Spotlight Cache Week of September 17, 2024: Are Araña, Ms. Marvel, and Sage 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 September 17, 2024

This week, we get the newest Series 5 card Araña! Joining her will be the return of Series 5 cards Ms. Marvel and Sage!

Araña

Swinging in as our latest addition to the Spider team is Araña! She is a 1-Cost, 1-Power card with the ability “Activate: Give the next card you play +2 Power and move it to the right.” To clarify a few aspects of how Activate will work with this card:

• Araña must be in play for her Activate to trigger. So if Killmonger resolves before her Activate does, her ability won’t trigger at all (unlike Iron Fist).
• If Araña uses her Activate, gets bounced back to hand, then is re-played, her Activate ability won’t reset because it is a one-time effect.
• If Araña is played on turn 6, her Activate ability is useless. This makes drawing her on turn 6 a dead draw.

Many people consider Araña to be a 1-Cost Forge or a better Iron Fist. In reality, the Activate function comes with some drawbacks that can cause the ability not to trigger. This let’s her ability be stronger than an On Reveal and more flexible on timing. Not every deck will want to swap out their Forge or Iron Fist with Araña, but there are some interesting and exciting applications for this card that open new deck building options!

Move Deck Applications

With an ability like this, Araña obviously fits with move decks. For early game Power snowballing, you can play Araña turn 1, Forge turn 2, then Activate Araña and play Human Torch or Multiple Man. This results in a [1/12] Torch, or 2 separate [2/7] Multiple Man copies. Throw Ghost-Spider behind that for even more Power, and that is only turn 3! Of course that is a high roll situation, but you also have access to Madame Web, Hercules, traditional move cards, and even Beast or Falcon for bounce opportunities.

This deck is a combo centered deck that wants to either win with lots of high Powered Multiple Man copies, or a Human Torch. In an ideal world, you can set up Madame Web and Hercules on turns 2 and 3. Forge (or Hulkbuster) with Iron Fist to move Human Torch onto Madame Web turn 4. Turn 5, move Torch onto Hercules, use Ghost-Spider to return Torch to your Iron Fist location. Use Beast to pick the 3 cards up, and play Araña. Final turn you have no priority with a full 0-Cost combo in hand that you pair with Taskmaster or The Living Tribunal.

This obviously is best case scenario, but that’s the fun of combo decks, right? The deck has several other play lines using Multiple Man available as well. Even suboptimal draws can net you a very high Powered Human Torch that can pair with your 6-Cost finishers. Without playing the deck, it’s hard to know how consistent you will be able to win with different play lines. Nonetheless, I am very excited to dive into these new combo potentials.

Cooking with Araña

Outside of move decks, Araña could be used in some creative ways. For Example: destroy decks could use her as an alternate for Forge or Hulkbuster. This let’s you keep tempo early game without trying to hold out for the ideal target to buff. Similarly, The Phoenix Force decks could utilize Araña in 2 ways. She can allow Phoenix Force to move immediately (IF Araña can recognize the target after the merge). She can also allow Nimrod an extra boost, or a way to utilize Shuri and move to an empty location for Arnim Zola. Below is a deck list for this idea.

If you really want to cook with Araña, why not try something with Brood? While the +2 Power likely won’t add until after Brood makes copies, it moves Brood to an empty location. This gives you access to Symbiote Spider-Man re-triggering Brood, or you can simply use Odin for a quick bump in Power on a location. The same applies to Mister Sinister as a backup plan, but the card isn’t as potent.

Araña Prediction

Overall, I find Araña to be a fun and diverse card. She opens up some new, unique play lines and can provide existing archetypes a fun curveball to use. It’s hard to tell how good she will be in terms of meta relevance, but she looks like a fun and interesting new tool to play with!

Ms. Marvel

Moving in behind Araña is the return of Ms. Marvel! This former season pass card sees much less play from her launch days. While she did receive a couple of nerfs, that isn’t the real reason she isn’t seen much. The card struggles to get it’s value versus Clog decks, and clog decks are very popular in the current meta. When you can properly manage your locations without junk, the card has a great value for its cost (a [4/14] statline).

This Sera Control deck gives you plenty of tools to react to anything you may face. If Clog decks try to ruin your gameplan, use Killmonger to clear out the junk. Ms. Marvel’s purpose in the deck is to give explosive Power on the last turn as you play out your counter cards (that often have little Power with their ability). This can help you win locations by surprise, while thwarting your opponent’s gameplan.

Despite her lack of competitive play, Ms. Marvel is a solid card with a great ability. She is essentially a 4-Cost Doctor Doom, but she requires some planning and forethought to get value. While Clog decks remain popular, Ms. Marvel may continue to fly under the radar. She is still worth picking up though, and can still offer great value in a range of decks.

Sage

Wrapping up this week’s cache is the return of Sage! On her initial release, I was skeptical of her usefulness and recommended players pass on her ability. After seeing play for a while, players found powerful ways to make Sage effective. From combo decks, to Mister Negative, and even Silver Surfer lists, Sage has proven herself to be a useful and powerful asset to your collection.

This is one of my favorite uses of Sage. It’s a deck that combines Mister Negative with a combo style. Your biggest source of Power is Wong, Mystique, and Sage in the same location. This gives Sage 4 triggers, allowing her to rapidly grow in Power! Taskmaster can then copy her Power to win a second location. Mister Negative allows you more flexibility with this combo to ensure you dodge Shang-Chi and Shadow King.

I definitely underestimated Sage on her initial release, but I would recommend her now. She still remains a solid card, and one worth picking up if you skipped on her previously like I did.

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.

Daily Offer – How to Purchase Variants

After the year, they will be available for purchase from the Daily Offer. 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.

InHyuk Lee is our featured artist for this season! This week, we get their variant for Araña!

Eduard Petrovich is the artist for this Ms. Marvel variant! He currently has 2 base card credits for Ant-Man and Thanos, as well as a Nightcrawler variant and a secondary variant for Ms. Marvel.

This Sage variant comes from artist Kai Lun Qu, who makes popular water color style variants!

Should I Cache In?

This week returns to the highest value of 3 Series 5 cards. Ms. Marvel is quietly a strong card that is limited by clog archetypes. Sage is a fun but effective surprise Power card. Araña looks like a strong new tool for move decks, and a fun ability for creative minds.

This week my recommendation is to Cache In! It’s a solid value this week across the board. Each card presents a unique ability that opens the door for stronger decks or different archetypes. The only drawback this cache has is having cards that aren’t currently meta prevalent. As an investment for your Caches though, it’s a great week.

Wrap Up

Do you think Araña 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