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In this week’s Marvel Snap Spotlight Cache rotation, Infinity Ultron headlines as the latest Series 5 card. Pixie also makes its third Spotlight appearance, and Cannonball is making another round in the Spotlight rotation.
Snap Packs Are Coming!
Developers have recently confirmed that the major Snap Pack update is launching on April 29th. With its introduction comes the end of Spotlight Caches. You can read more about it in the Developer Q/A on Snap Packs.
With Spotlights coming to an end, this month will mark the end of our weekly series. The final spotlight recommendations will account for the value of saving keys to transform into tokens in the update.
Infinity Ultron
Decks with Infinity Ultron
This week’s new card is Infinity Ultron! He is a 5-Cost, 6-Power card with the ability “On Reveal: Add 2 of Infinity Ultron’s Stones to your hand.” Just like Thanos, there are 6 Infinity Stones. Ultron’s Stones have different abilities, Cost, and Power:
Decks with Ultron Mind Stone
Decks with Ultron Time Stone
Decks with Ultron Soul Stone
Decks with Ultron Space Stone
Decks with Ultron Reality Stone
Decks with Ultron Power Stone
Infinity Ultron is a fascinating card, but his strength is questionable. The new Stones are stronger, but you’re investing a lot of energy to play them. Several Stones can be discounted by Ravonna Renslayer to make them Cost 2, and all Stones can be buffed by Silver Surfer. While I’m sure there will be a wide range of decks to test him out, Surfer is the first deck that comes to mind:
Possible Meta Deck
PulseGlazer
Surfer decks already come with several tools that can help Infinity Ultron get better value. Luna Snow can let you ramp him (or
Low CL Decks
Low CL shouldn’t even try for this card. He is a combo card that will rely on decks built around him in order to get real value. You can’t stick him in any deck and make him work, and low CL doesn’t have nearly enough tools to make him useful. Save your resources and unlock him when you have more supporting cards.
Fun Infinity Ultron Deck
CanadianAlfredo
The idea for this deck is to get more than 2 Ultron Stones. That should increase the chances of you getting a combo like Power and Reality. Wong can get you the extra On Reveal, but Symbiote Spider-Man also gives Infinity Ultron extra Power. Quinjet and Ravonna can discount your Stones to allow you to play more than 2, and Magik helps give you more time to find your combo pieces. As an alternate win condition, you have Black Panther and Arnim Zola.
Infinity Ultron Prediction
Infinity Ultron will likely be a super fun card to use, but probably not super meta. The variance of the Stones makes it hard to get consistent value, and a [5/6] isn’t worth using unless you play the Stones too. I’m sure plenty of decks will come out that make fun use with him, but I don’t expect this card to be topping the meta charts anytime soon.
For a detailed breakdown and review on Infinity Ultron, check out our strategy guide:
Cannonball
Decks with Cannonball
Cannonball has had quite a wild ride of being very good and very bad, but he currently is in the very good side of the scale. He has found homes in both clog decks and Scream decks, so you have a couple of archetypes to get value out of him. He does have niche usage outside of these two decks, but he is very strong in both of them.
den
This is the Scream decks style he works well in. Since you can easily manipulate the board state with card movements, you have solid potential for clogging 2 locations and letting Cannonball destroy a card. If you can’t clog locations, simply moving your opponent’s highest Power card out of a location will help you with his location, and move the target to a less favorable location. If Scream is on the board, you also get an extra 4 Power value.
This specific deck has found a fun usage for Uncle Ben, but there are many versions of Scream decks you can use with Cannonball. If you don’t have Uncle Ben, you can drop the destroy cards in favor of Kingpin, Aero, and Juggernaut. Iron Patriot can get consistent value since you can mess with your opponent’s card placement. Hydra Bob can also work well as a way to mask good Snaps with moving Bob around, plus he can give Kraven some extra value.
If move decks aren’t your style, you can try the clog archetype to give him some usage. If you are a fan of either archetype, I would highly recommend this card. If you don’t like the archetypes, you probably won’t get a lot of use out of the card, so you can skip it without worry. He is a Series 4 card, so it doesn’t make a difference if you use a key on him, or convert a key into 3k tokens on Snap Pack day and buy him outright.
Pixie
Decks with Pixie
Pixie is a card I love in theory, but she just has mechanics that ruin the card. Her biggest issue is when a card shuffles its Cost, but doesn’t actually change Cost. The way she is designed, all cards in your deck have their Costs removed, shuffled, then reassigned randomly. That system allows cards to get their own Costs back, which completely defeats the purpose of Pixie. Her other flaw is not functioning with generated cards, so crazy combos with Thanos or Arishem aren’t possible.
FaThorNewman
Pixie doesn’t have any meta deck usage, but this deck finds a fun use for her. The deck itself is a Jane Foster, Misery, hammer deck that functions without Pixie. If you get Pixie value, you can cheat out cards like Beta Ray Bill early, or possibly get a free Gorr the God Butcher. Mobius gives you a protection against bad shuffles that increase Cost, but it’s possible for Mobius himself to get a higher Cost and ruin your curve.
If the devs ever add a protection to her shuffle that ensures cards won’t get their own Cost back, this could be a very fun card. If they take a milder approach and make her a 1/1, she could be much more interesting to cook with. In her current state though, the card is just a worse Mister Negative.
Spotlight Variants
If you already own the cards the Spotlight Caches offer, one of the variants below will take its place! If you own none of the cards, the variants will appear after you open all four caches. Spotlight Variants are time exclusive to their release week and will not be available again until further notice.
If any of these Spotlight Variants feel like a must have for you, make sure to Cache In if you have enough caches saved to guarantee the pull!
Should I Cache In?
My recommendation this week is to Hoard for Snap Packs. With keys getting a set value of 3k tokens a piece, you should only be caching in if you will get more than 12k tokens in value. If you don’t own Pixie or Cannonball for example, caching in would net you a minimum value of 15k tokens worth of cards. If you want Infinity Ultron but not the other cards, buy him outright for 6k tokens with the 12k you will get from key conversions. While Infinity Ultron could be fun to use, this week just isn’t great value.
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