Table of Contents
Welcome to our series of Marvel Snap guides, where we feature a new Series 4 or 5 card and analyze how to use it. The goal is to give you a tutorial on how to use the card most effectively in an everchanging meta, as well as help you decide if the card is worth the tokens or if you should pick it up during a Spotlight Cache week!
We will aim to revise this guide each time it becomes featured in a Spotlight Cache. If the card becomes rebalanced or the meta has changed a lot, please let us know in the comments and we will look to update it based on demand!
Decks with Copycat
How to Use Copycat
Copycat is a passive disruption tool. She gives you a way to interact with your opponent without needing to spend energy. Her only mandatory cost is including her in your deck. If you steal a good ability, you can choose to use her! If you steal an unhelpful ability, you can play her for stats, or utilize her secondary benefit.
Her secondary benefit is gathering information about your opponent. One of the best ways to win is to know your opponent’s deck, the cards they have, and the cards they don’t have. If Copycat steals Shang-Chi, you can use that knowledge in several ways. You can play your big cards early without worrying about that Shang-Chi. You can utilize your new [3/5] Shang-Chi to surprise your opponent. Most importantly, you can use that information to Snap your opponent early and lock in more cubes!
Best Synergies
Since Copycat steals the text from the bottom card of your opponent’s deck, she has some interesting interactions with Rocks! Using Korg and Rockslide will shuffle a Rock into your opponent’s deck. That shuffle will change the order of all the cards in your opponent’s deck, which means that bottom card with no text could now be the top card of their deck! Because of that game mechanic, Korg and Rockslide work perfectly with Copycat to further disrupt your opponent.
It is worth noting that the Rocks can also potentially offer a counter as well. If you shuffle in a Rock before drawing Copycat, you could steal the Rock‘s text and gain zero benefit. While the chances aren’t guaranteed to happen each game, it can still happen and should be factored into the synergy.
Decks with Rockslide
As a 3-Cost, Copycat has the traditional synergy with Silver Surfer. She offers a passive tool to those decks of information, with a possible game-winning ability if she steals a good textbox.
Decks with Silver Surfer
Mill cards also work well with Copycat to make sure your opponent gets annoyed in every way possible. Since she steals the last card of the deck, your opponent often won’t draw that dud card. With mill, they may either get milled enough to find the dud, or you can safely summon it with Gladiator without triggering an ability.
Decks with Yondu
Decks with Baron Zemo
Decks with Gladiator
One additional positive trait that Copycat possess is immunity from Loki. Because her steal ability only triggers when you DRAW her, an opponent who gets her from Loki will get a [3/5] Copycat with no ability! If you are building an anti-Loki deck, Copycat can be a strong option for both information and weakening Loki‘s capabilities.
Meta Competitive Deck
PulseGlazer
This deck is one of Copycat‘s best! For one play line, you use the Kitty Pryde and Thena package for Power. For the other, you have the Darkhawk package. Copycat uses her synergy with Korg and Rockslide here to increase her disruption abilities. With the ability you stole, you give yourself some potential new options for both of your play lines. You also get the information you need to help plan your early plays best.
Fun Off-Meta Deck
CanadianAlfredo
Like the traditional Mill deck? Copycat slides perfectly into that deck by replacing Maximus. As highlighted in her synergies, Mill helps Copycat truly annoy your opponent while also giving you safer plays with Gladiator. Her ability steal does have the possibility of harming your Baron Zemo pulls, but knowing the text you stole can help you decide if using Baron Zemo is even worth it.
This deck would be much more competitive, but this meta is currently unfavorable for Mill. This is solely due to the massive popularity of Arishem, who makes milling your opponent impossible. With that in mind, this deck is simply for fun.
Weaknesses and Things to Avoid
Unfortunately, Arishem removes much of the benefits that Copycat offers. The intel you get will often be meaningless, and removing a key ability from your opponent’s deck could mean nothing since Arishem could just shuffle in another copy. This makes Arishem a soft counter.
Decks with Arishem
If Copycat steals a negative ability from your opponent’s cards, you could actually help your opponent if they manage to draw it. Or you simply will have a harmful [3/5] that you don’t want to play. A few examples of bad pulls would be The Infinaut, Ebony Maw, Typhoid Mary, and Attuma.
If you ever see too much Copycat and want to run a deck to counter her, run cards like these (like in a classic Sauron Shuri deck). This gives you the benefits and your opponent loses a playable card.
Decks with The Infinaut
Decks with Ebony Maw
Decks with Typhoid Mary
Decks with Attuma
While unlikely to be a common issue, Patriot can boost cards hit by Copycat. With their ability stolen, they become “No Ability” cards that Patriot can buff.
Closing Thoughts
Copycat has shown herself to be a solid card in many decks, and she’s great in decks built around disruption. Her passive intel can single-handedly win you games, as well as the possibility of high-rolling a good ability. She does suffer from a heavy Arishem meta like we’re in now, but I suspect her playability will increase once Arishem gets tweaked or his play rate naturally drops. Overall, I find the card to be a great pickup in a cache, and possibly worth 6K Collector’s Tokens if you enjoy disruption decks.
Is Copycat worth using 6K Collector’s Tokens?
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