Spotlight Cache Week of April 23, 2024: Are White Widow, Nico Minoru, and Snowguard Worth It?

Welcome back to our new weekly series Cache-ing In! Each week, we break down what cards will be available in the new Spotlight Caches, as well as the Spotlight Variants! The goal is to help you determine if you should “Cache in” for the content, or hoard for a better week.

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Spotlight Cache Week of April 23, 2024

This week, the featured cards will be the new Series 5 card Red Guardian, as well as the return of Nico Minoru and Snowguard!

White Widow

Variants

White Widow

On Reveal: Add a Widow’s Kiss to your opponent’s side of this location.

Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

view card details Start a deck Decks with White Widow

Variants

Widow’s Kiss

Ongoing: This has -4 Power. Disable this ability if your side of this location is full.

None

view card details Start a deck Decks with Widow’s Kiss

Kicking off the back half of this season is the premiere of White Widow! She is a 2-Cost, 2-Power card with the ability “On Reveal: Add a Widow's Kiss to your opponent’s side of this location.” A Widow's Kiss is a 0-Cost, 0-Power token card with the ability “Ongoing: This has -4 Power. Disable this ability if your side of this location is full.”

This card looks incredibly strong to me. She is a [2/2] that clogs a spot at her worst, and a [2/6] at her best. She really provides no downside to the user. She feels like a power creep of Lizard, who is a [2/5] at best and a [2/1] at worst that doesn’t clog a location slot, and Green Goblin. The clog portion of the card is the biggest strength of this card, as clog decks are very popular right now.

With the rise of decks playing Angela, Hope Summers, Elsa Bloodstone, and move cards, Junk decks have proved as an extremely strong counter. By clogging locations, you limit your opponent’s ability to play flexibly. After Alioth‘s nerf, Hela and The Living Tribunal decks also surged. Junk decks also counter these by blocking locations for Hela’s cards to return to.

White Widow Junk

Created by CanadianAlfredo

, updated 12 days ago

1

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

5x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

This Junk deck leans toward the more aggressive clog side of things. Your typical Junk cards are here like the Annihilus package, Debrii, and the goblins. White Widow works here as a Junk card that you can play on turn 2. While too much Junk could remove the -4 power, just having extra clog that can’t be removed with Killmonger is a huge bonus. You can even use Titania here to clog a location until the final turn, which can flip her back to your side and create a 9 Power swing with ease. Your Nebula let’s you passively gain power while your opponent is stuck finding space to play their cards.

White Widow Lockdown

Created by CanadianAlfredo

, updated 12 days ago

1

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

6x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

1x Season Pass

3.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.5

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

This deck focuses more on Lockdown than on Junk. Using Daredevil and Professor X, you aim to lock down a location to win. With Nebula and White Widow, you can out pressure on 2 locations early on in the match to set up a strong turn 5. Baron Zemo and Gladiator are not used here for mill purposes. Instead, they give you Intel and provide extra stats for your lockdown goal.

Magik and Doctor Octopus help you to clog a location and mess with tempo to power up your Red Hulk. Shang-Chi and Cannonball allow you to swing power on the final turns to secure the victory. The destroyed cards can also help reactivate your Widow's Bite to swing even more power.

Overall, I think White Widow is incredibly strong and will flood the meta very quickly. With Junk and Lockdown decks already performing well, her inclusion may further snowball these strong decks. Her only weakness currently is the amount of Annihilus already in the meta could force many “whoever plays him last wins” scenarios.

Nico Minoru

Variants

Nico Minoru

On Reveal: After you play your next card, cast a spell. (The spell changes each turn.)

Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Nico Minoru

Joining this week’s cache is the return if Nico Minoru! Nico is a top tier, must-have card for players of all collection levels. Her versatility makes her viable in a wide range of decks. She provides card draw, location interaction, card movement, card transformation, card copying and even boosts to card stats. Combined with her being a 1-Cost, this card can easily slot into a number of decks and provide huge benefits.

Nico Minoru‘s arguably strongest deck is with Destroy. Many of her spells provide a huge boost to the deck and can high roll you victories game after game. Give Deadpool 2 extra power, destroy one of your destroy targets to draw 2 cards, copy a Venom to gain a powerful extra destroy trigger, and even move your destroy cards into restricted locations! Her flexibility has pumped destroy decks into the top of the meta.

Destroy

Created by den

, updated 13 days ago

0

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

2x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

I could go on about how beneficial this card is in other decks, but the summary is a much quicker read: this is a S-Tier card and is a must have. If you are missing her still, don’t let this week slip past you. Not only is she strong, she is incredibly fun to use and an auto include across numerous decks.

Snowguard

Variants

Snowguard

On Reveal: Add the Hawk and Bear auroras to your hand.

Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Snowguard

Closing out this week is the return of Snowguard! This card provides 2 abilities, but you mostly will use one of the two. Snowguard Hawk is much more versatile and let’s you access restricted locations, disrupt your opponent, and even remove Limbo. Snowguard Bear has some fun interactions with a few locations, but most of the time it will do nothing but provide an extra stat point over Snowguard Hawk.

Her usage is primarily limited to Loki and The Collector decks. Her ability to generate 2 cards at 1-Cost makes her very efficient at triggering The Collector or providing ammo to Loki. Often times you won’t even use Hawk or Bear in the match. Other decks like Silver Surfer have tried to make Snowguard viable, but no decks have stuck outside of Loki and Collector.

Loki

Created by den

, updated 13 days ago

0

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

4x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

2.6

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Snowguard is an easier card to sleep on than recent picks. In the decks she is used in, she is replaceable. However, she does elevate the decks by providing consistent flexibility to locations. If I had to guess, she would be Second Dinner’s next choice of a Series Drop from 4 to 3. She is in no way a bad card, she is just currently only strong in 1 or 2 deck styles.

Spotlight Variants

If you already own the cards the Spotlight Cache offers, one of these variants will take it’s 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, with no estimated time on when they will be available again: The developers recently mentioned they are looking to make Spotlight Variants available in the shop 1 year after their release, though no mention of cost yet. So 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.

Viktor Farro launches his first line of variants to Marvel Snap this month! This week features Viktor’s take on White Widow!

The legendary Peach Momoko drops their Nico Minoru variant this week!

That fun, Pixar-style art from Max Grecke returns in this new Snowguard variant!

Should I Cache In?

This week continues the standard value of two Series 5 cards and one Series 4 card. White Widow looks like a must have for clog enjoyers, and perhaps beyond Junk/clog with a [2/6] statline. Nico is a S-Tier card and has been since her release. Snowguard is good in her primary decks, but not very viable in other archetypes.

My recommendation this week is to Cache In! Nico Minoru and White Widow are great cards to pick-up, and even Snowguard is a strong card in Loki decks. With a week full of powerful abilities, it’s a perfect time to boost your collection and utilize 4 keys in the most efficient way.

Wrap Up

Do you think White Widow will be a good card? Will you be Cache-ing In this week? Let us know in the comments! For the full schedule, check out our guide below: