Marvel Snap October 2024 (Venom) New Card Guide: Review and Decks

For the first time since the Ghost-Spider Season in June of 2023, we’re getting a bunch of new symbiote cards with the launch of the October Season of Marvel Snap. These cards feed into old archetypes like Discard, Bounce, Destroy, and On Reveal, giving them new life after a very long time!

This guide is for upcoming future content. All details are not final and may change upon release. Check out our datamining article for more information!

Season Pass Card: Agent Venom

We Are Venom – Marvel Snap October 2024 Season Pass

Agent Venom is a somewhat confusing card. At [2/4], it’s got good stats, but there are relatively few decks that really want this ability (which is basically a Bast but for your deck). Those cards can still be reduced by the omnipresent Cassandra Nova, though there’s no way to be sure how powerful that card will still be in October. Cerebro 4 seems like the obvious home, and Agent Venom gives you the option of a four power Luke Cage to help.

But Cerebro has rarely been meta, so luckily there are several other powerful homes for this card. The current Thena/Iron Man shells use Ravonna Renslayer, but maybe with Hope Summers they would prefer their Iron Man and Mystique to have four starting power. Zoo decks can also go taller with this card—1-Cost cards being bumped to four power to and then pumped with Marvel Boy and Ka-Zar makes sense. The main home for this card—if it can fit—is Bounce, where cards like The Hood, Rocket Raccoon, Bishop, and Mysterio all get a nice bonus.

Time will tell if this is enough to see play, but Agent Venom doesn’t seem as powerful as Gwenpool, Kate Bishop, or Symbiote Spider-Man. Still, as a Season Pass card, this will get every chance to shine.

Scream – October 1, 2024

Scream seems like a really good card to play into an awful lot of metas. As of this writing, Mini Move is a prevalent archetype, and every move that deck makes creating a four power swing seems absolutely huge. Jeff the Baby Land Shark and Nocturne are two of the ten best cards in Marvel Snap (at worst), and they’re some of the easiest cards to fit into any deck. If their reposition included a four power swing each time? That really hurts them, right? It’s one trigger to effectively make Scream a [2/5], and that’s without considering any synergy with Ravonna, Agent Venom, Bast, and others.

But as strong as that is, I’m most excited for this card as the start of a new archetype’s viability. Moving your opponent’s cards is frustrating to play against, but it’s rarely strong enough to be competitively viable. Scream could change that by giving cards like Polaris, Spider-Man, Juggernaut, Aero, Magneto, and more a new lease on life. If Scream is played on Turn 2, it’s reasonable to expect that a deck dedicated to her ability could trigger her four times. That’s a [2/9] Scream, but effectively a [2/16] in stats.

The oppo-move deck might still need more support, yes, but it looks extremely powerful. At the very least, Scream might mean less of two of the meta’s most played cards, and that makes for an exciting release!

Misery – October 8, 2024

Wow, they’re really jamming ten power on an ability this strong. Misery has two stylistic homes.

The first of those is, obviously, On Reveal decks. It’s worth remembering that she isn’t doing anything to non-On Reveal cards, so you can play her in a lane with something like Echo or Nocturne and still get another trigger of On Reveal cards like White Tiger or Ironheart while massively upgrading their power. This won’t work with Wong, sure, but it gives these decks another lane for effectiveness.

The other interesting home here is Destroy. Venom is often huge, but Carnage, Deathlok, and especially Killmonger are often cards that you’re happy to destroy again for an upgrade in power. All that does is cheapen Death and power up Knull, after all. I’m fairly excited to see if this can be the final piece of a Nimrod Destroy list to make it competitively viable, as dropping this on Shuri seems incredibly strong.

Of course, those two decks require you to get a bit fancy with abilities. The easiest and perhaps most useful ability for this card is a [5/10] Shang-Chi retrigger, perhaps even with Grandmaster. Shang (and Enchantress and Shadow King and, you know, tech cards in general) is one of the most important cards in the game. The ability to reuse that ability while also getting a big power upgrade seems game winning.

Scorn – October 15, 2024

Scorn is another bonus for an old archetype that might make its own deck work.

Scorn is obviously a Discard card in Marvel Snap. She’s the third card capable of being discarded for benefit but remaining in hand, following Apocalypse and Swarm. That’s another power generator for the Collector, Morbius, and Miek. And, notably, it’s another way to go off with Gambit or other multi-discard cards. The benefit here is that something on your board gets the power from Scorn, and with repeated discards that power goes up. That’s great for a deck built around power.

So what cards on board want that extra power? The only one in Discard that truly cares is Daken, but Daken creates another 1-Cost card and that can be awkward. But with the Moon Knight change, there are some Darkhawk Good Stuff decks that run Moon Knight with Proxima Midnight. Can this further that deck? Would it work with more hand buff? Certain Discard decks already run Gwenpool. Additions of cards like Okoye or Nakia may not matter, but every extra power for discarding Scorn seems extremely strong—especially for one big final discard with Dracula. Or you can just play the powerful 1-Cost card and leave a huge Apocalypse behind.

Discard is a deck that cares all about power. Scorn is a card that buffs that power while also adding more consistency to the deck’s shell. If you like Discard, this will be a must-buy.

Toxin – October 22, 2024

Toxin is the card I’m most excited for, but it’s also the one I have the least to say about. I love Bounce—it’s my favorite and most-played Marvel Snap archetype. Toxin goes in almost every Bounce deck. He is easily at least a [3/8] after bouncing back a full side of your board. Given that Bounce now often runs Grand Master, it seems pretty likely that he can become a [3/14] without too much extra work. A [3/8] is plenty, but [3/14] is potentially game warping. I am so excited to play this card!

Anti-Venom – October 29, 2024

Anti-Venom is the new Iron Lad. His ability to give the top card zero cost and power is amazing for decks that just want to play cards. In particular, it’s notable for Living Tribunal Ongoing decks because it gives them a really consistent way to get their combo off without being countered.

But any Ongoing deck works here. Darkhawk or his Rock generators are all great as 0-Costs, and Thena would be, too. Heck, a lot of the lost power in basically every circumstance where you’d run this card is made up for by the six power body of Anti-Venom.

Naturally, this isn’t without counters. Mobius M. Mobius will ruin your play, but even though Luke Cage would seemingly not restore the cards, Shadow King certainly should. This might even finally be the deck to make Howard the Duck viable. I’m really excited to try this out.

Closing

That’s it for our early look at our October cards. It’s awesome to see some classic Marvel Snap archetypes get some love!