Is Star-Lord Ruining Snap? | Kraglin is TRASH | Huge OTA Review | The Snap Chat Ep. 169

This week, Alex is joined by the ultimate Marvel Snap grinder and fan-favorite guest: Harry Perry! The duo kicks things off by discussing Harry's sheer dedication to playing 400 games of Lin Lie before diving into a massive, highly debated OTA Balance Patch.

Harry explains why this OTA made him "crash out" with frustration, leading to a deep dive into the current meta. Alex and Harry vent about why the new Star-Lord "skip four turns" meta is creating an uninteractive and frustrating experience for players. They also break down the buffs to Nightcrawler (is Jeff officially power-crept?), Infinity Ultron, Thor, and the Guardians.

Then, it's time for new card reviews! They debate whether Drax (Avatar of Life) is the perfect 4-star counter to Ramp decks, why Major Victory misses the mark, and unleash a hilarious roast on Kraglin, questioning why the "Banish" mechanic even exists.

Finally, they debate the state of Grand Arena matchmaking and open the Mailbag to discuss why the Season Pass rewards desperately need a modern overhaul.

Join Alex Coccia and special guest Harry Perry as they chat about this and more on this episode of The Snap Chat—and catch Cozy and Alex every week as they discuss all things Marvel Snap.

You’ve been listening to The Snap Chat. Keep the conversation going on x.com/ACozyGamer and x.com/AlexanderCoccia. Until next time, happy snapping!

Transcript

Welcome Back + The Lin Lee (Iron Fist) Grind

Alex 0:00

Hey everyone and welcome to the next edition of the Snapchat this week. Once again, we are joined by a fan favorite Harry Perry. Harry, it is great to have you back on the Snapchat. You're one of my favorite guests. Uh, you just, you play so much Marvel Snap and you play some of the like, you know, the reason why I say this is in context, the people listening I don't think there's anybody on earth that has played as much Linn Lee Iron Fist as you and stuff like that. And like, I just want you to know that behind the scenes when you post like your 300 games with Linn Lee trying to make him work and like the creator Discords that, I appreciate it because someone's gotta play Lin Lee.

HarryPerry 0:34

Yeah, of course. I kind of took that as a personal mission to give people context what Al was talking about when we had, when the creators were discussing the OTA when, when Lin Lee was buffed, somebody's like, oh, I'm worried this is gonna be too big of a buff. And I was like, believe me, it's not, here's like 400 games at a negative 30% win rate. It's not gonna do anything think,

Alex 0:53

I actually think it's crazy.'cause like Lin Lee's a card that when I tested, I'm like, honestly, I went on a pretty good streak with, I did really good with, I've had fun with him and I remember making the video and warning be like, Hey, I did good. The stats on my decks look good, but I don't know if this card's actually good. Like, I don't know if I just had a run or not. So be careful when it got buffed, I was like, honestly, I don't think Lin Lee was that far off from being legit. And so, and then I tried him and recently in a deck and I'm like I just don't care. Like I don't know if I can actually play him. Right. It was just one of those things. Do you think the buff mattered or No?

Meta Shifts, Forgotten Cards & Harry’s 5K Sub Goal

HarryPerry 1:26

Uh, I mean, I think the buff mattered and that now he can be Sean cheated, which is kind of annoying. But I just think, I mean, we'll kind of talk about it when we talk about the OTA that happened this week. It's just that it, he's really good, but everything else that's happening right now is just so much better that he's just, he can't work right now. And so, you know, maybe like Marvel Snaps has its highs and lows of, of, different metas and so maybe there'll be a meta that's really favorable for Lynn Lee. He's a great card, just not right now.

Alex 1:52

Yeah, and that is the thing to mention is like the meta's always shifting in Marvel Snap via season passes via OTAs. Sometimes it's just recollection, like there's good decks out there that kind of, people forget about, like someone actually asked me, they're like, Hey Alex. You know, should I get, uh, Joe Costa? And actually that might be a, did I save that for the mailbag? I might have thought to be like, Hey, we should have that discussion. No, I didn't put it in the mailbag this week. But someone's like, Hey, should I get like the new Drax or should I get Joe Costa? I'm like, Hey Joe. Costa's actually really good. People just kind of forgotten about the decks that she was in, but it's also a combo card. Like you kind of have to have all the other pieces for those decks for, to make sense. It doesn't really stand on its own compared to Drax who will talk about momentarily. But yeah, I just wanted to say that like, I love the fact that like, you, you will just like grind out on a character that people just like have forgotten about and just dismiss. And you're like, no. Like I'm gonna figure this out. And on that note, you are on a mission for in 2026 to hit 5,000 subscribers on YouTube. Am I right?

HarryPerry 2:51

Yeah, I am. Thank you. I appreciate you mentioning it. Yeah. It's a goal for the year,

OTA Breakdown Begins: Chamber Nerf & Ramp Context

Alex 2:55

so why don't we try to start the year on the right foot and get closer towards that goal. I'm gonna make it a mission for each one of you listening to hit that subscribe button down below for Harry Perry, who's making fantastic content. If you're looking for. Lin the iron fist grinding, it's the place to find it. Um, but yeah, no, I'm all joking aside, you're making great content and uh, I'm glad that uh, you had the time to join us once again on another Snapchat. So why don't we actually dive in here and discuss the OTA?'cause a lot of stuff changed. A lot of stuff is constantly changing it by volume. A lot of cards got modified here. And what I'm gonna do here is, uh, I am going, the game's crashing on me. I think, uh, no it's not. Uh, let's talk about Chamber to get us started here. So we're gonna switch screens, we're gonna go to chamber. I would like to know your thoughts in this change chamber going from a two three to a two two. It's kind of funny, when Chamber was originally announced and released, people were kind of ho hum on him. And, um, it has so far proven to be an absolutely remarkable card. Part of it obviously, is because you had the change to war machine. War machine went from a four cost to a five cost. All of a sudden warm sheen is a Premier ramp card. And chamber is finding tons of love in those decks. What do you think of this change going down to a two? Two?

HarryPerry 4:11

Yeah, I mean, I'll kind of preface all my thoughts on this OTA that I'm pretty negative on it. I lit, like the title of my video on this OT was this OTA is so bad I crash out. Like I was literally, I was recording in my car too. I was like screaming. It was kind of a funny video. Like my Discord made a meme about me just complaining so excessively. So just kind of preface everything, all my thoughts about this. I just think it's fine. Like, yeah, those decks have been really strong, so I recognize. Second dinner from like a bounce perspective, Hey, let's, take a point off off of, off of this deck. But this point, I, I think the only moment when this point off chamber matters is when you're playing Chamber on two and Galactus first steps is in hand and you wanna win Chamber's location. That three points versus two points will matter in that situation. But in every other moments of this deck, I don't think the deck is gonna be losing by or winning by one point. It's just really strong. And Chamber's a really strong card.

Moon Dragon vs Chamber + Best Base Art Tangent

Alex 5:03

Yeah, you have a card that's frequently going over 10 power as a two cost, like the one power doesn't make a big difference. I mean, it's a good starting point I guess. Like they gotta do something with him and, uh, very conservative change nonetheless. And by the way. It's not, uh, it's not circumstantial that, uh, your hatred for the OTA perhaps might have fueled the desire to discuss it here today. So pop off King.'cause I want to hear your thoughts, but Yeah, like with Chamber, it's obviously a good card. Interesting that Moon Dragon came out and occupies a similar spot, but Chamber is just purely superior.

HarryPerry 5:37

Yeah, absolutely. I try, Moon Dragon was another card that, that me and other people in my discord were really trying and it just, it's like the thi the difference between Chamber and Moon Dragon points wise isn't actually that different. But Moon Dragon is basically a dead card after turn two. If you don't play Moon Dragon on turn two, you, you're not gonna play at any other point in the game. Where Chamber, you can play chamber on a turn four. And still get good value from him. And so it's, it's, you know, different decks for different things. But I chamber's still a really strong card after the Murphy's still gonna be a really strong card. I don't think it, it's gonna change his goodness in any way.

Alex 6:12

Yeah. And one thing I wanna mention here,'cause I'm looking at, uh, Moon Dragon just off to the side, is in fact, once again, somehow the topic of conversation, literally iron fist. Can we just take a moment to say that like, this is probably the best bass art in the game. Oh, they just released insane bass art that like, I have no desire to even get a variant for this card. Like, it makes me wonder, right, like, do they Hey Ryan, like Kenard and Eduardo Melo, the guys who are often doing the work on the base, they like, hey. Can you make that art suck a little bit more? Can you just tone it down a bit? Like, we got some variants to sell, like, this is a cook man, like this art's fantastic. And then like, the other stuff just feels so drab sometimes. You know what I mean?

HarryPerry 6:48

Yeah, no, I literally said the same thing that, and I think I could be wrong, but I think this card, maybe it was this whole season with them, Lee, they had a new colorist,

Alex 6:56

uh, system. Studios. Yeah,

HarryPerry 6:58

yeah. But specifically the Linley card. Like I'm always, when there's a card that I like, or specifically a pet card, which Linley is, I'm always like, oh, I gotta get a variant. I gotta have a way to show that this is truly a pet card, that I have a variant form. And so I was thinking about getting the conditional bundle that's like$20 for Linley, and then I got this base art and I was like, it's just not worth it. This bass art is so good. And that was actually like, I already, he was already a pet card. I already wanted to play him. And then the bass art was like, I have to play this. It looks so good. Yeah. So I agree with you. It's, it's like, I think the best bass art in the whole game.

Alex 7:28

Yeah. One of the best, the, actually, if you wanna talk about amazing bass art, the other one that I always come to, which is kind of on topic. Is the original Gomorrah. This is not it. It's uh, it's this one here. I think it's remarkable Bays art. I think it looks so good. I think that it's underappreciated for how beautiful this is. And it's colored by Ryan Kenard and, uh, drawn by John Boy Mays, who I don't think has that many, uh, cards in the game, but we're like so off topic today, but I just, I wanted to talk about that. Agree.'cause you agree to

HarryPerry 7:57

off topic. I also think that her No. Well, I also agree that the Gamora bass art is really good, specifically with her animation. This pose works like flawlessly with her animation better than any other art does.

Shang-Chi of the Ten Rings Buff & Deck Dilution Debate

Alex 8:09

Yeah, for sure. Anyways, maybe that's a conversation for another day about Bayar and, you know, uh, the best ones in the game and stuff like that. But, uh, another OTA that came pretty hot was that to Shachi the Master of Rings. What happened here was Shachi himself as a three five did not get changed. Going over three five is hard. Like we have Luna Snow who. I think it's incredible At three six, I think it's still overstated, not in a bad way. I know people got mad at me for saying that last time, like, Alex, do not will nerfs to, to, uh, Luna Snow. I'm not trying to get Luna Snow Nerfed. Okay. I have a God split on that card. I do not want that card getting Nerf. I play it way too often. I'm just saying three six is kind of a lot for that card. Yeah. Three five hunchy. But what got changed were the 10 rings cards themselves, each getting additional point of power. Uh, the 10 rings that starts in your hand going from two one to 8, 2 2. And the unlocked or potential unlocked version going from a two two to a two three. It does increase the baseline of these cards. The effects still remain. Curious what your thoughts on Hunchy?

HarryPerry 9:07

I actually think it's. More significant than I thought it was when I was reacting to it. Again, similar to what I said with Lin Lee, it just kind of doesn't matter right now because the Met is just so big and so obnoxious and unfair to like, I just hear other people use that word, so I'm stealing it that way. Like it's meadow, we're zing, fing, fink, fms, if that makes sense. You know, an extra point of power on the rings doesn't really matter right now, but in playing the card after it was buffed, the two points of power versus the one point of power on the base rings, I think is what is the best change. It goes from feeling like horrible to like, okay if that makes sense. So, so again, similar to Linley, I think that this is a card that's positioned to be extremely strong when the meta comes around to it.

Alex 9:51

Yeah. And uh, technically this card does dilute the deck, which has been a frequent conversation, uh, starter. Do you think that having like it draw a card is too much Like this obviously stuffs, it stuffs a draw in your hand'cause it begins in your hand. Do you think it'd be absolutely broken if you still drew the same number of cards?

HarryPerry 10:10

Yeah, I do think so. Like it's, it similar what they send the OTA notes like this is a guaranteed two drop in your deck. Like you're always able to play it on two or whatever. Like, like there, there's some what is it called? Card advantage, is that the right word with that, that like you have something to do that your opponent does not, and you're guaranteed to have it every single game. And also card draw is really big. Like I, I imagine that if he drew a card, people would just play him for the card draw is what I would Yeah. Wicked

Alex 10:39

shells would go absolutely insane. It'd be guaranteed like you'd never play another two drop again, basically.

HarryPerry 10:44

Yeah. So I think it would be too strong also because then you're even more likely to draw Chong Q and get them to an end of turn. And when they do reach the end of turn, like you're usually pretty confidently winning that location. It's a pretty significant effect on a card. And so I think the, the. Statistical chances of it going down keeps the card in check I guess. But also I say that and all another sudden math. I'm like, well, does it need to be in check? Is that the worst thing in the world? If people are playing this in wcan and getting like an end of turns? Chong Xi like again, we're cheesing out crazy things. Like people are playing modoc on hella on turn six. Is it really that bad if people play Chong Chi of the 10 rings? I don't know. But if, if they want to keep this card balance, I think preventing the draw is good.

Alex 11:29

Are you suggesting that star Lord may be an issue? Are you suggesting that doing nothing for four turns and then just playing this hat who I've barely played, I refuse to play him. I, I played on my te I was like, you know what, no, I'm not like, I'm just not doing that. I'm playing everything else. Star Lord has aged in a way where it's like, I think he's starting to really piss people off and I think they're gonna have to try to do something.'cause you talk about interaction, right? Literally you skip. Something, something just got power bombed above my head. I don't sometimes, sometimes it comes through. Um, I heard that. Yeah, you heard that. So like while I'm recording, especially during the day, the kids will like throw things into the floor and thankfully usually it happens when like you're talking, so when posts, I just like silent my track so you don't hear anything. But while I'm like literally talking and like someone throws like a toy against the floor, like I can't avoid that sound unfortunately. But yeah, like

HarryPerry 12:21

love it.

Alex 12:22

They've absolutely had to in the past try to correct the game because of the lack of interaction. And what you're seeing is star Lord literally going skip 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 star Lord, and then Modoc hella, which is wild. Like the game shouldn't be played like that. Right. And that's why Stardust is literally a mainstay in a lot of different decks. And we are seeing ongoing decks running stardust with tremendous win rates and tremendous cube rates because they're able to like just wipe the floor with those type of strategies.

HarryPerry 12:53

Yeah, I, I, I agree. And I'm trying to like, not because I had my video on the OTA where I literally crashed out and was like complaining like crazy, which is not my typical personality. I try to be optimistic and positive, but I was like yelling frustrations at the game. And, uh, and so I'm trying to like, take that back a bit and not have the entire conversation about the OTA exist around star Lord. But it's hard not to, because like, I've been playing other decks. I'm sick of playing star Lord, and I'm sick of playing the counter to star Lord. Like, I wanna play what I wanna play. And it's like, I was completing my weekend missions for star warlord, and I like, felt guilty. My opponents were emoting against me, and I'm like playing a really fair version of the deck. I don't have Zola in there. I don't have hella, you know, like I'm playing a pretty fair version of the deck. But my, I could tell that my opponents were annoyed just seeing the card. And so I, I don't know. It's hard to talk about anything that's happening in Marvel, Snap, Snap right now. The OTA new cards coming out, pass cards coming out because it's like, well, star Lord is just completely warping what's reasonable to do and what's worth doing because you, you do skip the whole, turn the whole game and then just dump crazy power on the board. And so it makes everything else so much harder to do. So I agree that something's gotta happen because all of these changes the entire OTA conversation could kind of be summed up as like, well, does it do anything to deal with star Lord? If not, right now, it doesn't really matter. It could matter and it maybe will matter in a future meta, but right now it just doesn't.

Alex 14:18

I think that part of the issue, based on my understanding is that the way the OTA schedule is set up, right, so you have basically two OTs a month, right? Every two weeks or so. The first one comes so early after the season starts that they really don't have enough of a sample size of games and data to make balance based decis decisions. And even in the case of something like an outlier. I don't know. I'm not a game developer obviously. I don't know if they have the opportunity to actually, I bet you they do. They might be able to do it. Like, I don't know how early they have to stage the change in the OTA, but it sounds to me like that first OTA is kind of a write off for them. So the point where I wonder if they consider changing the schedule, if they push that OTA back one more week, will it give them a chance to fix the season pass card faster? Because now what we have to do is we, we always have to wait for the second OTA of the month to potentially touch the season pass card. I use some, uh, that's some Super Tech God language there touching cards. So we touch star Lord, right? And then now it's like a week before it goes free to play or whatever the season change over it. And so people get a little pissed off. It kind of, it kind of sat in the meta too long before it enters free to play territory. It gets nerfed. I wonder if the OT schedule has to be adjusted to account for these season pass cards.

HarryPerry 15:37

I think it should. I, there's also a part of me that's like kind of being cynical and mean and being like, why don't they just release the season pass balanced and like, I, I don't know, maybe I'm just annoyed and so I'm complaining, but I agree that whatever the current setup is is not. Working and, and like, I, I think more than anything else, it's, these aren't just my frustrations. Like I, I actually get a, I have gotten a lot of comments in the last few weeks more than I ever have both in my Discord and on YouTube videos where like people are just kind of worn out of this. Like this season pass card is everywhere and it's kind of oppressive two months in a row, I think is what's gotten people worn out is we've had this before. We've had oppressive season pass cards before. This isn't the first time. But like people did the same thing with Aga Moto. Have you seen a single aga Moto player recently? I haven't. But like, I, I remember this complaints, I even remember listening to a a, a Snapchat episode where you guys were talking about aga moto and should wins of WTO be nerfed. And so like this mindset of being annoyed with a season pass isn't new. But I think having two seasons in a row where it was like the new season pass card is everywhere. It's super oppressive. It creates a new way to play the game that's difficult to deal with and people don't like it. Two seasons in a row, I think it's kinda just worn people out. And so. I do agree that if their way to deal with that is to have the OTA push back a week so that they can make the season more fun, faster for people, I think would be a good thing. That's also like you then this, then the OTA is almost at like the halfway point of the season. If a season is four weeks long instead of it having it at the beginning, you know, any whatever, I think it would be good.

Alex 17:11

Yeah, and I think one of the major challenges is, is like you mentioned a good thing, like we've had multiple months now where the season pass card is a little heavy handed. Now if I've always been of the thought that I would rather them, this is a frequent conversation and there's always two sides to the discussion that I personally would rather them lean on the spicy side of card releases. I'd rather card releases come out and shake things up a little bit as opposed to them doing absolutely nothing. And just kind of being duds and we say, yeah, this card's not gonna be meta. Who cares? Right? I'd rather them lead on the spicy side. I think the part of the problem with Star Lord is when I was testing him and I was playing him, I was playing him in like high Evo shells and stuff like that, which were like, I think what their design space was. I think that like they knew this was a high Evo card and in those types of decks it's much more fair. And then what happens is you find these other combinations is those lack of interaction games where literally as we joked about, it's a joke, but it's real life. You can skip four turns and then five, six star Lord Modoc hella. And that sucks. That's a horrible play experience for the person on the other side. And yeah, you can say, oh, then you play Stardust and you have these options and there are tech, right? Yes, I understand that. But when you have un interactive gameplay like that, it does wear people down. Especially when, and I mean this is maybe unpopular to say, but the game's three years old and people that have been playing for a long time, right? Like you naturally start to wear down a little bit. Like it's just one of those things, right? Imagine, imagine eating toast every day for b. Fist for three years. Right. Eventually you're like, yo, I, I kind of just want to have a waffle, right? Like, I, like you just wear down. And so like adding friction to the play experience with like, well this is just crap. With the way Star Wars being played I think is part of the problem. I don't think it's as much as like he's op as his play style sucks. The design of the card sucks. I'm not trying to take a shot at the game designers or anything like that'cause God knows they've made my favorite game in history. I'm just saying that this is a, this like the design is the problem. It's like it's an un interactive design that feels bad to play against. And that is the challenge. We have some release valves and even those relief valves feel awful to play against. No one likes playing stardust. Well, no one likes playing against Stardust. It is just like, it's like the lesser of two evils right now. Stardust is literally the champion we're championing. Like it's crazy, right? That's, I guess that's what I'm trying to say is that like, I think star Lords lack of interaction is the issue and it probably should have been. At least attempted, I bet you they could have dropped his power in this OTI bet you they could have done that.

HarryPerry 19:39

No, I, I agree. Yeah. And, and I think what you're getting at is, I, I, I, it is really interesting. I've had like the weirdest experience with Marvel Snap, probably like the last month I've been trying to figure out what it is I'm even feeling about the game. Because I, I used to be with you that I agree that cards should release. Spicier like the, if the, if the direction is to lean, overt, tune, or under tuned, I think it's better to release them overt tuned than under tuned until like a few weeks ago, someone left a comment on one of my videos, uh, because I said that in a video, and they're like I offer a counterpoint. Because in my videos a lot, like I will say specifically to my audience, I talk a lot about like mental health and dealing with the emotional weight that playing a game puts on us, particularly a game like Marvel Snap and dealing with fomo. Like that's been a huge topic of my content. And so this person really appropriately said, Hey, like you talk about co FOMO and overcoming FOMO and dealing those things, you recognize that by releasing an over tune card, particularly one that's paid, creates the worst type of FOMO in the game. And so like now I'm like trying to reevaluate like, oh, what do I think? Because like there's like a conflict of values there. But I agree that it's, it's more so like the lack of interactively the star award. That's frustrating. And what I shared with in another video that I made was that it's that my decisions as a player, like, so I'm not playing Star War. I'm playing whatever I am and my opponent's playing star, Lord, my decisions in the game matter less now. Basically the only decision that matters for me is did I bring Stardust or Cosmo and did I play them right the right way with priority? And then if I did, then my decisions matter. If I don't have them in my deck or I don't draw them, basically all my decisions in the game. Mean nothing at this point because of Star Lord. And, and so it's just like, fing Fang f man Spider and now Star Lord are kinda like three cards in a season in a row that all kind of reveal this feeling of like, my decisions as a player don't matter if my opponent is playing a certain way. And that is just kind of like a bummer experience I think for a lot of people. I, not for everybody, I know that there's like, you know, there's different personalities of people that wanna play, but for me and people who talk to me the way that they do, that's kind of a bummer, is exactly where you're getting at. The lack of interaction, which we're like way off topic of the OTA, I apologize, I distracted us, but it is just kind of a bummer that this entire card of star Lord and the way he's changed the interaction of the game is influencing every conversation.

Alex 21:52

Well, yeah, it takes, it takes what should be a back and forth game experience and makes it a binary experience. With Mans Spider. I either have Shachi or I don't. I mean, even Shadow King doesn't necessarily always do enough to those types of situations. Right. With with Star Lords, right. I either have Stardust or I don't or whatever, right. We don't have a card that caps power or energy on the opposing side. Like we don't have a reverse human torch, Jim Hammond, which obviously would probably suck because it would be useless in every other game state except for a popping off star Lord. So like, I don't know if I have the answer. It just seems like Star Lord itself was not the design that should have been like, this is not what we wanted. This is not what we needed. This is bad for the game. And regardless of whether or not the card is. Balanced. It creates a play pattern that sucks. And that's, it's the problem that's always happened with Hella, and it's not just hella, there's tons of ways to play this card, right? We're focusing on hella'cause that's like the least interactive version. Yeah. Imaginable. But there's many ways to play this card that just feels absolutely awful. But, uh, so anyways, we, we should probably move on. Uh, I will say though, that like, I'm the kind of person Harry, where in every single game I play, like the two games I'm primary, primarily play right now, Marvel Snap and Riff Bound are the two car games I play almost extensively. And in both games, I'll never play the meta stuff. I just, I don't want to grind if, if, if Star Lord's the best deck in the game, or Thanos is the best deck game, I'm not playing it. When Sheri was the best deck in the game, I wasn't playing it. Uh, the best card, the best decks in riff pound, I'm cooking something else. I wanna cook somewhere else. And that's the way I feel. And as soon as star, star Lords start to like, hit that threshold of like, oh, this is like the cringe card that everyone is playing, that like, honestly feels awful. The play. I don't wanna be a part of that. I just don't wanna play. And if you wanna play startle and you have fun, you're playing, that's cool. Like, I'm not trying to like PPO on your parade like you do, you like, this is your game. You play for funsies. Don't let our opinions of a card and the way it's played, sh. Take that away from you. But yeah, the reason why I won't play star Lord is'cause like the, it's just so interact. And when I start a game, one of my favorite things, Harry, and I don't know if you have the scene, but like, when I get a fist bump from my opponent, like they recognize my name, they fist bump me. Well, I'm gonna play star Lord against them.

HarryPerry 24:00

Yeah.

Back to Buffs: Kingpin, Nightcrawler vs Jeff, and Meta Staples

Alex 24:01

You know what I mean? Like, I can't do it. Like, it's one of those things like if some, I'm just gonna Snap and let them beat me for eight because like, I just leave my board empty. I'd rather do that than play star Lord on someone who's fist bumping me at the start of the game.'cause like, hey, this is Alex. I, I get to play against Alex, this is fun. And I'm like, Hey, I'm gonna skip four turns to star Lord and hell of your ass. I can't do that. You know what I mean? Like, so I, I don't play the popular stuff. So star Lord, I'm sorry I don't give a crap about you. But what I might give a crap about, and this does feed into, um, a conversation about forgotten decks. Alright? Changed was a man, if you've watched the, well look at, whoa, that's not buggy at all. You guys, you can see that. Yeah. This what, yeah. It's morph. It's morph, but apparently he's a big giant. There's no bugs and Marvel Snap. What are you talking about? Kingpin going from a one two to a one three. Not the biggest change in the world. But what's funny about this is I even mentioned in my OTA video, I was slightly less upset about you, uh, than you were. I said like, there's actually a kingpin deck. I looked it up that was running like a 62% win rate, but it had like 150 games on it. It was like a scream deck. And then this buff essentially brought it back into the radar and a scream made like my top 10 list, and I thought it was kind of cool. Oh, by the way, you can see the broken morph, like in the background here. You kind of just see, just, just chilling behind duck. This is the Hawaiian kingpin. So I always, Harry, what do you think about this?

HarryPerry 25:24

Yeah, I think that this is one that like actually matters. If that makes sense. All the others, it's like, okay, plus one power minus one power. Does that do anything? Probably not, but kingpins and, and screen decks in those types of decks, which. In the right mid are actually a really great counter to combos because you're moving their cards around, you're preventing their ability to achieve their combo when their cards are in the wrong spot. They do care about every point of power, like those are the decks that are winning by one or two power. And so kingpin getting up to three I think actually is meaningful and significant and like good. I think, I think as naturally, this is one thing that I did not praise at all in my OTA'cause I was too busy crashing out that I think second dinner does really good, is that they'll take older cards and like increase their power. It's like the exact exact opposite of power creep that, you know, power creep is only the new cards to get more power. Where what they're doing in these OTAs is like, we'll take older cards and give them more powers to deal with the natural consequences of releasing new cards. So I think, I think it's cool that they do that. And this is one that I actually think matters.

Alex 26:22

Yeah. Absolutely. No, we're taking so long, the OTA, so we'll go a little quicker here. I just wanna bring up a card here and it's in relation to one of the other ones. Rip Jeff. Alex, why are you showing Jeff? Jeff didn't get, no, he got nerfed because Jeff's a two three. But why would you play Jeff when you can play our boy Kurt? Honestly, night crawler going from a one two to a one three. Big buff for cerebral three, I guess kicking the pants for cerebral two gamers out there, but like, why play Jeff if you can play night crawler? Kind of crazy change, but I, I don't disagree with it.

HarryPerry 26:55

Yeah. Right there with you. I don't disagree with it. Kind of crazy. If Jeff doesn't become like a two four or two five in the next OTAI will be in shambles

Alex 27:03

two five. Jeff's crazy. That's psychotic. I'd

HarryPerry 27:06

be nuts.

Alex 27:07

Yeah. That two four maximum I think. But what I mean what happened to Jeff though Jeff was most popular when your boy Sandman was absolutely crushing it. Right? Sandman was all over the place. Then you were able to play Jeff in combination with other cards alongside Sandman, which made it valuable. And then obviously the other thing, Sandman obviously super restrictive. Not anymore. It was the Professor X, right? Professor X gameplay was awesome with Jeff too. They nerfed this card. So Jeff was good and then just got everything taken away from it.'cause all of its synergies were taken out behind the barn and clapped. Right. So at the end of the day, what are you supposed to do? Night crawler, um, you know, doing his thing. Uh, we're gonna go to Infinity Altron here, so I'm trying to, I don't wanna speed up, but at the same time,

HarryPerry 27:50

yeah,

Alex 27:50

I'll, we're still talking about the OTA right now. Quick

HarryPerry 27:52

slowing you down.

Infinity Ultron Stones Get Stronger (But Is It Enough?)

Alex 27:53

No, no, you're not slowing me down. This is, this is why PE do, would you believe that people watch the Snapchat to listen to conversation about Marvel Snap? And we have been speaking about Marvel Snap and that I think is a good thing. Infinity Ultron did get buff though, but not Infinity. Ultron himself, this is the second significant buff to Infinity Tron. The change you have, uh, three of the stones, uh, the infinity stone, which is, uh, honor reveal. Put a card from your hand here. It's a two four, uh, which is basically Dragon Lord. Honestly, dragon Lord's one power more for three costs more, and Dragon Lord's good. So I'm just gonna tell you Infinity Stone's pretty good. And then you have the, uh, time zone's. Good. And then you have the, uh, infinity Space Stone going from a two five to a two six on reveal. Move the lowest Power Enemy card here to a location, to the location of Infinity Ultron. And then finally, we actually had a text update to the Infinity Soul Stone. It remains a two three, but it now reads on reveal for each of your full locations. Give one of your cards there, plus three power. It used to be plus two power. I think this is one of the more awkward stones to play. But anyways, that's, uh, that's just my opinion. What are your thoughts on the changes to Infinity Ultra?

HarryPerry 29:04

Yeah, I mean, it's good. He's a card that should be buffed. He's cool. People like him. He's a cool way to play the game. He's also a pet card of mine, so I'm always happy when he gets buffed. But it's similar thing, it's like, ah, these things are just kind of awkward to achieve, particularly the sole stone plus three power in a location that's pretty significant for a two cost card. But the cost to your deck and to your entire game plan of filling up all your locations or filling up two of them and playing Infinity Ultron is heavy. And to meet that in a way that also allows you to win the game is challenging.

Alex 29:32

Yeah. So basically you fill up everything. You drop this as a two nine and Chamber could just casually be like a two 15 or whatever. So whatever. Let's, I wonder what the problem is there. Um, but yeah, so this was a cool change. I actually really like Infinity Trons design. It was one of those cards that like, when it came out I was excited about, but I knew it was gonna suck. I remember when we first previewed it with, with Cozy, we were like, yo, this card's cool. It looks cool. And then like when the month came, we're like, this might not be good. And remember, the stones used to be three costs, right?

HarryPerry 30:00

Oh, that was brutal.

Asgard Package Buffs: King Eitri & Thor’s Relevance

Alex 30:01

Yeah. Now they're two costs, so they've made some significant changes to the stones. They're just still not quite there. But I, I do hope that this at least starts to nudge all the Infinity Tron into a different direction because it's a card that's worth having in the game playable, because I think it's a fun interactive card. Now we gotta talk about King Eat Tree and Thor in combination with each other. King Eat tree going from a one two to a one three king eat tree. For those that are like, what is that card activate, draw a created card from your deck. Ironically, Harry, you talked about AKA Moto, which was the last time that King Ere was legitimately meta. Because you were able to pull cards. You were, because the deck dilution of edmoto was problematic. You maybe pull the temporal manipulation, draw through into the edmoto, stuff like that. King Ure wasn't bad there actually playable, uh, there was one other deck he was played in. I feel like I'm forgetting since then, but maybe you remember. And then of course in combination with that, we do have Thor who needed to get changed eventually. It's kind of funny how some of the, the most iconic heroes in the game Thor night Crawler. I mean, there's so many examples, right? Gene Gray are some of the crappiest cars that no one plays, right? It's kind of sad how that works, but, uh, going from a three, four to a 3.5, not a big change, but still it's something. So what are your thoughts on the Asgard package? Getting a bit of a buff here.

HarryPerry 31:24

Yeah, I think I'm with you. That it needs a little bit more love. But what I will say is that it's also not bad. Last season it was like my saving grace deck with the dragon season was I was playing a pixie Thor beta ray bill deck. And the key card that made it so good was Valkyrie, which was like fun. It was like a full Asgard package. You had Thor, beta Ray, bill Valkyrie, and Jane Foster. Like, it was cool. And it actually worked pretty good and I climbed to infinite with it. Now in the meta it's struggling a little bit more, but I think that this is good. I, you know, similar what I said earlier, like slowly raising the viability of those decks is a good thing for the game. I actually don't think Thor's that bad. I just think that I don't know. I think it's, this is one of the things that we'll, we'll talk about. I'll mention when we get to the Guardians. I think that outside of Beta Ray Bill lover, who we all love like people have just kind of moved on from the card. He's not exciting, he's not new. They've played their fair share of hammers. They played share their fair share of Beta Ray Bill. So I think it's just a, the little, the similar to what you said earlier, like people have been playing for three years now. So for them to, you know, choose a specific card, there's gotta be something to make them interested in it. I think that's a big potential that Snap hasn't used. Their OTA fors is, is like more so than changing the power. They can change the interest people have in a card and adding one power to Thor is good, but I don't think it, it makes people more interested in the card.

Alex 32:43

And one of the reasons why I want everyone to subscribe to Harry Perry is'cause I know what happened. You guys were listening to him talk about a beta ray Bill Valkyrie deck and I know you're like, bro, I wanna know what that deck is. Please tell me. No don't say it Harry Perry because they gotta go to your channel to find a okay. No seriously. Like obviously you cook there, which is awesome. And you're right, beta bill, I think Beta bill is just simply superior to Thor. It's just that simple. Like it's just a better car than Thor is. Yeah, you can do some cool stuff with Thor. But like everything that Thor does, your boy Bator bill does better with a zero three stormbreaker, right?

HarryPerry 33:14

Yeah.

Guardians Tweaks: Groot/Mantis Buffs & Why They Still Feel Bad

Alex 33:14

So I, yeah, I'm with you on that. Now, you did mention the guardians, which is important because later on we would talk about major victory. But your boy Groot, not that Groot, this Groot Groot did get buffed from a no wait, what it was power got changed from a three, three to a three four. Yes, that's right. Three, three to a three, four. It's the second time gru's been changed. You got an increase in power. I think most of the gardens got an increase of power from the actual on reveal, if you're point of plate of card here, plus four power. And obviously alongside that you also have mantis, uh, mantis getting an increase in power as well from like one two to a one three. Now, I don't, I'm just gonna throw this out there. The problem with Mantis is not her one three, it's that the text sucks. This is horrible text. Like what? Like why? Just why? Like, I don't understand, like not even giving me the highest power card they've played there. Just gimme like, come on bro. This, this text sucks. If you want Mantis to be actually like, good. We need new texts on Mantis.

HarryPerry 34:15

I agree. And like, what's wrong with Mantis being cool? It, like, mantis being a cool card that people wanna play is never gonna break the game. It's never gonna be a bad thing. Like why not give it plus one power or minus one cost when she copies a card? Anything to make people interested in the game. Like that's, you know, I, I gotta remember who it was in My Discord that was talking about that was it? Was it Heath? I forget who it was, but he basically said that like, or maybe it was Aurora Enjoyer, but he talking about Mantis, like, what's wrong with making Mantis a cool card to play? And giving her three power isn't making her cool, but if she does something to the card that she copies, maybe that will make people interested in playing the card. And is that gonna be such a bad thing for the game? I don't think so. This, these were like in the video on my OTAI keep mentioning, I apologize, but when I was like crashing out, the GRU and the Mantis change were like the two that sent me over the cliff that like, we have a cool card of major victory being released. How awesome would that be for second dinner to Buff the Guardians the same week that Major Victorys released the same day and they just, they did in the most like, meaningless way possible. Like cool grt and Mantis, the two guardians that you wanna play the absolute least got a point of power. I'm still not interested in playing them. You know, they're still bad. No,

New Card Spotlight: Major Victory — First Impressions

Why Major Victory Feels Like a Miss (and How to Fix It)

Alex 35:24

no. And I actually agree. Um, you know, it's a card that I wasn't all too interested in playing at all. I did unlock, I had a couple games. I tried a, uh, Victoria hel with him and I was like, yeah, I don't know. There's, there needs something else there. Like, I think he needs another line. We're kind of dipping into that review, so maybe we'll just, do you wanna just go into it Renton right now? Sure. Should we just talk about major victory? Right now we're done with the OTAI think we're, we're gonna go major victory, then we'll do drags and then we'll we'll go from there. Um, oh look, that's, that's you. You're not the one we're talking about right now. I'm sorry. Uh, let's, let's go to major victory. The three four that reads on Reveal. Add two members of the Guardian's Crew to your hand. Again, limited sample size of games on my part, but, um, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. The two decks that I tried with major victory, I tried about, uh, four games with a double dinosaur deck that I immediately gave up on, but then I did about, I did, yeah, I did about, uh, 10 games with a Victoria hand deck and I was like. I don't think this is the best way to play Victoria Hand. And every time I pulled Manis, I was kind of pissed off every single time I missed it. A P Pro on gru, I got a little pissed off. That being said though, like Gru at Three Power, like, sorry, four power, like the three five baseline for something like Ashan Chi, it's sort of, it's kind of interesting to think that three four, that has the potential to be a three eight like isn't good enough. You know what I mean? I don't know. I just something, there's something missing with this card. I've always felt that like maybe he needs to do like negative one cost to them, or,'cause that's kind of what Quinjet does anyways, which I had in my Victoria hand deck, but it just didn't feel worth it. Curious about your thoughts?

HarryPerry 37:00

Yeah. I also try to, in Victoria Ock, he was the card that I do a season React video where I look at all the cards before they're released and I always give one card, a six out of five, like this is the card I'm most excited for. The genius in me decided that the six out of five deserve to go to major victory. I don't know what I was saying. You know, sipping a

Alex 37:19

lot of grape juice before you recorded it, I guess.

HarryPerry 37:21

Exactly. And like the mindset behind it was like, I love Victoria Hand and I love like non Meta Victoria Hand. I love Random Victoria Hand. I love Victoria Hand with Agent 13 and Agent Colson. You know, not necessarily like the Hood Mirage Moon Girl Victoria hand. So a major victory will be a cool chance to play that deck again. And I played it and I was like, oh, you know what? I would just rather play Agent Colson than a major victory. Like the guardians are just that bad that even in a Victoria hand deck, that's based on, I'm kind of playing suboptimal, but fun cards, there's a better suboptimal but fun card. Cart. Yeah. And, uh, the one that I did have successful always played a wcan deck with Chong Chi. So it was like Quicksilver, the new Chong Q to give you two, a bunch of threes wcan. And then I have some on the top and I don't remember, but it also had Gene Gray in it as like one of the threes. And I was playing ma major victory in that, and he act, he actually wasn't horrible in that. I do wish that there, I do agree though, that there was just like missing something. I wish there was something like, his textiles had like plus one power for each guardian of the galaxy in play or something like that. Like he, something that made it like worth, because that'd be cool to have like a guardians of a Galaxy deck. I don't, I don't know. Not a good card. Totally filler.

Alex 38:34

Yeah. I, it's again, like I, most of the time when new cards come out, like I do my due drill, I play like quite a bit of them. This card I played like, the 10, 15 games. I was like, bro, this card, like, I just don't, like, I just don't care. Like, I just, oh man. Similar actually the two, twice the season that happened, uh, mags was another card that immediately was in vibing with me. I was like, I just, I just don't wanna play this card. Like, I just don't care. Like, it's just not my card. It's not my thing. And major victory felt the same. Uh, with that being said, like on untap, like no one's playing it, it's less than a percent play rate, 41% win rate, like no one cares. Like the, and again, like this is also an issue of like just no one even tried the card really. Lack of interest. It's just not, it's not an enticing design. It's just simply not enticing design. Especially when you consider last month Dragon Lord was the, like the card from the limited time game mode, dragon Lord versus major victory. Not even close, man. It's not even close. Dragon Lord was such a cheek clapper and major victory is just getting its cheeks clapped. Like, I don't understand why anyone would want. Major victory over dragon Lord in its current state. But that is just my opinion. Not sure if you agree.

HarryPerry 39:45

I agree. Spot on.

Alex 39:47

Beautiful. Alright.

HarryPerry 39:48

Word for word.

Drax, Avatar of Life: Surprisingly Strong 3-Cost Tech

Alex 39:49

Word for word. Let's talk about Drs the avatar of life. The three, four that reads. End of turn. Plus three power. If you're appointed plate a card with greater power. This turn, move to that card if you'd be winning its location. Curious about your thoughts, Harry? Um, because I think this card is good.

HarryPerry 40:10

I agree. Yeah. Like, surprisingly good. I didn't, I was like this weird rollercoaster of thinking it was gonna be really good and thinking he was gonna be bad and kind of like, yeah, he's actually really good. Like he gets some pretty good power and there's been like one or two games where the move to that location if you could be winning has actually hurt me. That he like goes to the location that I was, n didn't need him in and he abandoned the location I needed him in type of thing. But overall, he's just like a good card That is, is cool to play with. I, I'm excited to like experiment a little more. I think the coolest thing about him is that his potential has, doesn't feel like it's been totally unlocked yet. Like I don't think we've found, if this is such a thing, the drags avatar of life deck yet I think we found Dex that he's good in. But I think that there's still more room for him to be even better.

Alex 40:54

Yeah. And I think that, I mean, part of that, I, I don't wanna say I disagree with it, so I think it's, he released at the right time because he's coming out when like, um, when RAMP is relatively popular, if you're not playing Star Lord cringe and ramp he feasts on ramp. Yeah. Like think about it. You play him and they play, uh, electro. He's already three seven and then they play war machine. He's already three 10. And he just, and then they, they play galaxys first steps or whatever the hell they're playing. He just incrementally boom, boom, boom. It's the perfect anti-war machine card. It's the release valve for that ramp deck. It just sucks because you're playing this and you're like, oh look, they skipped four turns play different. The conversation we've had every single time. It's the same conversation. Why are you skipping turn four not playing anything for four turns? Why are you doing that? I know what you're doing. Get out here with that filth. But, uh, that's the problem with, with drax, right? Like I think he's a good card in a meta that feels awful to play in. And I liked him and I actually tried to cook, man, I tried to cook so much. I had this, uh, Silver Surfer like Zorn deck that honestly actually did pretty good. Like I was ripping with it and like human torch was zorn into Surfer and then like. Topaz. It was so fun. It was so fun to play and I was actually doing really well. I had great stats going into it and I suspect that I'm, like, when I put this video, I think that the win rates are gonna go down and stuff'cause people are playing like it's kind of a weird pet deck, right? Um, but uh, what ends up being the top deck for Drax Avatar of life is a 62% win rate, 0.61 cube rate deck featuring Aurora, which I did speak about in the decks of the week for those interested runs, Stardust and everything Drax is in there. And so like, it's kind of cool to see that Drax is finding spots in a variety of different decks because that's an Aurora based shell. It's also finding play in like, ironically, like some other like movement bay shells, like silky smooth style shells, stuff like that. I really like this card. And the thing I really like about him is he stands on his own two feet. Like he's just, if you happen to unlock Drax and you're a low collection level player, you can include this in a lot of your decks just as a, I don't know what else to put in there. I guess it's Drax avatar of life.

HarryPerry 43:08

Yeah, I agree. He's a really good card. I actually have to tell you that Zorn deck that you shared in your, your Drax video, I really enjoyed playing. Zorn is another pet card of mine. So like anytime someone shares a Zorn deck, I'll play it immediately. And I had a lot of fun playing it. The most success that I had with Drax was in, in a, a similar Aurora based shell, but then there's someone else in my Discord who was playing like an invisible woman First steps end of turn deck with Red Hulk actually to deal with people skipping turns. And so, you know, I, I agree with you that he is just he kind of goes in a lot of places and that's cool. And I also think you, we've, I've said this multiple times with other cards that when the meta change in Star War isn't doing what Star Wars doing. Lin Lee or the new sh Chi are gonna be really good. I think Drax is gonna be like one of the best cards to have in your collection as the meta continues to change.

Alex 43:54

Do you remember, this might be before you, but do you even you listening, remember when playing White Queen as a four six was considered a just a pure good stats play. I'm not joking, you're laughing at me. There was a time in Marvel Snap where playing four six White Queen was considered just, you know what? At least I'm putting good stats on the field to play.

HarryPerry 44:16

That's wild. I remember four, six White Queen, but I was never around when that was a good thing to do.

Alex 44:22

I'm not saying that it was a good thing to do, I'm just saying you're like, you know what, four, six white queen, it could be worse. And that was like your play in beta and now we're at like, yo Drax is just a three seven and he's like moving to win your game for you. And I'm like, okay. Like what the hell's happening in this game right now?

HarryPerry 44:37

Yeah, we're not like, that is true. Like we're not excited about a card that literally works to win you a game while getting more points. Kind of wild that's not a good thing to do right now.

Alex 44:47

Yeah, it's probably because you're sitting there and you're like, why is my opponent skipping four turns anyways? Let's see how many times we can bring that up in any given conversation. But long story short, Drax gets the, gets a upvote for me. I think this is a cool card. I think it's a good card. I think it's worth unlocking for six K because I think that it's gonna be viable in multiple different shells. Some of them that are like meta oriented, like the Aurora decks, they look kind of expensive. But I do think that it is, it is a nice kind of like, it's a card that has a wide net and I think that if you're cooking and playing, uh, like your, your deck design individually, then you could slide'em into a lot of different things. It also makes me wonder if at some point Captain Marvel gets buffed because this thing kind of feels like Captain Marvel to some degree. Like to some degree not quite the same, but kind of.

HarryPerry 45:31

Yeah, I agree. Captain Marvel some. Yeah, I agree. I think the tracks is a car that people would benefit from having in their collection. It is. I always stress about telling people what to do with our tokens, but he's a good option for them.

Token Spending, FOMO, and When to Actually Buy New Cards

Alex 45:47

Yeah, it's the, it's the absolute worst. And the thing about it too, I'll, okay, I'm gonna vent here for a sec. One of the worst, most stressful things about what we do is the preview videos for cards Stress me out because people want this like, immediate, do I buy the card or not? Alex, the real answer is always no, wait until you see how the card's shaping up in decks. Can you build the popular decks? Has it been meta relevant? The FOMO side of should I buy it on the first day is never beneficial, and yet the expectation is we have this binary, one or zero verdict on whether or not the card is worth getting on the after four hours of testing it or whatever, which is never the correct choice. The correct choice is always waiting to see. Per like resisting the FOMO and making a more educated decision based off of like, well what did Alex say? What did Harry Perry say? What did Bink say? Like what? Like what is the general consensus on the card across the board? How are the untapped based statistics that are, you know, was it in Alex's top 10 deck of the week? Was it in, you know, and are they talking about a positively on the Snapchat? Like it's always better to get more context before spending your resources. Harry, I'm with you. It stresses me out when, like, people ask me for like, how do I spend my 6,000 tokens that I've been saving up for four months? Like, I don't want that pressure. Like, I don't want to tell you how to spend, you know what I mean? It's, it's very hard and then like, then it just gets nerfed or something. Right? And then you're like, oh, I don't know, man. It's, it's one of those parts of the job that really stresses me out as well.

HarryPerry 47:17

Yeah I feel that and if people wanna help with this, you know, a little plug for myself, sadly I don't have the video out yet for Drex,'cause I had to go to the er. But um, every Friday I release a deck and data video because I felt like no one was concretely answering that question.'cause I agree that like the answer is usually. Wait and see on the card, but then I never felt like someone was telling me what the final verdict was on the card. So I have a video that comes out every Friday called dexon data, which is like basically meant to be that, that if you are waiting to see if the card is worth it, let's answer that question. There's not one for Drax, so that's a horrible plug, but next week there'll be one for crackling.

Cracklin Review: The Banish Ramp Card Everyone’s Roasting

Alex 47:52

Yeah, that's cool. And that's kind of what I hope that the Snapchat review section is kind of as well, right? Where you kinda look back and talk about it too. Yeah. But you're absolutely right. Uh, it, it is beneficial always to resist that fomo early on. Let's talk about the new card entering Marvel. Snap. Not this ass hat. Hold on. What, what? Like, come on Alex. What, what a mess. Supposed to be a pro. What are we doing here? Raglin. We got Raglin. It is a three three that reads on Reveal. Banish the top card of your deck. If it was four cost or higher, plus two energy. Next turn. Otherwise, give this for power. Um, or plus four power, I should say. So I am really hoping that you think this is a good card because I would like to have that conversation. I don't think it's a good card. I am. Oh man. I wanted to give this a one star rating, but I like reserve that for like the pre buff martyrs of the world. I will go too because I think there's gonna be places where like you could cope with this card, but I would be so shocked and I'm hoping I'm wrong'cause like I want to be wrong because like I kind of want this to be cool, but I think that crackling probably sucks. I can't go higher than two stars here and even then I'm like, this is a very unenthusiastic two stars.

HarryPerry 49:11

My review of Cracklin is that I had tokens for Cracklin, but there's also a variant in that powers couple. Pack that I wanted, the peach momoko Rogue. I literally burned every single one of my tokens chasing that peach, Momoko rogue. And it's literally the last card in the pack. And I'm out of tokens. So I forego cracklin for ov. I didn't even get, that's how good I think crackling was gonna be, that I was willing to burn my chance to even get the card for ovarian. I didn't get,

Alex 49:41

we watched you like Die inside as you told that story.

HarryPerry 49:46

Yeah. It's literally the last card in the pack and I don't have any more tokens.

Alex 49:50

This is so painful. Like why, why would you do that? We've had this conversation before though, when like you've said like, Hey, like you will chase a variant for a card you love'cause like it brings you joy and stuff. Yeah. But it has not brought you joy in this

50:05

circumstance.

HarryPerry 50:06

No. Just suffering. So yeah, that's, I mean like, that's literally what I thought about Craig Land. Uh, I was like, you know what? Like the reason was actually. I had that OTA video where I crashed out. I kind of stopped making videos for Marvel Snap for like this whole week.'cause I just wasn't loving the game and I, I had to go to the er, you know, like, it was just like a bunch of bummer things happening. I was like, you know what? You know what I really love? I love a good peach iCal variant, and I really want this rogue one. I've wanted it for a long time. I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring myself some joy and get this variant and literally couldn't get it. So, and like, and then it was just kind of humorous, you know? Uh, so that was just like a fun experience for myself. But like how that relates to Cracklin, it was like, literally the decision was do I save these tokens for Cracklin and make a video on Cracklin that, will support my YouTube channel and all these things, or do I not? And the decision was literally like, raglin is a card that I literally have no interest in playing. Like, even though it probably would be a good thing to make a video about Raglin for my YouTube channel. I just am like not interested in doing that. And truly the reason is because of you and Nina in the last Snapchat episode or, or the two episodes ago, whatever it was, beginning of the season. Absolutely hilarious. If anyone wants a review of K Cracklin, just go listen to Alex and Nina talk about Cracklin.'cause that was hilarious and very accurate.

Alex 51:17

Uh, yeah, I mean, Nina makes everything hilarious. I, I still have in my notes that she gave it a 0.9. She wanted to be lower than one. I don't think it's that bad. I don't think it's 0.9 like literally one four martyr that actively tries to lose you. The game is not worse than Craig Lynn. Craig Lynn is better than that, right? Yeah, but not by much, but possibly. I mean, there's, there's some cope, I mean, in my notes, literally I have might be one of the worst cards ever released, so I, I'm like. Oh my gosh. Not just by performance. By by. Okay. Well want me to read my notes? Exactly. Listen to my note first note I, I'm just gonna read my notes. Exactly. Might be one of the worst cards ever released, not just in performance, but in design. Card sucks. Also, are you just giving away information to your opponent? I just banished my Galactus. LOL. Oh no, that's literally my note followed by is Craig Lynn a Snap condition for your opponent because you can reveal a devastating banish. That's, those are like my two top notes for Craig Lynn. Not off to a great start. So maybe I should drop my rating from a two to a one.

HarryPerry 52:19

Uh, he's so bad. And this is someone who, who plays a ton of moleman, who also banishes the top card of your deck for a rock. Like I've literally got to Infinite with Mo. I love the card. Cracklin is so much worse than Mo. If you really have some insane desire to banish the top card of your deck, play Moleman. At least you're getting a rock that does something for you. Plus two energy play. Hope Summers play Luna Snow at like it is Six Power and doesn't banish a card for you. Why would you ever play Cracklin for Ramp when you can play Luna Snow? I just, I don't, I don't like, like I, I'm with you. From a design perspective, what is this card achieving? Like what checkbox is it checking that didn't already exist in Marvel Snap besides being a horrible card?

Alex 53:02

So like, this is what, the second or third time we've like openly called out the design team, we're like, what were you thinking? Like, not intentional. Honestly. We, we love you. We've, we're super thankful that you've developed this game, but star Lord and Crackling man. Why didn't she make Craig this season pass card? People would've been less pissed off. Probably would've made less money though. I don't know. But um, yeah, like, I'm just, I don't know, man. And even then I, I brought it up with Nina too. Like, I think banishing is kind of dumb'cause like, it, it doesn't really, I feel like they invented banishing at the start in order to prevent Yondu from ping death when those deaths were really popular and then they kind of haven't done too much with it. Like, it's not really, like, I'm just thinking is there any synergy for banishing? Like, are you banishing? And you're like, yes, this is what I want it to do.

HarryPerry 53:54

There's literally nothing that benefits from a banish. Absolutely nothing does. Like, like, Nicholas scratch doesn't,'cause you have to play a spell, like the spells banish themselves. But like, there's nothing I have no, and it is weird. Like why not make Craig and like. Destroy the top card of your deck.'cause then if you, you could play Knull with him and like maybe you're destroying an infin or something. Or like maybe you could bring it, you could bring it back with Morgan Lafa. You know, like then if it does something, anything besides banish, you start to kind of get some cool ideas. But the fact that it's banish is just like horrible.

Alex 54:30

Yeah. I love this'cause you just brought, I was reading through my additional notes. I'm gonna read it verbatim again. I understand that it's basically wave without giving your opponent the wave effect. But with Luna Snow and modern ramp options that give consistent ramp, why would you ever want to play this? That's literally my note. And then I wrote, why the hell wouldn't you just play a good Wcan deck?

HarryPerry 54:54

Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Alex 54:56

And then finally, I'm just reading my notes for, I've never done this before. I try to like soften them up a little bit. Sometimes when I speak them in caps only cope is Surfer cope. But banishing your Surfer is LOL, but he is a three seven. I guess that's my note.

HarryPerry 55:14

It's, I mean, Groot is a three eight and he doesn't banish your card, but we're not excited about him, you know, so like, there's literally no good, no good ideas with Craig on I, if someone, if somebody if somebody builds something with Craig on and somehow I get some tokens to person, I'll give it a whirl, but I just don't think it's gonna be worth doing.

Alex 55:33

I think there was a comment on one of my videos where someone said like, Craig, Lynn and Aham might be worth it. I'm like, okay, maybe. But like, I, I don't, there's still probably better options, you know, like, I don't know, like I just, I don't see this card being good. And if this, if this is the car that breaks the meta. Then fine.'cause we need something to change. Like it's fine. Yeah. If Cracklin breaks the meta, I'm not even mad about being wrong. I couldn't care less. But I'm telling you right now, we've, so you, you said you're not gonna make a video for Craig, which is probably the correct choice because now based on the roasting we've given it, I can guarantee that that that video that I released for Craig land is gonna get like almost no views now.'cause I was like, Alex, we know, Alex thinks it sucks. I gotta like, I gotta figure out, I gotta break Cracklin. That's the only choice I have to break c Craig land.

HarryPerry 56:24

Do it. Get that prodigy brain out of yours and make it happen. Build the bullseye equivalent that you did. But with Cracklin, I don't know how you're gonna do it, but I believe in you.

Alex 56:35

Yeah, it's just, you know what, it is not as like legitimate when you're laughing while you tell me you believe me. It's like, yeah, I believe in you, bro. GLE for it.

HarryPerry 56:44

Yeah.

Alex 56:44

It's like, yeah, thanks bro. Um, I tried to cook with, uh, like I've been trying to do that more. I'm just like, think outside the box, Alex. Think outside the box. Try to cook. That's what we're where like the Zorn stuff came out with Drax, which I'm like, no one's gonna do this crap, but I'm gonna try and do that crap. But, uh, anyways, yeah. So Craig Lynn? Yeah. He sucks balls. Let's talk about grand Arena. Sorry. It's just what a transition like, only Alex, what's wrong with you, Alex, if we could

HarryPerry 57:12

pull that off.

Alex 57:13

Yeah. You've, you've gotten me like a little silly today. The silly willies, I don't know, something about and also like. I like I feel so bad, man. Like when you were talking about, you're like, Hey I was in the hospital, I blew all my tokens. Like, it was like, it was awful. Like you had like the worst week imaginable. And then like, I was like, my gosh. It's like we need, Harry Perry needs the dove guys. We need to figure it out, down in the comments we need. How can we give Harry Perry a dub? I appreciate that. Do we get to 5K subs tonight? Is that, can we do that?

HarryPerry 57:46

That'd be cool. But just being here is a big enough dub. I sincerely appreciate it. Like, that was, that was like when you invited me back it just is like, everyone loves you in Marvel Snap. Every the amount of people who talk about you in my YouTube comments, in my discord, like they, you don't even know that you're being talked about as much as you are. So like, being with you is a, is I'm not just saying this to glaze you like I really mean it. And this is like the only chance I have to say it in a way that fits in the conversation. Like being with you is just a cool experience. That's a, that's a dub enough. So thank you.

Alex 58:12

Oh, buddy, that's, that's very, very nice of you. You obviously haven't read all my comments before because there's, because trust me, the, the, the classic conversation of like, don't read the comments. I try to read almost all of them, but there's always someone's like, I, there's always like the, like, bro, you suck so bad, why does anyone watch you comment? And I, I just usually, I just like it. I just God a little heart and I'm like, yeah, I know I suck, dude. I've built my career on sucking. So, you know, it's fine. We, we, I agree with you to be honest with you. Um, but yeah, dude, that actually means a lot to me. Thank you. And, uh, I've been really trying my absolute best to, um, especially with the Snapchat, right? I've been trying my best to like shine as many lights as I can on like the, the wonderful people that are keeping this game alive. Because who, who, again, who else is gonna play Lynn Lee for 400 games? Like we, we need, we need that grinder, right? And, uh, but no, the, the honest truth man is that, um, you know, it's. For the longest time I've thought that you've been absolutely one of the best creators in the scene. And, um, you know, it's, it's me just doing my part to, to shine that spotlight where it is rightfully deserved. So, I'm glad you think that this is a cool experience.'cause for me. It's a great experience being able to have the opportunity to, uh, to shine the spotlight on, on wonderful people like yourself.

HarryPerry 59:23

I appreciate that, and, and I, I'll also take a moment to put, put on myself on a little soapbox and say, I hope people in the comments will take some time to appreciate. Alex, I'm gonna speak to the people watching now. Like Alex goes through so much work to schedule with people. He's been, he had to schedule with me for multiple weeks. He's scheduling with people who live literally across the country and are like 12 hour delays. And then you get on a call and Discord isn't working and you got like audio problems, like dealing with that every week is exhausting. And Alex does it and then shows up with like the biggest grin on his face and talks about Marvel Snap in like the most positive way. And so like, and like, again, I'm not just saying this to you, Alex to like glaze you but you being who you are is a big reason that I even make content from Marvel Snap. So any moment I can to give you your flowers, I'm going to. So anyway, they will stop the self congratulating. But I like, I sincerely hope that people, I, I don't th this is why I'm saying it. I watched one of your videos and then I watched one of Regis's videos. I watched the Snapchat and then I watched a Regis video and I thought, wow, I can do that. I'm gonna go make Marvel Snap videos. I did not realize how much work it is. It is a lot of work and, and so I like, I recognize that there are people like me who watch this and just like think that it's really easy. It's a lot of work. And so I want people to recognize the work that you put in.'cause it's, it, you deserve to be appreciated for it.

Grand Arena Hot Takes: Pre-Mades vs Customs (and Balance Problems)

Alex 1:00:37

Thank you, dude. I, I've been glazed so much. I, I may as well get a sponsorship from Krispy Kreme at this point. Yeah dude, I, uh, we, okay. Let's talk for a second about the Grand Arena, because I got, I got a hot take. I got a hot take. So Grand Arena, when they announced it, they were like, it's pre-made only, but also you can do a custom deck. And like, the verbiage was kind of weird in the announced. I was like, I don't know what's going on here. Or at least the, the version I saw, which was like the pre-created, like they kinda sometimes give us a little preview to like, what's being announced. And like, I was like, that seems like it's contradictory. I wanna go on a limb here and say that I was kind of sad they didn't make any new heroes or anything like that. It seemed a bit of like, this was like a, we need to get grand arena out there, but let's kind of rehash like what we already were using prior. We had the, uh, the, the list is Ironman rocket. We have Wolverine and those were from the, uh, the inter, like the, what's it called? The collaboration with, uh, Marvel. Uh, secret Invasion. Invasion. Secret Invasion. Right. And then you have a ghost. You have the, uh, the Mr. And Mrs. Fantastic. Then you have the Hulk one, which is by far the best of the pre-made. Like, it's not even close. Like they're not even close. The Hulk one's the best. And you got the th one, which just got buffed the bed, I guess. But I have a hot take, Harry. And I, I want you to shoot me down if, uh, if it has to be shot down. I don't mind that they have pre-AIDS and customs playing against each other. Um, because I think most people are approaching grain arena with like the right mentality that they wanna just play. They wanna have fun, get their weekend missions done, get off the ladder, please get off the ladder. But I really liked when it was only pre-AIDS. I really liked it and I think that we had a bad experience'cause the balance was so bad when they did it. When they did it. The Black Panther, it was so bad. It spoiled what could have been the best version of this mode. And I hope they don't take those stats and be like, oh, nobody liked pre-AIDS only, it was like, well'cause you screwed it up. Like the decks were awful. And so like for me it's like I really hope that they come back to the idea of potentially doing pre-AIDS only. But I would also be really interested in seeing the stats of whether or not people just play pre-AIDS anyway. Like how many people are actually playing the custom ones. So I'm gonna throw this to you, Harry. First of all, what do you think about customs versus pre-made and Grand Arena? Secondly. Do you wish that they would've incorporated new heroes into the mix? And third, do you think most people just, uh, play pre-made anyway?

HarryPerry 1:02:56

Yeah so I'll go reverse order so I don't forget. Do I think most people just play pre-AIDS? I don't know. I see a weird combination of people like, you know, how they have the, the avatar that's specific to the pre-made and they have like, the cards are customized in all match in the pre-made, I actually get a lot of matchmaking against those people. So there's definitely people out there who are, are sticking with pres only. But I think anytime you give people the option to choose something that allows them to what's the word I'm searching for? Work their way through whatever they have to work through as fast as possible. They're gonna do it. Like I, I think I, I don't want to same as you. I don't wanna like put somebody down who really enjoys skipping four turns playing Star War and then modoc and hell on the same turn. May maybe people genuinely enjoy that. But I think I'm inclined to believe that the most, the reason that most people play that is'cause they wanna win winning's. Good winning is a good thing. We want to win. And we want to win because we wanna reach infinite. Like, there's a huge pressure around this grind. And so, you know, the same thing as a grind arena. There's things to unlock, there's emotes to buy, there's variants you wanna buy. And so as soon as you give people the chance to pick something that allows'em to like speed up that process, they're gonna pick it. So that, that, I think that most people aren't building custom decks because they wanna play something that's really fun and really unique. I think they're building custom decks because they wanna win and they wanna win'cause they wanna progress through their awards. And so to to answer your question about. Pre-made versus is custom. The most fun I had in Grand Arena was when they had the pre-made only, and after they did that balance and they changed the Black Panther deck, that was so much fun in Grand Arena.'cause they actually got the balance right. I agree with you. The balance was atrocious when it was the Black Panther simulator everywhere, which is the same reason like people, if they can't build their own deck to speed up the process of unlocking the rewards, they're gonna pick whatever deck allows'em to speed up the process to get their own rewards. And so they went with the Black Panther one and it made sense. Like, I'm, I'm not gonna fault anyone for choosing what wins. That's like that we're in a game to win, you know? I don't know. I, I think that if they can get the balance right, having pre-made. It's really good for a lot of reasons is is like one, it truly makes it a break from ladder. It is such an unfun experience. When you're annoyed with ladder, you're annoyed with playing against Star Lord, and then you go into Grand Arena and you play against Star Lord Hulk decks, like, great, I can't even escape it in Grand Arena, and so making an escape from ladder, making it more viable for, for free to play or for newer collection people and making it more of a like, let me play decks that are a different experience than what I normally play. I think it's all a really good thing. And I, and I talk about these things a lot, like Marvel Snap has ways of awareness out, and if Grand Arena can be a mode that, that doesn't wear us out by incentivizing us to play differently and to play a little bit more casual and a little bit more relaxed, I think that that's a good thing. And so, so maybe if second dinner's watching this, which I hope, I assume they are, you know, maybe take some notes, which you did from Team Clash, where like, in addition to having pre-made only or whatever, also like give me missions to play. Different champions so that it's not just Hulk over and over again or whatever the, you know, the one that is people, people pick. So, I don't know. That was kinda, I think I missed one. There was a second one and I don't remember what your question was. I

Alex 1:06:03

don't remember either. So I, I just can't get over how many times skipping four turns has come up in this podcast. It's like, it's great. We should have just skipped the first 40 minutes of this pod. We should just, yeah. You know what I mean?

HarryPerry 1:06:14

That

1:06:14

would

HarryPerry 1:06:15

dramatic.

Alex 1:06:15

But, uh, but anyways, we got a couple mailbag questions we gotta talk about. The first comes from Sloth Guru, and I love this. It's not even a question, it's just a statement. The best part about the Night Crawler Buff is that Jeff is still series five.

HarryPerry 1:06:29

Oh, that's so bad. Wow. Yeah, I mean, I guess Jeff has it that like, he can be played anywhere, not just move, but, uh, yeah, series five. That's, that's hilarious.

Alex 1:06:42

Still series five. That's rough. Like that, that is, it's almost inexcusable. I believe we are now at the point where we have more series five cars than series three, which is just mind blowing.

HarryPerry 1:06:55

That's absurd.

Alex 1:06:57

Next statement comes from Bird 3, 7, 1 3. I felt the need to read the numbers. Can't believe we get dragon of the Moon and Moon dragon in back to back seasons.

HarryPerry 1:07:08

Yeah. That has honestly been confusing to me. Yeah, I keep calling them the wrong thing. I, I think that they're like connected and lore. I don't know. I don't know the lore. But they all, they don't work together, you know? So like if they are connected and lore, you know, that's a another situation of, uh, human torch and Mr. Fantastic type thing.

Alex 1:07:25

I read the House of Ex Comic. And I saw like, like Omega sentinels in it. I saw Elixir in it. I'm like, whoa, like all these right? Sages in it. I was like, this is crazy. Look at all these people that I know. But yeah, dragon to the Moon and mood dragging back to back is kind of crazy. And finally, from Call Me Caution. We're going to eat. Okay, call me Cautions, calling out a very frequent statement from fellow content creators, including myself. And they said, if we think Alex's Cyclops Nebula streak is crazy, and they're referring to how many times I talked about Cyclops and Nebula being a good combination. Can we talk about the 1000 streak of quote, the season pass is the best value for your dollar end quote.

HarryPerry 1:08:10

Facts don't lie, but what else do you want us to say?

Alex 1:08:14

I know it kind of is the best value for the dog, but I gotta tell you, second dinner, this has been a, this has been a second dinner roast. It wasn't meant to be, but we have not seen much evolution of the season pass. We really have not. We saw the introduction to the super premium season pass, but we haven't seen the actual contents of the season pass. Like we still get like boosters. Do you care about the boosters? Have you even read the titles you unlock? I have not read titles in like two years. I don't care. I've never favored them. I don't know what, I have like the same ones I get, I think I have two favorited. They need to take a look at the season pass and need to, need to really think about how do we improve it's value or what it does. I think the season pass needs to evolve in some way.'cause as it stands right now, even though it's the best value for your straight up dollar it's starting to show its age a bit because it has not evolved in any way whatsoever.

HarryPerry 1:09:03

I agree. And there's like simple things that I think would, would add a lot, particularly people who buy the super premium season pass and they give you 10 levels, like most useless reward ever. Cool. I got 10 extra levels of the season pass, I'm gonna get to the season pass caches that, gimme 10 boosters faster. Great. But like, particularly now that they've nerfed it, that you can't go past a hundred season, which for some people, when they're buying the super pre season pass, they're gonna get there every single season. And, and I got there last season. You know what I unlocked when I got to level 100 on the season pass, literally the highest level. You can't go higher on the season pass. You know what I got? I wrote it down. I couldn't believe it. I got 25 boosters for Goose.

Alex 1:09:41

What's wrong with Goose?

HarryPerry 1:09:43

Well, I don't need 25 boosters for Goose. I already have like a thousand, you know, like, it just was like I got, I literally played your game so much, probably on a healthy amount. I maximize the season pass and you give me 25 boosters for a card I haven't played in who knows how long. Like it's weird that there's not like a, Hey, you made it to level a hundred, here's 500 credits or something. I don't know. Maybe that's too generous. But I agree with you that like the season pass could be a lot more rewarding to engage in where I feel like most people are getting the season pass because it's a card. I don't know.

Final Thoughts & Shoutouts: Support the Creators

Alex 1:10:15

That was the most hairy Perry thing ever. You basically just talked about how you got 25 boosters for Goose and I was like setting you up for like, yeah,'cause Goose sucks. Who's playing? Goose? You're like,'cause I already played so much of it. I have a thousand boosters sitting in the wings with a God split. I'm like, I don't need, I don't need 25 boosters for goose. You know what I mean? I've played so much goose already. I was like, oh, that's not quite where I thought we were going. But here we are. That's Harry Perry for you guys. Thank you so much for watching this week. As I said below down in the pin comment and in the description we'll be Harry Perry's channel. I think we're actually gonna link your OTA video'cause people like spice and it sounds like you were a little salty. And they say that salt is the spice of the earth. So let's, let's take a look at, uh, that video from Harry Perry. Uh, support our man here with a subscription. And of course, thank you so much for all the support that you show, the Marvel Snap community and this podcast. Thank you for watching and we'll see you on that next one.