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Knull enters Marvel Snap’s Series 5 card pool on December 13, 2022, looking to give Destroy themed decks an alternative finisher!
Decks with Knull
For full details on upcoming new Marvel Snap cards, check out the dedicated schedule guide:
Who is Knull?
Knull is one of the true big bads of the Marvel comic universe. He is a god of darkness and the creator of the Symbiotes (Venom and Carnage for example), who created the first Symbiote in the form of a sword to decapitate a Celestial when they invaded his kingdom of darkness, the All-Black (the sword itself was recently adapted and appeared in Thor: Love and Thunder). This summary will not do full justice to the depth of story which was developed for Knull.
Knull preceded to wage war on the Light. During this war against the Light he eventually encountered the Silver Surfer, who he defeated after the Surfer freed a world from his control using the Power Cosmic. After being converted into a Symbiote Silver Surfer eventually was freed with the help of Ego, the Living Planet. Silver Surfer was then able to expend the full remaining Power Cosmic too fight of Knull.
Knull recovers and continues his war on the Light and comes across an army of gods. He is able to defeat all but one, who he defeats whilst being impaled in the head with the god’s spear. This is when Gorr, the God Butcher takes possession of the All-Black. Knull recovers over the course of centuries and discovers he can manifest Symbiotes from the Living Abyss and bind them to lesser lifeforms corrupting them. The Symbiotes we know and love were then born.
Sometime later, two Symbiote Dragons (Grendel and Grendel’s mother) are defeated by Thor, who, by blasting them with divine lighting, severing Knull‘s connection with the majority of the Symbiotes. The Symbiotes hive mind then imprisons Knull deep inside the Throneworld and renames it Klyntar, their word for cage.
He eventually is reawakened when Grendel is uncovered by S.H.I.E.L.D. and they commence experiments on it (as they always do) and Knull began to assert his connection with Grendel to commence regaining his power. He is defeated by Venom and Spider-Man and trapped, eventually freed again by Dark Carnage, then invades Earth. Sentry (coming on December 20) the most powerful Marvel superhero faces off against Knull and is literally torn in half and The Void is consumed by Knull. He precedes to wage war on Earth using his Symbiotes to battles multiple heroes across the Earth.
He is eventually defeated once again by Eddie Brock (Venom) using the cosmic powers of the Silver Surfer‘s board and Mjölnir. He has to be flown into the Sun by Cosmic Venom to finally (?) be defeated once and for all.
Strategy and Potential
Knull consumes the power of all destroyed cards, but costs 6 Energy. Therefore he is one of your finishers. To play into the effect the goal will be to use your cards to destroy each other and push power. Cards which benefit form the destroy effects, such as Carnage and Venom, synergize well as you get the benefit and the power of the cards. He will also synergize with destroy effects across the board. This point may be missed, the mirror for example, both of your Knulls will have the same power.
This also synergizes with cards such as Galactus destroying everything. The entire power of ALL the cards which were there before Galactus are now the power of Knull.
Counters exist, but the effectiveness of these could be inconsistent. Shang-Chi and Enchantress are the main counters. Both Knullify the effect from Knull. Few decks which build towards this will end with anything lower than a 9 power Knull and the effect is ongoing. If built right the Destroy decks should not allow for Knull to be hit by these cards.
Unfortunately the effect requires other cards to be effective and these cards are not all available in the lower Series. Therefore it’s hard to recommend picking this card up for players on lower collection levels. Also it is a heavy build around, one with potentially really high power, but the amount of decks and styles it can go into is limited.
Potential Score
Knull is not only a strong card, but he also could add further flexibility to an already established archetype. This means his current power is very high. He is also 0 power with 6 energy cost which is premium for Mister Negative, which means there are endless avenues to explore here.
However to put the dampener on his potential, he does not create any archetypes. He is enabled by the destroy effects and must be built around these. This requires a high density of destroy effects and cards worth destroying to build his power up. Regular DeathWave for example may not reach the threshold required to benefit Knull.
The limitations are real and we may find the card is just too expensive and inflexible to be a true powerhouse. He will always require specific cards and collections to be successful which limits the potential score. Expecting this card to be an immediate powerhouse though, and a bunch of fun!
Below are some potential starter decks for Knull with brief descriptions.
Starter Decks (Theorycraft)
Note: These theorycrafts have been built trying to limit the use of Series 4 & 5 cards to make them as accessible as possible.
Zero
SafetyBlade
As with most the starter decks, let’s start greedy then cut and adjust from there. Here we have an early game of destroy effects. Goal is similar to other Death decks – destroy 2 cards so we can Wave on 4 and play Death and X card on 6.
The midgame is using big cards we can try to Zero. Sera allows for backup final turns and another good early Wave target. The trick with this deck might be playing Wave earlier than usual to get a big card out so you can destroy it.
Mister Negative
With the above deck, I considered trying to get the balance to get Arnim Zola down also but assuming at this stage Knull would not count his own destroyed power the payoff was minimal, but how can we play Knull and Arnim Zola? Mister Negative! We only need to hit one of them and we can double our Knull. Additional benefit for the destroy effects post Negative is the power being increased on the cards you flipped.
SafetyBlade
This deck features Mister Negative, Knull, Arnim Zola and Taskmaster and assumes if we play him on 4, we flip at least one of these three and draw them.
The rest of the supporting destroy package focuses on Deadpool and cards which are generally not negatively impacted by Mister Negative. Bast can turn all these cards into better targets for Venom also and adds more power to your eventual Knull plays.
SafetyBlade
An even greedier line might be to go full combo. White Tiger will cost 1 and produce a 5 power and 7 power card you can then eat with Venom, copy power with Knull and then Arnim Zola across the board. Wong is there to try and enable this even further. Ironheart will push power around the board for the Venom combo also. This is an ambitious deck, but demonstrates there is potential in this idea to keep an eye on.
Note: Jane Foster Mighty Thor may be a strong consideration for these two decks. She will help you draw the combos and potentially pull off some disgusting turns. It is worth experimenting with these builds and Jane Foster in my opinion, but not 100% sold on her at the time of writing.
DeathWave
SafetyBlade
The most likely home is just a card in Death + Wave. The deck is proven and if we work through the destroy effects Knull can be anywhere from 6 – 10 power on average. You might say that’s not much, but if we factor in the flexibility in your lines this gives his value increases. If you have to drop Deathlok on 3 and the opportunity comes up to Carnage later on 5 alongside Wave, you no longer “lose” the power.
We can potentially try to include Venom as another destroy effect. So instead of just showing DeathWave with Knull, this build looks to leverage Venom as well to add an efficient amount of extra power without going too over the top like the greedy version. Enter Lizard (could be Titania maybe but trying to limit multiple Series 4 & 5 cards in these theorycrafts) to be eaten by Venom or push efficient power. Then we Wave and do Death and Knull things to finish.
Galactus
SafetyBlade
Again, we could just look at replacing Knull into another Galactus build and probably be fine, but that’s no fun. So will propose another build here which may be fun and very expensive. Destroy cards to build up you Knull, if you can Sabretooth twice that’s +8 to Knull.
We can use Electro to ramp to Destroyer or Galactus for a gigantic destroy effect, also feeding Knull and whilst we do all this we also reduce the cost of Death. The cheaper Destroy cards can even turn off Electro for later Destroy shenanigans prior to big last turns with Knull and Death.
Good Luck Have Fun and Stay Safe!
