Table of Contents
In this week’s Marvel Snap Spotlight Cache rotation, Starbrand headlines as the latest Series 5 card. Phastos also makes its second Spotlight appearance, and Skaar is making another round in the Spotlight rotation.
Starbrand
Decks with Starbrand
Our newest card added to Snap is Starbrand! He is a 3-Cost, 10-Power card with the ability “Ongoing: Your opponent has +3 Power at each other location.” This makes him the highest Power card you can get for a 3-Cost.
Starbrand has some very clear synergies with Sauron decks. Removing his text makes him incredibly strong, and you have a range of cards to help remove that text. Sauron targets him in your deck and in hand, Zero targets him on curve, and Enchantress targets him while in play already. Unless Super Skrull is running rampant, Starbrand will basically require you to remove his text in order to be playable.
Possible Meta Deck
den
Starbrand will most likely revive the long forgotten Shuri Sauron decks. With Lizard getting a buff and Typhoid Mary now only playble with her text removed, the newest version of Shuri Sauron is likely to take shape. Starbrand is simply a big body that you will either play on turn 3 with Zero or Enchantress, or save him as a turn 6 Power dump with Ebony Maw and Lizard.
This deck is very low CL friendly with Starbrand being the only Series 5 card. You do need a few Series 3 cards, but otherwise the deck is very easy to build. If you want a fun substitute, you can use She-Hulk to float energy on turn 5 after playing Shuri, then dump your hand with her discounted.
Low CL Decks
Since Enchantress is the only card below Series 3 that makes Starbrand playable, your best deck option is the Shuri-Sauron list. If you really want to use the card and don’t have all of the Series 3 cards though, you can throw Starbrand into any deck with Enchantress and Lizard for solid value.
Fun Starbrand Deck
CanadianAlfredo
This deck has a mix of some interesting synergy and anti-synergy. It’s basically mixing a Sauron decks with a Skaar deck to give you a reason to play some lesser-used cards. Sauron can hurt your Sam Wilson if he doesn’t show up on curve, but you aren’t planning on playing him after turn 3 anyways. The deck is nothing fancy, but any of the 10-Power cards are easily substituted for another 10-Power card. Sam Wilson is in this deck mainly to help Cull Obsidian always have a place to go, but he is also replaceable.
Starbrand Prediction
Starbrand hits that sweet spot of very strong, but very niche usage. You won’t slot him into every deck you play, but he could really bring back the Sauron Shuri archetype by giving the deck some early game options for Power. He is another “slam points down” card, so he isn’t very exciting. He’s just good stats and well worth it if you can remove his text consistently and enjoy the Skaar, Surter style decks.
For a detailed breakdown and review on Starbrand, check out our strategy guide below:
Phastos
Decks with Phastos
Phastos is one of those cards that always sounds better on paper than in reality. A 3-Cost that gives you unconditional cost reduction or extra Power sounds great, but he doesn’t always pan out that conveniently. Drawing him any later than turns 3 usually means he doesn’t get played, since you want to play out your 4-Cost cards on curve. The cards you draw won’t always be what you needed or have the buff you hoped for. It’s like drawing a Red Hulk on turn 6 that has been reduced to 5-Cost. If you happen to have a 1-Cost, it can be helpful. Otherwise, that cost reduction was meaningless. With that said, there are some decks that have found some good use for him.
LaurenWhatevs
Agamotto has already taken the meta by storm, and Phastos has neat synergy with him. All of the skills in your deck will have cost reduction from Phastos 100% of the time since they have no Power. Combine that with Quinjet and your skills can cost 2 less. King Eitri can help you guarantee a draw for a skill. The rest of the deck functions like a card buff deck, getting value from cards like Mystrio and Makkari.
You can substitute unowned cards with Sebastian Shaw and Brood if you need more value. Forge, Okoye, Nakia, or Silver Surfer. If you need a replacement for Makkari to shrink your hand size, try Wasp! As long as your deck involves buffing key value cards, Phastos will slot right in.
Phastos is a lot of fun to play with, but not consistent to win with. His ability isn’t bad, it just isn’t reliable game after game, so he often gets cut from decks for more consistent options. He’s a good luxury card to own, but I wouldn’t waste limited resources trying to get him.
Skaar
Decks with Skaar
If you have been playing Snap over the last few months, you know how prevelant Skaar has been on the meta with Surtur. The two cards are practically a pair, and they both got nerfs together as well for being way too consistent. Now at a 7-Cost, Skaar now has more versatility than before, believe it or not.
den
At a 7-Cost, Skaar works well with the newest version of Hela. Since she now requires cards to have different Costs in order to be revived, Skaar fills a unique spot by giving you a 7-Cost that can be revived. It has been a fairly strong deck in the meta and has helped bring a resurgence of Hela back to the game. The deck is very friendly to low CL players since most of the cards are Series 1 and 2.
Despite his nerfs, Skaar is still very usable. Between Surtur and Hela decks, you should have no issues getting good value from the card. He has no real replacements, so I would consider him a core card players should have in their collections.
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 not be available again until further notice.
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!
Should I Cache In?
My recommendation this week is to Hoard Your Caches. While Starbrand is likely to be a solid card, he is arriving after huge Skaar and Surtur nerfs, and after Skaar and Phastos have already dropped to Series 4. It’s an overall low value week with some good cards in it.
However, it’s worth caching in if you want both Skaar and Starbrand, otherwise just save your Spotlight Keys for a better value, and pick up Starbrand with Collector’s Tokens instead.
More Content