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Marvel Snap’s newest season Fantastic 4: First Steps has been announced, and with it was datamined the new card Fantasticar behind the “Super Premium” portion of the Season Pass. While it was not clear in the Developer Update video, we will work on the assumption it is still being released this way and update accordingly if not.
There’s a lot to look at here, so this article will give my thoughts on the card itself, its usage, and if Super Premium cards are acceptable or not. If you are more interested in knowing my thoughts on Super Premium cards, skip towards the bottom. I will start with a card analysis first though as I think it’s an important part of the discussion.
Fantasticar Uses and Synergy
Decks with Fantasticar
Fantasticar is a 4-Cost, 7-Power Series 4 card with the ability “Activate: Give your End of Turn cards +2 Power.” Activate is a super limited mechanic on high Cost cards since you can’t Activate until the following turn the card was played. This makes Fantasticar only usable if played on turn 4 or 5 without assistance.
If you want to get Fantasticar on the board sooner than turn 4, Zabu and Psylocke can help ramp out a turn 3 play.
At the time of release, Fantasticar has 16 potential “end of turn” targets:
- Sunspot
- Hydra Bob
- Adam Warlock
- Havok
- Thena
- Bruce Banner
- Strange Supreme
- Thaddeus Ross
- Black Cat
- Marvel Boy
- Makkari
- Doctor Doom 2099
- Attuma
- Eson
- Red Hulk
- Mister Fantastic First Steps
As the season continues, the Human Torch First Steps and The Thing First Steps will bring that total to 18. Evolved Misty Knight is also technically an end of turn card, but she requires High Evolutionary in the deck as well. Not every card here will make a good deck with Fantasticar, but they are all technically options you have to work with. Ignoring the new cards that obviously are designed to synergize together.
I really only see a handful of useful cards here. Hydra Bob, Makkari, Adam Warlock, and Marvel Boy stand out as the most practical of the set.
Fantasticar Decks
This take on the classic zoo deck puts a heavy focus on end of turn cards that generate extra value. It’s very flexible in card slots with how many tools zoo has available, so you don’t have to own ever card. You could spin the deck into a Zoo + Doom 2099 deck as well. Adam Warlock might seem odd here, but he works well to either draw your deck, or stay on theme of growing passive Power.
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This is a spin on a similar Doom 2099 deck that centers around Ongoing. Mister Fantastic First Steps is an interesting potential ramp card to get those big cards out early, or play multiple 6-Cost cards. The deck also includes Hydra Bob for not only an end of turn card, but also a way to protect locations from Doom 2099 clog.
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As mentioned earlier, High Evolutionary is a potential option for Fantasticar. If we were to build a thematic deck with all the Fantastic Four cards available, we probably would keep High Evolutionary in the mix, at least until more end of turn abilities join the game.
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Fantasticar Verdict
This card is cool in concept, but it’s releasing way too soon. There aren’t nearly enough cards with “end of turn” text to make functional decks with it. When you combine that with the fact that it is only useful on two specific turns AND you have to draw and play end of turn cards to even buff. The card is clearly meant to support more of these upcoming end of turn cards, but Fantasticar still looks super clunky thanks to the high Cost and Activate text.
As more cards with “end of turn” texts are released, Fantasticar will grow in usefulness. For now though, this is an easy skip card. It needs to either cost less energy, or be an On Reveal. The card itself has high stat potential for a 4-Cost, but without a proper amount of targets to hit, it’s never actually getting consistent value.
Are Super Premium Cards Okay?
This is Second Dinner’s latest attempt at making the Super Premium more worth the extra cost. I personally think this is a terrible time to launch it coming off of the Kid Omega drama, but I also understand this idea was scheduled and locked in well before players voiced their feedback about things.
As for the idea itself, I think it’s acceptable under specific circumstances:
After analyzing Fantasticar, it definitely looks like a lackluster card in my opinion. If every Super Premium card is mid to lackluster at the time of launch, is that pay to win? Not necessarily. It’s more along the lines of play to early access the card. Part of Kid Omega‘s frustration is the card has a lot of different applications and pairs well with Nimrod decks. If that card released as a Super Premium, I would not be happy. So basically, if this new paid tier of card is released as a skippable, don’t have to own, style of card, I think it’s not hurting the free to play community. The game needs to make money in different ways, and if whales want to playtest mediocre cards before they are released to the public, I’m all for it.
The other aspect to consider here is the season pass card. Gatekeeping a card behind a Seasonal paywall has existed for the entirety of Marvel Snap’s history. This hasn’t been an issue in the past, and many season pass cards have even released incredibly strong (Silver Surfer, Galacta, Zabu, etc) So while the timing feels very awkward to release this new card release style, I think it’s important to remember the community has had no issue with a paywalled card for years now.
The final piece of this question is the ongoing use of it. Like all new things Second Dinner tries out, your voice makes an impact. If the majority of the community hates this super premium idea, they can scrap the idea. If players are okay with it with circumstances (like me saying they can’t be strong cards), they could keep it using those parameters. If players don’t say much besides “I’m not paying for that”, then they will continue the concept in whichever direction the money stacks the highest.
Wrap Up
To summarize my thoughts, I think Fantasticar is a very skippable card. It has high value potential, but a lot of things have to play out perfectly to make that happen. It may be a card that is great down the road, but it isn’t worth seeking out right now. As long as this mediocre kind of card is the super premium card, I see no problem with it. I personally have no intentions of buying super premium this season because the card doesn’t interest me. I will just wait four weeks and buy it with Tokens after more “end of turn” cards are released. The moment SD starts releasing strong, deck defining cards into Super Premium, I will quickly shift my view to a negative stance.
What are your thoughts on Super Premium cards? Will you be buying it? Do you like Fantasticar? Let us know in the comments!
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