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Welcome to the final Spotlight Cache Showcase of the Amazing Spider-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.
The last new Series 5 card of the month is Scarlet Spider, releasing alongside Series 5 White Widow and Series 5 Skaar.
SCARLET SPIDER - A Spider by Any Other Name
Scarlet Spider joins Marvel SNAP as part of the Amazing Spider-Season. It is a 4-Cost, 5-Power card with the ability Activate: Add an exact clone of this to another location. It's unique cloning ability resembles other cards you may be familiar with, such as Mister Sinister, Brood and Doctor Doom.
The Scarlet Spider Clone will be a No Ability Token, similar to Brood's Broodling and Ultron's Drone, making it an excellent addition to the Patriot Archetype. Better yet, Scarlet Spider's Activate ability allows you to play the card and wait for the opportune moment to create the Clone - this could mean filling a location to force the Clone into a specific location or just surprising an opponent who may have not calculated the Clone's power into your Turn 6. Because the Scarlet Spider Clone copies the card's Power exactly, cards like Araña, Shuri, and Gwenpool can also be used to create a high power finisher - just make sure you have Scarlet Spider down before Turn 6 or you won't be able to use Activate. Scarlet Spider will also work well in an all-in Namora deck, as your Wong/Odin lane will be full - this means putting enormous power on Scarlet Spider and using Activate last turn to send the Scarlet Spider Clone into a specific location. Be cautious though - these strategies are all glass cannons. Buffing Scarlet Spider too much makes the card and its Clone susceptible to Shang and going all in on big buffs with Wong/Odin is susceptible to Cosmo and Shadow King.
As a 4-Cost, Scarlet Spider may clunky to play in the current high roll, high power meta. The Hela Archetype, Zoo Archetype and Surfer Archetype are able to put our huge power with less complicated game plans. Regardless, Scarlet Spider has the high ceiling and flexible play lines we look for in a competitive card.
PROJECTED RATING:
WHITE WIDOW – Gimme a Kiss
White Widow is currently in Tier B of our Card Tier List, having both a positive cube rate and winrate, while being played in 8.7% of decks at Rank 70 and above. White Widow is most commonly played in the Clog Archetype, but has also become popular in the new War Machine Archetype, where it synergizes well with Storm, Crossbones and Legion.
White Widow is a powerful and versatile 2-Cost card, rivaled only by Jeff and Kate Bishop in the “auto-include” category. Popular in Clog and Lockdown, White Widow also finds itself into any archetype or deck looking to fill out its 12 cards with evergreen tools. With the rise of Hela, White Widow's usefulness has skyrocketed as Clog's play rate rises to counter the new meta tyrant. If you're looking to go toe-to-toe with Hela, you'll want to pick up White Widow this week.
RANKING:
SKAAR – No More Waiting, No More Words
Skaar is the final Spotlight card for the third week of the Amazing Spider-Season and is currently sitting at Tier C on our Card Tier List. Skaar has found a bit of usefulness in recent point slam decks, but suffers from being extremely replaceable in most decks. Skaar's ability requires a great deal of perfect draw and play to truly benefit from, holding the card back from being truly great.
Skaar finds a niche deck from time to time to shine in, but the card's temperamental ability keeps its power and usefulness at bay. It often feels like a win-more card more than anything else, often being the most replaceable piece of any deck. When Skaar works, however, it works well, and dropping a 0-Cost, 11-Power card alongside your other finishers is a force to be reckoned with.
RANKING:
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 Amazing Spider-Season is In-Hyuk Lee, so we should expect all Spotlight Variants for new cards, such as Scarlet Spider, to get In-Hyuk Lee depictions. White Widow receives a portrayal by Miguel Mercado and Skaar receives a new variant from Ron Garney!
Final Thoughts
This week’s Spotlight Caches reinforce popular decks looking to make a stand against the current meta tyrant. Scarlet Spider could be used in decks that may be able to go taller than Hela, whereas White Widow and Skaar can both bully decks that stumble in their game plan.
The other factor to consider are the upcoming Spotlight Caches. Next week we’ll see the new Symbiote Season launch with Agent Venom being added to the game alongside Scream, Man-Thing and Mobius M. Mobius.
But what do you think? Are you using Spotlight Keys to get Scarlet Spider 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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