Savage Land Hot Location Best Cards and Decks

A new Hot Location is the perfect occasion to boost your Cube Average if you’re struggling to climb the ranks. For the next 24 hours, the Hot Location will be Savage Land, which summons two [1/1] Raptors on each side upon revealing. For 24 hours, it has a 50% chance of showing up in games.

In this piece, we’ll go over three main aspects of how you can incorporate the Hot Location into your strategy:

• Which decks seem poised to be stronger with Savage Land appearing in most games?
• Which standalone cards benefit from Savage Land that you can run in already solid archetypes to make them even stronger?
• Considering you can expect certain decks to gain popularity for the duration of the Hot Location, is there a potential counter pick?

Are you ready to make the most out of this week’s Hot Location?

There’s a little bonus at the end if, like others in the community, you aren’t interested in Featured or Hot Locations and would rather play Conquest during those times. I compiled a few of the current best archetypes in Conquest if you need some ideas to test over the weekend.

Decks

Destroy is looking great with other strong synergies being nerfed after the OTA, so some more food for its destroy abilities can only be good news for Deadpool enjoyers.

Not only can Patriot buff the Raptors, this deck is also running Mockingbird, which will be reduced by the two summons. The only change I made to the traditional deck is playing Alioth instead of Doctor Doom. The reduction of available space should make the former easier to leverage.

A similar strategy to the Patriot deck, except you do it with Ka-Zar this time around. Armor could be a consideration, especially if Destroy gains popularity with the location.

Speaking of Destroy gaining some popularity, there is a hybrid build that’s been gaining some momentum lately. In that deck, you have both the benefit of the Destroy archetype and Mockingbird as cheap power.

I was looking for a deck with Hazmat and possibly Viper or Man-Thing to leverage the location, and then I saw an affliction Silver Surfer build. After a few tweaks, this is where I landed. This should be a solid deck heading into the Hot Location. Plus, this should avoid the disastrous match up into Destroy that Junk typically suffers from.

Plenty of cards here naturally benefit from the Raptors: Cyclops gets two targets, Nebula gets a half-filled location, and Misty Knight gets targets to buff. You also naturally run Armor to annoy Destroy (which is gaining popularity anyway). If you are afraid of Mockingbird, you could cut Magik or Abomination in order to run Mobius M. Mobius.

Standalone Cards

Cards to Buff the Raptors

These are some fairly obvious inclusions to get started. The game adds cards to the board and you boost them with these. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

Cards With Improved Abilities When the Raptors Appear

Viper can give a Raptor to your opponent for even more disruption. Mockingbird becomes a [3/5] with Savage Land. Wolfsbane and Carnage grow bigger for free, and Evolved Misty Knight has two free targets to buff. Evolved Cyclops and Cannonball are simply stronger at what they do since both want the opponent to have a lot of cards in play. Cull Obsidian‘s condition is immediately fulfilled when Savage Land comes out.

Cards that Benefit from Filled Locations

Nebula should trigger a bunch of times if you get to play her early on a location with only two spots available. Same idea for Elsa Bloodstone, which is happy with a lane being almost full when she gets played, and Dazzler, which requires two fewer spots to reach her maximum power. As for Ebony Maw, if you aren’t going to use the location because it is almost full, you might as well get a [1/7] there for points.

Cards That Can Leverage the Raptors to Improve a Synergy

Killmonger and Lady Deathstrike can destroy the Raptors on both sides to discount Death by four, which is a nice little boost to Destroy. Legion, Hazmat, and Man-Thing are just possibilities for leveraging the location for disruption. Legion would add Raptors everywhere if you copy Savage Land, while Hazmat and Man-Thing gain a couple of extra targets (as long as you have Luke Cage to protect yours).

Cards That Are Worse With the Raptors

The location will also impact certain cards negatively. If you typically run these, you might want to adapt your deck or play something else until the hot location is gone.

Ms. Marvel won’t be able to buff Savage Land unless you remove at least one of the Raptors. The Phoenix Force could be a risky pick if the opponent can destroy your Raptors or Savage Land appears where you played Multiple Man or Human Torch. Werewolf By Night will have less space available to move, which naturally annoys the synergy around the card. Similarly, Falcon will be impaired since it will pick up Raptors that you probably don’t want in your hand.

Counter Pick: Sera Control

I was looking for a deck able to run Mobius M. Mobius more than anything since it seems instrumental in limiting how much Mockingbird can profit (and it also annoys InSheNaut and Destroy). Then I realized the other synergy that benefits the most from the location is the Ongoing one with Ka-Zar, Blue Marvel, and Patriot.

Once I figured that out, it didn’t take too long to think of a deck that was able to pack all the needed disruption. In fact, there is one that specializes in doing just that. Plus, you can run Elsa Bloodstone and Legion in the deck to benefit from Savage Land.

Cable is a flexible inclusion here, but I like the disruption it can bring to the deck alongside Gladiator. During Hot Location times, you’ll see more synergistic decks, which means you can derail their game plan with the right steal. If you don’t like the card, feel free to run Maximus instead.

Conquest

There hasn’t been any exotic deck that’s done well in Conquest so far, so it looks like this weekend can go in two different directions:

• Try to refine a strategy you have in mind to catch your opponents off guard when the Infinity League opens on Tuesday.
• Work on mastering one of the reliable archetypes, as it looks like one of them is poised to dominate in the coming week.

So far, even if Destroy is looking good, the top three archetypes are Discard Dracula, Thanos, and Loki. Looking at these three decks, I can only recommend running Mobius M. Mobius in your decks, but other than that there doesn’t seem to be a common weakness you can exploit right now.

Closing Words

Savage Land can be much more impactful than you might think at first glance. Two Raptors won’t impact the game so much, but they can be used in many ways, such as discounting Mockingbird, discounting Death, or oiling the wheels of a Junk synergy to lock a location quickly.

Looking at how the meta developed after the OTA, I expect Destroy to be the deck to beat this weekend. The archetype profits from the locations, naturally counters space impairing synergies, and packs Killmonger in case you try to buff your Raptors. I think Armor is a great card to keep in mind, and Mobius M. Mobius should keep Death and Mockingbird in check.

I’m excited to give the Affliction Surfer deck more play time, and I might get some Sera games in as well since I enjoy these reactive builds. However, the location has quite a large range of possibilities, so I’m sure there is a deck for everyone with Savage Land.

I hope this piece helped you get some ideas around the Hot Location, and maybe even some extra fun while it is up. If you also have some ideas you would like to share, feel free to join us on Discord. Otherwise, you can reach out to me through my Twitter page.

Good Game Everyone.