Spotlight Cache Week of December 20, 2023: Are Havok, Nico Minoru, and Legion 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 December 20, 2023

This week, the featured cards will be the new Series 4 card Havok, as well as Nico Minoru and Legion!

Havok

Variants

Havok

After each turn, you lose 1 Max Energy and this gains +4 Power.

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

view card details Start a deck Decks with Havok

Our new card for the week is none other than Havok. He is a 2-Cost, 0-Power card with the ability “After each turn, you lose 1 Max Energy and this gains +4 Power.”

This card looks… pretty awful… This card limits you from gaining any energy for the rest of the game in exchange for power, which is a pretty tough tradeoff. He does steal your energy at the end of a turn, which means he can be a [2/4] on turn 6 with no real penalty, but that card isn’t worth a simple [2/4].

Havok, in his current state, has no real synergy with any archetype except Mister Negative if you’re really stretching it. If your cards cost very little energy because they are inverted, you don’t need extra Energy each turn.

Havok Negative

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 5 months ago

2

1x Collection Level 1-14

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Recruit Season

1x Starter Card

3.9

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

1

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

This deck also leverages Zabu and Ravonna Renslayer to discount your cards so Havok isn’t as harmful to your gameplan. If you have Ravonna on the board, you can play Havok for 1 Energy on turn 5, and still have enough energy to play Arnim Zola that isn’t inverted. That gives you basically a [1/8] statline for Havok which isn’t too bad. Of course, if you can invert Havok, he becomes a [0/2] with potential to be at least a [0/6] if you use him on turn 6.

You can also try Havok in a bounce deck. Since you don’t have any large power cards, you may not need a bunch of Energy. Since Beast can also discount cards, you can use him to bounce cards without needing extra Energy to play them again, allowing you to play Havok at an earlier turn. You can also use Bast in this deck to boost your Havok, making him a 2/7 on turn 6 at worst.

Bounce Havok

Created by tiojarston

, updated 5 months ago

2

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

1x Starter Card

1.7

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

1.2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

For an alternate way to use Havok, try the Chaos route. Use him in a Junk deck and play Viper and Havok on turn 4 to lock your opponent our from playing any 5 or 6 Cost cards. Outside of this combo, Havok is a bit of a liability in the deck since you don’t want him to actually activate and prevent you from playing your Annihilus or 6-Cost like Alioth.

Overall, I think Havok is a bottom tier card. You have to bend over backwards to get his ability to trigger without severely limiting you. The other major issue is this card gets obliterated by Shadow King, who is very prevalent in the meta right now. There’s no reason to run Havok if he may be reset to zero and gain 4 on the last turn.

Perhaps this card gets some buffs to make it playable in the future, but more likely I see this card sitting next to Martyr in the bin of cards that will be forgotten and never used until a buff happens.

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

In stark contrast to Havok, Nico Minoru is available for the second time this week and is one of the game’s best cards. Nico took the game by storm and became a staple in a number of decks. Her spells are all useful in some way or another, which makes her extremely versatile in a number of matchups. You can slot Nico into nearly any deck, but I will feature here 2 decks that really show Nico’s strength.

The first sample deck below uses the bounce archetype to allow you to play multiple spells per game. All of her spells have utility that can win you the game, so bouncing her lets you use multiple effects rather than only using 1. Since she is a 1-Cost card, she can be bounced by both Falcon and Beast.

dddrewsky 71.7% 38 and 15 Infinite

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 5 months ago

1

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

3x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

2.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.9

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

This version of bounce focuses more on disruption and clog. You can bounce Iceman, Spider-Ham, Black Widow, and The Hood to utilize their abilities multiple times along with Nico. Your big power plays can come from Werewolf By Night and Sentry + Annihilus. This deck does rely on several new cards, so if you don’t have them all, the bounce archetype is filled with different versions. As long as you have Beast, Falcon, and Nico, you can make lots of substitutions.

For an alternative play style, you can use Nico in a Deadpool deck. She can act like Forge and buff Deadpool, Wolverine, or X-23. She can turn a combo card like Forge into a Demon for higher value. She can even destroy cards to draw 2 more cards, which is her biggest asset in this deck. Her spells help add that extra consistency to destroy decks that put this deck into a meta position.

Deadpool Destroy

Created by den

, updated 5 months ago

0

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

3.2

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

If you missed out on Nico’s launch week, this could be your time to pick her up. She is on my list of top 5 cards in the game, and feels perfectly balanced. While she may not slot into every deck in the game, she fits into a large number of meta decks. Definitely a card worth having in your collection at any collection level.

Legion

Variants

Legion

On Reveal: Replace each other location with this one.

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

view card details Start a deck Decks with Legion

Legion makes another appearance this week as the final card of this cache! While Legion took the game by storm during his launch, he has since fallen out of favor to the likes of the reworked Snowguard. Even still, Legion is a solid card that can surprise your opponent very easily in the current meta. His ability to flip all locations to one that benefits you can steal wins. Make every location Luke's Bar, Death's Domain, or Bar With No Name to make your opponent’s final plays have a much different outcome.

Legion often appears in many of those “Good Cards” lists. His ability to manipulate locations is a fun mix up. This is a Lockdown style deck that uses Legion in a number of ways.

Braude Top 20

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 5 months ago

2

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

1x Starter Card

3.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.5

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Is there a location you can’t access? Use Legion to open it. Want to end the game a turn early? Use Storm on turn 4 and Legion on turn 5 to make all locations Flooded. Did you play Storm and your opponent win the location? Legion can open it back up.

You Use Ms. Marvel to boost your locations you locked down with Storm and Professor X, and use Alioth or Doctor Doom to secure the win. Legion isn’t always 100% needed to win matches, he just helps with consistency.

Legion is a solid card that often flies under the radar in the current meta. Since he is a Series 4 card, he is easy for players to pick up at any time, even outside of this spotlight week.

Spotlight 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.

Mateus Manhanini is the name of the artist for this Havok variant. You will see this name quite often this season, as he is responsible for many of the Hellfire Gala variants.

This Runaways Nico variant comes from artist Kris Anka, who currently only has this variant and a Starlord variant to their name in Snap.

Scottie Young debuts his Baby Legion in this weeks Spotlight cache! If you are a baby variant fan, this week is your only week to get this Baby Legion.

Should I Cache In?

This week, none of the 3 cards are set for another Spotlight appearance though February. 2 of the 3 cards are in Series 4, lowering the value of this Cache. Nico is definitely meta relevant, Legion is a solid card, but Havok looks like a very bad card on paper.

My recommendation this week is to Hoard Your Caches. In the coming weeks, we have lots of great caches scheduled to release, and this week just doesn’t hold enough value to warrant 4 keys. Nico is an amazing card, but I find it hard to recommend players using so many keys for her alone. Nico and Legion are both great candidates for Tokens if you want them.

If I’m wrong and Havok takes the game by storm, I would change this recommendation to Cache In. Otherwise, I think with so many good weeks in the future, you have to say no to some weeks to save keys. This week is one of those save weeks unless you have your heart set on Nico and don’t have Tokens to buy her.

Wrap Up

Do you think Havok 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: