Table of Contents
Malekith is the next Series 5 card joining Marvel Snap for the November season War of the Nine Realms. It is a 4-Cost, 6-Power card that reads: On Reveal: Add a 1, 2, or 3-Cost card from your deck here. It reveals at the end of the game. Today, we will take a deeper look at the new card and, of course, the best decks to try it out in.
Decks with Malekith
Spotlight Cache
Series 5 cards can be purchased for 6,000 Collector’s Tokens from the Token Shop initially as a Weekly Spotlight card, or opened as one of the featured cards in the Spotlight Caches that are found every 120 Levels on the Collection Level Track after Collection Level 500 (until the next new card releases the following week).
Strengths and Weaknesses
Deck thinning is often an overlooked part of a well-rounded strategy. Indeed, even though the decks in Marvel Snap are small, drawing from a pile of four cards instead of five (and then three instead of four, etc.) is a massive upgrade to your chances of finding the right card.
This is basically what Malekith does for you by removing a cheap card from your deck with its On Reveal ability. Plus, that card will contribute to your points total on game’s end. If you build your deck to get a 2- or 3-Cost card, you should expect an average of three to five power to be pulled from your deck. This already makes Malekith not only a deck thinner, but also a 4-Cost with nine to eleven power attached to it.
There is one downside to this perfect scenario: you are heavily enticed to play high power cards, which are often tied with negative (or at least niche) abilities.
Decks with Gladiator
Decks with Ebony Maw
Decks with Sword Master
Decks with Wolfsbane
Decks with Sage
Decks with Strong Guy
These are great pulls with Malekith, but they’re kind of weird to play during the course of the match unless you have a deck tailored to them. You can pair Maximus with Ronan the Accuser, Ebony Maw with War Machine, or Gladiator with Cosmo to limit their negative outcomes, but that limits your flexibility when it comes to deckbuilding.
Wolfsbane and Sage are less risky, but they require a specific setup to be at their best. They typically won’t have much power on Turn 3, so you need to think of cards to pair them with in case you want to play them later on. Strong Guy might be a better compromise than these two, but you still need to play a deck that can empty your hand on by the end of the game.
Fortunately, there are plenty of five power cards that you can play without much risk, such as Titania, Hydra Bob, Copycat, and Silk. They’re worth a little less power, but they give you more freedom to build your deck while Malekith still represents a [4/11].
Before we look into specific synergies that you can try to build around Malekith, these safe standalone inclusions are probably the best starting point. They might even give you some direction for future decks.
Decks with Baron Zemo
Decks with Copycat
Decks with Speed
Speed and Hydra Bob have no downside if they’re summoned by Malekith, nor are they bad to play during the course of the match.
Baron Zemo tends to be much better if it reveals on game’s end since that should maximize the card’s ability. Copycat is obviously better when drawn and played to benefit from the ability, but still, both of these can either be played during the match or be summoned by Malekith without much risk.
Also, because [4/10] is a decent stat line as well, you can probably throw Hope Summers, Nocturne, and Agent Venom in the mix. If you are fine with a [4/9], the list gets much longer all of a sudden.
Unfortunately, it’s been confirmed that Malekith will look at the base cost of cards in your deck. As such, cards like Pixie or Zabu won’t be an option for cheating out cards that would normally not be pulled.
The Verdict
Malekith looks like a safe bet considering the amount of 5+ power cards that are available among the cheap costs. Obviously, the card might also entice you to skip certain great abilities since you’ll focus on power, such as Silver Sable or Nico Minoru. But getting those cards out of your deck to maximize your chances of finding the higher costs might be enough to still include them.
With that said, Malekith is absolutely a good card. I think it’s one that will very rarely be a bad play to slam on Turn 4. The challenge will be finding the decks that can benefit most from this deck thinning ability, as Marvel Snap is played with high-powered synergies first and foremost.
Pre-Release Score:
Malekith Decks
den
Lockdown has kind of disappeared as of late; it was unable to recover from Storm becoming a 4-Cost. I doubt Malekith alone can resurrect the archetype, but there are a lot of great pairings to explore with the new card in Lockdown. Ebony Maw, Lizard, and Hydra Bob all represent some of the best targets in the game. Plus, Malekith behind Storm forces the opponent to guess whether they won or lost that location while you have that information.
den
Double Up is doing great at the moment, so trying a Malekith build might just be a worse version of the current Surtur list. Still, there are too many good hits (Titania, Hydra Bob,
den
This kind of deck is based on strong standalone cards, which is what I envision will be the best home for Malekith, at least early on. Also, Malekith synergizes very well with the Quicksilver, Speed, Wiccan trio because it means you have no risk of having a 1-Cost in your deck when Malekith hits the board. Sure, your 2-Costs aren’t exactly high value hits, but your 3-Costs are all elite.
Variants
Closing Thoughts
Malekith comes in as a solid card that is focused on the most simple way to win a Marvel Snap match: develop power.
There might be some intricate synergies with the 4-Cost considering what you pulled is known only to you. At the moment, Shadow King would be worthy of a Snap if you pulled it in this way. Your opponent will probably think you got some power behind Malekith, but you already know you are about to counter whatever point boosting strategy they have going on in that location.
However, for as good as these occasional scenarios are, Malekith will mostly have to prove its worth as a deck thinning, synergy enhancing kind of card. If the 4-Cost can do this part well, it should find a spot in the meta.
I hope this review of the new card was helpful. Feel free to share your opinions and excitement about the card in the comments. 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!
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