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Speed is the next Series 5 card to join Marvel Snap in the Young Avengers Season. It is a 3-Cost, 3-Power card that reads: Ongoing: +1 Power for each turn in which you spent all your Energy. Today, we will take a deeper look at the new card and, of course, the best decks to try it out in.
Decks with Speed
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
Speed is the next card in the Young Avengers Season. It’s a 3-Cost card that rewards you for every turn that you spend all your energy. This is the latest card that rewards playing on curve, joining Wiccan in trying to push players to use all the energy they have. Is this the final piece to make Quicksilver a playable card? Or is the effect just not worth the effort required to activate?
Decks with Kitty Pryde
The biggest strength with Speed is that it rewards you for playing the game efficiently. The card will be activated by using all your energy every turn, and this in theory rewards players who have Quicksilver on Turn 1 and Domino on Turn 2. With the recent release of Wiccan, we can already come to a reasonable conclusion about the inclusion of these two cards. While they do carry you through the first two turns, the deckbuilding cost for including them can be really high because they reduce your other draws. The better synergy seems to come from Kitty Pryde and
Speed‘s ability, however, has an anti-synergy with lots of decks. It’s only really useful when you can be relatively confident that you will use all your energy for the rest of the game. This theoretically makes him a 3-drop that doesn’t work well with Silver Surfer. Any deck that is OK with skipping a turn will find Speed to be an under powered card. This, in turn, significantly narrows the areas where this card can find success.
Decks with Darkhawk
The new card’s effect is Ongoing, which means it doesn’t need to be on the board to gain this benefit (similar to Morbius). The effect should count the turns prior to when he is played, so decks and cards that can consistently play on curve will gain the most power. Speed can then be played on any turn and potentially reach his maximum of nine power. This lack of requirement to be on the board or in your hand is valuable because it means that Speed is a good draw on any turn in the right decks.
Decks with Enchantress
The Ongoing effect has another key benefit: it’s immune to Shadow King. The card also remains under Shang-Chi‘s threshold, which leaves only Enchantress and Rogue as viable counter cards.
The Verdict
Speed can easily hit his power ceiling, but the decks he is in have to be built and played in a very narrow way. Fortunately, the cards he synergizes with are some of the best scaling cards in the game and, unlike Wiccan, you’re not searching for a payoff after playing him. He is the pay off. It is not a very interesting card, though, and it may not steal the spotlight like many other card releases do.
Wiccan‘s release last week showed that activating the condition itself is not difficult, the problem is what to do after. With Speed, the after answer is simple: you play it out.
Pre-Release Score:
Thena
SafetyBlade
The simplest starting point for Speed is including him in the deck that can hit its curve as flexibly as possible. Here you have Darkhawk and Thena along with Speed to do that consistently. If you’re extra greedy, you can swap out Shang-Chi for Wiccan. The basic shell has survived for a while now, so there’s not too much to add. The deck does get a boost from the potentially guaranteed nine power card, though.
SafetyBlade
The Young Avengers all come together for this version as we await the final card next week. This deck uses the full group to maintain the curve, get extra energy, and compete across the board. Loki is your answer to what do I do after playing Wiccan, and you can use Marvel Boy to pump up your stats.
Sandman
Sandman might not be the first card that comes to mind when considering Speed, but this Marvel Boy version of the deck can make Speed into a pure stat stick to help you stay ahead before playing Sandman. You might not always get the full activation on Turn 6, but it may be one of the best ways to get ahead and stay ahead going into Turn 5.
Onslaught
SafetyBlade
This Ongoing build aims to be the cheapest way to play Speed. Here you may miss an early turn, but he will likely be sitting around seven or eight power by the end of the game. Then you have Onslaught to double that power along with Iron Man and Omega Red to spread your points. Luke Cage could be better as Cosmo, but that will depend on how much hate this card gets on Day 1.
Variants
Closing Thoughts
Speed is likely to be more limited in the decks where he can be effective than it might seem on the surface. If you’re not maximizing the effect, you’re playing a generic 3-drop. However, in the decks where he does work, he may become one of the powerhouse cards. Whenever you can confidently activate this ability consistently, you can get up to nine power for simply building a deck to play efficiently. So, while he could have limits on where he can be played, Speed could also surprise us all by being the best card of the month.
Good Luck, Have Fun, and Stay Safe!
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