Table of Contents
Hi! I’m Glazer of Snap Judgments, the official podcast of Marvel Snap Zone. I’ve been playing Marvel Snap since its global launch and never, since the start of the game, has resource planning been a more integral part of the Marvel Snap experience. With Spotlight Caches containing a new card every week, trying to plan to target the cards you want is key.
Today, I’ll be acting as your guide through every Marvel Snap Spotlight Cache rotations currently planned or datamined (keeping in mind the new cards and the cache contents itself can be changed before release), ranking them from most desirable to least. I’m going to put a special emphasis on released cards, since we cannot know how good the unreleased ones are (remember, we mostly thought Loki would be bad, but War Machine would be game-breaking, and Arishem was going to be meme tier). However, if you’d like to check out the preliminary reviews on all the upcoming cards, check them out:
Without further ado, here are your Spotlight Cache rankings with an explanation for each of the 13 weeks for which we have information.
13. August 27, 2024
Wow, it hurts to have the Spotlight that comes with my birthday ranked so low, but there’s no real way around it – nothing here is really desirable right now.
Nimrod is a former season pass card and a series 4 card, each of which always downgrade the card a bit in the rankings. Further, the card is only really relevant in one deck –
Cannonball is a very good card, but with first Professor X and then Doctor Octopus nerfed, he’s a card without a package or deck to call home. Maybe one of the October cards will make opponent move worth it and I’ll regret this ranking, but for now, Cannonball is a luxury item.
All of this means
12. October 1, 2024
Scream seems absolutely incredible as a build-around. She scales up, stealing two power whenever an opponent’s card moves… not just gaining that power, but taking it from the moving card. Since she can be played on two, one trigger is an effective [2/5], two [2/9] (the stats she gains + the stats the opponent loses). Since she’s once per turn, there can be up to 5 moves from the opponent, which means a potential [2/17] worth of stats by the end of the game. This is obviously great against the little movers decks that are all over the place, but this is enough stats to potentially make a move opponent’s cards deck (think Aero, Polaris, Spider-Man) deck real.
Unfortunately, the cards with Scream are both Series 4. Mobius M. Mobius is a great card, but Second Dinner has released so many powerful 3-Cost cards and nerfed the card he was best at countering – Loki – so that he’s a great card without a home, just like Cannonball, except you get double Token value out of opening for Cannonball.
Man-Thing just never found a home and badly needs a buff or a re-work. He just isn’t in any meta decks and, outside of a week when he first came out, really never has been. This is the real anchor holding this week back.
11. October 29, 2024
Anti-Venom, like all of October’s cards, seems awesomely powerful. [4/6] is good stats, and setting the top card’s cost and power to 0 seems amazing with an absolute ton of abilities. Off the of of my head, Iron Man, Mystique, Patriot, Ultron, Doctor Doom, Ms. Marvel, Sandman, Darkhawk, any of the rock generators or Black Widow… there’s just so much to like here.
And that quality is probably why the cards with Anti-Venom leave much to be desired. Supergiant is our third week we’re doing to discuss with a powerful card that just isn’t meta, and this one really never has been. Her ability is stunningly powerful, but the deck that makes her sing either in or against top meta decks? No one has cracked the Supergiant code.
Ghost-Spider is better than Supergiant, especially coming out of the September move season. Not only is this card an absolute staple in Phoenix Force, but it finds its way into basically every deck that wants to move its cards. That might not seem so impressive, but with so many great move cards in September, this could be a real steal. Unfortunately, that’s still speculative, and this is objectively a Series 4 card that was not only a Season Pass, but is also out of the meta at the time of this printing.
10. October, 22 2024
Toxin is the single card I want most in the game. I love bounce decks and a card that bounces its lane and gets +2 power for each bounced card? Yes, yes I do want bounce Carnage very badly. This card will basically immediately make Black Swan a go to as a 3-8 bounce card that goes with Falcon and Beast just seems absolutely amazing. Give me this card now.
If Zabu is reworked before this Spotlight, this week will shoot up the rankings. Formerly the best card in the game, changing an Ongoing to an On Reveal really wrecked this card. Whether it becomes Activate (for more on Activate, check place #2) or is otherwise changed, this card seems like it can shake things up if properly restored. Right now, it’s a Series 4 former Season Pass that just isn’t played.
The third card is Elsa Bloodstone, another former Season Pass card. This is a severely underrated card, but the prevalence of Thena really pulled it out of a lot of decks. I like Elsa and think she’s underplayed, but that she’s underplayed means no one is really deckbuilding with her, leaving her a skippable card.
9. October 15, 2024
I think Scorn will be great. She’s scaling power for discard lists, as every time she’s discard she gets bigger and gives her power to a card in play. Silver Samurai, Blade, and Colleen Wing all absolutely love this card, as it likely just replaced Miek. It can, however, end up a clunky card drawn late, which may hurt it from being a full build-around. I totally want to Wong a cheap discard and let this go crazy, but that we can do that, that there’s a third card now that stays in hand after being discard could be huge.
Sebastian Shaw is the other really great card this week. He’s only really at home in Silver Surfer lists, but Gwenpool finding a home in those decks has allowed Shaw to really shine. He can be played early with Forge, late after Gwenpool, and in either case buffed further by Surfer or Nova. That sounds like a card worth owning, especially given the quality of Silver Surfer decks currently.
Meanwhile, Jean Grey had a solid month or so before she faded back to obscurity. We have proof of concept that Jean Grey Ongoing decks can work in the right meta. That right meta, however, seems to be exceedingly rare.
8. August 13, 2024
When Loki was arguably the best card in the game, this was absolutely the week to open. The Loki nerf, though, really pulled back the shine of this week… with one exception. If you love Arishem, Loki is the single best and most important card in that deck. Given Loki is a former Season Pass card who spent so long as the best card, many readers likely have him, but if you don’t, and do have Arishem and want to play it more effectively, this week spikes up to great.
I have no idea where Pixie went. We had a small Pixie Renaissance immediately prior to Arishem, but then the card just disappeared. It’s still good with Mobius M Mobius, especially Beta Ray Bill Thors decks, but with Lockjaw changed, spending spotlights on Pixie just doesn’t seem really necessary.
Wiccan is confusing. [4/7] is good stats. +2 Energy seems great. How consistent is that energy going to be to pull off? No one can answer that. What we can answer is what we do with the extra energy. Wiccan seems like an awesome card in a deck with a lot of three or 4-cost cards. If that’s the case, this is sort of like the new Zabu, and it even works with Zabu as a 1-Cost card, Zabu and Wiccan will have you swimming in energy all game. But none of that matters if Wiccan isn’t consistent.
7. September 10, 2024
Madame Web is my pick of the single strongest card we have datamined. She’s a [2/3] that has the Ongoing ability You can move one of your other cards away from here each turn. That’s insanely strong with Move cards like Human Torch, Dagger, and Vulture, and she works amazingly with Hercules. She’s almost a guaranteed two moves for a key card and three immediately with Hercules. That’s 8-16 Power for Human Torch or a 15-21 Power Vulture. I cannot be more excited for this card.
Alioth is an amazing Arishem card. Like Loki before though, that’s the only home for this card. If you have Loki, Mockingbird, and Alioth though, all three cards that appear in this article, you have the top Arishem deck right now. That’s not nothing, and Alioth is an absolute cube thief turning off cards like Iron Man and Shang-Chi. If it were good in anything but Alioth, this week would be way higher up.
Silk though, isn’t very good right now. The current move decks just don’t need her, and they’re likely to need her even less with Madame Web and Arana come out. Silk had its day, but now it’s a Series 4 card without a good home.
6. October 8, 2024
Again, the October cards just seem very strong. Misery has awesome stats at 5-10 and her ability to force a retrigger of all On Reveals at a location seems like it’d be quite easy to abuse. Want a second Wave so you can Knull? Need to trigger a Deathlok again to get rid of a mess? Want a second Tiger out of White Tiger or two more Doombots (with that Wave play)? All of that is awesome. It gives you the On Reveal with you want while also replacing the stats on that card with a 5-10. And it doesn’t touch non-On Reveals, so if an Iron Man or Thena is in that lane, they’re totally safe!
Outside of Misery being amazing, this week gets a bump for an unlikely reason – Namora is great and most of my readers probably skipped her. The season she came out was supercharged, and so people thought she would be bad. It turns out she’s not only really great, but also opens up an archetype by her very existence. Don’t miss out on Namora twice!
One of the reasons she was missed the first time, though, is the card she shares a Spotlight with – War Machine. Everyone thought War Machine was going to be amazing. However, War Machine is not a good card, but with his recent buff and Sandman all over the meta, if he were ever going to shine, now’s the time!
5. September 3, 2024
When last we talked about Silver Sable, I thought she was bad. Since then, we’ve seen how powerful Cassandra Nova’s steal power is, particularly in bounce, and I think the two cards together can be potentially debilitating. This is likely only a bounce card, but it either gets 4 power (takes 2, gains 2) or the opponent just doesn’t play the card, giving Silver-Sable a Spider-Ham like ability. That seems awesome.
U.S. Agent gets a bump similar to Namora. Upon his release though, he was actually bad, and it took him being buffed to giving -4 Power to be good. Well, he is, in fact, very good, and when more people have him, more decks will use him to see just how insanely strong his effect is. This is the first chance to grab him since both his original release and buff.
The last card this week is Mockingbird. She was nerfed to cost 6, but remains one of the best cards in the game. She’s in fewer decks now – Loki is gone and Silver Surfer doesn’t run her, but there’s still plenty of decks that run Mysterio just for her, and, of course, Arishem, exists wherein she is the third Series 5 card that deck absolutely needs.
4. August 20, 2024
Speed seems like an awful lot of work for a potential [3/9]. That said, not only do I expect him to be buffed – what card that reads this weak isn’t? – but he has some really interesting synergies to explore in both Silver Surfer and Ongoing lists. If he’s big enough in either of those, or both since Captain America certainly suggests that deck may be possible, then maybe he won’t even need that buff. Still, he’s one of the weakest new cards we know about, so it’s important that the cards he releases with are absolutely stellar.
Jeff the Baby Land Shark is probably only the second or third best card in Marvel Snap now. Without Professor X and Clog, it looked like his stock might fall. Then we entered a Sandman meta, and once more, Jeff is worth way more than his weight in gold. Play the card – he wins games.
Iron Lad had fallen entirely out of the meta, but that meta Sandman deck? Yeah, it really needs Iron Lad. Lad has long been one of the most important cards in the game whenever seeing specific pieces is important, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see him find a home too in decks for Wiccan or other similar cards. The Lad always returns.
Deckbuilding is just easier with the Lad and Jeff in your collection.
3. September, 24 2024
Skaar is a fairly underrated card. The January Season Pass card keeps finding its way around the fringes of the top of the meta, whether it be Big Idiots decks, Thanos, or Black Knight. A card that can be a [4/11] or less in the right shell is one worth owning.
And Scarlet Spider seems amazing. The Spider is a [4/5] that has the new Activate keyword (press it to activate its effect): it can add an exact clone of itself to another location. That’s a minimum of four energy for ten power, but if it’s buffed in any way, the clone will carry those, too! [4/10] is premium stats, and the other shenanigans that will work with this (reaching spots like Sanctum Sanctorum on the last turn, for example) will be incredible.
White Widow is still one of the best and most frustrating cards in the game. She’s the only 2-cost in the game (until we figure out Kate Bishop Hawkeye at least) that can touch Jeff, the Baby Landshark in terms of general usefulness, and she may be even better in specific decks like Junk, Clog, and Bounce that need her.
2. August 6, 2024
Marvel Boy seems to be an amazing card for Zoo decks and might just make Squirrel Girl one of the best early plays in the game since it enables Mockingbird and is amazing for Marvel Boy buffs. As a [3/2], Marvel Boy automatically gives up to three 1-Cost cards +1 Power at the end of the turn. If played after Squirrel Girl on Turn 3, that’s +12 power. It’ll work on any 1s; The Hood and Demon seem fairly reasonable, as do cards like Deadpool or Human Torch. I’m really excited for one of my favorite characters to be this strong.
The cards with Marvel Boy are a step up, too. Red Hulk remains the best general 6-Cost card in the game. If you need Red Hulk and have any interest in Zoo, shoot this up the list for yourself.
Blob was an Arishem only card. It still may be, but many are cutting it from those lists. If Blob is truly gone from Arishem, then this goes down two spots, but early returns suggest the Blob versions win and cube rates remain super high – so this week keeps the coveted #2 spot.
1. September 17, 2024
For two months in a row, this is the #1 week to target.
Araña seems so powerful and is exactly what Bounce needs. This Activate card (press it to trigger its affect) pushes the last card you played to the right and gives it +2 power. That works incredibly well with Iron Fist or Hercules. It’s especially great with Human Torch because it immediately becomes a [1/8]. I’m super excited for this card. It’s probably not as good as Madame Web individually, but the two in concert are insanely strong; you can push a card into Madame Web who can then move it again next turn, and then you can Ghost-Spider it back to Madame Web!
Ms. Marvel is another former Season Pass card, and even though it was once the best card in the game, it’s become extremely underrated. In various Black Knight, Sera, and Sandman lists, it’s still one of the better cards in Snap, even if no one talks about it as such anymore.
Finally, this is the first Spotlight appearance of Sage. Sage is an amazingly powerful card that was kept in check the week it released by the “Leech-on-4″ meta. So many people skipped it because of that, and they are now lacking one of the game’s strongest cards. This is the week to make up for that.
Conclusion
And that’s my ranking of every Spotlight Cache coming to Marvel Snap. Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know what you think!
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