Misery is the second Series 5 card joining Marvel Snap for the October season We Are Venom. It is a 4-Cost, 7-Power card that reads: On Reveal: Repeat the On Reveal abilities of your other cards here, then destroy them. Today, we will take a deeper look at the new card and, of course, the best decks to try it out in.

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).

Spotlight Cache Week of October 8, 2024: Are Misery, Namora, and War Machine Worth It?

Strengths and Weaknesses

Misery has Destroy written all over it. The archetype already has a lot of On Reveal cards that work together to grow Deadpool‘s and Knull‘s power while reducing Death‘s cost at the same time. So of course the first idea I need to discuss with the new card is repeating the destroy abilities.

With only four On Reveal abilities to cover in this section (and both Venom and Carnage typically growing to big enough numbers that you might want to keep them alive), I have a hard time picturing Misery becoming a new addition to the traditional Destroy deck. In the 4-Cost slot, I believe Attuma is probably a better fit.

This doesn’t mean you can’t dig a little deeper, though. The classic Destroy build simply might not be running enough On Reveal abilities for Misery to fit in there. Let’s explore further to see if mixing those cards with other On Reveal abilities might make more sense for Misery.

Thanos has some history with the Destroy synergy, although the deck never became anything serious. At most, Thanos Lockjaw ran Killmonger and Death when the meta featured a lot of 1-Costs, and the main benefit was opening space behind Lockjaw.

With Misery in the mix (alongside a couple of destroy cards), the Infinity Stones could be the way to reunite Thanos and Death once again.

There are plenty of other On Reveal cards that you might want to trigger a second time, either to advance your destroy synergy or simply because a second trigger is better than keeping the card on the board.

I limited myself to 12 cards, but there are a more that I could have mentioned. There are also a few interesting candidates in the 6-Cost slot, but these might be particularly challenging to use alongside Misery.

Finally, there is the Armor situation. She basically turns Misery into a [4/7] Odin. Obviously, this is a great way to make Misery function with many more cards, but it limits the number of On Reveals that you can repeat to only two. It also makes Misery much harder to use effectively on Turn 4 since you have to dedicate your Turn 2 to playing Armor.

The threats to Misery are much quicker to talk about than the possible pairings. Indeed, there are a ton of On Reveal cards in Marvel Snap, but only two cards are necessary to spoil your entire strategy.

Not only are these two huge threats, but Misery isn’t a card that rings “I want priority” to me. Stacking your early On Reveal cards in one spot isn’t good for grabbing the lead, nor is destroying your cards.

The Verdict

I can’t say I have a good feeling about Misery. It’s not about the card’s potential; I believe she has more than enough of that to see play. Rather, the threat of Cosmo and Alioth simply feels like too much pressure for the card to shine—especially because Misery pushes you to stack your On Reveal cards on the same location.

This is a card you need to work for in order to figure out the best pairings and decks. And then you can just be obliterated by a counter card that is already a popular inclusion in this environment? That’s not a bet I’m willing to make.

Pre-Release Score:

Toxic On Reveal

As written on the card, Misery wants you to go heavy on the On Reveal cards, so this deck is my idea for giving that a try. There are multiple ways to build the archetype, but the best performing synergy is likely to be the Toxic one.

In this deck, Misery often won’t be played on Turn 4 unless you want to trigger Debrii a second time for a quick board clog. Otherwise, Misery be paired with Hazmat on Turn 6 most of the time, and hopefully retrigger White Tiger at the same time. If not, buffing Ajax to big enough numbers that it can solo its lane might be good enough.

The other reason I wanted to explore the Toxic synergy with Misery is because it alleviates the need to draw perfectly each and every game. Here, Mysterio or White Widow into Debrii can be followed by Hazmat and another 2-Cost, which sets you up perfectly for a big Annihilus.

The On Reveal synergy shined when it had multiple play patterns that made it as difficult as possible for the opponent to disrupt its game plan. With this list, Misery is an important piece of the puzzle without being the only way to win a match.

Thanos Destroy Control

I would love for this deck to be good; I might even purchase Misery just to play this archetype because I enjoy it a lot. However, I would be lying if I said this was anything but a long shot. Indeed, not only is this deck built solely around the idea that Misery is good enough to enable it, but Thanos also doesn’t help super synergistic decks since he adds more cards to them and makes their draws less consistent.

Overall, I think Misery might make this deck viable. There’s even some extra room to fit a few counter cards like Shang-Chi and Enchantress. It seems like it works on paper, but the reality could hit pretty hard.

Deck & Hand

Out of the three decks featured in this article, this one is likely the strongest. Unfortunately, this might also be the least interesting to play. First of all, it isn’t built around Misery at all, it’s just testing whether Misery works well with all the On Reveal cards that are already in it. Second, this build could just be a weaker version of one of the strongest decks in the game (the same Darkhawk and Ronan the Accuser synergy but with Agent Venom as the support card).

The addition of The Hood and Viper makes it a little different from the current deck. However, I’m not sure this one warrants opening Spotlight Caches for Misery if it’s the only competitive deck using the new card.

Variants

Closing Thoughts

Misery joins Marvel Snap with an uphill battle to see any play. Indeed, not only are Cosmo and Alioth limiting what the On Reveal synergy can do at the moment, there is also the comparison to Agent Venom that it has to live up to. If Misery is only worth using alongside On Reveal cards with more than four power, I can’t imagine it would be worth spending your resources to have.

At least Misery creates some interesting ideas. It should be a fun card to experiment around for the deckbuilders out there.

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!