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Welcome to this week's Spotlight Cache Showcase! 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 new Series 5 card Speed will be released this week, alongside Series 5 Iron Lad and Series 5 Jeff the Baby Land Shark.
Speed – Fast Track to Victory
Speed joins Marvel SNAP as part of the Young Avengers Season. It is a 3-Cost, 3-Power card with the ability Ongoing: +1 Power for each turn in which you spent all your Energy. Its persistent Ongoing ability resembles other cards you might be familiar with such as Darkhawk, Ronan and Knull.
The natural assumption is that Speed is yet another tool for the Surfer Archetype, but Silver Surfer decks commonly skip Turn 1 and sometimes even Turn 2, which is already missing out on nearly half of Speed's potential power gain. At best, Speed can gain +6 Power (+7 with Limbo), but that means building around a card with a max power output of 10. This begs the same question we had for Wiccan - is this deck building restriction worth it?
If we're not looking at Speed from a Min/Max perspective, we have to be okay with missing a turn or two, potentially landing on a 7- or 8-Power end product. The 3-Cost slot has high competition, including cards like Cassandra Nova, Copycat and Gladiator. Unfortunately, if you're looking for a raw, high power 3-Cost, you may already have better options. We should rather, take advantage of Speed's Ongoing ability, slotting him into decks that either lean heavily into Ongoing or use Mystique to potentially double the threat.
PROJECTED RANKING
Iron Lad – I Am Become the Next Draw
Iron Lad is currently in the B Tier of our Card Tier List, having both positive cube rate and winrate, while being played in 6.3% of decks at Rank 70 and above. Iron Lad is most commonly played in the Patriot Archetype and Tribunal Archetype where it synergizes well with Brood, Iron Man and Onslaught.
Iron Lad was once the premiere 4-Cost card, but its utility has since died down with new release power levels rising. Iron Lad remains a powerful tool in decks that want two copies of key cards, one of which has risen to a powerhouse in the current meta - the Patriot Archetype has numerous cards that benefit from a dual proc by Iron Lad, but be wary of an accidental early Ultron clog.
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Jeff the Baby Land Shark – Nothing Can Stop Him
The final card in this week’s Spotlight Cache is Jeff the Baby Landshark, currently sitting in B Tier with both a positive cube rate and winrate, while being played in 13.1% of decks at Rank 70 and above. Jeff is the quintessential evergreen card of Marvel SNAP and can be found in a variation of almost every archetype, including the Patriot Archetype and Thena Archetype where it works well with Sandman, Thena and Angela.
Much like Iron Lad, Jeff's role as an auto-include has wavered with recent releases like Kate Bishop, White Widow and Thena. Still, the card remains a powerful tool to address many niche situations that only Jeff can. Jeff can be played into Sanctum Sanctorum, moved into Death's Domain, the Kyln and even Altar of Death, or played as a second card when Sandman is active. Jeff is also one of the best cards to play alongside Thena and Angela in order to move it out later for more Angela procs. Unfortunately, with the fall of Lockdown and the death of Professor X, Jeff's utility has taken a hit and it's no longer the Tier A card it once was.
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 cards featured, so you’ll need plenty of Spotlight Keys if you want one from scratch! 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 Speed, to get Flaviano depictions. Iron Lad receives a portrayal by Eduardo Mello and Jeff gets a new variant from Max Grecke!
Final Thoughts
This week’s Spotlight Caches are great for anyone trying to round out decks and increase their collection of evergreen cards. While Iron Lad and Jeff may only fit into a few archetypes at the moment, like the Patriot Archetype and Thena Archetype, their utility will never waver too far out of meta. Speed isn't likely to make much of a splash, but might see play in Ongoing-centric decks similar to the Jean Grey Archetype, which saw a lot of success last season.
The other factor to consider is the upcoming Spotlight Caches. Next week we’ll see Emperor Hulkling being added to the game in the same cache as Cannonball and Nimrod to end the season.
But what do you think? Are you using Spotlight Keys to get Speed 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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