Table of Contents
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 December 24, 2024
This week, we get the newest Series 5 card Bruce Banner! Joining him will be the return of the Series 4 card Ravonna Renslayer and Series 5 “Big Bad” card High Evolutionary!
Bruce Banner
Decks with Bruce Banner
Happy holidays and welcome to this festive week of Marvel Snap! Headlining as our newest card for the week is Bruce Banner! He is a 2-Cost, 1-Power card with the ability “When you end a turn with unspent Energy, 25% chance to HULK OUT!” If it wasn’t clear in the text, “hulk out” means the card transforms into a 6/12 Hulk. It has been confirmed by the developers that this Hulk won’t be altered by High Evolutionary, so you will always get a standard Hulk with no ability.
This card has a high potential! A 2/12 is great in theory, but that stat line gets worse for every energy you have to skip energy for a potential trigger. You can mitigate that energy loss impact through cards like Sunspot or Elsa Bloodstone, or build the entire deck around energy skipping. The card’s biggest struggle will be that 1/4 chance each turn. You will have plenty of games where you need to play on curve, which guarantees no transformation. You will have plenty more games where 1/4 feels like it never actually triggers. It’s kind of like Danger Room, where it always feels like your cards always get the 25% destruction, but your opponent always sticks the card safely. So ultimately, the card is only worth playing as a high roll option for an existing deck that functions.
Possible Meta Deck
CanadianAlfredo
High Evolutionary is the clear synergy with this card. It is one of the only real decks that are happy to skip energy without Bruce Banner. His addition simply gives the deck a high roll potential for not much downside. Magik can also give you an extra turn to “hulk out” for those matches where he is drawn late or when 25% really feels like 0%.
Low Collection Level Decks
CanadianAlfredo
This is a simple Ka-Zoo deck. It’s the simplest deck you can utilize at a low CL that often finds itself with extra energy. If you purposefully play off curve, like Blue Marvel on turn 6 instead of turn 5, you can increase the chances of getting a free Hulk. You have Armor in this deck to protect your 1-Cost cards, but it also can shield your free Hulk from getting hit by Shang-Chi.
Fun Bruce Banner Deck
CanadianAlfredo
This is an off-meta Dracula dump deck. If you aren’t familiar with it, your goal is to empty your hand on turn 6 for explosive Power, which let’s The Infinaut only remain for Dracula to discard. The deck naturally skips turns since you are building up your final play, so Bruce Banner can offer a way to capitalize on that skipped energy. He can also be bait for Red Guardian so your Dracula can stay on the board successfully. If you are missing any cards here, Strong Guy is a great substitution.
Bruce Banner Prediction
Bruce Banner honestly looks like a streamer card. It only goes into niche decks, you have to skip energy just for a 25% chance, and you can’t bank on it to win matches. If someone snaps you, are you really sticking around on the hopes he Hulks out? Most decks would rather use that card slot for something more consistent. I’m sure lots of content creators will get some great footage from this card, but the card simply is too inconsistent and restrictive for competitive meta decks.
If you still aren’t convinced, imagine this: a 2/1 with the text “this has a 75% chance to do nothing, and 100% if you play on curve”. It’s pretty hard to convince me this card is anything but a meme card. That doesn’t even get into the Red Guardian counter, who is one of the best tech cards in the game already. You will often find yourself with a 2/-1 that does nothing but bait out a Red Guardian. I will happily admit I was wrong if Bruce Banner finds a strong meta deck due to his inclusion, but until then, this is a meme card at best in my opinion.
Ravonna Renslayer
Decks with Ravonna Renslayer
Dashing through to the middle card of this cache is the return of Ravonna Renslayer! This card has proven to be incredibly powerful across the meta. Many of the strongest cards in the game are balanced by having low Power. Ravonna gives these cards a chance to be played early, or to be used in unique combos. Many decks rely on her discounts to increase a deck’s consistency and flexibility.
PulseGlazer
This may be an older deck, but it showcases Ravonna’s capabilities well. With her inclusion, you can unlock new combinations that let you play 2 cards per turn to proc Thena. Havok, Iron Man, Mystique, Sage, and Even Ravonna herself can be reduced in Cost. Her ability uniquely allows you to combine a 5 Cost and 3 Cost together on turn 6, or a 5-Cost and Kitty Pryde on turn 5. The discounts open up flexibility for the deck and helps it to play 2 cards per turn more often.
Ravonna has been out for quite some time now, and she has proven to be well worth the 3k tokens she costs. No other card offers early game discounts like she can, making her an invaluable addition to your collection. She obviously won’t be great for every deck, but she works great with a wide range of decks. If you don’t own her yet, I would highly recommend you pick her up.
High Evolutionary
Decks with High Evolutionary
Wrapping up this holiday week is the return of the Big Bad, permeant Series 5 card High Evolutionary! This is an archetype defining card that has lost most of its meta presence. Most of the decks he goes in have been surpassed in strength with newer card releases, but he can still be viable. He mostly synergies with “skip energy” style decks with She Hulk and Sunspot, but he has more recently been tested with Ajax lists.
PulseGlazer
The typical High Evolutionary decks using lots of no ability cards are what most players recognize, so this is deck is atypical and focuses on Ajax. Instead of going for lots of no ability cards and using Energy skip, you use High Evolutionary specifically for value with Abomination. Your goal is to but tokens down like Mysterio, rocks from Debrii, or arrows from Kate Bishop. These tokens will recode the cost of Mockingbird and give you targets to Hazmat. If you curve into Annihilus, you can clog your opponent. Alternatively, that negative Power can reduce your Abomination cost, allowing you to play Mockingbird, Abomination, and Ajax all at once!
High Evolutionary is a fairly straightforward card to recommend. You get a 6-in-1 collection of cards with his ability and unlock access to a whole new archetype. While the card may rise and fall with the meta overtime, but a card like this also being a permanent Series 5 makes it a good value to pick up at any time you can.
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 only become available again after one full year has passed.
After one year, these Spotlight Variants will be available for purchase from the Daily Offer section of the shop. 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!
For this month’s featured artist, we have the studio NetEase Games showcasing their Marvel Rivals variant of Bruce Banner!
Arist Sean Galloway’s signature cartoon style is showcased with this week’s Ravonna Renslayer variant!
Premiering their second Snap variant to release so far, we have artist Jon Lam’s take on High Evolutionary!
Should I Cache In?
This week gets a higher value than recent caches, giving a 5-5-4 Series spread. It’s also important to note that High Evolutionary is permanently Series 5, which does increase the value a little. Ravonna is a very strong meta card that is the heart of many decks. High Evo is an archetype defining card that currently doesn’t see much play. Bruce Banner looks like a fun, niche card that you use when you’re trying off Meta shenanigans.
My recommendation this week is to Hoard Your Caches. High Evolutionary has been out for a substantial amount of time, so most players already have him, and Ravonna is already Series 4. Bruce Banner isn’t worth the tokens, let alone the keys. The only way you would want to cache in this week is if you are a fairly low CL player that needs High Evo and Ravonna for their collection. Outside of that, this is a good skip week since you can use tokens for the strongest card of the set.
Wrap Up
Do you think Bruce Banner 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:
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