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Sersi is the second Spotlight card for the June 2024 Season, The Celestials’ Finest. It is a 5-Cost, 7-Power card that reads: On Reveal: Transform your other cards here into random cards that cost 1 more. (if able) Today, we will take a deeper look at the new card and, of course, the best decks to try it out in.
Decks with Sersi
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).
Strengths and Weaknesses
Sersi is our next Series 5 card in Marvel Snap this season, and I think this one is hard to evaluate on the surface because it does something we haven’t seen yet in Marvel Snap: She transforms all cards on your side of the board to ones of one higher cost. As with all new effects, it can be hard to translate the value of the effect from how we think it will play to how it actually plays. So today I will work through some ways to use this effect and evaluate the potential impact of playing her.
Decks with Sentry
Decks with Mister Sinister
When played, Sersi will look at the base cost of all the cards on your side, regardless of the origin of the card. This means the premium targets to work with are the ones with a low base power that can be upgraded to serious threats after Sersi is played. The Void is the best example. This card starts as -8 power, but it is also 4-Cost. This means Sersi will always transform it into a 5-Cost card. Now, you could say there is a lot of risk to the transform, but that may not be as much the case as you may think in Marvel Snap.
Every card in Marvel Snap is developed to win lanes. What this means for Sersi is the bad outcomes are not common. The 5-Cost cards that could potentially hurt you are Doctor Octopus, Professor X, Valkyrie, and Taskmaster, but almost every other 5-Cost is likely to be a strict positive outcome. The highest flip would be transforming The Void into a lane winner like Devil Dinosaur, alongside the seven power base body on Sersi.
As you go down the costs, there are two other cards that I think could be used to set up Sersi well. Mister Sinister and Brood are both excellent targets because they add multiple bodies to the board that will also upgrade. Mister Sinister will change from two 2-Cost cards to two 3-Cost cards. This cost slot does have more risk than 5-Costs since you could hit cards like Electro, Mystique, or even Sword Master and ruin your game plan. But, again, over 80% of the outcomes can be considered strictly positive. Brood changes from 3-Costs to 4-Cost cards, which I think might be the most interesting of the outcomes. Three 4-Costs on a lane will average around 18 power, but there are some bad outcomes like Attuma and Mister Negative.
The main point I’m trying to make here is if you look at the spectrum of outcomes from Sersi, each of these three applications have an above 80% chance to be clear power plays—especially with Brood potentially giving you more power than The Infinaut. Now the issue becomes how do you include these combinations in playable decks, which may be a little harder than it seems. The issues with these cards is that they take up board space and often need supporting cards. Sersi is a supporting card, but in a way that is different to any we’ve had before.
Decks with Jubilee
Decks with Leech
Decks with Blink
Most low powered cards that produce value on play are good synergies for Sersi. The outcomes are positive in the majority of cases (although not without risk), and this lets us consider what could be the actual best place to play her. Jubilee and Leech seem like two of the best one-card targets for an actual build that is focused on Sersi. These provide an immediate impact that is improved further by Sersi. For example, Leech can make Sersi worth seven power + a 6-drop while also removing the On Reveal abilities in the opponent’s hand. This fits nicely into decks that are using cards like Electro and Wave to ramp. Blink is therefore one of the best 5-Cost cards to play in the same deck since it can also target these cards.
The Verdict
Sersi may be a card that is slow out the gate, but the effect is clearly capable of winning lanes. The randomness will put off many, but it is controlled randomness that can be used to your advantage. She fits perfectly into decks that are looking to ramp, as these often use low powered cards to reach their thresholds. She can also fit in with with already strong packages like Sentry and Annihilus. On top of these applications (which are simple homes to explore for her), she could also find her way into more decks as a power play in her own right.
She is often going to result in more stats than any other 5-Cost you could play… in the right decks. The problem is whether these decks are competitive on release or not. Either way, I believe the effect will be one to keep an eye on regardless of her immediate impact.
Pre-Release Score:
Blink
SafetyBlade
This deck is a basic Ramp deck that uses Sersi as a way to “evolve” your cards with small base bodies. Leader, Leech, and Jubilee are some of the best targets, but even an early Doctor Doom can guarantee a Death (until Arishem comes out). This is the simplest home to slot Sersi into, and the main package is basically just Jubilee, Blink, and Sersi with whatever you want built around them. I focused on big cards that you can use Sersi on if they come out early in this list.
The Sentry
SafetyBlade
I’m unsure if this deck should be playing Brood or Mister Sinister. Brood can be a better high roll, but the board space concerns might become an issue. Jeff the Baby Land Shark can help ensure you don’t get locked on a lane prior to playing Sersi. You can also attack other lanes with Sentry and Annihilus, and Pixie acts as the other way to randomly win games. Pixie has the bonus of being another great target for Sersi, too.
Brood
SafetyBlade
Looking to go all in on the Sersi play, this Blue Marvel deck uses the core of the Mister Sinister+Brood decks but without the Patriot lines. Then you have Gilgamesh and Sersi as your end-of-game payoffs, and you can hide them behind Invisible Woman when you need to. This embraces the random aspect of the new card to hopefully make predicting your points spread more difficult for your opponents.
Loki
SafetyBlade
Loki has long been a deck that can incorporate some of the highest power plays, and Sersi has another distinct advantage here: lots of the card generating cards are just on rate cards for cheaper. Hitting these cards with Sersi is likely to be full upside. These also count as cards for Mockingbird, which you can combine with other generated cards on the final turn to win games without Loki. It’s not the most powerful way to play Sersi, but on the fun scale this could be one to try.
White Tiger
SafetyBlade
Here I included Sersi as yet another way to benefit from the Tigers or the lower power cards you use to create combos throughout this deck. She adds yet another dynamic that can ensure the lanes you are targeting are not telegraphed by your Namora or White Tiger play. Hitting Sersi on Wong has been confirmed to transform all cards twice, so if you play White Tiger on Turn 5 and then follow with Sersi, White Tiger will always become a 12 power Death (until Arishem) and Wong will become a 6-drop. This is just another way to finish games in a deck that has been getting more and more flexible with time.
Variants
Closing Thoughts
On average, Sersi is the biggest 5-Cost card most decks can play. However, the final home for her may take some time to find. It is probably not right to try to maximize the effect with cards like Brood since some of the potential transformations can have a negative impact, but this is the first card we have seen in some time that does something truly new in Marvel Snap.
Good Luck, Have Fun, and Stay Safe!
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