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Welcome along for another installment of “An Early Review Of” - the series where we break down the decklists and data behind Marvel SNAP’s newest card to get a better idea of how it’s truly performing in the Meta!
Today, we’ll be analyzing Hydra Bob, a new Series 5 card introduced during the Maximum Effort season that is available in this week’s Spotlight Cache. The important question: is Hydra Bob worth buying? Let’s crunch the numbers.
We’ll be ranking Hydra Bob based on the following set of parameters:
- We’ll be looking at Hydra Bob’s performance at Galactic ranks (90) and above to get a solid idea of how it performs.
- We’ll be considering Hydra Bob’s overall win percentage in these ranks, but also its average cubes and popularity.
- Finally, we will also take a quick look at how the archetype the card best fits performs in the current meta.
Our Tier List rankings are based on the Average Cubes and Popularity of a card when compared to all other cards in Marvel SNAP.
The Raw Data
Hydra Bob has a +0.48 average cube rate at ranks 90+ which may seem high, but it’s artificially inflated due a new season starting this week. It goes down significantly to a mere +0.18 average cube inside of the Top 50% of Infinite.
We see a somewhat similar story when looking at Hydra Bob’s winrate, managing roughly 57.0% across both categories too. That may seem high if Hydra Bob was slightly more popular, but since it is only being played by 2.1% of players, it still pales in comparison to the 59.0% of last week’s new card, Arishem, or the 58.6% winrate of flexible cards like Nocturne and Doctor Octopus.
For now, Hydra Bob is sitting with similar statistics to Zabu— a fringe card that is a far cry from the meta defining feline it once was— which leaves us feeling like Hydra Bob will have a hard time making a dent in the meta in the long run.
Remember that these stats will evolve over time, and this is “An Early Review Of”, so make sure you revisit the card stats and our Card Tier List once the dust settles to see where Hydra Bob lands in terms of power level and popularity.
Hydra Bob’s Best Deck (so far)
With over 22,000 games already played at ranks 90+ with the Untapped.gg Companion since Hydra Bob’s release, we’ve got a fair selection of decks to choose from if you’re looking to find a home for your freshly opened copy of Hydra Bob. Let’s take a look at some of the best-performing options:
Given Hydra Bob’s ability to move after each player snaps, his best home long term seems to be Move decks which often plays cards like Kraven, Miles Morales, and others that have good synergy with Hydra Bob. Don’t worry if you are missing any of the cards listed, you can always find a deck tailored to your collection on our Marvel SNAP decks page.
Final Thoughts
So, is Hydra Bob worth your Spotlight Keys or Tokens? The short answer is: probably not.
The data indicates Hydra Bob has not made any significant impact in the meta and is unlikely to shake up the game in the upcoming weeks. On an archetype level, Move has been a fringe strategy for the past several weeks (months?). Although the addition of Hydra Bob might improve its performance, it’s definitely not enough.
One thing to keep in mind though is that in a few months, there’s going to be some extra support for Move decks with cards like Madame Web and Araña arriving in Spotlight Caches in September.
But what do you think? Is Hydra Bob secretly better than the numbers show? Will the upcoming cards bring enough support Hydra Bob to make Move a powerhouse? Let us know your thoughts over at @UntappedSNAP on Twitter/X. Alternatively, come and chat with the wider Marvel SNAP Community in our Discord Server!
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