Cow Swarm – 88% Win Rate – Average 4.04 Cubes per Game – July 2022 Post-Patch

88% win rate on 1st July 2022. 469 net cube gain over 116 games.

This deck is cheap, it only has a single pool 3 card (it’s a good one, but Lady Sif is almost as good). It very consistently manages to play every card it draws very little energy wastage. It gains 10 – 55 power on turn 6; averaging at around 20 power – and you typically have some freedom with which locations you distribute those stats to.

How to play:

• Spend your energy on turns 1 – 4, typically only saving Blade, Hell Cow and Swarm.
• Your aim is to empty your hand of everything other than swarms by the end of turn 5. Discarding the Swarm (sometimes more than once) to get more swarms.
• Turn 6 is America Chavez and swarms.

Insights:

• Blade first, then Hell Cow gives you 4 (ideally buffed) swarms. Sometimes you won’t have the board space for that, so Hell Cow first then Blade gives you 3. only Blade or only Hell Cow gives you 2. If you’ve managed to play Strong Guy, it’s important not to generate more swarms than you can play.
• Nightcrawler is mainly here for the Angela synergy (you can get her to trigger one more time).
• This deck needs all 3 lanes open to play out all the cards and maximise value. Anything that closes a lane or makes it unattractive to play lots of cards to is a prime Scarlet Witch target. Otherwise, just turn off any lanes which your opponent can gain more benefit from than you. You sometimes low-roll, but it’s usually just worth taking the risk (just playing the card for the raw stats), unless you have a massive lead.
• Conventional wisdom seems to suggest that you play Bishop before Nakia. I disagree if you have 1 drop in hand. Nakia on 3, Bishop + 1 drop on 4 is 1 power better than Bishop on 3, Nakia + 1 drop on 4. However, because buffing Swarm is so good, I’d wait wait to 4 if I don’t yet have a swarm in hand.
• I keep a running model of what my turn 4 and 5 is likely to look like, in order to determine whether I need to be spending energy on earlier turns, or can be greedy and hold off for more value (from buffs, or playing after Angela, or Bishop activations). If you find yourself discarding cards which aren’t swarm, then you wasting power and you are probably trying to be too greedy. 
• You can potentially afford to be slightly greedier on the energy curve. There’s an argument for Lady Sif over Blade… but you run the risk of not being able to use all your energy if you push it too far.

FAQ:

• I don’t have Hell Cow, what should I replace it with?
  Lady Sif is almost as good, and is a pool 1 card.
• What do you think about Apocalypse instead of Chavez?
  It’s more fun, and has a bigger potential pay-off, but isn’t as consistent.
• How does this compare with Vin’s Sera deck?
  I would be running a Sera deck if I had the card. I expect my deck to do slightly better when comparing the unluckiest 25% of draws, and Vin’s to do slightly better 75% of the time. Vin’s deck also leads to a slightly more surprising swing turn, which is great for farming bots and unsuspecting humans.
• You keep stressing consistency, surely that isn’t important in Snap?
  Conventional wisdom states you can run higher variance decks, because you can retreat for 1 cube when you get unlucky, and snap for more when you win. I understand the theoretical argument… In practice I’ve just found that I climb quicker if I aim to win every game. Your mileage may vary.

Credentials:

I play as Agent Carter. At time of writing I’m 5th in Atlantis Beach Boogie. This is the most successful deck I’ve been played since the 2.0.2 patch on 30th June 2022. I have a 88% win rate with this deck (102 wins, 14 losses), gaining 469 cubes over 116 games, for an average of 4.04 cubes per game. This deck isn’t flashy, it doesn’t have huge high-roll potential, but it has been very consistent.

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