June 2024 Series Drop Guide: A Ranking of Which Cards to Target

Series Drops have returned to Marvel Snap and they are… controversial. A number of excellent cards are dropping from Series 5 to Series 4; however, the Series 4 to Series 3 change leads mostly to more Series 3 bloat, increasing quantity, but not quality. While that’s frustrating for those who have been waiting six months for, say Darkhawk, Zabu, or Knull to drop, there are also now a plethora of underused cards that will be in more players’ hands.

Marvel Snap Series Drop June 2024: The Drop Is Coming

Ages ago, when Stature dropped, the meta was shaken and new archetypes were born. Can that happen again? Let’s take a look at each card, a deck for each, and rank them from the ones you should target first to last.

Cards Going from Series 4 to Series 3

5 cards are going from Series 4 to Series 3, which means they go from purchasable with 3,000 Collector’s Tokens to available in one of the three following ways:

• You can get them from a regular Collector’s Reserve.
• You can use the random 1,000 tokens for a Series 3 card.
• You can use the free monthly Series 3 card on one of these.

Way #1 is entirely random, and it’s not efficient or suggested anyone use precious Tokens on way #2. That leaves the free Series 3 pull. If you’re early or mid-Series 3, there are far better pulls (Hela, She-Hulk, Venom, Patriot, Mystique, etc) than even the best of these cards, but as you near the end of your Series 3 journey, these may prove valuable in completing a deck. Here are the rankings for each of the new Series 3 cards.

5. Howard the Duck

Howard the Duck is a mostly fun card. He offers some Snap equity by letting you know if you’ll see a key card or combo piece and is often quite useful for Jubilee or Iron Lad. Given it’s a 1-Cost Ongoing, also good for the occasional Ongoing combo, why is this number 5?

Howard comes with a huge opportunity cost. Playing a [1/2] that is useful, honestly, one in every few games, is just bad value in Marvel Snap, a game where many great decks forego one-cost cards altogether. If a one is run, it usually has a more impactful synergy – Nico Minoru for Destroy or Bounce, Nebula for clog – and Howard just can’t compete there.

But now Howard is Series 3, and so he’s competing less directly with those cards. That could help him over time, though my bet is early utility mainstays like Iceman or power mainstays like Ant Man will keep him at best purely marginal.

4. Martyr

I’m letting popular consensus and win rate here overrule my personal preference. Martyr‘s downside of literally turning a win into a loss is just about as frustrating as any card could be. People just don’t want to deal with that downside at all.

But there are good homes for Martyr. Zoo decks fill the board, and often make Martyr a [1/7] using Ka-Zar and Blue Marvel. That’s awesome given that when she can’t move, there’s no downside at all. She can also find home in Lockdown lists, too, where either in a Professor X lane, she can win, particularly when paired with Ravonna Renslayer so that both she and Professor X can be played on 5. Even when that isn’t her lane though, Professor X limits space enough to often win the game.

But that downside. Yeah, it feels really bad when she does her effect.

3. Silver Samurai

Silver Samurai has found a home in the metagame at a few points. He’s excellent at discarding Blob, both for Hela decks and against the card, and can disrupt decks like The Living Tribunal by getting rid of Iron Man. Some decks use him offensively – most notably to get Stature out or to set up combinations using Iron Man and Ghost Rider. All of these decks are fun, but not actually meta except in very specific circumstances.

Samurai did have one brief meta home – he’s quite good in classic Apocalypse-based discard. If you enjoy that deck, particularly the Daken variants, then Samurai can be great. Unfortunately for Samurai, he was not only power-crept out of the deck of Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive, but that deck as a whole took a huge hit due to the prevalence of Red Guardian in the meta.

At some point though, Silver Samurai will be back, a good card to own, and, well, it is very fun.

2. Mirage

Again, this is up here due to popular consensus, not my own perception. Mirage has one and only one home, but those who like her in that deck swear by her.

Mirage is a Loki card. Getting an extra card and good power for tempo is very useful, and the plus 2-Power to the card she copies is often quite good. But Cable is another early Series card, has one more base power than Mirage does, and can disrupt important parts of the opponent’s deck without them knowing about it. Valentina further complicates the issue, as she’s also quite a bit better.

Further, even Sentinel, as a repeatable card gives Mirage a run for her money. Still, that Mirage even competes makes her quite a value option for these decks.

1. Echo

Echo probably belongs in more decks. As a tech card, she’s amazingly flexible. Opponents playing Ongoing decks really badly want to stack up one lane. Fitting in a one drop to your curve can ruin their whole game plan and steal extra Cubes. Professor X is also a common card in Junk and Clog decks. Echo says that one lane cannot be X’d and so that game-winning card is far easier to play around… which in turn makes Cannonball way easier to beat.

Echo allows games to be won, and decks that may want Iceman or Spider-Ham may want to try Echo to shore up a series of otherwise difficult matchups.

Cards Going from Series 5 to Series 4

The list of cards going from Series 5 to Series 4 is 9, and the cards here are far more important than those going from 4 to 3. Notably, they aren’t much easier to acquire. You still have a relatively similar chance of getting them in Spotlight Caches (though a greater chance to get them with your mystery Spotlight).

The real way that these cards are easier to acquire Series 4 cards though is through Collector’s Tokens. Some of these cards are clear Token priorities, and buying any two near the top of this list is better than almost any single Series 5.

7. Selene

Selene is not a good card. Her ability can ruin an opponent’s play, but usually, they just won’t play the card that you’ve given -3 to. And your own -3 is nice on a Goblin or The Hood, a 1-2 that’s a dead card in your opening hand just isn’t it. This card is occasionally useful, but usually, it’s better to just run a better card.

Selene Guide and Best Decks: Everything You Need to Know

6. Hercules

Hercules is a very fun card, but as a [4/7] that only triggers once per turn, he’s just not usually worth running. If he cost 3, even with less power, more move decks would happily run this card as a way to further amplify their power. And if he triggered on more than one card, popcorning out cards with Heimdall or Cloak, then he’d also be great. As is… his ability triggering once can be a downside, and the randomness can lose a game. No thank you.

5. Jean Grey

Jean Grey is the start of the really great cards, but the lowest-ranked among them. She has one recent excellent deck, and I don’t expect that deck to go anywhere. Prior to that deck’s existence though, she was mostly a very bad card that had one use. If you play her and Cosmo, you can almost always beat Hela. Jean’s deck requires at least U.S. Agent, but if you got that card, this is a very strong deck.

4. Silk

Silk has two decks where she is absolutely required. In Cerebro 5, turning her into a [2/7] or a [2/9] is great, but it’s hard to call that a really relevant deck. Silky Smooth though? Everyone stopped playing it, and in this Leech-heavy meta, it’s truly great.

Silk’s consistent move works amazingly with a number of cards – Kraven obviously loves Silk, and a [2/6] is still above rate, but Hope Summers, Elsa Bloodstone, and, of course, Angela. That’s a ton of extra power and energy, and she even helps reach unreachable locations.

3. The Living Tribunal

The top 3 are extremely close, a tier above the others.

The Living Tribunal is a requirement for several really great decks. If you want to play the Ongoing combo decks, each of those is a Living Tribunal deck, as is one really cool Hela combo list. Those decks can be extremely powerful, but each is fragile, vulnerable not just to Ongoing hate, but also to location control and some move cards like Spider-Man, Juggernaut or Cannonball, and even Red Guardian.

But when he isn’t countered, Tribunal decks put out more power than anything. If that sounds like your style, this is the card to grab.

The Living Tribunal Guide and Best Decks: Everything You Need to Know

2. Nebula

Nebula has a real case for being the best one drop in the game. Most decks can just casually run Nebula, but certain builds take great advantage of her ability. Clog, Junk, Sandman + Hela,High Evolutionary, and Lane Control all really love not just Nebula‘s ability to grow when the opponent doesn’t have space, but the ability to force an opponent to play in particular locations. This works especially well with White Widow, as both cards demand a filled lane, something many decks struggle with.

Nebula is probably the best overall card here, but she is replaceable, so she falls to the two spot.

1. Gladiator

Gladiator only has one deck type in which it is utterly pivotal – Baron Zemo-based Mill. In that deck, he is irreplaceable and one of the best cards in the deck. He can also pull the wrong card and lose you the game. But he’s also the best 3 to play on curve on turn 3 in the high majority of games.

A [3/8] is a massive 3 Power more than most of his closest competitors, and the best competitors are Series 5 cards like Baron Zemo, Nocturne, Elsa Bloodstone, Hope Summers, and Red Guardian. Even Mobius M. Mobius is another Series 4 card. Gladiator, as a Series 4, is a huge boon to players.

Gladiator Guide and Best Decks: Everything You Need to Know