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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 November 15, 2023
This week, the featured cards will be the new card Gladiator, as well as Mirage and Loki!
Gladiator
Decks with Gladiator
Our first new Spotlight card this season is Gladiator! He is a 3-Cost, 7-Power with the ability “On Reveal: Add a card from your opponent’s deck to their side of this location. If it has less Power, destroy it.” This text raises a few questions, but luckily we already have answers thanks to the developers over on the official Discord Q&A sessions!
When Gladiator adds a card, that card gets to activate before Gladiator triggers his destroy feature. This means if Gladiator pulls Doctor Doom, Gladiator will destroy Doctor Doom, but the Doombots will summon first.
If Gladiator pulls Black Panther, Black Panther will double his Power first, which may out him over Gladiator‘s power limit and prevent the destroy ability. This functions the same way with Ongoing cards. So if Gladiator pulls Darkhawk, he will check Darkhawk‘s added power and not the 4/0 base.
My initial impressions of this card is that is can be incredibly bad in some matchups, or incredibly good in others. For example: If Gladiator pulls a key card like Cerebro, Sera, or Ms. Marvel and destroys them early, you can eliminate that gameplan completely. On the other hand, you could activate a very helpful on reveal for them, and the destruction might help them clear board space.
To utilize Gladiator‘s function best, I think he functions well in a Junk or Clog deck. Playing Gladiator in a lane with 1 open slot left can force it to be filled if Gladiator can’t destroy the card. You can then use Shang-Chi to remove 10+ Power cards and secure the location. You can also play Gladiator in a location where your opponent is locked out for a solid 3/7 stat line with no drawbacks.
CanadianAlfredo
You can also use Gladiator in a Sera + Silver Surfer style deck. In a favorable matchup, you can play Gladiator to eliminate an opponent’s card. In an unfavorable matchup, you can play the Gladiator behind a Cosmo to negate the On Reveal effect.
In either game plan, you can use Silver Surfer to boost Gladiator up to a 3/9! You can also use buffing tools like Forge or Nakia to help Gladiator destroy his target. Essentially, Gladiator can take the place of Maximus since they share an equal stat line and both have effects you often want to negate.
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Simply put, I think Gladiator is a stale card. If you want the interruption ability of messing with your opponent’s draw, Yondu just simply does it better with less risk. Most of the time, you don’t want to activate Gladiator‘s effect, much like Maximus.
In reality though, Maximus is a better pick since you can play him without a Cosmo on turn 6 with little downside. Gladiator on turn 6 can still summon a bigger card than him, therefore losing you power. You may see this card for the first week while people test him out, but I don’t see him being meta anytime soon.
Mirage
Decks with Mirage
Joining Gladiator this week, Mirage is avaliable in this week’s Cache! This card is one with a high potential, yet sees nearly exclusive play in a single deck. Her ability to generate a (typically) low Cost card can help you to not only play on curve with a bad draw, but the additional +2 Power will help give you an advantage. She basically is White Queen that targets the lowest Cost instead of highest Cost card in your opponent’s hand, but also gives that card a nice boost.
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Mirage has primarily found a home in The Collector decks. Her ability to generate a low Cost card with good stats can help the deck to keep strong power on the board. Her On Reveal also gives The Collector an extra Power. The added card also gives Loki another card to transform, which in turn gives Collector an additional Power.
SafetyBlade
Outside of Loki, Mirage doesn’t see that much meta play currently. Though with her fairly strong ability, you may see more decks like this one. This deck aims to use Mirage to gain either a strong body to play, or a cheap card that can help give more procs to Hit Monkey on the last turn.
Loki
Decks with Loki
If you didn’t buy him during his September season pass run, Loki is avaliable in the Spotlight Cache this week! While this card did see a nerf lately to a 4 Cost card, his ability remains incredibly strong in the right hands. Loki can be one of the trickiest cards to master, as he requires lots of deck knowledge to take advantage of the cards you can get.
This has been the hardest part of balancing Loki in the meta. Players who can adapt their game plan by recognizing their opponent’s deck are more likely to win than a new player who just uses Loki for the low cost cards.
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Loki decks come in many varieties, many of which not requiring Mirage to be competitive. This deck, for example, aims for massive value. It uses Quinjet to discount Loki’s swapped cards with an additional -1 Cost.
When your entire hand has -2 cost, it can lead to some explosive final turns! You use cards like Snowguard, Maria Hill, and Agent Coulson to grow your hand size to a large number and boost your The Collector. You then use Loki to buff collector and dump a bunch of power on the final 1 or 2 turns.
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.
This very special variants is from artist Geoff Shaw! It is special as it is the only credit this artist currently has in Snap, making it a literal one of a kind.
Cristina Cid is the artist for this Mirage variant! She currently has 3 other credits to her name for the “Casual” category variants, with the others being for Maria Hill, Colleen Wing, and Dazzler.
If this art style is a little familiar, you might recognize the work of Justyna Dura from other games such as Magic: The Gathering, who has also released 2 other Spotlight variants to far for Mirage and Snowguard!
Should I Cache In?
This week, 2 of the 3 cards are Series 5. Loki has another Spotlight Cache scheduled for January, but Gladiator and Mirage don’t have any currently planned. Loki and Mirage work together for a very strong, high skill ceiling meta deck. Gladiator does not look like a meta defining card.
This week, my recommendation is to Hoard Your Caches. This week is a bit weaker than previous weeks and upcoming weeks. Gladiator just isn’t a card that is worth a cache. Loki was also a season pass card and Mirage is only Series 4. It’s also possible Loki becomes less meta dominant soon now that Mobius is back to an Ongoing card, but only time will tell if Mobius can find a good home a 3 Cost.
If you are a very competitive player and don’t already own Loki, you may want to Cache In for the Loki + Mirage combo. If you don’t own Loki and are a newer player, you may want to wait on Loki until his next appearance in January. This way, you can focus on learning what different decks run different cards and get familiar with them before trying to pivot.
Wrap Up
Do you think Gladiator 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:
