Table of Contents
Starbrand will be the second Series 5 card joining Marvel Snap for the March 2025 season, Prehistoric Avengers. It is a 3-Cost, 10 Power card that reads: Ongoing: Your opponent has +3 Power at each other location.
Today, we will take a deeper look at the new card and, of course, the best decks to try it out in.
Decks with Starbrand
Spotlight Cache
Series 5 cards can be purchased for 6,000 Collector’s Tokens from the Token Shop initially as a Weekly Spotlight card, or opened as one of the featured cards in the Spotlight Caches that are found every 120 Levels on the Collection Level Track after Collection Level 500 (until the next new card releases the following week).
Strengths and Weaknesses
Starbrand is one of those “simple but effective” cards in Marvel Snap. If you can remove the text, you have a [3/10] card. That kind of power typically aligns with 5-Cost cards rather than 3-Costs. There’s really only two questions we need to answer to know whether Starbrand has potential or not: can you easily remove its text, and does that correlate to a synergy you can build a deck around?
You might not be surprised to hear that the answer to both questions is a resounding yes!
Decks with Sauron
Decks with Enchantress
There is barely any suspense here, as an archetype including these three has existed for a long time. It hasn’t been competitive in a while due to being heavily nerfed in the past, but I regard it as Surtur 10 Power’s ancestor: Shuri Sauron. All you have to do is look at that archetype to find most of the cards you want to associate with Starbrand.
For example, there are plenty of other cards with Ongoing abilities that you would gladly cancel:
Decks with Ebony Maw
Decks with Typhoid Mary
You might also find some other cards that maximize the high power attached to those cards:
Decks with Dracula
Decks with Shuri
Decks with Taskmaster
If you dig into some of the more exotic builds of Shuri Sauron, you can even find various smaller synergies, most of which are aimed at protecting your high power cards from their natural predator: Shang-Chi.
There are a few other synergies you could look into for Starbrand outside the Shuri Sauron shell as well:
- You could try to eat Starbrand with Venom to grow your Knull or set up a big Arnim Zola.
- If Starbrand is played behind Adam Warlock on Turn 3, you should often draw a card since you are likely to win that location. The same could be said about Iron Patriot (except it is much scarier).
- Obviously, the card synergizes with Surtur and Skaar in the 10 Power deck.
- Starbrand is a solid target for Black Knight to create a 10 power Ebony Blade.
- In a Sera deck, Maximus was a pretty strong card in the past. A 2-Cost, 10 power card can be great on Turn 6—especially with Sera Control typically running Enchantress as well.
- Starbrand‘s Ongoing ability can be used to throw priority heading into a turn where you want to be reactive.
The Verdict
Starbrand looks like a very straight-forward card that you want to play alongside Shuri or Surtur at first glance. However, I feel the card can be much more than that. I’m not sold on the idea of Starbrand in a Surtur deck because there are already plenty of ways to get 10+ power cards out, and priority tends to be quite important in that deck. Instead, I think the almost guaranteed win in Iron Patriot‘s location is good enough for me to explore Starbrand in various decks.
The card has obvious landing spots, as well as a few I had to dig for that I’m excited to explore. That’s exactly my definition of a card that is able to make an impact.
Pre-Release Score:
Starbrand Decks
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I like Shuri way more than Surtur as a pairing with Starbrand due to the 10 Power archetype not particularly requiring any more 3-Costs. In that deck, your typical Turn 3 play is Surtur, a 4-Cost if you had Zabu, or just Cosmo to preemptively protect your future cards. Outside of Turn 6 alongside Juggernaut or Cosmo, Starbrand doesn’t really create any new patterns in the Surtur 10 Power deck.
With Shuri, however, Starbrand represents a 20 power card that you can play on Turn 5 alongside Lizard or Armor. It can also just your play on Turn 3 in case Sauron isn’t around. In more exotic builds like the second one, you can even play Starbrand plus Grand Master behind Shuri, which would move the 4-Cost to the middle and allow you to benefit from the ability on Turn 6 as well.
I really like Starbrand in a Sera Miracle type of deck. Maybe you could even skip Sera and find a different way to gain energy (like Hope Summers or Wiccan) to set up for those explosive late turns. With Lizard recently buffed, there are now a good amount of cards with very high power for their cost (Starbrand, Maximus, Lizard), which could represent a new foundation to explore.
Also, I’ve stated it multiples times in this article but I want to really drive this point home: Starbrand will dominate behind Iron Patriot. Look out for that duo.
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This is a bit of an unconventional build, and there are probably many cards in here that are up for debate (especially She-Hulk). The core idea is to play a KaZoo type of playstyle with Dracula eating The Infinaut on the last turn, as the 6-Cost will often be alone in your hand. Here, Starbrand just comes in as another low cost, high power card, which is basically what this deck feeds off.
Variants
Closing Thoughts
I came into this article thinking Starbrand would be a little boring to discuss; I thought it was just a Shuri or Surtur kind of card and nothing more. However, I feel like the card has much more depth than that, especially in decks that are looking to build explosive power.
Obviously, cancelling the Ongoing ability will play a role in how impactful Starbrand will be. Yet I think I’m willing to give my opponent three points on two locations in exchange for Iron Patriot giving the random card a discount. A 2-Cost Gorr, for example, will easily eclipse the six points you give to your opponent, and Starbrand on its own will represent a big anchor to win that other location.
I was going to say Starbrand is probably a great card for low collection players because it fits into rather basic play patterns. However, at the end of this analysis, I think anyone might want Starbrand in their collection. I know I’ll be spending keys to get it.
I hope this review of the new card was helpful. Feel free to share your opinions and excitement about the card in the comments. You can find everyone on the Marvel Snap Zone team in our community discord to have a chat or ask any questions.
Good Game Everyone!
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