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As Season 5: Symbiote Invasion kicks off, everyone who purchased the season pass will get Miles Morales as a reward. The card has some big shoes to fill, as many players (rightly or wrongly), regard Nick Fury and Daredevil as disappointments.
The new card has some upside compared to its predecessors, though. The fact that it should routinely cost 1, giving its owner an extra explosive possibility on a later turn to surprise their opponent, looks important.
One could focus on the condition to get it to a 1-Cost, which means you’d want to run move cards. The Move archetype is barely considered a competitive deck. Meanwhile, the package of cards aimed at moving your opponent’s cards have fallen short of being included in reactive decks, for more impactful, disruptive cards.
As a result, it is easy to understand both points of view around Miles Morales, whether it is the hype around a potentially new explosive tool, or the anxiety around being related to move archetypes.
In this piece, let’s take a look at the reasons to believe in Miles Morales, and try to give a little credit to those buying into the hype around the card.
Miles Morales: Gameplay and Strategy
Something that I think separates Miles Morales from the previous Season Pass cards is that it actually isn’t so simple to figure out where is the card at its best.
If we look at Nick Fury or Daredevil, most players figured the kind of decks they would contribute to. For Nick Fury, the Handsize archetype was a match made in heaven, and immediately, the success of the card was attached to how good the archetype would perform.
Daredevil had a little more flexibility, but only fit reactive decks, mostly playing Hobgoblin or Professor X, as the card would help maximize their efficiency. Once again, if defensive decks were doing great in the metagame, Daredevil would almost instantly disappear as a result.
If we look at Miles Morales, the card feels much harder to associate to a specific archetype or play style. Of course, the move archetype comes directly to mind when reading the card’s ability. Yet, moving cards can be achieved in several ways, on our or the opponent’s side of the board. Also, if the move archetype is struggling, some of its cards have a nice play rate, and can be splashed in other archetypes.
Nightcrawler and Iron Fist have been featured in various archetypes as good 1-Costs, notoriously working well with Angela. Juggernaut and Magneto are cards that have seen play in reactive archetypes, with the former synergizing with Storm, and the latter synergizing with many On-Reveal cards.
Considering this, it feels much harder to guess where Miles Morales will end up being at its best. It can be another proactive tool for a deck looking to develop as many points as possible. Or it can be a free, flexible 1-Cost card that allows a defensive deck to develop some surprise points in the later turns.
This complexity to the card leads to many decks being potential considerations for Miles Morales, so let’s explore those options.
The Obvious Move Deck Inclusion
The move archetype was in dire need of some help in order to find the competitive groove it lost a while back.
With Miles Morales, the deck gets a guaranteed five power card for only one energy cost as long as the deck draws the card at some point in the game.
Obviously, Miles Morales won’t become a win condition like Human Torch, Vulture, or Multiple Man can be in the deck. Yet, with Dagger struggling to work efficiently in the current metagame, Miles Morales feels like it could contribute to a similar role while being much more flexible to use.
Another Cheap Tool For Kazoo
The Kazoo archetype received some nice help in patch 6.9, and could get a bit more with Miles Morales.
Although the deck doesn’t rely on moving cards as a potential win condition, Nightcrawler and Iron Fist have seen play in the archetype for a long time now, which might be enough. Any of these two being drawn by turn five lets us play a free five power card next turn.
While it doesn’t change the deck, and might not even be happening often enough to justify running over other options available to the deck, the Miles Morales route at least feels worthy of exploration.
A Bouncing Spider
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This is the deck I’m most excited to test Miles Morales in, as there are several ways to try to abuse the card.
In addition to Nightcrawler and Iron Fist being in the deck, and the ability to bounce them in case we would have played them and then drew Miles Morales. The Bounce archetype also features Moon Girl, which could enable a nice play pattern of copying Miles Morales on turn four, activating a move effect on turn five, and getting two Miles Morales for free on turn six.
Depending on how reliably we can pull this off with just Nightcrawler and Iron Fist, Cloak could be an additional support card to consider in the deck, as its synergy with Angela makes it decent in the deck.
Flexible Points For Reactive Decks
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Decks looking to mitigate what their opponent is able to do usually welcome a very flexible use of their points.
Activating Miles Morales can happen through moving opposing cards in this deck. Theoretically, we’re looking to play it on turn six, as a way to make sure we aren’t wasting the card on a location we didn’t need the points. I would consider it a reactive tool in the deck, as a way to be explosive on the last location we need to fight for to secure the game.
As opposed to in proactive decks, who should slam Miles Morales whenever they get a chance, I see the card as an opportunity to match the opponent’s turn six more easily. Once the game progressed, there typically is a location we managed to lock down, one we are behind and a somewhat tied one. Miles Morales should be great in order to surprise our opponent on the location we were trailing, or to make sure we win the most contested one.
Closing Words
While writing this piece, another wave of balance changes were announced. Mister Negative, Bishop, Nakia and Magik have been modified, and several of the currently dominant archetypes should be back to the drawing board.
As a result, it might be the perfect time to try some previously unable-to-compete archetype, like Move or Bounce, and see what they can do now. Considering that Miles Morales feels flexible enough to be tested in various builds, there should be a fun period of testing with him, at the very least.
Have a build you want to share with us? Feel free to join our community discord and share it! As for myself, you can find me directly on Twitter.
Good Game Everyone,
