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Welcome to the final Spotlight Cache Showcase of the Young Avengers Season. In this article series, we review the contents of Marvel SNAP’s upcoming Spotlight Caches and decide if this is a week worth your precious resources.
Rounding out the Young Avengers Season is the new Series 5 card Emperor Hulkling appearing alongside Series 5 Cannonball and Series 4 Nimrod.
Emperor Hulkling – Long Live the King
Emperor Hulkling joins Marvel SNAP as part of the Young Avengers Season. It is a 6-Cost, 11-Power card with the ability At the start of the game, copy the text of a random 6-Cost card. Its Start of the Game effect resembles other cards you might be familiar with such as Thanos, High Evolutionary and Arishem.
Hulkling has the potential to deal out some explosive plays - an 11-Power Doctor Doom, Leader or even Galactus could be outright game-winning. Unfortunately, there are many more outcomes that end up being a minimal increase in stats, such as She-Hulk, Alioth or Red Hulk, or unusable, such as Destroyer. 6-Cost cards require a large investment - they're often your entire final turn as a finisher or your deck has been built heavily around a synergistic 6-Drop: Odin for On Reveal's or Spectrum for Ongoing's. This begs the question - are you better off slotting in a 6-Drop that's suited for the synergies of your deck rather than relying on RNG?
Unfortunately, Hulkling's best purpose may just be as another tool for Arishem. The extra energy and heavy commitment to RNG lends itself perfectly to the randomness of Hulkling and you have the opportunity here to have a second or even third copy of a strong 6-Cost. Still, with such optimized lists already, Hulkling seems like a win-more card in some decks at best and a poor replacement for existing cards in most decks at worst.
PROJECTED RANKING
Cannonball – “Mom, Look!”
Cannonball is currently in the C Tier of our Card Tier List, having both a barely positive cube rate and winrate, while being played in 1.8% of decks at Rank 70 and above. Cannonball is most commonly played in the Clog Archetype, where it synergizes well with White Widow, Debrii and Viper.
Cannonball has had its time in the limelight, but has since fallen in popularity since Professor X's change and the subsequent nerfs to Clog's core cards, like Alioth and Annihilus. Cannonball remains an excellent surprise finisher with the right setup and is still the core card in the Clog Archetype.
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Nimrod – Tolerance is Extinction
The final card in this week’s Spotlight Cache is Nimrod, currently sitting in C Tier with a positive cube rate, but negative winrate while being played in 1.6% of decks at Rank 70 and above. Nimrod has found a home in some iterations of the Destroy Archetype, but mostly as a secondary win condition in the Phoenix Force Archetype, where it synergies well with Carnage, Venom and Shuri.
Much like Cannonball, Phoenix Force was once a meta powerhouse unfortunately caught in the impact of the recent revamp to how Move mechanics work. Previously, cards revived with Phoenix Force had a lot more flexibility and nuance to their in-between turn movement and shenanigans with Ghost Spider. The nerf of these mechanics and the sheer power output of other meta decks have weakened a core deck of Nimrod and lowered its standing substantially in the meta.
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Spotlight Variants
Each week, you have the chance to open exclusive Spotlight Cache Variants for all the cards featured within. These variants can only appear once you own all three featured cards, so you’ll need plenty of Spotlight Keys if you want 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 Young Avengers Season is Flaviano Armentaro, so we should expect all Spotlight Variants for new cards, such as Hulkling, to get Flaviano depictions. Cannonball receives a portrayal by Tyler Kirkman and Nimrod gets a new variant from Combo Break!
Final Thoughts
This week’s Spotlight Caches, unfortunately, have us reminiscing about a meta past - both Cannonball and Nimrod were once the stars of Tier 1 decks, now a shadow of their former selves. Hulkling seems best suited for Arishem, otherwise, you'll be cutting cards most likely better suited for its slot.
The other factor to consider are the upcoming Spotlight Caches. Next week we’ll see the new Symbiotic Season launch with Symbiote Spider-Man being added to the game alongside Silver Sable, US Agent and Mockingbird.
But what do you think? Are you using Spotlight Keys to get Emperor Hulkling or saving it for future weeks? 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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