Spotlight Cache Week of October 25, 2023: Are Nico Minoru, Kitty Pryde, 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 October 25, 2023

This week, the featured cards will be the new card Nico Minoru, as well as Kitty Pryde and The Phoenix Force!

Nico Minoru

This week’s new card is the highly anticipated Nico Minoru! She is a 1-Cost, 2-Power with the ability “On Reveal: After you play your next card, cast a spell. (The spell changes each turn.)” She has 7 total spells that can be cast, which are listed below:

• On Reveal: After you play your next card, it becomes a Demon.
• On Reveal: After you play your next card, destroy it and draw two cards.
• On Reveal: After you play your next card, move it one location to the right.
• On Reveal: After you play your next card, give it +2 power.
• On Reveal: After you play your next card, replace that card’s location.
• On Reveal: After you play your next card, add a copy of it to your hand.
• On Reveal: After you play your next card, double this card’s Power.

At the start of each turn, the spell will rotate with no duplicates. So if you see a spell, that is your only chance to use it. Once she is played, that spell activates for your next card played. If Nico is bounced back to hand, she will begin to cycle spells again, so that specific spell can’t be used again.

Nico’s complexity is what makes her the most exciting. Her being a low 1-Cost makes her easily paired with most cards, but the randomness of her spells helps to balance her. While some spells are stronger than others, each spell has a useful utility in a match. The flexibility of this card will make her highly valued I believe and a lot of fun to play with. There are a multitude of decks she could function in, but I am going to focus on 2 very different deck ideas to show her range:

One deck she could be useful in is an Elsa deck. The move spell can allow utility for a card to get the +3 buff while also clearing space for the lane without needing move text. The transform to Demon spell can help with dumping power into a lane, as well as make a bad draw a stronger one (like transform a turn 6 1/0 Kitty into a 1/6 Demon).

If you play Nico as the last card of a lane, the +3 will make her 5 Power, which can be doubled to 10 power. You can even use the card copy to duplicate Elsa, Jeff, Kitty Pryde, or other key targets! So just seeing the potential for combos with this 1 card proves how the versatility can prove invaluable to Elsa decks, not to mention countless other decks.

Outside of meta decks, Nico can also provide huge utility to more fun centered decks like Deadpool. The +2 Power and destroy function will work great to buff your Deadpool or cycle cards while also offering a new destruction tool. The copy spell let’s you get a second Deadpool, or have a second Venom with the copied extra power! Will this make Deadpool decks become meta? Not necessarily, but it definitely creates more tools to make the deck more competitive! And that’s the crazy potential this card has.

Some of the best decks in Snap have flexibility. The ability to pivot a gameplan when things don’t go right. Nico’s ability allows for a high amount of flexibility for very little investment. The community has been wrong before in predicting a card’s strength, but this card looks way to versatile to be a bad card. I think this card will be a frequent flier in a number of decks throughout the meta.

Nico Minoru Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide: Marvel Snap’s Next Mini Thanos!

Kitty Pryde

Making her second Spotlight Cache appearance, Kitty Pryde joins this week’s cache! While a large number of players already have this card when it was given away after the bug fix, many players missed that opportunity. If you are one who did, here’s a quick breakdown for you:

Kitty Pryde is a very powerful card that has seen multiple nerfs, but still remains strong. Her strength shines when paired with Angela, Bishop, and Elsa Bloodstone. You typically don’t play this card without one or more of these supporting cards to back her up.

You can also use Kitty Pryde in a fun Shuri deck, where the goal is to make a massive Kitty to copy with Task Master on turn 6. You do this by buffing her with Forge, Hulk Buster, and Shuri. You can use the old fashioned Shuri and Red Skull as a backup win condition for the deck.

Simply put, Kitty is still a viable card despite her nerfs and definitely worth having in your collection!

The Phoenix Force

The previous season pass card, The Phoenix Force, joins as the final card for this week’s cache. While this card isn’t incredibly meta, it has its moments where it proves it can outpace many decks with a lucky draw.

The challenge with this card is finding synergy with move cards and destroy cards. After the season ended, this card was dead for a while and very few players use the card. Recently, The Phoenix Force decks have returned from the grave and found a place alongside Nimrod.

The basic idea for this deck is to destroy Human Torch or Multiple Man by turn 3 if you drew well, then you play The Phoenix Force on turn 4 and multiple your power! If you don’t draw well, you can play Shuri into Nimrod and destroy those cards to generate power. This basically gives you two major win conditions without the need to focus too much on move cards.

Outside of this deck, The Phoenix Force hasn’t found much of any place in the meta. The deckbuilding requirements create too much constraint on making a viable deck. It’s possible this card gets more support in the future with new card releases, but for now, it’s a card you can live without.

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 Nightforged variant is by Snap’s seemingly new favorite artist AIDA, who has been featured a lot both last season and this season.

This Kitty Pryde variant comes from popular artist Kim Jacinto, who might be one of the most expensive artists in Snap. Their art generally costs at least 1,200 Gold or are featured in Ultimate variants, season pass variants, or bundles.

Dan Hipp fans rejoice! His The Phoenix Force variant makes its appearance in the cache this week.

Should I Cache In?

This week, all 3 cards are Series 5, and only Nico is currently scheduled for another Spotlight release (in December). All 3 cards create unique gameplay opportunities in both fun and competitive ways. It’s also a spotlight premiere for 2 of the 3 cards, adding to this week’s value!

My recommendation this week is to Cache In. Nico looks to be an incredibly strong card, and her supporting cards this week make the value for this week even better. If you are one of the many players who received Kitty Pryde already, this week is still worth a cache in my opinion based on Nico’s potential and 6k tokens cost. If you have a ton of tokens laying around, you could use tokens and save on Caches, but those are often best spent on Series 4 cards due to token scarcity.

Overall, the value of this week may vary based on how complete your collection already is. I think Nico is worth the cache, but you can always wait a few days and see how the meta handles her before making your decision.

Wrap Up

Do you think Nico Minoru 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