Spotlight Cache Week of January 17, 2024: Are Miek, Annihilus, and The Phoenix Force 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 January 17, 2024

This week, the featured cards will be the new Series 4 card Miek, as well as Annihilus and The Phoenix Force!

Miek

Our newest Spotlight card is none other than Miek! He is a 1-Cost, 1-Power with the ability “After each turn, if you discarded any cards, gain +1 Power for each and move.” This ability has been clarified by the developers in that if you discard multiple cards at once, Miek will buff +1 power for each discard, but only moves once. It has also been confirmed the movement isn’t required for the buff to work.

Miek looks like an interesting card, though one with heavy flaws in my opinion. On the plus side, if you play him on turn 1 and discard a bunch of cards, he could easily climb to a 10 power card for only 1 cost, like when you discard a bunch of Swarms with MODOK. On the other hand, you can draw this late game and he will be just a 1/1 since he isn’t Ongoing. So basically, this card is a baby Morbius that can also change locations.

The movement factor is an odd addition to the card. Discard and move don’t have any synergy, and this card is nowhere near strong enough to create its own archetype like The Phoenix Force does. Instead, the move ability is one that will win you a few lucky games where Miek lands in Sanctum Sanctorum on the last turn. Or he will lose you the game because he clogged a lane that you wanted to play into.

To see how this card operates in action, this standard discard deck is a good starting place. Your gameplan here is simply discard Apocalypse as much as possible, and hit a few Swarms along the way. On the final turn, play out all of your Swarms and discard cards until only Apocalypse remains, letting Dracula finish the game with a final discard that can’t be stopped. You can use Morbius for extra points with your discard, as well as Baby Morbius (Miek) if you draw him at the start of the game.

For a fun alternative to discarding, you can discard your opponent’s cards! Using Moon Knight, Silver Samurai, and Black Bolt, annoy your opponent to death by removing their hand. You can use Swarm to prevent your hand from being negatively effected, and get extra value with Stature. Throw Miek into the mix and add pure chaos by having this little guy jump around the board getting extra power. This is by no means a meta deck, but with the right draws, it could be super fun and super annoying for your opponents.

In my opinion, I don’t foresee Miek being very good. He has potential to be a high started card, but he has too many flaws: He dies to Killmonger (in a deck that runs no protection). The later you draw him, the worse he is, and a [1/1] won’t do much for you. His movement ability could help you as much as it can hurt you. And you have to cut a card out to fit Miek in, and I don’t know what card you want gone for Miek. Overall, I think this card will forever live in the shadow of Morbius.

Best Miek Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide: Discard Made Simple!

Annihilus

Annihilus took the game by storm during his initial release. He singlehandedly brought Sentry into the meta, pushed Viper to get a nerf, and got Galactus a place in the meta again. His strength caused him to get a nerf in the latest patch, but this card is still plenty toxic.

Annihilus doesn’t have to clog every slot your opponent has open to win. The Annihilus package (The Hood, Sentry, and Annihilus) can slot into a number if different decks and be successful. This bounce deck can be particularly strong. You can use Falcon or Beast to pick up your The Hood (and other 1-Costs), and get multiple Demons to play. If The Hood costs 0 from Beast, you can play The Hood and Annihilus on the same turn to strategically place -3 power in the best location.

If you draw Sentry, your Annihilus can send over a -10 The Void that your opponent has to work around. Aside from Annihilus, this deck’s power comes from Werewolf By Night bouncing around from your multiple On Reveals bring triggered each turn.

To keep the old spirit of junk decks, this deck pushes the toxicity to the next level. Fill your opponent’s side with The Hood, Sentry‘s The Void, Hobgoblin, and a couple of Rocks. Use Daredevil to effectively use your Hobgoblin, Professor X, or Annihilus. Finish the match with Valkyrie, Ms. Marvel, or Alioth.

While Annihilus may not be as strong as he was since you can’t send 2 extra Rocks over as easily, he is still incredibly strong. And with players still experimenting with Hazmat and Debrii as well as Selene, this week’s Spotlight could bring out a lot of toxic players.

The Phoenix Force

For our final card of the week, The Phoenix Force makes a return! The Phoenix Force is interesting because it only works in 1 deck. If you don’t like that deck style, there’s no reason to own The Phoenix Force. While this one deck has never seen the top of the meta charts, it can hold a low tier spot.

If you haven’t seen this deck before, your main goal is to destroy Human Torch or Multiple Man, revive one of them with The Phoenix Force, then move it around to get massive value. As a secondary win condition, you can play Shuri into Nimrod to give your destroy cards a secondary use to secure a win. Arnim Zola can be played on turn 6 for either win condition to either duplicate your The Phoenix Force or your Nimrod.

The biggest flaw of the deck is not drawing your key cards when you need them. If you draw well, this deck is nearly unstoppable with its power output.

Spotlight Variants

If you already own the cards 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 four 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 Planet Hulk variant comes from artist Eduardo Francisco, who is an artist who continues to grow their portfolio in Snap. Many of their variants are from Spotlight Caches, but several others are one off variants, and even the base Shocker art!

This Steampunk variant of Annihilus comes from the classic Eduardo Mello, who does most of the card’s Base Card art in the game.

The Pantheon variant for The Phoenix Force comes from ADIA, who is a popular artist who was recently featured in several season passes like Loki and Elsa Bloodstone.

Should I Cache In?

This week, only Annihilus is Series 5, while Miek and The Phoenix Force are Series 4. Annihilus sees play in a number of different decks and is definitely meta competitive. The Phoenix Force is a fun card that creates its own archetype, but isn’t a top tier deck. Miek looks a bit underwhelming.

My recommendation this week is to Hoard Your Caches. This week is just too low of a value to cache in. 2 of the cards are Series 4, you don’t need any of them to be meta competitive, and there are too many good spotlight caches coming up to warrant using your limited keys on this week.

Wrap Up

Do you think Miek 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