Scarlet Spider is the next Series 5 card joining Marvel Snap in The Amazing Spider-Season, and the third Activate card released this season. It is a 4-Cost, 5-Power card that reads: Activate: Add an exact clone of this to another location. 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 September 24, 2024: Are Scarlet Spider, Skaar, and White Widow Worth It?

Strengths and Weaknesses

Immediately when you lay your eyes on Scarlet Spider, you want to find a way to make it as big as possible and activate to create a clone. If possible, you’d like to do so on Turn 6 to avoid any possible counter card from your opponent (I’ll get back to this part later on).

So, how do you make Scarlet Spider big? You’ve got plenty of choices:

Not only do you have a sizeable number of cards to pick from, you can also see that several cards are currently seeing play or at least represent the foundation of certain archetypes. For example, Ironheart and Namora go well in the On Reveal archetype, while Hulkbuster and Araña (or Forge) can be played together in Destroy or Phoenix Force. Finally, Elsa Bloodstone and Gwenpool have met in the Good Cards archetype alongside Mysterio, Mockingbird, and Sasquatch.

Easily being able to find various homes for a new card is a great sign of its current and future playability (unless it can create a new archetype, which is very rare). Unfortunately, this upside of being a rather generic card is also a potential weakness for Scarlet Spider because there isn’t much else you can do with the card.

There’s a second weakness that I touched on in the introduction, too. The meta already has a few decks that were built to counter Move and its ability to grow big cards, which means Scarlet Spider enters an environment where cards like these will be waiting for it:

As such, the new card will have to deal with a big dilemma: how do you protect Scarlet Spider and activate it on Turn 6?

Here’s the situation. If I want to activate a card on Turn 6, the latest I can play it is Turn 5. However, if I do that, my opponent will have a turn to set up a Shadow King or Shang-Chi to target my card. This gives me a very small window of opportunity to activate my Scarlet Spider safely, before it might be met with a counter card.

Ideally, I would want to go into Turn 5 without priority, play an already buffed Scarlet Spider, gain priority heading into Turn 6, and then activate before my opponent can interact with my card.

In this scenario, I am buffing Scarlet Spider in my hand or at the moment it touches the board to keep it safe, which makes cards like Gwenpool, Shuri, Elsa Bloodstone, and Symbiote Spider-Man more valuable. However, this also constrains me to devoting a significant part of the game towards setting up my Scarlet Spider, thus making my deck kind of gimmicky in the end.

Until I can test multiple ideas and find a way to use Scarlet Spider with some flexibility, my best bet is using my “Doggo gets me out of jail free” card, Cosmo. Indeed, one of the most interesting traits about Scarlet Spider is the fact that it isn’t an On Reveal card (unlike most of the other buff targets).

While I’m on the topic of cute interactions with the card, here are a few ideas outside the “Buff Scarlet Spider” box:

Blink and Sersi can make use of the card after it activates by exchanging it for a pricier card. Iron Lad will have another great card to copy, and Cerebro can buff two cards for the price of one.

But it’s not all sunshine and daisies. Here are some cards that might make Scarlet Spider look much weaker than it really is if they are popular (spoiler: most of these are popular right now, sorry):

In addition to these four cards that target the power of your cards, I also need to mention the Junk archetype. This one has been one of the best and most popular synergies in the game this season. Cloning your card early could help them clog you out of space, while not pressing the button before Turn 6 might leave you with no clone at all for lack of room on the board.

The Verdict

After two weeks that were focused on the Move synergy, Scarlet Spider comes in as a more generic option that can contribute significant points in most decks that are willing to expend resources on buffing it. This might already be a scary proposition since the meta already features plenty of Shadow King and Shang-Chi to limit the power of Pure Move, though.

With this in mind, Scarlet Spider is a different option that is naturally attractive thanks to the still-fresh Activate keyword. But it also come with the scary prospect of ending up like Symbiote Spider-Man: a difficult gimmick to leverage.

Cosmo gives me a lot more faith in the card. The doggo provides a shield for your Activate ability that protects from Shadow King, and it’s a shield that many other cards can’t benefit from. Indeed, while you can play Cosmo after a buffed On Reveal card, imagine playing Cosmo early and then doing whatever shenanigans you want with Scarlet Spider. Then you just wait for the perfect opportunity to create the clone and profit.

Pre-Release Score:

Lockdown

Ever since storming back with the change to War Machine, Lockdown has been losing momentum week after week. During this past week, a new build that leverages the Move synergy emerged and posted incredible numbers compared to the other Lockdown lists.

I didn’t have to do much deckbuilding here if I’m honest. I just removed Jeff the Baby Land Shark from the list and threw in the new Scarlet Spider. This change gives the deck a second 4-Cost to play after Storm, and it fits the idea of playing on multiple lanes. If you think about it, Scarlet Spider can be seen as two thirds of Doctor Doom, which has been a long time staple in the Lockdown archetype.

Sure, you would usually rather play War Machine on Turn 4, but when you can’t find it Scarlet Spider can provide another card that you want to activate Araña for. if the Storm lane is under control, you might even consider activating Scarlet Spider on Turn 5 and just passing the turn. This will tell you exactly where you need to play The Infinaut to win on Turn 6.

Good Cards

I have a lot of faith in Gwenpool pairing well with Scarlet Spider. There are plenty of ways to build around her, so I started with the deck that currently holds the best results at the highest levels.

Here, you are not trying to make Scarlet Spider particularly big. A bonus two power from Araña or Gwenpool already makes it a 14 power card. In the past, Captain Marvel was often used in these decks to make sure you don’t waste points on a lost lane. With Scarlet Spider, you get two cards that contribute points, which should be worth more overall than moving your points around.

Another take on this deck could be trying to revive the Mysterio, Mockingbird, Sasquatch trio that hasn’t been around in a bit:

Cerebro 5

This is a five power card that is able to duplicate itself; I’m sure you don’t need me to explain why I felt the need to feature Cerebro 5 in this article. Plus, I’m still holding on to my delusions that Moon Girl can make this archetype better, so here’s another attempt at making it click.

On Reveal

The On Reveal archetype kind of disappeared as the summer progressed. It is true that the synergy is weak to plenty of cards, such as Cosmo, Alioth, and Magneto, and the deck loses to its own draws more often than you’d like.

Even if it might end up being a gimmick, this deck has most of the cards I want to test alongside Scarlet Spider (Namora, Ironheart, and Iron Lad), so it’s naturally a contender. I’m pretty sure Scarlet Spider will be good in this deck, but I’m not so certain that the deck itself will post good enough results to be competitive.

Variants

Closing Thoughts

I know, I said Cosmo would be instrumental in protecting Scarlet Spider, but I couldn’t find a deck to pair the two outside of a generic Good Cards build (and those typically struggle with grabbing priority early). The same thing happened with Shuri: I tried to make something cohesive with the 4-Cost, but nothing felt good enough to feature here. In all my attempts, I just ended up with something where Scarlet Spider was a way worse Nimrod that probably wasn’t worth staying in the match.

This pretty much sums up the challenge that Scarlet Spider will have to overcome upon releasing. The card has good stats—[4/10] is in line with Crossbones and Cull Obsidian after all—but you’re forced to use two board spaces instead of one. In exchange, you get a better buff target, but you also lose the synergy with Skaar. This is where I’m stuck: what is the right synergy for Scarlet Spider?

I believe that either the Good Cards deck with Gwenpool or the Move Lockdown deck will have the highest chance of making the card look good. And a card only needs one competitive archetype to welcome it in order to be labelled a worthy purchase.

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!