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Welcome to another 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.
This week, we have the new Series 5 card Scorn appearing alongside Series 5 Sebastian Shaw and Series 4 Jean Grey.
SCORN – Hell Hath no Fury
This week, Scorn joins the other symbiotes of Marvel SNAP's We Are Venom Season. It is a 1-Cost, 2-Power card with the ability: When you discard this, return it to your hand and give +2 Power to itself and one of your cards in play. Its Discard effect resembles other cards you might be familiar with such as X-23 Proxima Midnight and Apocalypse.
Scorn is both a new addition to established Discard Archetype lists as well as a way to play tangential spin-offs of the archetype. Deck building is moving further and further into micro-package territory, with packages like Moon Knight and Proxima Midnight making its way into Darkhawk Archetype shells and Ghost-Spider and Dagger being included in War Machine Archetype lists. Scorn is cheap enough and high-power Discard cards have been buffed enough that a Scorn-centric micro-package may be justified in many decks. Targeted Discard has become hyper-focused and Blade, the newly buffed Sword Master and Scorn may be a strong enough package to consider including in your decks. Outside of this, traditional Discard can benefit from Scorn, but you're often playing Modok on Turns 5 or 6, so just be sure to get Scorn out of your hand before Dracula discards it.
Scorn's greatest strength is its cost - as a 1-Cost, Scorn is flexible and experimentation is going to run rampant as players find creative ways to include it in decks. Better yet, its a 1-Cost card that scales as early as Turn 1, something we've seen snowball out of control very often in Marvel SNAP.
PROJECTED RANKING
DECKS TO TRY SCORN IN
SEBASTIAN SHAW – The Hellfire Herald
Sebastian Shaw is currently in Tier B of our Card Tier List with a +0.25 average cube rate and 51.9% winrate while being played in 2.8% of decks at Rank 70 and above. Sebastian Shaw is most commonly played in the Surfer Archetype Brood, Absorbing Man and Silver Surfer.
DECKS TO TRY SEBASTIAN SHAW IN
Sebastian Shaw has become Surfer's heavy hitter, often soloing a lane with relative ease so you can focus on winning another. Shaw is able to stay under Shang-Chi or Shadow King range until an explosive Turn 6 alongside Sera. Surfer has been bouncing between Tier A and Tier B this season on our Meta Tier List because it's able to put out high power and include many tech cards the other top decks fear, as they're often 3-Cost cards by default.
RANKING
JEAN GREY - She Got That Phoenix In Her
The final card in this week’s Spotlight Cache is Jean Grey, currently unranked on our Card Tier List due to low metrics - used in only 0.3% of recorded games and maintaining a +0.07 average cube rate and 50.5% winrate at Rank 70 and above. Jean Grey is most commonly played in Ongoing decks, where it synergies well with Mojo, Man-Thing and Spectrum.
DECKS TO TRY JEAN GREY IN
Jean Grey has stumbled to find footing since release, with a brief time in the limelight utilizing an Ongoing-centric gameplan to limit your opponents options and end on a huge Turn 6 Spectrum buff. Unfortunately, this deck couldn't keep up with the ever-increasing power level of the coming metas and quickly fell out of favor. Since then, Man-Thing has received a buff US Agent has become an important tech card for greedy decks stuffed with high-cost cards, so the deck isn't at too much of a disadvantage. It's important to remember that Jean Grey is also a Series 4 card, which is hard to recommend using keys to acquire. Poor stats, resource allocation and meta standing are all stacked against Jean Grey this week.
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 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 We Are Venom Season is Pandart Studio, so we should expect all Spotlight Variants for new cards, such as Scorn, to get Pandart Studio depictions. Sebastian Shaw receives a portrayal by Ryan Benjamin and Jean Grey receives a new variant from Peach Momoko.
Final Thoughts
This week’s Spotlight Caches offer new tools for established archetypes. Unfortunately, Jean Grey drags down the week, but Scorn and Sebastian Shaw are both Series 5 and potentially worth the risk. For those missing the Surfer staple, now is a great time to add a Shaw to your meta deck.
Remember to consider the upcoming Spotlight Caches. Next week we’ll see Toxin, Elsa Bloodstone and Zabu. Zabu is coming off of its recent buff, but Elsa has been stumbling. Next week's value will come down to how useful or interesting Toxin is to your decks.
What do you think? Are you using Spotlight Keys to get Scorn or does Discard not interest you? 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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