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Welcome to the final Spotlight Cache Showcase for the Marvel SNAP October We Are Venom Season. In this article series, we review the contents of upcoming Spotlight Caches and help you decide whether or not if this is a week worth your resources.
To bookend the season, we have the new Series 5 card Anti-Venom appearing alongside Series 5 Supergiant and Series 4 Ghost-Spider.
ANTI-VENOM – The Cure For a Stale Meta
Anti-Venom joins the other symbiotes to end Marvel SNAP's We Are Venom Season. It is a 4-Cost, 7-Power card with the ability On Reveal: Set the Cost and Power of your Deck's top card to 0. Its Set effect resembles other cards you might be familiar with such as Bast or Valkyrie.
Anti-Venom received a 1-Power increase before release, indicating either the Marvel SNAP team wanted to end the season with a bang or the card was play testing a bit on the weaker side. Regardless, Anti-Venom's unique ability allows for game-winning swings if properly built around. Combined with unlikely allies such as Howard the Duck and Luke Cage, decks utilizing Anti-Venom could wield explosive power as soon as Turn 5. As it's an On Reveal, there's even an opportunity to trigger Anti-Venom's ability twice before the end of the game, using cards like Grandmaster or Absorbing Man to get two 0-Cost cards to play on Turn 6. This is perfect for archetypes where the most powerful threats aren't played for Power - decks that can take advantage of a 0-Cost Wong, Onslaught or Knull are going to want Anti-Venom in their toolbox.
DECKS TO TRY ANTI-VENOM IN
Even if your next card is a dud, a 7-Power Anti-Venom is a powerful body to drop on Turn 4, so you're not necessarily bound to Howard The Duck if you can't justify its inclusion. Luke Cage, however, completely negates the power reduction of Anti-Venom, which may bring high-power decks already running it back into the meta, such as the Hela Archetype or Hela Tribunal Archetype. Mind the Mobius M. Mobius, however, which is sure to be run by players looking to counter Anti-Venom if the card becomes to popular. The same goes for Red Guardian, which will automatically target and deactivate your new 0-Power card's effect if played too early.
PROJECTED RANKING:
SUPERGIANT – Larger Than Life
Supergiant is currently unranked on the Card Tier List, either due to poor stats on insufficient play data. Supergiant has a +0.08 average cube rate and 47.9% winrate while being played in 0.5% of decks at Rank 70 and above, registering as one of the worst performing cards at the moment. Supergiant is most commonly played in the Discard Archetype alongside Dracula, MODOK and Apocalypse.
DECKS TO TRY SUPERGIANT IN
Supergiant is a powerful card with a high skill ceiling - getting the timing down on when to best play the card may be tricky. Supergiant saw some success on her initial release during a meta where Turn 5 was pivotal for certain decks to set up for a big Turn 6, disrupting game plans and strategies to the point of auto-concede. The card also saw play in versions of Hela, to protect against a mismatched MODOK turn or ill-placed Invisible Woman. Today's meta doesn't see a real need for Supergiant, but the disruption can't be denied. A surprise Supergiant is still an incredibly difficult card to play around and entire game plans need to be adjusted when it comes down.
RANKING
GHOST-SPIDER – Into the Spider-Verse
The final card in this week’s Spotlight Cache is Ghost-Spider, but the card may have just missed the Move Archetype renaissance. Currently Ghost-Spider is sitting at Tier C on our Card Tier List, maintaining a +0.01 average cube rate and 48.8% winrate at Rank 70 and above. Ghost-Spider is most commonly played in Move decks, where it synergies well with Dagger, Madame Web and Vulture.
DECKS TO TRY GHOST-SPIDER IN
Move saw a brief period of supremacy with Araña and Madame Web's release, but has been outshined this season by Agent Venom and the other symbiotes. Scream has also stolen the limelight as the preferred Move-style deck and it doesn't run Ghost-Spider, opting to move opponent's cards rather than its own. There are some archetypes that still require Ghost-Spider for optimal play, including the Phoenix Archetype and any deck that includes the Dagger micro-package.
RANKING
Spotlight Variants
Each week, there's a chance you open exclusive Spotlight Cache Variants for the featured cards. These variants only appear once you own the base card, so you’ll need plenty of Spotlight Keys if you don't already own one. Spotlight Cache exclusive variants will not be available in-game again until one full year has passed following their release.
The featured artist for the We Are Venom Season is Pandart Studio, so we should expect all Spotlight Variants for new cards, such as Anti-Venom, to get Pandart Studio depictions. Supergiant receives a portrayal by Seth Adams and Ghost-Spider receives a new variant from Amanda Conner.
Final Thoughts
This week’s Spotlight Caches are a mixed bag. Although we project Anti-Venom to be powerful new card, the rankings range from Tier B to Tier D. Worse yet, Ghost-Spider is a Series 4 card, which is a sub-optimal use of resources if you're trying to budget your keys.
Remember to consider the upcoming Spotlight Caches. Next week, we’ll see the launch of the new Ragnarok Season featuring Surtur releasing alongside Frigga, Copycat and Red Guardian.
What do you think? Are you using Spotlight Keys to get Anti-Venom or are you saving resources for the next season? Let us know your thoughts over at @UntappedSNAP on Twitter/X. Alternatively, come and chat with the wider Marvel SNAP Community on our Discord Server!
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