Marvel Snap Spotlight Cache Schedule: Hellfire Gala (December 2023)

Marvel Snap’s contents of the Spotlight Caches for the Hellfire Gala (December 5, 2023 to January 2, 2023) Season has been revealed! Each week, three cards will be featured in the Spotlight Caches, and their corresponding Spotlight Variants if you have already collected the card. We recommend that you carefully choose the cards you want, and save up at least four Spotlight Caches to open to get your desired card. So take a look at the Spotlight Cache card release schedule below, and plan ahead!

You will also be able to find the full Spotlight Cache release schedule for past, current, and upcoming months in our dedicated new card release guide:

This guide is for upcoming future content and is datamined. All details are not final and may change upon official announcements or release.

Changelog

Since the original datamine, contents of Spotlight Caches have been changed. Click on the links on the dates to read about the changes in more detail.

• December 6, 2023: Blob has been removed, and is replaced by Man-Thing
• December 13, 2023: Firestar has been removed, and is replaced by Blob
• December 20, 2023: Havok has been changed a Series 4, 0-power card, that gains +4 power.

Week of December 6, 2023

To kick this season off, Man-Thing gets his second appearance in a Spotlight Cache! Man-Thing is a card that has tried to find a home in lots of decks, but can’t seem to find a strong place in the meta. This card has great moments where his strength can offer the highest value of any 4-Cost card if played in an optimal lane. His drawbacks are Luke Cage countering him, and Cage’s often necessity in Man-Things own deck so your low cost cards aren’t hit with a power reduction.

Joining Man-Thing this week is everyone’s favorite baby land shark, Jeff! If you don’t have this card yet, he is a must have due to his sheer flexibility. Being able to play into restricted location and move makes him playable on any turn and still be good. He is definitely one of the top cards in the game.

Stegron also joins this week’s cache, though he isn’t a major meta contributor. Will the spotlight cache create a resurgence for his play rate? Only time will tell!

Detailed review:

Week of December 13, 2023

For our first new Spotlight card this month, we get Blob! Blob looks like an interesting card that may find its home in ramp decks as a way to put massive power down on turns 5 or 6. You can also use Taskmaster afterwards to copy the massive Blob. Outside of this deck style, I struggle to see where this card effect is needed.

This week also includes 2 cards that weren’t very good during their first Spotlight appearances, but have since seen a buff! The Living Tribunal went from a F tier card to a low meta card! Specifically, his usage is with Hela Discard.

Ravonna Renslayer also joins this week after seeing her buff. She does see a little play, but mostly tied to Mister Negative decks and Cerebro decks. She has seen some niche play with Annihilus, but not enough to be a staple.

Week of December 20, 2023

Havok starts the lineup this week, but doesn’t look like a good card at all. Since he takes away your ability to gain energy each turn, not many decks would want to run him. You could try to Viper him over to your opponent, but that requires having both cards in a timely manner. It also will have a low cube rate since your opponent will just retreat after getting stuck with him.

If you missed her during her first Spotlight appearance, Nico Minoru makes her second appearance this week! Her unique ability took the game by storm where she instantly became a staple in multiple deck archetypes. I could write an entire article just on different ways you can use Nico, but for the sake of brevity, I will condense it: In my opinion, Nico is one of the best cards in the game.

Legion also joins this week as the final card of the cache! While his playrate dropped dramatically after his nerf and Snowguard‘s rework, he still remains a solid card. Legion can steal games from your opponent fairly consistently. He does this by copying a location that favors you or that you can plan for. You can also use Legion to remove Limbo without warning, or make sure your Limbo can’t be easily deactivated. Despite his playability, there aren’t many meta decks that still run him.

Week of December 27, 2023

For our final cache of the season, and final cache of the year, Selene takes the stage! Selene is a great addition to the junk deck collection. Her ability both lowers your opponent’s efficiency, but also makes your clog abilities more potent. Send your opponent a -6 power The Hood or Green Goblin. Give their Iron Man a -3 starting power. Give new Junk card options by lowering a card to 0 or less Power and send it to your opponent with Annihilus! Of course this card gets hard countered by Luke Cage, but it doesn’t single-handedly make this card bad. Only time will tell how potent her ability will really be.

Joining Selene for this year’s final Cache is Iron Lad and Black Knight! Iron Lad might just he one of the best cards in the game. His ability allows you to double up on powerful effects, as well as gain a lasting ditch attempt to use an ability that you didn’t draw when you needed it. Many decks utilize him across the meta and he is definitely a card you want in your collection.

Black Knight, on the other hand, isn’t very meta, but can he very fun! His combination with Zabu and Ghost Rider can lead to some insane power plays! His biggest weakness is drawing all of your combo pieces in the right order to actually make those insane plays. Definitely not a must have card, but not a terrible one to experiment with if you get him.

Wrap Up

What Spotlight Cache are you looking forward to the most? Let us know the comments below!