One of the fastest card games gets a super quick card this week with Speed, another addition to Marvel Snap’s Young Avengers season. Is the fastest boy in the MCU worth spending your resources on, you ask? Well, here are the best Speed decks in Marvel Snap.
How Speed Works in Marvel Snap
Speed is a 3 cost 3 power card with an ability that reads: Ongoing:
For every turn that you spend all the energy available (turn 1 is 1 energy, turn 2 is 2 energy, and so on), Speed will have a permanent +1 power. Given that a typical Marvel Snap game lasts 6 turns, Speed can reach 9 power if all your energy is used.
Unlike last week’s release of Wiccan, if you miss spending all your energy on a turn, you can still gain energy for the other turns you do. Do note that Speed will not work if Sunspot absorbs your unspent energy.
As you’d expect for an Ongoing card, Speed has synergy with the likes of Captain America and Onslaught. Otherwise, Speed isn’t a super exciting card that is hard to get a handle on.
Best Speed Decks in Marvel Snap
Speed is a generically good card that could fit into a lot of decks that use up all their energy. For my Collector’s Tokens, I’m betting on Speed taking off in one meta-relevant deck and an outlier that’s looking at a return: Angela Thena list and Spectrum Ongoing. Do note that neither of these have last week’s card, Wiccan, in them, as I believe his ability to grant extra mana will be detrimental to Speed.
- Kitty Pryde
- Thena
- Ravonna Renslayer
- Angela
- Mysterio
- Mystique
- Speed
- Hope Summers
- Gwenpool
- Iron Man
- Mockingbird
- Sasquatch
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Thena is an absolute must for this deck and so is Mockingbird, though you can swap Sasquatch out for a less effective Crossbones if you do not have the yeti lookalike.
The goal with this deck is rather straightforward: scale with Angela, Thena, or both before dropping high-powered cards like Mockingbird and Sasquatch. Ravonna Renslayer adds a layer of unpredictability to this list, as you can play Iron Man and Mystique on the final turn. As this deck naturally spends all its mana when it curves out properly, Speed is a much more consistent Cassandra Nova or Sage that loses the benefit of the -1 cost that those two cards receive with Ravonna Renslayer on the board.
This next Ongoing list has seen spikes in popularity over Marvel Snap’s lifespan and I believe it’s rather underplayed at the moment, despite being extremely cheap to build.
- Ant-Man
- Howard the Duck
- Ravonna Renslayer
- US. Agent
- Mystique
- Captain America
- Luke Cage
- Speed
- Ms. Marvel
- Man Thing
- Iron Man
- Spectrum
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This list leans into two cards a lot of people skipped: US. Agent and Man Thing. You can replace them with comparable Ongoing cards like Armor or Typhoid Mary. Also, you can swap out other Ongoing cards as you see fit. Goose makes a good replacement for Howard the Duck if you don’t have him, for instance. Cosmo isn’t a bad slot-in either.
The goal here is to use powerful Ongoing effects to interrupt your opponent while spiking power in the proper lanes with Speed, US. Agent, and Man Thing while covering your own negative effects with Luke Cage. Spectrum caps everything off by spreading power to all your cards, especially the likes of Iron Man. This list often runs Ajax but I found him to be counter intuitive with Luke Cage also in the deck.
Speed Counters in Marvel Snap
Speed is easily countered by the likes of Enchantress and Rogue; however, he’s still a 3 power body, so it’s not the end of the world if your opponent targets him rather than a more powerful Ongoing card like Iron Man. Otherwise, your opponent can copy your Ongoing effects with the likes of Super Skrull or limit the lanes you can play him in with Echo.
Who is Speed?
Speed is basically the Marvel version of the Flash if you ignore the fact that Quicksilver also exists. Also known as Thomas Shepard, Speed is one of two twins that were inadvertently created when Scarlet Witch was messing around trying to create two sons for herself, the other being last week’s card Wiccan. Thomas had a rough upbringing before joining the Young Avengers, where he makes use of his superhuman speed and ability to cause vibration-based explosions to save the day.
Is Speed Worth Your Collector’s Tokens or Spotlight Cache Keys?
If you have an abundance of resources, I do think Speed is a good card to pick up for your Marvel Snap Deck; that said, he’s also easily replaceable in most lists I think he will find himself in. Gladiator, for instance, does a similar thing as Speed. At the same time, he’s also replaceable with tech cards like Red Guardian. If you’re unsure, I would hold out for a few days to see if Speed really makes a deck click.
Marvel Snap is available to play here.
Published: Aug 20, 2024 07:51 am