly Spotlight card, or opened as one of the featured cards in the Spotlight Caches that are found every 120 Levels on the Collection Level Track after Collection Level 500 (until the next new card releases the following week).

Spotlight Cache Week of October 29, 2024: Are Anti-Venom, Supergiant, and Ghost-Spider Worth It?

Strengths and Weaknesses

Anti-Venom is a card that needs to be paired with the best ability you can find, regardless of the cost, because the goal is to get that ability for free. Naturally, this piques my greed radar, and I looked for the strongest abilities that could be paired with Anti-Venom. Most of those cards already have a low power due to their ability, so I’m really just looking for the biggest possible cost reduction.

A lot of cards here could form a Mister Negative deck, either the On Reveal version with Wong, Sage, Cassandra Nova, and Taskmaster or the Destroy-oriented version with Arnim Zola and Knull.

You might also spot a few interesting targets for any kind of deck, such as Iron Man, Leader, Valkyrie, and Professor X. I could have included Darkhawk as well.

Finally, there’s the intriguing duo of Shuri and Blob. This could potentially push a high power cards deck, but Anti-Venom doesn’t seam to synergize super well with that.

In addition to strong abilities, you can also look one step further and find cards that help you get the most out of those cheap abilities. One solid ability for free is nice, but two might be even better:

So, there are certainly cards with good potential to pair with Anti-Venom, but it is the ability to go nuts that will determine the success of the new card. Indeed, the goal of this game is to Snap, and these are the cards that should make that possible. Fortunately, both Misery and Grand Master are pretty good at the moment, which gives Anti-Venom a pair of strong allies to synergize with.

Another important card to consider with Anti-Venom is Shadow King. Not only is the card a great asset in the current meta, it could also restore the power of the card hit by Anti-Venom. Another way to mitigate the loss of power is to pair Anti-Venom with Lockjaw. If you don’t like the card you hit, you have the ability to swap it with a card from your deck.

Moving on to the weaknesses now, here’s a card I feel like I’ve included in every new card review this season:

Mobius M. Mobius could also be listed here, but that card has been absent from the Marvel Snap meta for a while now. Sure, it is very simple to slot it back into most decks if Anti-Venom was to shape the meta, but I don’t think you should expect to run into many opponents playing Mobius M. Mobius before the new 4-Cost has proven its worth.

Since you are pretty safe from Mobius M. Mobius, you might as well push the cost reduction a little further. I mean, Anti-Venom is a 4-Cost card after all, as are Misery and some of the other synergistic cards I discussed earlier.

The Verdict

I didn’t have high expectations for Anti-Venom, but I believe the card is coming in at the perfect time. Misery was recently buffed and has a couple of decks doing well, and the same is true for Zabu (which has been growing more popular lately).

Anti-Venom looks more like a cool under-the-radar kind of card that could enable some fairly safe Snaps when you hit certain targets. Still, the current meta features a lot of reliable decks, so a new high-rolled based card could also force you to Retreat a ton when your deck doesn’t go according to plan.

Pre-Release Score:

Misery Decks

Misery destroys your cards, which means their power is not relevant, and Shadow King can restore the power anyway after you’ve played your free card. With this in mind, Anti-Venom immediately has two cards to group with to create a trio that you can slot in almost any deck with powerful On Reveal abilities.

Darkhawk immediately comes to mind, and so does Mill (an archetype that’s been on the rise lately). If you dig a little deeper and try to find a home for cards like Professor X, Valkyrie, and other strong but very situational abilities, Thanos might fit the bill thanks to the Infinity Stones serving as great Misery targets.

On Reveal Decks

It might feel weird to split the Misery and On Reveal decks, but Misery pushes tempo-oriented strategies while these ideas are more combo based. This second category might be weaker when it comes to results, but it might also be more suited to Anti-Venom‘s strengths since there are many more targets in these decks.

In any of the three decks featured here, roughly half of the deck represents a good hit and enables an explosive Turn 6. It would also allow you to hide more information from your opponent in the turns leading up the final one. In addition, Agent Venom serves as a huge energy cheating engine in the same way that Sera or Wave do.

The difference, however, is that you can’t fully predict what Anti-Venom will (or won’t) enable. Indeed, if the opponent always thinks you hit the jackpot, they will Retreat unless they have a counter card like Alioth. Anti-Venom isn’t a way to open your possibilities like Sera, but it also isn’t as predictable since your opponent can’t count the fact that Odin is now a 5-Cost or White Tiger is a 4-Cost. With Anti-Venom, you could potentially play Black Panther and Odin together on Turn 6 for a huge power swing.

With this in mind, the opponent will have to wonder whether your strange Turn 5 play was because you didn’t have White Tiger, or because your card costs nothing and you didn’t have to play it that turn.

Lockjaw

Lockjaw has not been competitive in quite some time, so this is probably just wishful thinking. Still, the possibility to just recycle a bad Anti-Venom hit is very appealing, in addition to making Zabu an even better 1-Cost with three targets in the deck.

I still have two questions about this deck, though. First, what is the 12th card? I have Kate Bishop in that slot to generate more Lockjaw fodder, but it could easily be Madame Web to move cards out of Lockjaw‘s lane or a counter card like Killmonger. Second, how heavy should you go on the potential Anti-Venom targets? This deck is different from the other ones because it has Lockjaw to recycle a useless card if it has no power. As such, you can play more cards with a high power and not care as much about Anti-Venom‘s influence like the other builds.

Variants

Closing Thoughts

Anti-Venom seems like a Misery card to me. It looks niche, it will probably lead to a lot of Retreats when it doesn’t work as planned, and it might be called a bad card on social media quickly after it releases. But keep in mind that, after a week, Misery found a deck, and then another one, and it got a little power buff. Misery is now on the short list of synergies that are able to rival Agent Venom in the current meta.

I can’t say Anti-Venom will be worth the purchase, but I wouldn’t rule it out so quickly.

I hope this review of the new card was helpful. Feel free to share your opinions and excitement about the card in the comments. You can find everyone on the Marvel Snap Zone team in our community discord to have a chat or ask any questions.

Good Game Everyone!