Marvel Snap - Cards, Analysis, etc.

[Tide]

On the trend of cards people tend to misplay or have the wrong conceptions about: Jubilee



Cost: 4
Power: 1 (5 Below Par)
Ability: On Reveal - Play the next card from your deck to this location.
Ideal Turn to Play: Varies. Jubilee's ability gives her a wide window depending on what you're trying to do. If you're looking to fish a card that just needs to be played, then the later play the better since it'll more guarantee you get the right pull. On the other hand, if you need a card *right now* and you don't have it, Jubilee can be played as a last ditch hail mary.
Archetype: Support

Uses:
There are no real draw engine cards in SNAP because decks are so small (only 12 cards). Sure, you have Adam Warlock but he's very finnicky to work with and his recent "upgrade" turns him into a Turn 5 play that *may* have a chance at an extra draw. In short, "Draw cards from deck" abilities are in short supply in SNAP since they become pretty busted pretty easily. Everyone knows how powerful stuff like Ancestral Recall (that was the draw 3 from Magic right?) and Pot of Greed (from Yugioh) are, so it makes sense why you don't see this ability much - if at all - in SNAP. Jubilee is kind of the exception to the rule. She doesn't provide you with an extra card, but she's about as close to it as you can get.

Jubilee's ability lets you pull the next card from your deck on to the field. What this means is that, in essence, Jubilee replaces herself as a draw in exchange for another card that you would have gotten. So, instead of seeing 9 cards in a game of SNAP, Jubs lets you see 10. When you are playing combo decks that need or want to have certain pieces, Jubilee becomes uniquely powerful in that she's another way to dig deeper down into the deck if your natural draw doesn't give you what you want. If you recall back to my post regarding old Chavez and consistency, Jubilee adds that to these decks and makes them way more playable. Even discounting that, if you build a deck with a lot of high costs, Jubilee's ability to summon them for 4 (possibly 3 energy) can be a complete steal. Summoning an Infinaut for 4 is pretty good versus the practical 11 you would need to play him otherwise. Yeah, you may just have created a Shang magnet, but the point is that you can play that big boi significantly earlier. Now an opponent either has to dedicate their Shang to that lane or abandon it completely, letting you reinforce the others.

SNAP does complicate some things because so many things are about timing. Since she summons a card on to the field, there are drawbacks specific to SNAP that make it such that she isn't an Auto-include into every deck. Most notable is the consideration of play space. You are only allowed 4 cards at any particular lane, and Jubilee with her 1 power occupies basically 2 spaces for the chance to see an extra card. In short, your deck best be built on having a "less is more" mentality because Jubs can quickly flood a location and restrict the number of plays you can make. Tech cards also become tricky to include because they are so timing specific. Playing Jubilee in hopes of reaching your Infinaut but pulling out a Shang or Rogue sucks. Not only do you lose the tech card, but you basically spent 4 energy to do nothing. You basically either have to play Jubilee with the tech card in hand (so it will never be summoned) or just eliminate them from the deck completely.

The key to making Jubilee work in your deck is to structure it such that any pull she makes should be a good one. I've already mentioned using a bunch of high-cost cards with her, but also combo decks that don't mind their pieces coming in at different turns also hugely appreciate Jubilee. The most notable of these is Tribunal. Tribunal is an extremely finnicky and fragile deck that basically requires you to play a 17 Energy play to reach its wincon. A standard game of SNAP only has 21 Energy, so this is actually *much* harder than it sounds. Jubilee gives those decks another life-line since she can pull one of the necessary cards for 2 Energy less OR pull the required combo card by being played on the last turn. For this reason, she's commonly paired with Iron Lad as a way to basically play the entire deck. What better way of ensuring your combo goes off but to be able to play every card you have?

At the end of the day, Jubilee's a great card because her function is so unique. She's not buffing cards or disrupting an opponent. In fact, in an ideal game, you probably actually *don't* want to see Jubilee because that means you'd have picked up another card you slotted into your deck - basically an important synergistic piece. But the ability to also cheat a card into play widens that and gives her new dimensions. Her play window is as wide as whatever you're trying to do. If you need to pull a Magik for whatever reason, Jubilee's window is then 3-5. On the other hand, if you're trying to pull Tribunal, her play window expands all the way to the end of the game because Tribunal just needs to be on the field. She's basically giving you a way to see more of your deck when you play her and there's a lot of merit to that.

Common Combos:
Jubilee -> Ironlad: Part of the two card combo I was referring to that let's you dig down into your deck. Jubilee let's you pull the next one, then Iron Lad scans then one after that. When combined with the below, let's you see your entire deck. But Jubilee/Lad is just a generally decent combo line if you know your deck has good targets and because your hand sucks at the moment.

Magik -> Jubilee: See above. Magik bringing the game to turn 7 means you get to see 10 instead of 9 cards. Combined with the above, now you get to see the entire hand. But even without, Jubs and Magik let's you see the 11th card, which is still pretty damn good.

Jubilee -> Mr. Negative: Other than a last ditch hail mary attempt to play Negative, Jubilee can be really good here because she can call forth an inverted card and let you draw an extra one as a result. There are some situations of course where this isn't favourable (such as pulling Negative Mystique), but also cases where it can be highly destructive. Notably, it's possible to pull an Inverted Jane Foster for 1 or 4 Energy instead of playing for 6, and then drawing everything else in the deck that is 0 cost.

Rank/Tier: A tier. Jubilee is about as close as you can get to a "Draw one card" ability. It should be pretty obvious why this is powerful.

Most Used Decks:
Negative
Tribunal
Hela Discard
Lockjaw Lotto

[Tide]

Another one following the same trend - Yondu



Cost: 1
Power: 2 (Par)
Ability: On Reveal – Destroy the top card of your opponent’s deck
Ideal Turn to Play: Turn 1. Yondu is a pretty weak card overall (more on the analysis). However, one of the real values he will always provide is scouting. For that reason, a Turn 1 Yondu is better than a Turn 6 Yondu.
Archetype: Destroy

Uses:
So we’ve recently looked at 2 cards that are powerful but often mis-conceptualized. Yondu is continuing that trend but he’s in the opposite direction. Yondu is probably the biggest noob trap in the game in that he looks really good on the surface but in practice, he’s pretty weak and only really works in one type of deck.

Why is Yondu weak? Well, let’s look at it like this. If instead of “Destroy”, we just reword Yondu’s ability to “Put the top card of an opponent’s deck to the bottom”, does your opinion of him change? It shouldn’t because fundamentally, he’s basically doing the same thing, but for a lot of players, they see “Destroy” and think they are getting rid of an opponent’s actual play. Like sure, there are times when Yondu hits a win condition of the opponent’s – like blowing up a Galactus or Hela – and it results in an instant Turn 1 retreat. But you could also hit something else – maybe a tech card that doesn’t work against you. If that’s the case, all you’ve done is help your opponent’s skip a bad draw.   

Once you understand that last bit, Yondu’s appeal quickly diminishes. He can easily help your opponent and you have no way of really knowing. In fact, I’m pretty sure you can mathematically prove that playing Yondu actually does nothing. As long as your opponent has cards in their deck, you don’t really deny them any deck draw. All he’s actually doing practically is showing both you and your opponent what he/she won’t be playing with this round.

This kind of leaves Yondu as a card with 3 fringe uses. The first is that because he counts as a Destroy, he helps out with Death’s cost reduction and Knull’s overall power. Both of these cards are common power plays for Destroy and Yondu being able to start the deck’s engine on Turn 1 has some merit, especially since he isn’t blow up your own cards. The second is that he works as an early scout. In continuing matches such as Conquest, this benefit is reduced. But on ladder, being able to take a peek at what your opponent might be playing (especially if they skip Turn 1) can give you a good idea of whether or not you are favored. And that in turn helps with more aggressive Snapping. Finally, Yondu works just as warm body in decks like Zoo or Flood where the goal is get a lot of bodies on the field, and then buffing them via Kazar/Blue Marvel and the ilk.

These aren’t particularly strong uses, but it is something – and keeps Yondu from complete irrelevancy. Like if you compare Yondu to Angel, both are kind of bad, but Yondu is notably less bad than Angel. You are at least doing something when Yondu hits the field – even if not much. Worth a deck slot though? Probably not unless you are early in your SNAP journey.

Common Combos:
Yondu -> whatever -> Knull: Yondu basically starts off the Destroy train. There are no Destroy enablers on Turn 1, so Yondu actually does provide a unique niche here. The destroyed power coming from your opponent’s deck helps and adds to your Knull’s power at end game.

Yondu -> Killmonger -> whatever -> Death: If you’re going the Death route, Yondu provides a 2 for 1 letting you blow up an opponent’s card, and then being blown up himself by Killmonger. However, if this is what you’re going for, Squirrel Girl provides an extra body for Killmonger so is still better value. Poor Yondu.


Rank/Tier: D tier. Practically speaking, Yondu isn’t doing much unless you are playing Destroy. And even in Destroy, he’s best thought of as an early scout rather than a serious play. He’s likely the first to be replaced.

Most Used Decks:
Generic Destroy
Cerebro 2

[Captain K]

I actually fought a Yondu deck that was pretty wacky. Wong, Yondu, Cable and I forget what else and it was milling my deck pretty effectively.

[Tide]

Yeah, Mill can be powerful because denying card draw is strong. The issue is that the cards that do mill in SNAP right now are all too slow. You have to be actually taking away enough cards from the deck so that your opponent starts losing draw for the analogy I posted above to not be true. Yondu and Cable on Wong is interesting, but probably falters in our current day game where Discard and Destroy are currently reigning. I mean, you'll get Tribunal players, but Tribunal is a bit of a meme anyway. That deck loses to like any form of disruption that it's honestly kind of amazing it exists.

[Captain K]

Tribunal? It's been one of the top decks in past months. My own version is quite successful.

I am now convinced that any card you review will be changed in the following balance patch.

[Tide]

Well we haven't see any new patches to Jubilee and Magik yet, so I don't consider myself some kind of Doomsayer. Are we playing in completely different pocket metas? Tribunal in my experience is so incredibly fragile. The main issue with that deck is needing to play 17 Energy worth of cards and since you can't energy store, you have to cheat the cards out in some way. It dies to any of the following:

1) Anything that takes away Tribunal, Onslaught or Iron Man because your power just isn't competitive without one of these 3 (Spiderham, Moon Knight, etc.)
2) Anything that stops you from cheating cards out early. Even a disabled Ravonna can be bad because it means you can't play Iron Man on 4 or Iron Man/Mystique on 6
3) Ongoing hate tech - all of them are bad for you. This is also a case where Echo can be even played late because you almost always have to stack those core 3 cards together. Super Skrull let's you counter an opponent's Rogue and wins mirrors, but you just lose so badly to Enchantress. The deck can run Cosmo but that can cause you to lose in other ways if you need Jubilee or Iron Lad to pull cards from the bottom of the deck. PLus that's giving up a slot for added consistency with another energy cheating card.
4) On that note, Cosmo is also very mixed. As noted above, he stops Enchantress and Rogue but you still lose to Echo and you block your own Mystique, Jubilee and Iron Lad.
5) Location tech - Magik is almost a requirement. It is very bad for you if Limbo is disabled in some way
6) Any sort of Move/relocation tech - Since you need to stack the 3 big bois together. Juggernaut is bad. Spiderman is bad. Stregon is also bad.
7) A natural bad draw line really messes up your power output due to how fragile your curve is. Certain cards have to be played on certain windows or you just lose.
8) Related to the above, any sort of debuff is also bad because Iron Man doubles the loss and Onslaught quadruples it. So even a single -1 is bad for your overall power output.

You can't pack any protection of your own other than like Cosmo because the deck simply doesn't have the time to play a tech card other than on like Turn 3. But Turn 3 is also the best time to play out one of your cheats (Wave/Magik) since you're going to be busy every other turn trying to land the 3 big cards all together.

I'd be interested in hearing what version of the deck you are playing. Unless it's some sort of hybrid like Hela Tribunal, Tribunal has always been about going super tall. In this current meta with Discard and Destroy reigning, Tribunal does well because neither deck really packs any tech and the only tech they do pack is mostly Shang..which Tribunal normally is immune to since all their cards are under Shang's updated threshold.

[Captain K]

I run Ebony Maw, Baron Mordo (I know, he's kind of my mascot card), Maximus, Lizard, Luke Cage, Namor, Shuri, Iron Man, Crossbones, Red Skull, Dr. Doom, Living Tribunal. Main thing is you're not limited to playing one combo. Just putting up big numbers everywhere. Ebony Maw and Maximus on turn 3 is 13 power your opponent has to deal with in one lane. Namor can hold a lane by himself. Shuri+Lizard or Maximus works on turn 6 if you've got nothing else.

1) Hurts, but isn't a deal breaker. A third of my deck benefits from Spider-Ham lol.
2) Not applicable.
3) Nobody plays Enchantress. Echo you can drop Maw, Lizard, Skull on. Rogue is a problem at times.
4) Not applicable.
5) I don't need Magik, and if my opponent plays her it tends to benefit me more.
6) Nobody plays any of these.
7) Not a big problem, although it's not unusual to have nothing to play first three turns.
8) Luke Cage. Give me my money, honey.

Snap.fan has Tribunal at Seen: 5.36%(#79)
Won when Played: 61.13%(#15)
Won when Drawn: 51.93%(#186)
Won in Deck: 50.89%(#205)

Not amazing but not terrible certainly. I probably win 75%+ with this deck. I only play in Conquest though.

[Tide]

Maybe we just have different definitions then. Your deck doesn't look like any Tribunal decks I've seen - it looks more like a Shuri mold but adding in Tribunal over Tasky so it goes wide versus tall. Not running Armor with Shuri? You're a much braver man than me. I've seen enough Negasonics that I'm always weary about making such a telegraphed play - let alone Shang. Do you like not see Shang at all?

1) I think with your deck, you're giving up the ability explode in power (we're talking like 50-100+) but adding in Shuri as an alt. No Onslaught and a bunch of big bodies - so yeah, no worries about Pigs or old Leech.
2) Your deck isn't a typical Tribunal deck that needs to cheat energy out. Not sure why you would discount this as an actual issue in Tribunal though. His power is pretty limited if you're not playing him out with force multipliers.
3) Again, are we playing in different pocket metas? I've definitely seen my share of Enchantresses. She's like a staple in Sera Miracle and yeah that deck isn't meta, but it's pretty frequent since it is easy to put together. Echo you can delay drop on Turn 5-6 if need be to basically kill the big stack. You don't have to slam her out on Turn 1.
4) I've seen Shuri decks cut out Cosmo after her nerf. It still comes in on occasion just not that often obviously since Tasky can't copy a card if you Cosmo the lane.
5) Traditional Tribunal definitely needs Magik. Try playing it without her. You just simply don't have time to play what you need. One Shuri deck that I came across in conquest had Shang/Abs Man as subs and which gave it a Turn 7 contingency play and was pretty amazing. I've since added that into my own deck. It lets you have a massive Turn 7 play on your own. But it's not really Tribunal.
6) Really? You never play against anything with Surfer? They carry Spiderman and Juggs pretty regularly considering Storm is also a staple in those. Stregon I'll give you. Just noting he is also bad for traditional Tribunal. Also if you're using Super Skrull, Rogue or Mystique, Magneto can totally spoil you as well and he's pretty common thanks to all the Thanos running around recently.
7) Traditional Tribunal doesn't really have time. The curve is extremely tight. Assuming no Magik, you're looking to play Wave on 3, Onslaught on 4, IM on 5 and Tribunal on 6. If you have Zabu and Ravonna, they help immensely by making the curve more flexible but playing them after 3 is pretty much a no-go. Also in general, I am not a fan of not playing anything in 3. Having your first card to be played on 4 makes for an extremely fragile win in my experience.
8) When are you playing Cage in traditional Tribunal? In Shuri...maybe. But I feel like you're better served playing Armor and Sauron over Cage personally. Certainly easier to fit on curve (Armor into Sauron into Shuri is obvious) where as Luke is more clunky (in your case, you just play Luke cause you're not running Sauron).

I rather try playing a deck to see how it works personally. I'm always a bit weary on stats. Between a combination of bots and bad players (yours incluced) and varying opponents on Collection Level and MLM Rank, that tends to skew the percentages.