Spotlight Cache Week of July 23, 2024: Are Copycat, Cull Obsidian, and Thanos 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 July 23, 2024

This week, the featured cards will be the new Series 5 card Ajax, as well as the return of Series 5 cards Cull Obsidian and Thanos!

Copycat

While we are only mid-season, we only only have 1 new cars left for Spotlight Caches this month! For that new card, we get Copycat! She is a 3-Cost, 5-Power card with the ability “When you draw this, steal the text from the bottom card of your opponent’s deck.” Developers have confirmed the stolen text is NOT revealed to your opponent. Essentially, this card acts like Cable, but only takes the ability and leaves them with a neutered card at the bottom of their deck.

At first glance, this card seems useless. Why would you want to steal the ability from a card they will likely never draw? The real answer is information. If you are facing a recognizable deck, like Mister Negative, the ability you draw can give you key information that can give you an advantage. Say turn 1 you draw Copycat and she steal Mister Negative‘s Power… you can immediately snap, as you know their gameplan has a significant disadvantage. Since they don’t see what she stole, they have no idea what could be messed up, so they will likely stay in the game for more cubes.

In a similar situation, your opponent could successfully play Mister Negative. If your Copycat steals Iron Man’s ability, not only is their best combo piece ruined, you also have a [3/5] Iron Man! The simple fact that Copycat passively interacts with your opponent is a huge advantage. In Conquest matches, her ability can give you enough info to lock in strong snaps.

Possible Meta Deck for Copycat

As a 3-Cost, Copycat gives Surfer decks a way to collect information. If the ability you steal is beneficial to you, play her and utilize it! If the ability doesn’t benefit you, don’t play her and use the information to know when to Snap, when to retreat, or know what options your opponent doesn’t have. Since her ability is passive, you can still reap the benefits without needing to play her. This means you can play your classic Surfer combos without needing to play Copycat for information.

Low Collection Level Deck

With Copycat being a disruption tool, you can utilize her with other annoying to deal with cards. Scorpion, Hobgoblin, and Cosmo give you offensive tools. Killmonger and Shang-Chi give you defensive tools. Copycat, Cable, and White Queen give you information, as well as extra abilities you may want to use to be more adaptable. Devil Dinosaur and The Collector offer 2 big bodies to contest locations.

Fun Copycat Deck

Copycat’s logical first place is with mill decks. These decks already want to win by ruining your opponent’s entire gameplan, and Copycat helps achieve that in several ways. First, she steals an ability. This can not only give you information, it can potentially prevent a bad On Reveal pull from Gladiator. Second, if your opponent has only 1 card left due to milling, you have a chance at giving them a dead card. Finally, you can use the info you got from Copycat to strategically Snap good pulls.

While Copycat could offer some high rolls, she can also low roll you too. She could strip a card of its abilities, only for you to steal it with Cable or Barron Zemo. She could also remove limiting abilities from overstatted cards like The Infinaut or Typhoid Mary. With that said, there is a reason why this list is the fun deck.

Overall, I think Copycat is a solid disruption tool. Cable is already considered a great card, and Copycat looks like an alternate version of Cable. Many players don’t use Yondu since he thins your opponent’s deck. Copycat allows you to disrupt without deck thinning or investing any energy.

I do think Copycat will appear lackluster in the Arishem meta, as information is useless when your opponent can get random cards. Outside of Arishem though, I think this card has a lot of potential. It can low roll and take an ability that is bad for you, making her a dead card. The card can also high roll and snowball you the entire game.

Check out our strategy guide and more decklists on this new card!

Best Copycat Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide

Thanos

Joining Copycat is the return of the legendary big bad, Thanos! While once the dominating card of the meta, the mad titan now struggles to make meta lists. Even still, his ability creates a new archetype for the game, and his Infinity Stones have been under active rework to make him a more balanced card. Not only that, but buffs to other cards can also help Thanos to shine again.

After Lockjaw’s recent buffs, Thanos has regained one of his earliest tools to cycle cards and Power. Being able to dump 3 of your stones onto Lockjaw in a single turn brings back flexibility to the deck, as well as a chance to snowball Power into a location. The change to Mockingbird also allows you to empower traditional combos with Skaar, while protecting your cards with Caiera. This specific list doesn’t run Mockingbird, but she is a good alternate if you are missing any cards from this list, or don’t want to take the risks of using Doctor Octopus.

While Thanos isn’t the powerhouse he used to be, he is slowly becoming a playable archetype again. If he doesn’t get better with surrounding cards, you can likely expect to see more positive changes to him or his Infinity Stones in the future. With Thanos also being a big bad (a permanent Series 5 card) he will always be a good investment.

Cull Obsidian

Closing out the week is a member of Thanos’ Black Order, Cull Obsidian! This card wants to be a powerhouse with an easy to meet play requirement, but his vulnerability to Shang-Chi makes him a frequent skip in deckbuilding. He often sees play in 2 specific archetypes: Thanos and Zoo. A version of a Thanos list was showcased in the previous section, so we will look at a Zoo list in this section.

Zoo decks are pretty straightforward: Flood the board with small cards, then buff them with Ka-Zar and Blue Marvel. Cull Obsidian acts as a big body option for when you can’t find your buff cards. This way you can still reliably pump Power to key locations. Essentially, he is your backup plan. With a flurry of 1-Cost cards in your deck, you should have no issue playing him to any location you need.

Cull Obsidian unfortunately struggles severely in the current metagame. His stats are great, but he is a liability with Shang-Chi, and you often want to pick other cards to fill his slot. If you don’t own this card yet, I wouldn’t rush to get him. He does have a home in Thanos decks, but he is ultimately replaceable with a forgetful ability.

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.

After the year, they will be available for purchase, though no mention of cost yet. 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, PANDART STUDIO releases their Copycat variant this week!

This Thanos variant is the result of a collaboration between artists Leinil Francis Yu and Sunny Gho. It is their only Snap art in which they appear together, making this a unique variant!

Seth Adams returns this week with another variant for a member of the Black Order!

Should I Cache In?

This week has a very high value! Not only are all 3 cards Series 5, but Thanos is also a big bad, making this basically the best value you can ask for. Thanos is currently a low meta tier card, but is making a comeback with Lockjaw back. Cull Obsidian is riding the waves of Thanos, but is ultimately a forgettable card. Copycat looks like a solid information tool, as well as disruption in the right deck.

My recommendation this week is to Cache In! The value this week is too good to pass on. Even if Thanos isn’t the best right now, he likely will be again. Developers have made it clear they want Thanos to be a good card, but they didn’t like his old iteration, so he is in an active rework state. This makes for a good, long term investment for your resources. Copycat is a great pickup this week as well. While she may not be a great card against Arishem, she is an information tool, which always is a helpful tool. Finally, Cull Obsidian may not be a great card, but he also isn’t a bad card. All of these factors together make a strong case for a Cache In this week.

Wrap Up

Do you think Copycat 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