Spotlight Cache Week of December 27, 2023: Are Selene, Iron Lad, and Black Knight 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 27, 2023

This week, the featured cards will be the new Series 5 card Selene, as well as Iron Lad and Black Knight!

Selene

Variants

Selene

On Reveal: Afflict the lowest-Power card in each player’s hand with -3 Power.

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

view card details Start a deck Decks with Selene

As this year of Marvel Snap draws to a close, we have our final card of the month, season, and year. That final card is none other than Selene! She is a 1-Cost, -1-Power card with the ability “On Reveal: Afflict the lowest-Power card in each player’s hand with -3 Power.”

If you’re a fan of junk decks, you have just gotten another auto include card. Selene allows you to make your junk more toxic, and can be a target to send over herself since she has -1 Power. The fact that she afflicts both your card AND your opponent’s card makes her effect makes her toxic in the right deck, but not an auto-include in every deck. Let’s break down a couple of decks she could be good in:

Good Cards Disruption

Created by den

, updated 4 months ago

3

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x 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+

2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

The first obvious deck is a junk deck. Give your opponent lots of negative power to clog their board. Selene can make cards like The Hood, Green Goblin, and Hobgoblin more toxic. You can play Black Widow and Selene on turn 4 to make your opponent have to play a -4 power card or go without card draw. You can even turn a Korg into a -1 power card that you can send over to the opponent’s side with Viper or Annihilus.

To make this deck even more toxic, you bring the Annihilus package and the Darkhawk package to clog their board and their draws.

Galactus Ramp

Created by den

, updated 4 months ago

1

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

3.7

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

For an alternate play style for Selene, you can use her in a Galactus deck. Using similar targets for Selene as the junk deck, your aim is to fill a single location with lots of negative power and lock it down. You then use Galactus to win the game by removing the other 2 locations you probably ignored. As an alternate win condition, you use Ms. Marvel and your junk cards to go wide. You can use Annihilus, Demon, and Doctor Octopus for extra power to go taller on the final turns.

Overall, Selene looks like the best-worst card imaginable. Her ability seems crazy strong for a 1 cost card and extremely toxic for players to deal with. She may not be super effective when she first releases as many players will be intentionally countering her during launch week (much like Annihilus), but I see this card pushing junk decks into a toxic higher spot in the meta.

Iron Lad

Variants

Iron Lad

On Reveal: Copy the text of your deck’s top card.

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

view card details Start a deck Decks with Iron Lad

Speaking of meta, Iron Lad typically sits in one or more meta decks each season, and is also joining this week’s Spotlight Cache! Iron Lad is on my personal list of top cards in the game. His ability to copy incredibly strong abilities makes him useful in making a multitude of decks more consistent. His ability is strong enough that I wouldn’t he surprised if Second Dinner shave a power or two off him in the future, though no such nerf has been hinted at thus far.

While a multitude of decks want to use Iron Lad, take a look at this lockdown deck to showcase what Iron Lad is capable of: If you play Iron Lad in this deck, he could become a 4/6 Iron Man, a 6 Power Jeff, a bonus Ms. Marvel, or even a turn 4, 6-Power Professor X. Iron Lad‘s potential is crazy good and can snowball matches in your favor when you high roll.

If you want to target what card Iron Lad hits, Howard the Duck is set to premiere in 2 weeks for the first time, and can make your Iron Lad plays always be more consistent.

W Locked On

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 4 months ago

3

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

1x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

1x Starter Card

3.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Iron Lad is so versatile, he can slot into nearly any deck and be at least ok. Check out this Thanos deck. Iron Lad can become any of the Infinity Stones, become an extra Blue Marvel, or even an early (or backup) Blob! The possibilities are endless with this card.

Thanos Control

Created by den

, updated 4 months ago

3

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Recruit Season

4.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.5

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

If you’ve been holding out on buying this card with tokens, now’s your chance to pick him up. He is a card proven to hold up over nearly every meta it has been pinned against. As new effects continue to be added to the game, Iron Lad‘s possibilities will continue to grow with them.

Black Knight

Variants

Black Knight

After you discard a card, add the Ebony Blade to your hand with that card’s Power. (once per game)

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

view card details Start a deck Decks with Black Knight

For our final card of the year, Black Knight makes his second appearance in a Spotlight Cache! This card recently saw a buff after his initial release was less than stellar. Though his effect stayed the same, his Ebony Blade gained the ability that it cannot be destroyed or have its power reduced. In a meta where Shang-Chi and Shadow King are prevalent, this change allows you to play aggressively without fear of punishment.

Take this deck for example. Zabu reduces the cost of Ebony Blade to 3 as well as Ghost Rider. You can discard a big target like Magneto or Infinaut on turn 3, play your Ebony Blade on turn 4, and play Ghost Rider on turn 5 or 6 to gain that big power card again. Alternatively, use that Zabu to play both the Ebony Blade and Ghost Rider on turn 6 for a massive power swing!

Blobknight V1 Buddii

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 5 months ago

0

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

3.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

6

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Black Knight‘s biggest weakness is not being drawn early enough. If you draw him late game, you often don’t have time to play him, discard a card, and still play out the Ebony Blade. Outside of poor draw luck, the card is incredibly fun and his recent buff makes him a bit more viable to play around with.

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

This wild Iron Lad variants comes from an up and coming artist, Shawn Crystal. He several Snap variants datamined, but only a few have released so far.

For a more limited variant, Iban Coello launches their Black Knight variant this week. They currently only have 2 other variants in the game for Darkhawk and Storm.

Should I Cache In?

This week, all cards are Series 5 cards. None of the cards have any scheduled Spotlight releases through February currently. Iron Lad is a proven good card, Selene looks incredibly promising, and Black Knight is an all around fun discard card.

My recommendation this week is to Cache In! This week is a great batch of cards and a great value for your keys. The only way I would say to skip this week is if you despise playing junk decks and discard decks. Otherwise, this week gives a great selection of cards that can give you a slew of new options across a variety of decks.

Wrap Up

Do you think Selene 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: