Table of Contents
Lockheed is the first Series 5 card joining Marvel Snap for the January 2025 Season, DRAGONS. It is a 2-Cost, 1-Power card that reads: End of Turn: If you played a 1-Cost card this turn, afflict an enemy card here with -2 Power.
Decks with Lockheed
Today, let’s explore the new card strengths and, of course, the best decks to try it out in.
Series 5 cards can be purchased for 6,000 Collector’s Tokens from the Token Shop as the latest Seasonal Spotlight card. They will be also be included in the Seasonal Series 5 Snap Pack for 5,000 Collector’s Tokens during their season and the following one.
Synergies
Lockheed should benefit from Shou Lao as they both have similar abilities, as 1-cost cards are the most flexible to play two cards in a turn. From the cards we identified to help grow the new season pass, multiple will synergize with Lockheed :
Decks with Kitty Pryde
Decks with Merlin
Decks with Hawkeye Kate Bishop
Decks with Prowler
Decks with Thanos
However, this is about the only upside for the new 2-cost : Lockeed synergizes well with strong cards. The challenge now is to earn a spot among the twelve possible inclusions in those decks. Not only these archetypes are some of the most competitive in the game, Lockheed also presents a few obstacles before it can be called a good card :
- If there are no opposing cards on the location, Lockheed does nothing, not an unusual situation if you drop Lockheed on turn two and your opponent didn’t play on turn one. The card looks at its best on turn three, alongside a 1-cost, which is much more specific than a simple 2-cost you play on curve.
- Add to that first problem Destroy synergies, Evolve mechanics, Viper or Annihilus, able to ignore the power affliction, or use it to their benefit
- Shadow King, one of the Snap’s most popular flexible inclusions, would cancel Lockheed power affliction.
Compared to Shou Lao, which only requires to play two cards per turn and does not require to be on the board to grow, the 2-cost is much more restrictive, and easier to act against. Plus, cards able to hide our true potential, or adapt until the very last moment fit Marvel Snap much better than cards telling the opponent about the precise amount of points they represent.
One way to circumvent those limitations would be to trigger Lockheed multiple times in a turn, something we can do with Invisible Woman First Steps. With the 3-cost in the mix, and maybe Jocasta as well, Lockheed could come down much later in a match and still represent a good amount of points.
However, this would still be something the opponent can see from a mile away, since all those activate cards have to be played a turn before we can use them.
The Verdict: Should You Get Lockheed?
Lockheed can represents a [2/9] when we manage to get four turns with a 1-cost card include in our play. Already, I feel like this isn’t such a big payoff for the work we have to put in. I feel like -3 Power and a [2/0] card would have been much better, just like Thena is at the moment.
Overall, Lockheed looks like a card we will test in decks with a foundation able to welcome it without considering the 2-cost during the deck building process. Most of the time, I expect it to be removed in favor of more flexible cards down the line.
If the new card was much more power than my prediction, Luke Cage would be quick to put an end to it. Once again, the risk-reward ratio isn’t great for Lockheed.
Pre-Release Score:
Lockheed Decks
Among those builds, Lockeed makes the most sense in Thanos Aurora. There, the new card provides another End of Turn ability while the Infinity Stones don’t require us to run a plethora of 1-cost to routinely trigger Lockheed.
The other two decks are solid archetypes with Lockheed included, but far from necessary.
den
den
Variants
I hope this review of the new card was helpful. You can find everyone on the Marvel Snap Zone team in our community discord to have a chat or ask any questions.
Good Game Everyone!
More Content