Spotlight Cache Week of August 15, 2023: Are Lady Deathstrike, MODOK, and Stature 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.

This week, we get the new card Lady Deathstrike, as well as the old season pass card MODOK and Series 4 card Stature!

Lady Deathstrike

Lady Deathstrike is the first new Spotlight card of the season. Her ability “On Reveal: Destroy each card here with less Power than this” is an interesting one. Her ability not only targets opponent’s cards, but your own too! This makes her a bit trickier to use as you don’t always want to destroy your own cards.

I see this card as a combo card and a tech card. The combo part is best shown in the official season reveal trailer, where the player uses Wong and Shuri to make Lady Deathstrike a 12 power card, then use Arnim Zola to copy the 12 power killer into the other two lanes. This effectively should destroy every card on the board that is under 12 power. The biggest issue with this combo is it requires perfect draw. You must have Zabu on turn 2, Wong on 3, Shuri on 4, Lady Deathstrike on 5, and Arnim Zola on 6. That is a crazy 5 card combo that you can’t miss tempo with.

Alternatively, you could use Okoye and Nakia as a turn 2 and 3 as a way to buff Lady Deathstrike to 5 Power (if Lady Deathstrike draws perfectly after Okoye) and complete the combo from there. I could see this deck functioning if you use Black Panther as a backup win con, but I don’t see the deck becoming meta.

The interesting alternate usage of Lady Deathstrike in my opinion is as a tech card. This card finally brings a reliable counter to cards like Dracula that can’t be removed any other way. While it is a niche tech card, Dracula has seen plenty of meta play. It saw enough play to even be debated as overpowered for a time! Now you can use this tech to destroy him, or other low power cards like Lockjaw, Iron Man, Mystique, Wong, and others. You can even play Nova in the same lane you plan to use Lady Deathstrike on. This will let her destroy the Nova and buff your board, while also destroying the opponent’s low power cards.

Lady Deathstrike also functions as a tech against cards like Green Goblin and Hobgoblin since she can destroy them and not your higher power cards. This could also be useful to clear lanes that have rocks, raptors, or ninjas. You could just use a Killmonger for those, but Lady Deathstrike can target a specific lane instead of the entire board.

Overall, I find this card to be a silly Series 4 card to play with, but not a Series 5 card. Her application in theory seems too tricky to pull off in a combo, and too niche of a tech card to include in many decks. This card will definitely have its fun moments, but I wouldn’t bank on her appearing in the meta in her current state.

A more comprehensive review of the card, as well as some starter decks, can be found below:

Lady Deathstrike Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide: Destroy & Control

MODOK

Continuing this month’s theme of featuring Season Pass cards, MODOK arrives this week! I would be surprised if you haven’t seen how strong this card can be already. MODOK obviously belongs with the discard decks, but his ability to discard your entire hand has made him a near must include for discard decks. It is strong enough to be included in multiple styles of discard decks.

One such deck is the classic Apocalypse deck. MODOK allows you to remove your entire hand except for Apocalypse and Swarm. This allows you to play multiple Swarms and America Chavez on turn 6 and let Dracula guarantee a discard on a buffed Apocalypse. If you didn’t play Dracula in time, you still have a large Apocalypse you can play with multiple swarms. Combo this with Morbius and the Collector, you can generate massive value from playing MODOK.

Another deck MODOK uses is Hela decks. The biggest issue this deck used to have is balancing discard cards with big targets. With MODOK, there is a clear play line. Invisible Woman, MODOK, Hela. That’s it. You can discard your entire hand and bring them all back without needing multiple discard enablers.

A more niche, but still playable, deck uses the basic idea of the Apocalypse deck and aims to make their Morbius and the Collector massive. You do this by playing Wong and Mystique to make your On Reveal happen 4 times, then play MODOK to wipe your hand out multiple times! With Swarm, this let’s your hand multiply for the Collector, and also discard a bunch for Morbius!

MODOK is a must have card if you enjoy the discard archetype. If you avoid the deck due to inconsistency, this card will definitely help with that issue. If you don’t like the archetype, this card doesn’t fit in other decks, so it might be a good time to pass.

Stature

Stature is an interesting card to me. She only sees play with one other specific card, and the combo of these cards was strong enough to warrant nerfs to both cards. I of course refer to the Black Bolt and Stature combo. This allows you to remove a card from your opponents hand on turn 5, and use statures decent power at a super low 1 Cost. Despite the nerf, this combo is still very strong and viable.

The deck it primarily sees play in is in Darkhawk decks. This allows for a massive turn 6 play if you play Black Bolt and move Jeff on turn 5, then play Darkhawk, Stature, and Miles Morales on 6. If you are looking for a competitive meta deck, this one definitely has potential.

Outside of Black Bolt pairings, this card basically sees no play. Most players don’t include this card as a punish for your opponent playing discard, but that is another usage for her. You can also use Moon Knight to discard your opponents card, but you of course lose your own card as well, which makes Moon Knight locked to discard decks typically.

The Variants

If you already own the card 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 4 caches. Spotlight variants are time exclusive to their release week, with no estimated time on when they will be available again. 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.

This Lady Deathstrike variant comes from artist Eduardo Mello. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because he has a massive amount of artist credits for Marvel Snap. Not only does he have a ton of variants, he also is the artist for many base arts for the game.

The Famous Skottie Young launches MODOK‘s Baby variant this week! If you enjoy the Baby collection, here is another for you to grab!

Eduardo Mello has a second variant launching in this week’s Spotlight Cache. This variant, however, isn’t part of any collection, but rather just an alternate design for the card.

Should I Cache In?

This week is a bit of a mixed bag in my opinion. MODOK, is a great card, but doesn’t carry the cache on his own. Stature is a strong card in a very specific deck, but is also a Series 4 card. Lady Deathstrike may be a fun card to mess around with, but I don’t see her becoming a must have any time soon.

My recommendation this week is to Hoard Your Caches unless you are desperate for MODOK. Seeing as the new card doesn’t look nearly as strong as the upcoming cards (including next season’s), I feel like this week doesn’t pack enough punch. If you don’t own Stature or MODOK and are interested in those playstyles, I think Cache-ing In would make sense for you. Seeing as how Stature was in Series 4 for a long enough time that many players got her for free in their collection track months ago, and MODOK was a Season Pass card, many players will have one or both of these already.

Wrap Up

Do you think Lady Deathstrike is 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:

Marvel Snap New Card Release, Spotlight Cache, and Series Drop Schedule