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Beta Ray Bill is the final Series 5 card for the January 2024 Season, Planet Hulk. It is a 4-Cost, 6-Power card that reads: On Reveal: Shuffle Stormbreaker into your deck. Stormbreaker is a 0-Cost, 1-Power card that reads: On Reveal: Double Beta Ray Bill’s Power. Today, we will take a deeper look at the new card and, of course, the best decks to try it out in.
Decks with Beta Ray Bill
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).
Strengths and Weaknesses
The old champion arrives in the arena! Beta Ray Bill has an effect that is a combination of Thor and Daken. Like Thor, it puts another 0-Cost card into your deck that, when played, doubles the power of Beta Ray Bill – just like Daken. The downside is that you still need to draw Stormbreaker from your deck to double the power on Beta Ray Bill, which means you have more cards in your deck and less of a chance to draw the card without assistance. Is this a big enough downside, or is Beta Ray Bill about to consistently be 12+ power card for four energy?
Decks with Jane Foster Mighty Thor
Decks with Odin
The main beneficiary of this card’s release is Jane Foster Mighty Thor. It has been effective at supporting Thor for a long time, and Beta Ray Bill only improves the card’s effectiveness by making it less likely to be a weak play on Turn 5. It becomes much more consistent with the release of this card, and it’s already one of the few cards that can draw multiple cards from your deck. Now it has another excellent target, which improves any deck that relied on this interaction. There are two clear directions: the Hit Monkey + lots of cards strategy, and Lockjaw.
Decks with Lockjaw
It is hard to imagine Beta Ray Bill as anything other than a positive inclusion in the classic Lockjaw decks. Lockjaw on Turn 3 into Thor or Beta Ray Bill on Turn 4 increases the consistency of ensuring you have a big hammer to pull on Turn 5. Also, the deck’s back up plan is now really clear. You can play Thor on Turn 3, Beta Ray Bill on Turn 4, Jane Foster Mighty Thor on Turn 5, and then a simple Odin on Turn 6. That is 16 power on Thor, 24 power on Beta Ray Bill, and 8 power from both Jane Foster Mighty Thor and Odin. This will win lots of games of Marvel Snap. Remember, Hammers into Odin will double Beta Ray Bill twice. The power ceiling of these decks is increased with this release more than it seems.
Decks with Werewolf By Night
The 0-Cost Hammers synergize well with cards like Hit Monkey and Werewolf By Night. If Beta Ray Bill can end on 12 power and buff other cards with the same play, that will be the more flexible direction to take the card.
Decks with Grand Master
This is all before we even look at trying to really abuse the effect of Beta Ray Bill. The recently released Grand Master, for example, is stronger with this card than it is with Black Panther since the move effect results in Beta Ray Bill ending on 24 power. That makes the combination of Grand Master and Beta Ray Bill potentially lane winning without having to expend as much energy, which allows this duo to be added to decks that can win other lanes on their own. You can also look at buffing the power of Beta Ray Bill with cards like Forge before playing Stormbreaker. Any buff effects are duplicated, and this could easily be included within other strategies.
Decks with Shadow King
Decks with Shang-Chi
Shadow King and Shang-Chi are the obvious counter cards. You cannot often build to protect from these with Beta Ray Bill, but you can play to try and use Stormbreaker after these cards can be played. Still, these two will be threats to consider when playing this card.
The Verdict
Beta Ray Bill is entering into a favorable meta that is focused on putting big stats down efficiently. It easily supports some established decks, and it clearly improves their power level. While this is not the type of card that is going to shift decks significantly, the pure power that can be generated alongside other cards that already want to support each other raises the ceilings of these decks, and Beta Ray Bill may be about to compete with the other high stat strategies we have seen this month.
Potential Score:
Lockjaw
SafetyBlade
This is a Lockjaw deck that is based around playing one (or two) of the Hammer generators before playing Jane Foster Mighty Thor on Turn 5. This sets up your buffs while hopefully playing into the Lockjaw lane to pull bigger things from your deck. In theory, the plan is this: Turn 3 Thor -> Turn 4 Beta Ray Bill -> Turn 5 Jane Foster Mighty Thor -> play multiple Hammers, possibly into Lockjaw. This deck is trying Legion over another big card since it wants to be disruptive with the rest of the deck.
SafetyBlade
This version drops parts of the previous deck to add Evolved Wasp, High Evolutionary, and Evolved Hulk for more stats while maintaining the same amount of 0-Cost plays. This is in line with how these decks have played for some time, and I just added Beta Ray Bill as another pay off for the Jane Foster play on Turn 5.
SafetyBlade
Finally, here is a build that can hopefully utilize Grand Master to its best alongside the power of Beta Ray Bill. Grand Master gives you the ability to move an On Reveal card out of the Lockjaw lane while also swapping with a card in deck. This gives you room to play more cards in Lockjaw‘s location and simultaneously reactivate some high value On Reveal cards – including the Hammers themselves.
Hit Monkey
SafetyBlade
This deck is looking to use the 0-Cost part of the Hammers to support everyone’s favorite Monkey. You have multiple 1-drops alongside Beast to bounce them and create even more 0-Cost plays for Hit Monkey, and you can play Thor and/or Beta Ray Bill to improve Jane Foster Mighty Thor, too. Yellowjacket is another 0-Cost card with the goal of supporting Jane Foster’s draws and also Werewolf By Night. The dream here is this: Thor into Beta Ray Bill into Jane Foster Mighty Thor into Werewolf By Night or Hit Monkey on Turn 6 with multiple cards to buff your power output.
Grand Master
SafetyBlade
This version is potentially too greedy, but it’s worth looking at as a potential way to play the card. Here you use the Asgardians alongside an all-in Grand Master package. This includes Wong and Zabu to give you multiple ways of reactivating Hammers on Turn 6. This makes Thor and Beta Ray Bill a tag team that can both aim to win a lane by themselves.
Buff Cards
SafetyBlade
The more niche direction with Beta Ray Bill is the buff synergy. This card takes all buffs and duplicates them with the Hammer play. One way you can include the buff package and potentially push Beta Ray Bill to higher power outcomes is in an all-in buff deck that is supported by Silver Surfer. This deck includes Sebastian Shaw, Daken, Brood, and Beta Ray Bill, all of which can take extra advantage from buffs. With most of these also supported by Silver Surfer (and with Thor as well), the synergies are there.
Control Cards
SafetyBlade
For the final deck, I wanted to use the Asgardians as the power cards and play the best Control cards you can alongside them. Thor and Beta Ray Bill can gain power on the final turn, which means you can throw priority after playing these cards for the last turn. One synergy that might be missed is that the Hammers are both unique costs AND will activate Ms. Marvel. This makes trying to use the buff easier since neither of them cost energy and could potentially activate both sides without having to spread your cards awkwardly.
Variants
Closing Thoughts
Beta Ray Bill is unassuming, but the pure stats are easy to calculate. It’s easy to see how you’re supposed to achieve those stats, too. It is unlikely that this card doesn’t find a home, and I think it has the potential to bring some of these decks into real contention.
Good Luck, Have Fun, and Stay Safe!
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