Spotlight Cache Week of August 6, 2024: Are Marvel Boy, Red Hulk, and Blob Worth It? - Marvel Snap Zone (2024)

Welcome back to our new weekly series Cache-ing In! Each week, we break down what cards will be available in the new Spotlight Caches, as well as the Spotlight Variants! The goal is to help you determine if you should “Cache in” for the content, or hoard for a better week.

Spotlight Cache Week of August 6, 2024

This week, we get the newest Series 5 card Marvel Boy! Joining him will be the return of Series 5 cards Red Hulk and Blob!

Marvel Boy

Kicking off this Young Avengers Season is none other than Marvel Boy! He is a 3-Cost, 2-Power card with the ability “After each turn, give 3 of your 1-Cost cards +1 Power.” This is an interesting card, as he a high Power range, but requires specific deckbuilding or good draw to be useful. His ability also makes him strictly worse the later he is played, so a good draw is extremely important. In a good match where you have three 1-Cost cards by turn 2, and Marvel Boy by turn 3, he can give a whopping 12 Power across a regular match, making him a [3/14]!

On the one hand, the card is very susceptible to counters like Killmonger, Shadow King, or Red Guardian. On the other hand, he is safe from Ongoing disruption like Rogue, Enchantress, and Echo. To best analyze his strength, let’s look at the decks he could best function in.

Possible Meta Deck

Patriot decks are already a hot meta item right now. The ability to flood the board with Power with 1-Costs, then halt your opponent’s capability with Sandman has proven incredibly effective. Marvel Boy slots perfectly into this archetype for 2 specific reasons: Squirrel Girl and Shanna. These 2 cards instantly create three 1-Cost cards, which give Marvel Boy his full value without needing to stack the deck with 1-Cost cards. In essence, Marvel Boy could enhance this archetype by giving you a new way to snowball power before revealing Sandman.

Low Collection Level Deck

Obviously, Marvel Boy works great in Zoo lists. In early gameplay, Zoo decks are naturally strong, so Marvel Boy simply helps give you the edge over your opponent’s. At this level, your biggest concern is Killmonger, so Armor can help defend you. If you can stack Ant Man, Ka-Zar and Blue Marvel in a location, Onslaught can give you a strong boost to your extra Power buffs.

Fun Deck

One of Thanos‘ biggest weaknesses right now is the lack of Power Infinity Stones have. With Marvel Boy, you can buff these stones to keep your Power momentum growing! The stones also allow you to have plenty of 1-Cost cards available without needing to fill your deck with them. I know Thanos isn’t a strong archetype right now, but this card could help push him back in the right direction.

Overall, I think Marvel Boy will be a solid card. His potential Power output is very high for his cost, though it does require some lucky draw to get that amount of Power. With that said, Patriot decks are already at the top tier of the meta, and Marvel Boy fits naturally into that list. Typically cards that give +3 Power have been good cards (see original Silver Surfer and Thena for examples), and I think Marvel Boy has the potential to continue that trend.

Red Hulk

Our second card of the week is Red Hulk! While he was once in nearly every match you played, you never see him now. This is largely due to to major factors. First, his most popular decks were Mill and Hela, both of which have been nerfed either directly or indirectly. Secondly, one of the game’s most popular decks right now is Thena and Kitty Pryde. This deck utilizes all of their Energy each turn thanks to Kitty, which makes Red Hulk struggle to get good value.

While Red Hulk finds a solid good home, this deck tries to utilize him in a different way. This Thanos deck utilizes the recently buffed Lockjaw to cycle cards through your deck. With multiple big targets at your disposal like Red Hulk, Magneto, and Blob, you have a decent chance of flipping am Infinity Stone into a bigger threat. You can also ramp into them using Hope Summers! With those early game targets you create, you can use Caiera to keep them safe from Shang-Chi.

While this is the second Thanos list in the same week, Red Hulk is a good card desperately looking for a home. Until he finds one, he unfortunately is underutilized despite his strength. He is still a good card to collect, but I wouldn’t particularly recommend tokens on him in the current meta.

Blob

Closing out the week is the return of Blob! This card has been in and out of the meta several times, and he is currently closer to out of the meta than in. His recent nerf really impacted his playability in decks outside of Arishem. Since Arishem decks received several big losses with the last OTA, the deck isn’t as powerful as it once was. This leaves Blob in a weird place, as he is only useful in one deck, and that deck isn’t as good anymore. Blob can be used with Thanos (as seen in the previous deck), but the low Power maximum makes him likely to cap out Power early due to the stones.

Speaking of that one deck he is useful in, Blob is stuck in Arishem‘s shadow. Being able to play him on turn 5 gives you the option of seeing how much Power he actually gained without finishing the match. Even using Loki, having a new 12 card deck gives Blob plenty of ammo to eat.

After his nerfs, developers have stated they may have prematurely nerfed Blob. He was nerfed specifically to weaken Arishem, but that deck naturally saw a play rate drop with the introduction of Cassandra Nova. With that in mind, we could see Blob‘s nerf get reverted in the future. At the same time, Loki‘s new ability opens the door for a new way for Blob to eat without needing to build your deck around him.

Spotlight Variants

If you already own the cards the Spotlight Cache offers, one of these variants will take its place! If you own none of the cards, the variants will appear after you open all four caches. Spotlight variants are time exclusive to their release week, and will only be available after 1 full year of time has passed.

After the year, they will be available for purchase from the Daily Offer. They will cost 2,400 Gold per variant. So if any of these Spotlight variants feel like a must have for you, make sure to Cache In if you have enough caches saved to guarantee the pull.

As this month’s featured artist, Flaviano Armentaro showcases his Marvel Boy variant this week!

This one off piece by Ed McGuinness shows us his take on Red Hulk!

Eric Guerrero is the artist who created this Blob variant! They are most recognized as one of Snap’s base art creators for many cards!

Should I Cache In?

This week, we get the maximum value of 3 Series-5 cards. Blob and Red Hulk are fun cards that don’t have good usage in the current meta. Blob definitely is trying to stay relevant with Arishem, but if he can’t keep up, there is a good chance we see his nerf reverted eventually. Marvel Boy looks like a strong addition to Patriot and Zoo decks.

My recommendation this week is to Cache In! The value is here with all of these cards. To an extent, you may be caching in for more investment than immediate rewards, but with so many Series 5 cards and no Series Drop in sight, picking up good cards when you can is the key to being meta relevant. When cards are under utilized because their decks aren’t actively great, it’s easy to pass on them. I think the returning cards are simply a good investment for the future of your Snap involvement. Marvel Boy, on the other hand, simply looks like a good, fun card that any player could utilize well.

Wrap Up

Do you think Marvel Boy will be a good card? Will you be Cache-ing In this week? Let us know in the comments! For the full schedule, check out our guide below: