Best Symbiote Spider-Man Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide

Symbiote Spider-Man is the Season Pass card for The Amazing Spider-Season, and it is the first ever playable card with the new Activate keyword! It is a 4-Cost, 6-Power card that reads: Activate: Merge your lowest-Cost card here with this. Copy its text like it just revealed.

Let’s not beat around the bush. This card looks bonkers!

Strengths and Weaknesses

There are 376 cards to collect in Marvel Snap, and 161 of them have an On Reveal ability. This already tells you the potential of the new Season Pass card.

Sure, there are plenty of abilities that you don’t care about triggering multiple times. However, if you also factor in the non-On Reveal cards that you can leverage with Symbiote Spider-Man, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were 50 or even 100 of them that are worth repeating.

Here are some of my favorite ones, and this highlights the range of possibilities that the Season Pass card has.

By playing Symbiote Spider-Man on Turn 4 and using the Activate ability AFTER you play your card in your turn sequence, you can repeat all of these abilities immediately for fantastic results:

• Black Bolt: Discard two cards from your opponent’s hand.
• Namora: Give +10 power to lone cards in the other locations, which is pretty simple considering you’re using Turn 4 for Symbiote Spider-Man and Turn 5 for Namora.
• Black Panther: This makes a 28 power card that is ready to grow to 56 with Arnim Zola next turn. If you’re afraid of Shang-Chi, play Black Panther but don’t merge it. Then just Activate before you play Arnim Zola next turn.
• Doctor Doom: You get 11 power card alongside two five power power DoomBots on the other locations.
• Leader: Get the highest power card your opponent played this turn, but twice.
• Galactus: If your Galactus didn’t work, try again after gaining six power.

These are just a few ideas. Heimdall, MODOK, Wiccan, Daken, Ghost Rider, Venom, even Brood (if you can move the original to another location) could all be a part of the list of great targets. There are plenty of incredible On Reveal abilities that you can repeat with Symbiote Spider-Man. But wait, there’s more!

In addition to On Reveal cards, Symbiote Spider-Man can be used in a variety of ways. First, you can just buff a card like Nimrod to make multiplying it even better. You could pair it with a move card (like Nocturne or Vision) so you have a flexible points stick. You can also use the Season Pass card to reset some cards that have “once per game” abilities to get a second pop. Other uses include gaining space to get more bonuses from Hope Summers/Angela, or buffing Namor/Orka while keeping them alone on a location. Every deck could find a way to leverage the new Season Pass card, especially since it is more flexible than other cards with a similar ability.

When comparing Symbiote Spider-Man with other cards that are able to repeat an ability or buff another card, the Activate keyword brings more much flexibility. Beast requires you to replay the card, which limits it to cheap cards (even with the cost reduction). Grand Master has a location requirement (technically two since you need space in the middle as well) and is random if you have multiple On Reveal cards there. As for Shuri, the card basically tells your opponent where you are about to play next turn.

With this in mind, even though Activate prevents you from playing the card on Turn 6 (you can’t Activate the turn you play it), the Season Pass card is still is more flexible than the others. Simply play it on Turn 4, Activate when the time is appropriate, and you’ve got yourself an easy target worth merging with.

You won’t be able to reuse multiple cards like Beast can, but you can synergize with a much stronger, more expensive ability. You can’t play it on Turn 6 like Grand Master, but you can control the card you will copy, and you don’t need to make sure you meet the requirements on two different locations. And finally, you may not get as much power as Shuri could give you, but you don’t telegraph your next play, as you could merge on Turn 5 or Turn 6.

I’ve been very positive about the card so far, but I still need to discuss the reason Symbiote Spider-Man might just flop: You don’t get to do whatever you want in Marvel Snap, you have an opponent and random locations to respect. With this in mind, if the new Season Pass card starts showing too much potential—which I believe is more than possible—there are several ways to limit its ability to merge with your intended target. If Symbiote Spider-Man merges with the wrong card, it could become a Vanilla [4/6] that just gives you an open spot back, which is far from a competitive option.

The Verdict

There are some limitations to Symbiote Spider-Man, like the fact that it is bad to play on the last turn or that Junk makes it a nightmare to play safely. I believe the card has plenty of potential and is definitely worth building around, hence the high grade, but don’t get me wrong; our newest Season Pass card isn’t risk-free.

You know what they say, with great power comes great responsibility.

Pre-Release Score:

Sandman

The Midrange Sandman archetype has been looking for a signature 4-Cost for a while. It’s tried Captain Marvel, Iron Lad, or even no 4-Cost depending on the list you look at. With Symbiote Spider-Man, the deck gains a card that is able to provide multiple upsides:

• You can build a huge power card that is able to move if you merge with Jeff or Nocturne.
• Both of your 6-Cost cards are huge to merge with, which gives you a great 4->5->6 pattern with Symbiote Spider-Man into Sandman into either Leader or Doctor Doom.
• Against a deck running Magik, you can merge with Sandman to limit the game to one card on Turn 6 and Turn 7.

This is already a good deck, so it might not need Symbiote Spider-Man. But, at the same time, it is a good way to evaluate it since making an established archetype better is the sign of a solid card.

Toxic Surfer

Merging with either Hazmat or Silver Surfer already looks promising, on top of allowing you to play either card early since you know you can merge with them later on. And on top of that, this archetype is filled with good targets like Ironheart behind Wong or Absorbing Man after it copies one of your On Reveal abilities.

Also, this deck runs Magik, which gives Symbiote Spider-Man an extra turn to get set. Alongside Sera, you could easily build some insane synergies with Symbiote Spider-Man on Turn 6 into an explosion of power on Turn 7 (with Silver Surfer plus Absorbing Man plus Ironheart or Hazmat, for example).

If you enjoy combo decks, this is a great home for Symbiote Spider-Man.

On Reveal

Another great way to synergize with On Reveal cards is to play Symbiote Spider-Man in the classic On Reveal archetype. Here you have Namora, Ironheart, and either of the move cards as good merge targets. I probably would lean towards Toxic Surfer if you want to maximize potential, but the On Reveal archetype tends to be a little more flexible to play with.

Arishem Loki

There are two reasons I would like to include Symbiote Spider-Man in an Arishem deck. First, the earlier you play an Activate card, the more flexible you become when it comes to Activating it. The extra energy provided by Arishem makes that a nice synergy already.

Second, even if the random cards in the deck might be a problem at times, you have a couple of nice combos:

• Symbiote Spider-Man on Turn 3 or 4, then Alioth on Turn 5 and merge into it on Turn 6 to stop your opponent’s abilities on a lane for two turns in a row. You can also merge with Doctor Doom to spread your power.
• The vast majority of Marvel Snap decks are playing cards that you should be able to merge with, so Loki and Copycat might not be such bad cards with Symbiote Spider-Man. Cable could also be a consideration.

Arishem Loki is known for its ability to play almost any strong standalone card that’s worth slamming when you have the energy to do so. If the new Season Pass card lives up to the hype, this is a deck that could easily fit it in.

Another way to get an extra energy is to use the Ramp archetype, but that one hasn’t been around for a while. There are still plenty of synergies with Symbiote Spider-Man since the deck is full of On Reveal abilities.

Galactus

I highlighted the Galactus trick earlier, and it could honestly be a nice surprise play on Turn 6 to steal a few games. On top of that, you also have plenty of synergies in this deck that you can take advantage of:

• Zabu and Psylocke allow you to play Symbiote Spider-Man on Turn 4, which gives you a double Wiccan trigger on Turn 4 and +4 energy for the rest of the match.
• Symbiote Spider-Man with Cannonball might require a bit of energy invested, but moving the two highest Power enemy cards definitely win the lane.
• Galactus doesn’t like when the opponent sends cards your way. It is a fringe use of the Season Pass card, but you can merge with Hobgoblin, Green Goblin, or even an Acid Arrow to return the card to your opponent (at the cost of giving them a bit of power). But then you can at least give Galactus a shot on that lane.

Nimrod Destroy

I was eager to find a Destroy deck with the new card since it would allow you to also limit the problem that Junk represents, but X-23 and Wolverine would get in the way of routinely merging Symbiote Spider-Man with Nimrod. So here’s where I’m at: a build largely inspired by the Nimrod Destroyer concept, except Destroyer in his new form has been disappointing so he’s out.

If you remove X-23 and Wolverine to make the Nimrod synergy more reliable, the deck is pretty clunky and unable to buff Knull enough; you’re basically forced to Retreat every time Nimrod doesn’t show up on time. You could make it more reliable with Jubilee, Iron Lad, and some extra ramp tools like Zabu or Psylocke, but then I’d rather just play a regular Ramp deck. If you keep X-23 and Wolverine, Symbiote Spider-Man will often merge with them, which only serves to create a bigger Knull rather than help the Nimrod synergy. That isn’t necessarily a bad scenario since a 20 power Knull can solo a lane, but it limits the impact of the new card.

This is likely a tiebreaker we’ll solve through playing the deck once the new season starts.

Variants

Closing Thoughts

I came into this article thinking Symbiote Spider-Man would be the best card to come out this month after thinking of all the different synergies to build around, but then the Junk synergy kind of ruined the mood. Even if you aren’t playing a deck that is focused on clogging your opponent’s space, you can still easily run White Widow or Kate Bishop in plenty of lists.

I found lots of decks that Symbiote Spider-Man could fit into, which shows that the card has plenty of applications (one of its biggest upsides in my opinion). However, apart from Destroy, most of them are fairly simple to disrupt. Plus, Silver Sable looks like a decent addition to a Bounce Junk type of deck, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a good amount of those.

Even if I hold Symbiote Spider-Man in high esteem, I can also see how the card could feel worse than it is due to having an obvious counter.

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!