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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 October 29, 2024
This week, we get the newest Series 5 card Anti-Venom! Joining him will be the return of the Series 5 card Supergiant and the Series 4 card Ghost-Spider!
Anti-Venom
Decks with Anti-Venom
Welcome to the final week of this Venomized season! For our final new card, we have Anti-Venom! He is a 4-Cost, 7-Power card with the ability “On Reveal: Set the Cost and Power of your deck’s top card to 0.” Developers have confirmed that the Power reduction can be reset from both Shadow King and Luke Cage. As for the Cost, Mobius M. Mobius can counter the Cost reduction and prevent any discount.
When I first saw this ability, I was very excited about the potential! But as we approach his debut, I’m not sold on this card. In most decks where Anti-Venom could be useful, Iron Lad simply does the job better. Your meta cards like Iron Man sound exciting as a 0-Cost, but Iron Lad gives you a [4/6] Iron Man and lets you play actual Iron Man as well! Anti-Venom‘s only real benefit over Iron Lad is secrecy. Your opponent doesn’t know what card got discounted, so you can secretly play that Iron Man to surprise swing a location.
Anti-Venom’s second struggle is requiring other cards. If you hit any card with significant Power, you really need a Luke Cage to make that card more influential. You also have to actually hit a good card. If Anti-Venom hits a 1-Cost, you basically played a [4/7] that did nothing. You can use Howard the Duck to know exactly what card you will hit, but now you are at 2 extra cards needed to make Anti-Venom useful.
Finally, Anti-Venom is a dead card on the final turn. This makes him only playable on 2 turns without extending the game or decreasing his Cost with Zabu. He also can’t use his ability to dig for an ability at the last second like Jubilee or Iron Lad.
With that said, I can see a potential use for Anti-Venom:
Possible Meta Deck
CanadianAlfredo
If Anti-Venom’s greatest strength is keeping your cards hidden, why not use Sera Control? The deck thrives on withholding cards until the last turn so you can properly react to your opponent. Setting up a 0-Cost counter sounds like a pretty strong ability to me.
In this deck, you leverage Ms. Marvel for surprise Power drops. Since Anti-Venom gives you a free card, this should help to activate her ability easier without playing your counter cards too early. The deck also uses Shadow King as a tech card, so you can also use it to return Power to your Anti-Venom target! Most cards in this deck benefit from being reduced to a [0/0], so you don’t have to worry as much about what will get targeted.
Low Collection Level Deck
CanadianAlfredo
Anti-Venom is difficult to utilize well at low CL. You don’t have access to Luke Cage, Shadow King, or even Howard the Duck, which makes it hard to negate the downsides. With that said, low CL also don’t have Iron Lad, so Anti-Venom acts like a hold over for this On Reveal deck. Most targets are fine with 0-Power. Playing them later in the game can help you delay on committing to a location took early.
Fun Anti-Venom Deck
I struggle to find a fun usage of Anti-Venom without shoving him into an existing archetype and calling it a day. In most cases where you would use Anti-Venom, Iron Lad is simply better. He doesn’t even make the cut for Tribunal decks since you have to tech with Luke Cage, can’t dig for cards, and is a bad hit for existing Jubilee or Iron Lad plays.
You can use Anti-Venom in Mister Negative decks, but Ravonna Renslayer already acts as a better backup plan. If you use Ravonna, Negative, and Anti-Venom, now you are clogging your deck with too many cards that actually benefit from being inverted.
Anti-Venom Prediction
Anti-Venom strikes me as a card that may find a home in the future, but I simply can’t see him performing well in his current state. I’ve seen a lot of commentary on this card’s ability to withhold information versus Iron Lad. But playing a [4/7] that needs supporting cards to be good, all for the sole benefit of “secrecy”? I don’t see it. This would be a different story if Iron Lad wasn’t a card, but he is, so Anti-Venom has to prove value over his biggest competitor.
Furthermore, Anti-Venom got a last second buff from 6-Power to 7. This often happens when a card isn’t performing as well internally as they had hoped, so they are making a quick buff to make the card more enticing before launch. Not many cards have received that kind of buff and been a competitive or interesting card at launch. This buff signals to me what looks pretty apparent already: Anti-Venom simply doesn’t look like a strong card.
Supergiant
Decks with Supergiant
Returning to this final season cache is Supergiant! This card has been basically nonexistent in the game. Her ability is incredibly binary. You either significantly impact your opponent, or do nothing at all. If they simply play Darkhawk after Supergiant activates, they likely aren’t getting punished from revealing that card later. Use Supergiant on a bounce deck though and you can severely limit their ability to set up for an explosive turn 6.
PulseGlazer
This zoo deck uses Supergiant more as a way to withhold information than being aggressive. You can hide your Blue Marvel or Gilgamesh on turn 5. You can also set up a Shanna to flood your board with cards when the game ends to take your opponent by surprise.
Supergiant’s biggest weakness, as well as strength, is the use of Alioth. Any unrevealed card makes for a great target for Alioth. You can utilize this as an aggressive combo, or have someone counter your hidden play with a guaranteed Alioth hit on your cards. Supergiant is very tricky to use effectively, and often requires a greater game knowledge to predict when or when not to play her. I wouldn’t recommend this card to everyone, but many players may find some fun in her ability.
Ghost-Spider
Decks with Ghost-Spider
Wrapping up the season is the return of Ghost-Spider! This card may compete with Knull for most featured Spotlight card, but her ability is definitely worth owning. She is both strong and versatile in a number of decks, ranging from combo, to move, to even bounce!
Owi
Ghost-Spider even sees some play in Phoenix Force decks! Her utility here is moving either your Phoenix Force or your Nimrod.
This card has been around for quite some time now, meaning many players already have picked her up by now. If you haven’t though, Ghost-Spider is a solid, diverse card that is definitely worth owning. It is worth noting that she is Series 4, so you can buy her with tokens if you don’t want the other cards in this cache.
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 only become available again after one full year has passed.
After one year, these Spotlight Variants will be available for purchase from the Daily Offer section of the shop. They will cost 2,400 Gold per variant. 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!
Our featured artist of the month is PANDART STUDIO, and this week brings us the variant for Anti-Venom!
This Supergiant variant comes from artist Seth Adams‘ Black Order spotlight collection!
This Ghost-Spider variant is a one-off from artist Amanda Conner!
Should I Cache In?
This week returns to the standard Series 5-5-4 pattern. Ghost-Spider is the most meta-relevant card of the set. Supergiant has some fun utility, but never gets played and doesn’t have an active home. Anti-Venom strikes me as a less flexible Iron Lad that requires other cards to negate his downsides.
My recommendation is this week is to Hoard Your Caches. Ghost-Spider is the star of this cache in my opinion, but she is Series 4. Since Anti-Venom looks too complicated to be consistently useful, I can’t recommend this cache as offering enough value to you. The only way I would recommend Caching In is if Anti-Venom surprises everyone and is actually an incredible card. I don’t see that happening though, so this week is a pass for me.
Wrap Up
Do you think Anti-Venom 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:
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