Top 5 Cards Made Better by the OTA!

Hello everyone, and welcome to Top 5! I’m Glazer of Snap Judgments: The Official Marvel Snap Zone Podcast, and every week, we’ll be counting down a different Top 5 things you need to know in, around, and about Marvel Snap! Sometimes this will be silly in nature, but we’ll always have some pearls of wisdom to help make you the best (and most adjusted!) Marvel Snap player you can be! This week? The Top 5 Cards Made Better by the OTA!

Last Thursday, Second Dinner released their largest set of OTA changes (Over the Air is a type of update that does not require a full patch) ever.

These changes didn’t only affect these specific cards, they warped the quality of cards throughout the metagame. A number of cards got much better due to these changes, so let’s take a look at the Top 5 of them. For the Top 5 list of cards that got worse, check out the separate article below:

Enough preamble! On to the list!

Honourable Mentions

Variants

The Infinaut

If you played a card last turn, you can’t play this.

Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

view card details Start a deck Decks with The Infinaut

Variants

Scarlet Witch

On Reveal: Replace this location with a new one.

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Scarlet Witch

Both of these cards improved because of the presence of Magik. Let’s start with the latter card, which is all over the meta: Scarlet Witch. An excellent way to beat the greediest of these decks is to just spend Turn 6 making their Limbo disappear. Scarlet Witch is the easiest and cheapest way to accomplish this, though you could also claim that Rhino, Storm, and even Legion get better for the same reason.

Scarlet Witch slotting into decks isn’t only dedicated to countering Magik in opponent’s decks. Perhaps you’ve played Magik and are realizing you can go off and lock up the game a turn early. Your Scarlet Witch can remove your own Limbo, shocking the opponent and (hopefully) stealing their Cubes.

Turbo Miracle 2

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 9 months ago

0

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

2.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

The Infinaut‘s benefit is simpler – you have an extra turn to either skip or to get every other card out of your hand for Dracula. Or you can just play him. While the card does get a touch worse with less Spider-Ham around, a Turn 3 Magik and Turn 4 Shuri into a Turn 6 The Infinuat and Turn 7 Taskmaster is just a disgusting play line.

Fazzer Power

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 9 months ago

1

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.6

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

5.2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

5. Echo

Variants

Echo

After your opponent plays an Ongoing card here, remove its abilities.

Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Echo

Cosmo had begun its return to the metagame thanks to W’s Deck prior to the changes, which was already making Echo decent. Now, with Cosmo as a card that can potentially ruin combos and cards like Wong and Invisible Woman appearing everywhere, Echo is slowly becoming a metagame staple.

Moreover, players are flooding the metagame with Ongoing abilities; Iron Man and Professor X are in an absolute ton of decks now, and The Living Tribunal is a real metagame presence. Even locking out an Armor or a Cosmo so that you can Shang-Chi an opponent has real value. Add in the apparent demise of Killmonger, and you have a real card.

On Reveal

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 9 months ago

0

2x Collection Level 1-14

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

2x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

1x Recruit Season

3.6

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4. Hela

Variants

Hela

On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded to random locations.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Hela

Hela has long been looking for consistency, and it got two absolutely stellar pieces buffed in this patch. First, The Living Tribunal is now a [6|9]. That’s only one power per lane for the card, but, given how much power Hela puts all over the board, spreading it all evenly can be enormous. Also notable is a Hela deck’s backup plan (and Plan A against Cosmo) is The Living Tribunal, Iron Man, and Onslaught on one lane. There, the quadrupled power (36 in total) is far more than the previous power (24 in total). 12 more power per lane is an extra Magneto, while 8 is an Odin.

That’s not all Hela got, though – Magik is arguably an even bigger buff from the Queen of Hel. Magik on Turn 3 or Turn 4 is an extra turn to hit all of your combos. It allows the backup plan to be done without Invisible Woman, and it allows Invisible Woman to be drawn and played on any turn up until Turn 5. It’s another turn to draw Hela (or Iron Lad or Jubilee, space depending) to get the combo really going! Hela is finally a real deck.

Safe to a T – Hela

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 10 months ago

1

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

2x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

1x Starter Card

4.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

5.5

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Check out a video breaking down that deck here.

3. Mister Negative

Variants

Mister Negative

On Reveal: Swap the Power and Cost of all cards in your deck.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Mister Negative

Mister Negative hasn’t been meta since the game was in Beta, but that has perhaps changed. With players like TLSG and CozySnap promoting Negative Surfer, the deck is everywhere right now. It’s one of the most played decks in the game. The win rate of Mister Negative is usually very low with a high cube rate, but this deck has a higher win rate with a lower cube average. A lot of the reason why is that this deck is better, but it’s being played by more and, therefore, less disciplined players. As it normalizes, I expect this to look even better!

Mister Negative got only one new card, but that card could hardly be better. The 3-Cost Magik means you can play it on Turn 3 before Mister Negative, giving you more turns to draw negatived cards. You can also play it on Turn 4 after a Zabu– or Psylocke-enabled Mister Negative, which you couldn’t do before. On Turn 5, it can be played with another card, which is likely cheap because of Mister Negative. If played early, it also allows Mister Negative to be a good play on Turn 5 since there are still two turns to draw negatived cards, just as if you had played it on Turn 4.

All of this plus Magik is a really great Silver Surfer target, especially in this deck. Mister Negative is finally back!

Negative Surfer

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 9 months ago

2

1x Collection Level 1-14

8x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

1x Recruit Season

1x Starter Card

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

1.2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2. Nebula

Variants

Nebula

Each turn your opponent doesn’t play a card here, +2 Power. (except the turn you play this)

Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Nebula

When Nebula was released, everyone, myself included, thought it was one of the more powerful cards in the game. It quickly ended up as one of the most played cards and caused a complete revival of Lockdown decks, but it never really ended up in the top 10 cards. That is largely due to Kitty Pryde and Killmonger. Kitty Pryde gave opponents a card to play every single turn on the Nebula lane, a card that didn’t fill a spot and wanted to be played each turn anyway. And thanks to the power of Kitty Pryde (which was, for a while, the game’s best card), decks that didn’t run Kitty had to run Killmonger. A low-powered Nebula because of Kitty was still preferable to one wiped from the board.

Well, Kitty Pryde was nerfed; it’s still good, but hardly as omnipresent as it was. And since Kitty is gone, Killmonger is slowly disappearing from the meta, too. In its place is the Lockdown Thanos meta. Nebula is as good against your opponent’s Lockdown as she is in your own. But that’s not all! Just as a power filler in decks, Nebula is back as the default option. Magik even gives her an extra turn to grow.

1. Apocalypse

Variants

Apocalypse

When you discard this, put it back with +4 Power.

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Apocalypse

Apocalypse Discard decks were entirely wiped from the meta due to Spider-Ham. Theoretically, they had a good match up – Apocalypse could go as tall as anything, and a Storm lane was easily won early by Dracula or Morbius.

The problem was that the highest-cost card in hand was fundamentally always either MODOK or Apocalypse. A pig Apocalypse just gets discarded for no extra value, and a pig MODOK is just average stats with no effect. Those two cards were the entire engine of the deck, and Spider-Ham simply removed them from contention – especially when he was played more than once in Bounce.

Since the nerf to the Ham, we’ve seen Discard return to the top of Tier 2 and flirt with Tier 1. That’s one hell of a change!

Discard Dracula

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

1

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

4x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

1x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

2.7

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Thanks for reading; stay tuned to Marvel Snap Zone for great content!