Table of Contents
September has been a controversial season, to say the least. From Loki early on dominating the meta, to Mobius M. Mobius late in the season becoming one of the new staple 2-cost cards in Marvel Snap. Let’s also not forget Mobius M. Mobius who pushed Galactus back to being a top tier deck, only to see it nerf in the last OTA of the month. There is a lot to remember from “Loki For All Time”, and these cards might keep impacting the future of the game as well, even as we turn our attention to the month of October 2023.
In the new Bloodstone season, we will get five new cards, that are all pushing for various themes, several connected to space management. The new Season Pass card, Elsa Bloodstone, will entice us to fill our locations with cards we can then remove, in order to maximize her ability, getting the bonus three power multiple times.
Werewolf By Night will move all over the playing field as we trigger On Reveal abilities, another card which can be tricky to abuse. Lastly, Man-Thing can also impact our decision on where to place a card, as stacking all our cheap cards on a location might be hard punished with that card. It could also lead to Junk returning, an archetype notorious for limiting the space available to the opponent.
Joining these three thematic tools, yet fairly broad abilities are Nico Minoru and Black Knight. The first one could be very strong or very disappointing, and that will largely depend on who is playing that card. Indeed, the need to be able to think on the fly depending on which spell is active for this turn will go a long way into maximizing Nico Minoru’s potential. As for Black Knight, the card screems Discard, and should look to find a way to copy high power cards like Apocalypse or The Infinaut as much as possible.
Overall, these five cards look to dictate the direction for the deck you decide to play them onto – apart from Nico Minoru, which feels like a mini Thanos in a way, with various abilities to explore inside the card. The other four cards definitely aren’t a Mobius M. Mobius or Alioth. They require your deck to have a specific direction, and shall reward a deck build to maximise these cards specifically, more than a general concept those cards could somewhat fit.
Overall, this season looks like it has much more of a theme compared to the previous one. It might lead to these cards not being as impressive as the ones we just got in September, simply because we will have less room to abuse them. Nevertheless, don’t sleep on Elsa Bloodstone or Nico Minoru. I feel like these two cards could be flexible enough to see play in various strategies, while the other three feel more specific.
Looking for ideas and guidance on which cards are worth investing into? You’ve come to the right place.
Cards
Decks with Elsa Bloodstone
Decks with Black Knight
Decks with Nico Minoru
Decks with Werewolf By Night
| Card | Source | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
| Elsa Bloodstone | Season Pass | October 3, 2023 |
| Man-Thing | Series 4 | October 10, 2023 |
| Black Knight | Series 5 | October 17, 2023 |
| Nico Minoru | Series 5 | October 24, 2023 |
| Werewolf By Night | Series 5 | October 31, 2023 |
Elsa Bloodstone: Kitty Pryde and Move’s new support!
Decks with Elsa Bloodstone
Elsa Bloodstone is the Season Pass card.
Strengths:
- Move is a great home for Elsa, and a strong synergy in Marvel Snap right now.
- Elsa triggering once makes it a [2/5], which could be enough as a statline to see play.
- Plenty of synergies to exploit like Destroy or Bounce in addition to Move, able to fill a location with a card without ending up with 4 cards on the location.
Weaknesses:
- Its power will decrease as we progress in the match, even leading to leaving locations open while we should fill them.
- The ability needs to be triggered at least once for Elsa Bloodstone to be remotely good in any deck.
- Gives information to the opponent as to where we might invest our card in the near future, depending on which location they expect us to fill to get Elsa Bloodstone‘s bonus.
Featured Deck:
den
Elsa Bloodstone‘s ability screamed “Kitty Pryde will be busted” so loud Second Dinner nerfed the card preemptively. However, they didn’t judge Move would be a problem with the new Season Pass card, while we have plenty of cards we can fill a location with, while opening that same space to place another card later on. As such, expect Nightcrawler, Jeff the Baby Land Shark, Vision, Spider-Man and other Move cards to get that sweet +3 power buff.
For the past two months, Move has been amongst the top synergies in Marvel Snap. First, thanks to Legion, Captain Marvel and other good cards. Then, with Alioth at the top of the curve, using the Move synergy to seize priority. In October, Move might become the new home to Elsa Bloodstone, and receive plenty of +3 power buffs to its cards able to easily change location.
Guide:
Man-Thing will terrorize cheap cards!
Man-Thing will be a Series 4 card, consider using your Tokens.
Strengths:
- One debuffed card on our opponent’s side makes Man-Thing a [4/7] which is decent.
- Most cards we want to send to our opponent’s side of the board are cheap cards.
- We don’t have to play Man-Thing early for it to be good. The card can stay safe in our hand until the last turn if needed.
Weaknesses:
- Luke Cage is a card in Marvel Snap.
- Rogue, Enchantress are quite simply to include in a variety of decks if Man-Thing becomes too popular
- [4/5] is too weak to consider the card a staple inclusion. Will need a dedicated deck or a specific metagame.
Featured Deck:
I don’t see Man-Thing becoming a staple 4-cost with such a weak power for its cost. Similarly to Silver Samurai, we probably need to find an archetype where the ability of Man-Thing can contribute to the core strategy.
Junk feels like that archetype early on, as the Rock is a great target to abuse Man-Thing. Plus, Junk struggles with its overall score output, lacking cards able to challenge a lane on their own, instead relying on its disruption ability. Man-Thing could join Spider-Woman in that role, coming down on turn six with Titania, and impacting a lane with a lot of cheap cards on it. It could also be paired with Hazmat on the last turn, allowing Junk to finally have more of a proactive play style.
Something along the lines of Luke Cage ▶ Debrii ▶ Absorbing Man ▶ Spider-Woman ▶ Hazmat plus Man-Thing. That sort of patterns are typically much easier to understand and learn compared to the combo playstyle Junk was forced to adopt in the past.
Black Knight joins every Discard deck
Decks with Black Knight
Black Knight will be a Series 5 card.
Strengths:
- Discard has multiple archetypes, all able to use Black Knight in some way.
- Discard received several buffs in September, making the synergy much more appealing.
- There are several very simple synergies to abuse. Such as Black Cat or Lady Sif discard a big 6-cost.
Weaknesses:
- Black Knight needs to be in play for the Ebony Blade to be created, which could lead to difficult decision if we draw it late.
- One needs to include the Ebony Blade in its play patterns, four energy isn’t so simple to fit in a turn.
- The discard needs to be controlled. Once Black Knight is in play, our next discard will be the Ebony Blade.
Featured Deck:
Hela might not be the ideal home for Black Knight down the line, as the deck might not have the proper timing to play the Ebony Blade once it created it. However, the deck could always discard it and summoned it later on with Hela, or simply use Black Knight as a card to throw behind Lockjaw as well. Plus, I like to push a card to the extreme early to judge how good it can be once we found a shell to fully exploit its potential.
In a deck with cards like The Infinaut or Death, we should have plenty of occasion to judge if Black Knight can be abused. Once figured out, we can decide whether we want to build a deck specifically around the card, or just include in shells we know it can contribute to, alongside Apocalypse, Ghost Rider and such cards.
Nico Minoru is the next flexible 1-Cost card
Decks with Nico Minoru
Nico Minoru will be a Series 5 card.
Strengths:
- 1-costs are typically the best to feature a flexible ability, as we can fit the card during various turns.
- All the spells are decent, reminiscent of the Infinity Stones.
- The spells are varied enough to imagine Nico Minoru helping very different synergies.
Weaknesses:
- Not all spells will be good for your deck. You might feel forced to play Nico Minoru at a specific time.
- Very flexible cards can be difficult to master, leading to more mistakes early on, while we figure out how to use it best.
- Hard to play in a deck for just one, two spells. Have to look for archetypes able to use most abilities to make the card consistent.
Featured Deck:
den
As a card looking to push flexibility, able to help in various situations depending on the spell Nico Minoru will cast that turn, Thanos immediately comes to mind as a close comparison. In the end, we can see a lot of similarities between the new card and the Infinity Stones in how they would contribute to a deck.
Typically, Thanos Control never managed to play more than one 1-cost in the deck, as the Infinity Stones were enough to fill that energy cost. Nico Minoru feels like the perfect card for the role, bringing that same element of adapting to a situation. If it makes sense to use the spell, one Energy is cheap enough to fit it in the turn. On the other hand, if we can’t get a useful spell in the situation, we will simply not play Nico Minoru, and likely have other possibilities in hand anyway.
Already, I can imagine some players will not like Nico Minoru, believing the random rotation of spells is a detriment to pushing an otherwise stable synergy. However, if we can find a deck which doesn’t necessarily need to play the card, but has enough spells it can abuse, then Nico Minoru has a lot of upsides, and very few downsides.
Werewolf By Night helps any On Reveal based decks
Decks with Werewolf By Night
Werewolf By night will be a Series 5 card.
Strengths:
- Just two triggers is enough to make the card a [3/7], which is Maximus.
- On reveal is the widest mechanic in the game, covering Destroy, Discard, Move and many more.
- Synergies with Kraven, Elsa Bloodstone or even Angela, all solid cards in the current Marvel Snap.
Weaknesses:
- Cosmo is a card in Marvel Snap.
- Space management will be key in abusing Werewolf By Night, as the card could lock you out of a location early on otherwise.
- Will force you to play cards in certain locations, which could collide with other effects you would like to abuse.
Featured Deck:
den
On Reveal includes so many abilities in Marvel Snap, Werewolf By Night probably has many decks it can join, and easily grow to be a seven or nine power card in. With Bounce, we are really looking to see how big of a Werewolf by Night we can create, to see if the card should be considered a nice bonus, or the backbone of an archetype.
In a deck like the one featured, we should have the perfect recipe to grow the new card to stupid amounts. Indeed, combining both cheap On Reveal abilities with the ability to get them back in hand to work our space more efficiently, Werewolf By Night should be a double-digit power card every time we draw it early on.
On Reveal covers a wide array of synergies in Marvel Snap, so don’t be afraid to test Werewolf By Night in decks where you have enough flexibility to move it around.
Closing Words
If I had to tell you which card to get, I would definitely point at Elsa Bloodstone. I mean, the developers already gave us a big clue with the Kitty Pryde nerf, they believe Elsa can bring enough power and become a problem down the line with a [1/2] Kitty Pryde. However, there are other strategies to explore around the card, at the very least with the Move synergy, so that powerful ability isn’t lost.
As for the other four, I guess your playstyle will probably be a huge factor. For example, I believe Werewolf By Night is likely the easiest one to abuse of that bunch. Yet, being a big fan of Discard and Junk, Man-Thing or Black Knight are more appealing in regards to the decks I enjoy playing. However, if you don’t like Discard or Junk, I don’t see a point for you to go after any of these two cards Similarly, someone with limited resources might be enticed to go after Nico Minoru, as it arguably is the most flexible card of the month. As such, it might provide more chances to be used in various decks, and more deckbuilding challenges in the process.
I know it’s not a clear direction, and most people would like to be reassured in how to use their resources. Yet, the Bloodstone season has quite thematic cards, and a theme will obviously impact our appreciation of a card and how we anticipate to use it.
To share your ideas and creations, maybe inspire other players to pick up one card in particular, join us on the Marvel Snap Zone community Discord, or follow my Twitter page where I share decks and biased opinions about the game.
Good Game Everyone.
More Content