Spotlight Cache Week of August 27, 2024: Are Emperor Hulkling, Nimrod, and Canonball 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.

Spotlight Cache Week of August 27, 2024

This week, we get the newest Series 5 card Emperor Hulkling! Joining him will be the return of Series 5 cards Nimrod and Cannonball!

Emperor Hulkling

As we enter the final week of this season, we get a wild new card: Emperor Hulkling (aka Hulkling)! He is a 6-Cost, 11-Power card with the ability “At the start of the game, copy the text of a random 6-Cost card.” Despite asking for clarification from developers, we currently don’t have confirmation if Agatha Harkness is a potential copy from the pool of cards. They do exclude Agatha from Nick Fury (who also generates 6-Cost cards), so the assumption is Agatha is excluded in this case too.

I see a lot of debate on the big question “is this a good or bad ability?” To properly analyze that, we need to look at the data. Below is a list of all 6-Cost cards Hulkling can generate (29 in total currently, including Agatha). I split each 6-Cost into a category of their usefulness to the average Hulkling deck he could be used in.

• Beneficial (14 or 48%)- Abilities that will always give a positive or neutral benefit each match: Mockingbird, Sasquatch, Red Hulk, Magneto, Onslaught, Doctor Doom, She-Hulk, Skaar, Alioth, Odin, Blob, Spectrum, Leader, Ultron
• Harmful (4 or 14%)- Abilities that will almost always hurt your gameplan with no upside: The Living Tribunal, Giganto, Destroyer, Agatha Harkness (?)
• No Benifit (4 or 14%)- Abilities that almost always won’t give any positive or negative changes: Helicarrier, Apocalypse, Thanos, Hulk,
• Situational (7 or 24%)- Abilities that will often be neutral, a potential to be bad, but could have big positives in the right situation: Orka, Hela, Heimdall, Galactus, Knull, Arnim Zola

Based on this data, you will get a positive or neutral ability for Hulkling about 50% of the time you draw him. If you include all situational outcomes as at least neutral, you get a 86% chance of a positive or non-harmful outcome in most cases. That statistic increases even more if Agatha is excluded from the pool of cards. There are niche cases where a bad card can be good (getting Destroyer against a Galactus Clog deck) or getting a good card can be bad (Ultron with the location bar with no name). These statistics assume outcomes a typical match.

Simply put, you have a significantly higher chance of getting positive outcomes from Hulkling in your deck. Furthermore, you have a very low (14%) chance of getting an ability that will definitely hinder your options. How do you utilize Hulkling in the meta though?

A Peculiar Situation

Hulkling has a very cool ability, but one that I think will struggle with Snap’s biggest limitation: deck size. You only get 12 cards in a deck. If you want to add Hulkling to a deck, he has to offer something better than an existing card you have slotted. Unless he creates a new archetype (which I don’t think he does), it’s hard to determine what decks he really belongs in. You could shove him in a Hela deck because he’s a big card and could high roll sometimes. You could drop him in a good cards list to get some unpredictable value.

Ultimately, his randomness makes him difficult to build around. Decks typically have specific gameplans, so cutting a card to slot him in will be the tricky part. I don’t have any real deck ideas outside of the 2 or 3 that other creators have also had. I don’t want to lead you readers on by suggesting my decks that are worth using when I don’t even know how to use this card, so I am instead referring you to Den’s article on Hulkling for deck suggestions this week.

Hulkling Prediction

Overall, Hulkling looks like a very fun, very unpredictable card that should be a blast to play!… If he finds a home that is. For a card that has incredible high roll potential, and great statistics on high rolling, his only limitation is what deck wants to actually use him. 6-Cost cards are typically finishers in a deck since they can’t be played until the end of most matches. What deck has room for an unpredictable finisher? If he finds a good home (or several homes) this card could quickly become a must have! Without a home, he may unfortunately be a fascinating card that sits in your collection until his time to shine comes out.

I think if Hulkling was a 3-Cost that generated a 3-Cost ability, or a 4 that generated a 4, he would be much more flexible in decks to experiment with. His randomness gives you a huge advantage with snapping since your opponent has no idea what you could have. I truly hope Hulkling finds a good home since he is such a wild card. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to use him effectively yet.

Best Hulkling Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide

Nimrod

Following up Hulkling this week is a much more predictable card, Nimrod! He isn’t a typical destroy card like you would expect, meaning he never really appears in classic destroy lists. Instead, he has found a home with Shuri or The Phoenix Force.

Specifically, this classic list uses both Shuri and The Phoenix Force. Nimrod creates an alternate play line when your Phoenix Force plan doesn’t work out. Nimrod and Phoenix Force work well in a deck together because they both can utilize destroy cards to give them value. Shuri can double the Power of either target, which sets up for an explosive final turn. The Iron Lad in this deck is considered a flex slot. You can substitute him out for cards like Shang-Chi, Magik, or even Destroyer.

Nimrod is a solid card that enhances The Phoenix Force archetype well. He does see occasional play in Galactus decks, but not very often. If you are interested in these types of archetypes, Nimrod is a solid pickup. If not, you don’t have to own him to be meta competitive.

Cannonball

Closing out this season is the return of Cannonball! This card has been on a roller coaster of meta relevance. He was a flop on launch, a monster during the Lockdown and Professor X meta, disappeared from the meta after the nerf, and now sees some niche play. Currently, he sees the most play in junk decks and with Galactus.

This list highlights the Galactus style Cannonball works with. His main purpose is an effective destroy tool for your post-Galactus location. On turn 5, he can destroy an opposing card while keeping that slot blocked off. On turn 6, he can destroy the biggest threat to your victory. Without Galactus, Cannonball can still help you win by knocking a big card into your throw away location, or into a location you can contest easier.

Unfortunately, Cannonball has always been an OK card riding off the back of strong decks. Randomly moving opposing cards around isn’t a strong ability in itself. If you don’t have a deck that can consistently allow Cannonball to destroy his target, he simply becomes a worse Shang-Chi or Stegron. I wouldn’t recommend opening Caches specifically for this card, but he’s fine to own if you fancy a good junk or Galactus list.

Spotlight Variants

If you already own the cards the Spotlight Cache offers, one of these variants 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 only be available after 1 full year of time has passed.

Daily Offer – How to Purchase Variants

After the year, they will be available for purchase from the Daily Offer. They will cost 2,400 Gold per variant. 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.

As this month’s featured artist, Flaviano Armentaro showcases his Hulkling variant this week!

This Nimrod variant comes from the artist Combo Break! This is a popular artist with some alternate styles on popular characters.

This Cannonball variant is by artist Tyler Kirkham, who has an expensive and exclusive variant collection. Other variants by this artist are all high dollar bundle variants, Spotlight variants, or 1,200 Gold variants.

Should I Cache In?

This week returns to the standard 5-4-5 Series for these cards. Nimrod is a fun staple in The Phoenix Force, but not a mandatory meta card. Cannonball is currently a more niche card, but has proven to be more useful in specific metagames. Hulkling is a wild, exciting new card that is extremely difficult to predict properly.

My recommendation this week is to Hoard Your Caches. Nimrod is the only predictable good card this week, and he is Series 4. Cannonball isn’t necessary unless you are a big junk deck fan and want more options. Hulkling has a very high potential, but I can’t recommend a card that I can’t find a usage for.

If Hulkling pops off on release, I would easily change my verdict to Cache In. He has all the requirements of a good card, so finding a home means he is worth owning. It may take time for a good deck to be found using him, or maybe he is simply a new staple for Hela decks. If you are a player that enjoys cooking up wild deck ideas, this could be a week to Cache In and be the one who finds Hulkling a place in the meta.

Wrap Up

Do you think Hulkling 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:

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