Best Toxin Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide

Toxin is the next Series 5 card joining Marvel Snap for the October season We Are Venom. It is a 2-Cost, 1-Power card that reads: On Reveal: Return your other cards here to your hand. +2 Power for each returned. Today, we will take a deeper look at the new card and, of course, the best decks to try it out in.

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).

Spotlight Cache Week of October 22, 2024: Are Toxin, Zabu, and Elsa Bloodstone Worth It?

Strengths and Weaknesses

Bounce is already a top archetype, and a new 2-Cost card with low power and a great ability has Agent Venom written all over it. As such, before we dive into more intricate possibilities with the card, let’s state the obvious: Toxin will be fantastic just because it works with the current best card in the game.

Now, Toxin’s bag of tricks is bigger than this. Not only does it work with Agent Venom, it also works with all the cheap cards that have been used with Agent Venom up to this point:

By all accounts, Toxin should be an insane card in Bounce; the card has a Beast-like ability paired up with a power-to-cost ratio made for Agent Venom. Also, can I talk about using Toxin on Beast for a second?

Play Beast on Turn 3, replay two 1-Costs behind it plus Toxin on Turn 4, and then use Beast again on Turn 5 to build a crazy strong and flexible Turn 6. Imagine doing this with Silver Sable in the mix, or Iceman. Either of them would trigger four times in total, which means Silver Sable would become a nine power card when played on Turn 6 after stealing eight power from your opponent’s cards during the course of the match.

In addition to its synergy in the Bounce archetype, Toxin (just like Beast) might be able to extend its services outside of Bounce as well. Indeed, plenty of decks have cheap On Reveal cards that they might want to replay, and plenty more would gladly welcome a five or seven power card to bolster their points total while grabbing some cards back.

Yondu in Mill, Master Mold for a huge Ronan the Accuser, Selene in Clog, Thanos‘s Infinity Stones. There are plenty of decent targets in other archetypes that Toxin can work with. Plus, the card is a great Bast target!

One thing to note, though, is that Toxin should be used to bounce two or three cards as far as On Reveal targets go. Otherwise, Grand Master is probably more interesting to use.

With this in mind, Toxin likely is at its best on Turn 3 with a couple of 1-Costs to bounce back to your hand. You could try Wasp if your goal was purely to grow Toxin‘s power, but that feels like overkill.

This leads me to the card’s biggest weakness, which is also Falcon‘s biggest upside. They’re competing for a spot alongside Beast, and the problem with Toxin is that it’s kind of telegraphed.

Priority is always a big part of a card’s success. If it works well with or without priority, it makes for a flexible card. Otherwise, your opponent can counteract it by leveraging priority. I believe Toxin wants to be played with priority, which is another big weakness for the card. If you don’t have priority, you expose yourself to Killmonger removing your 1-Costs or Cosmo straight up blocking Toxin (and possibly clogging your lane).

Here’s where the biggest problem is: stacking your 1-Costs in the same lane is catastrophically bad for grabbing priority.

You could try to use the same trick that you use with Beast (which is to use the card on Turn 4 if you don’t have priority on Turn 3) and play something else instead on Turn 3. But Beast reduces the cost of your cards and allows you to replay them for cheap on Turn 5, and Toxin keeps your cards at their full cost. This severely limits how much you can adapt to the situation, unlike Beast. This is where Toxin might run into a bit of an issue, but there are enough upsides to still play the card in my opinion.

I mean, cheap On Reveals aren’t the only cards Toxin can improve:

There are other cards I could have mentioned, but I think these best showcase the possibilities you can explore with Toxin outside of just bouncing cards for points.

• Wiccan is the big one, especially because Toxin helps you use all your energy during the first three turns to activate the 4-Cost.
• Moon Girl is the most difficult one to use here, but she could duplicate your 1-Cost cards after they’ve triggered at least once and gained power. Copying Silver Sable, Rocket Raccoon, Demon, or other cheap cards can create very explosive turns down the line.
• Ms. Marvel and Namora share the same need for specific positioning, which Toxin could help with.
• Mister Negative could be quite nasty with Toxin. It’s extremely gimmicky, but definitely scary considering the best Mister Negative build at the moment focuses on leveraging On Reveal cards.

The Verdict

I’m probably biased here (I mean, I’m already in love with Toxin and the card isn’t even available yet), but a Carnage that doesn’t destroy your cards but allows you to replay them instead sounds really good, and it opens a lot of possibilities.

Yes, there are some threats—Cosmo and Shadow King in particular—that I can’t ignore. However, I think Toxin is more than worth the gamble. It should end up as a sort of Beast, but certainly a better Falcon. Plus, in most of the decks where you would want to play the card, Cosmo and Shadow King are already a big problem so Toxin doesn’t increase your deck’s weakness to them.

Pre-Release Score:

Bounce

There are several ways to build around Bounce at the moment, so I would imagine they will all need to be tested to figure out which one is ideal. Gwenpool, Grand Master, Sage, and Rocket Raccoon all bring something different to the table, so they all need to be experimented with alongside Toxin.

Among all of Toxin‘s possible pairings, there is one that I want to see succeed the most: Werewolf By Night. There’s no particular reason for it, I just like the card. That’s all.

Mill

Beast has proven to be a great companion to Misery for making the Mill synergy more consistent, and it’s now able to reliably empty the opponent’s deck by Turn 4 or 5. Toxin might be a little too much, but the deck still has some space available (at the cost of removing a counter card).

It might become a little weaker against the Ongoing-heavy archetypes, but I’m a firm believer that any deck with Silver Sable and another cheap On Reveal cards should want to at least test Toxin.

Clog

The nerf to White Widow has left the Clog synergy looking for a new way to disrupt the opponent’s space. Toxin doesn’t really help in that regard, but it could serve as a way to help Selene finally become a menace. This might even push for a new kind of Clog deck.

Or you could just use Toxin with Debrii to clog in the more traditional way. It’s not as fun, but probably more effective.

Mister Negative

Jane Foster is an amazing card alongside Mister Negative, but nobody in their right mind will stay when you play them back to back. I’m not saying Toxin is stronger, but it might open new play patterns and give the archetype an overall better shot at winning cubes in contested matches. The current “Snap or Retreat” play style is working, but what if it could be better?

Darkhawk Misery

Darkhawk exists in multiple builds in this environment, and Toxin could potentially make sense in most of them. I featured the card alongside Agent Venom in Bounce, but the Good Cards Darkhawk deck is more than capable of using the new card as well.

With that said, I feel like Darkhawk Misery, a more combo oriented deck, has a better shot at making Toxin look good. Except for the three high cost cards, everything in the deck is a potential target. Plus, Toxin just makes the deck that much more annoying.

Variants

Closing Thoughts

Toxin is a card that I have been eyeing for a while, and I believe it can take Bounce to the top of the competitive mountain, impacting the entire meta in the process. For example, I would not be surprised to see more decks with Killmonger like Destroy if Toxin is as good as I picture it being.

The card will be a powerhouse, plain and simple.

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!