Scorn is the next Series 5 card joining Marvel Snap for the October season We Are Venom. It is a 1-Cost, 2-Power card that reads: When you discard this, return it to your hand and give +2 Power to itself and one of your cards in play. 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 15, 2024: Are Scorn, Jean Grey, and Sebastian Shaw Worth It?

Strengths and Weaknesses

You have to love it when a card is so straight forward. In fact, you probably don’t need me to tell you exactly where to play Scorn.

Sure, there are multiple ways to play Discard at the moment, but Scorn isn’t in the business of making things hard to understand: just discard Scorn as much as possible.

Lady Sif and Moon Knight don’t work with Scorn, but you can easily build a Discard deck without them. Also, I didn’t include Silver Samurai because I don’t plan on Scorn being the lowest power card in my hand on Turn 4. Still, you have seven cards that are able to get Scorn out of your hand, which is more than enough to make the 1-Cost worth ten power fairly easily. It’s also important to note that Scorn will always have a target to buff since you need to play a card to discard it. Speaking of targets, let’s take a look at the cards that I think are best to pair with Scorn:

There are a lot of cards that can benefit from getting their power boosted. Every time a new buff card releases, I usually talk about Iron Man or Scarlet Spider. This time, however, those just don’t fit with the discard theme here. So I decided to narrow it down to three cards that you would actually play in your Discard deck: Daken, Dracula, and The Collector.

The first one is the most promising (although the Muramasa Shard might conflict a little with Scorn when targeting cards with Colleen Wing and Blade). Dracula shares a similar purpose by possibly getting buffed, but more importantly it has gained a second high power target if you don’t draw into Apocalypse. I know, I know; Scorn is almost never going to become a 12 power card, but even just a double-digit power on Dracula already makes it one of the biggest 4-Costs in the game.

Last, The Collector is not only a cheap card you can play early to manage your hand and get ready for Scorn, it will also gain an extra power every time you discard Scorn the same way Apocalypse does.

If these cards are the best power pairings for Scorn, let’s take a look at the tempo, energy, and disruption oriented pairings.

These three have functioned as a package in the past, usually with Wolverine or Daken as well. We haven’t seen them in quite some time, though, as Moon Knight, Black Bolt, and Stature represent the disruptive side of Discard right now. With Scorn in the mix—and neither Moon Knight nor Black Bolt able to synergize with it—there might be something to explore here.

Other cards might join in on the fun if Discard gets significantly better with Scorn, but these three could be the backbone of the new 1-Cost’s success. Plus, I believe Scorn should be more worried about the cards it will have to play around than the ones it might buff.

Since Agent Venom released, Cosmo and Shadow King have been a huge part of the meta. Unfortunately for Scorn, both sound like bad news; Cosmo will impair your discards, and Shadow King just cancels the cards you buffed. These two counter cards already make Daken a dangerous bet, and The Collector might not stay big for very long.

I could have also mentioned Shang-Chi or Spider-Ham here, but Cosmo and Shadow King are particularly popular at the moment.

The other weakness I envision for Scorn is just the generally high power level of this meta. Move has Human Torch who can grow much bigger than Scorn, and Destroy has Deadpool filling the same role. Agent Venom pushes Iron Man and Mystique to be quite popular, and the recent buff to Zabu has some Scarlet Spider + Skaar decks roaming around.

Don’t get me wrong, Scorn is welcome assistance for the Discard archetype. The synergy is in need of a strong flagship archetype now that Hela is pretty much gone. Stature Darkhawk was that archetype for a while, but the current popularity of Cosmo has become a problem for that deck.

The Verdict

If you want to know if I think Scorn is a good card, my answer is absolutely yes. I would give the same answer if you asked me whether I am going to play the card in my Discard Dracula build.

However, I don’t know if Discard Dracula will be able to thrive because of Scorn. Sure, the deck will have more power, but it doesn’t gain much of anything besides power.

I feel like the current Marvel Snap meta wants you to do more than just develop a ton of power. You have to do it flexibly, or be able to protect your power in order to find success. Honestly, I still don’t see either of those things happening in Discard Dracula, or any gimmicky Discard deck for that matter.

Scorn is a nine-star card for Discard, easily an auto-include and definitely a card you want if you are struggling to reach Infinite. If you’re talking about the most competitive ranks, however, perhaps Scorn isn’t what the synergy needs to thrive at the moment.

Pre-Release Score:

Discard Dracula

In the latest Ranked Tier List, this build of Discard Dracula was doing fairly well. It uses Gwenpool to help with its points potential. Scorn comes in as an obvious replacement for Gwenpool since it serves the same role while synergizing with the entire deck.

This is the obvious starting point for Scorn the moment it releases.

All Flavors of Discard

Discard has been built in plenty of different ways in the past, but none of those have ever managed to surpass the status of “a fun gimmick”. Here are some of those builds if you fancy trying one. The Collector‘s build has a shot at being an Arishem bootleg, while the other two play right into the Cosmo problem I discussed above as one of Scorn‘s possible weaknesses.

Scarlet Spider Discard

I know, I know… I said looking into cards that aren’t discard-oriented doesn’t make sense. But it just so happens that there’s a deck looking for all the extra power it can get. Plus, that build doesn’t really mind what cheap cards it plays, as long as they help get 4-Costs on the board earlier or get bigger. In this mix, Scorn represents a way to buff your cards, and it makes X-23 not feel quite so alone as a good discard target. You even have the 4-Cost Silver Samurai to bridge gap between the 4-Cost and Discard synergies.

Killmonger is just a flexible 3-Cost that doesn’t hurt you (except for Zabu), and it gives you more energy with X-23 in addition to wrecking certain decks. Phastos, Nocturne, and plenty of other 3-Cost cards can also be in that slot. Sword Master is an interesting prospect as well here.

Variants

Closing Thoughts

Scorn has the potential to be the card of the month, similar to Scream during the first week. There is an obvious archetype to play the card in that will determine the value of Scorn for many of us. There are some exotic builds to test with Scorn as well, but it is hard to see them performing well if regular Discard doesn’t.

I believe Scorn is definitely a purchase for any Discard aficionado, and it will be a powerhouse when climbing up the ranks to Infinite. However, even with more points available, the competition is fierce once you get into the higher spheres. Once there, you might have to be a little more creative, and that will determine whether Scorn will be a good addition or a fantastic addition to the Discard synergy.

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!