Marvel Snapis all about assembling a team of heroes and villains, adding up numbers, and winning locations. Play your cards, outpower and outsmart your opponent, and win. Simple concept, but why then would you want a 0-power card in a game where the highest numbers win?
Related:Marvel Snap: Complete Guide To Every Location
Anyone who’s been through one or two seasons of Snap knows that cards with no power never stay at zero for long. In fact, a card that adds no power to a location is so contradictory to the game objectives that it should make you pause and wonder what’s really going on behind the 0-power curtain.
10Iron Man
Iron Man’s a lane-winner, all but guaranteeing a victory at one location. Present in the starter series that everyone has access to, Iron Man is the first 0-power card you are introduced to. It’s a popular trump card for beginners and has specific niches in later card pools.
Tony Stark’s superhero persona provides one of the best stat-swaps for Mister Negative and sets up a turn-6 Mystique perfectly. It’s also a key card formaking The Living Tribunal work, though it’s unclear if that’s an undertaking worth exploring.
9Darkhawk
Maximizing Darkhawk means building around a very specific cast of cards, but doing so rewards you with a top-tier 4-cost play. Barring any card draw effects or an unfortunate Lamentis-1, your opponent usually has three cards remaining on the final turn, giving Darkhawk a reliable baseline of six power.
Related:Marvel Snap: Best Cards For A Darkhawk Deck
Your goal is to bloat your opponent’s deck as much as possible. Black Widow and Korg are effective +1’s to their deck count, and Darkhawk is the sole reason Rock Slide gets played at all. It’s also best friends with Zabu and sets up unexpected finishes with Mystique.
8Knull
It takes some set-up but put in the work, and Knull ends up being one of the highest-power solo plays in the game. Knull doesn’t carewhatyou destroy so long as you’re destroying something. You usually have to lean into the strategy pretty hard, but Killmonger and Shang-Chi can add some collateral damage.
Knull’s also one ofthe best Galactus follow-ups. An early Galactus usually ends up destroying enough material to solidify the win with Knull. Turns out Knull plays both sides, though; it’s also one of the best playsagainstGalactus.
7Cerebro
Cerebro sits at theheadof its own category of decks. While technically a 0-power card, Cerebro usually accounts for around 8-12 extra points of power if you commit to a cost. It’s similar to Patriot, the key difference being that you’re not forced to run cards without abilities.
Whether you choose Cerebro-2, Cerebro-3, or get inventive with a different power threshold, it’s an all-in strategy that’s sometimes hard to read. It’s easy to disrupt though. Ongoing killers like Enchantress and Rogue are near auto-wins against it, and power-changing locations like Xander can interfere with your plan.
6Mystique
Marvel Snap somewhat self-balances its best cards by only allowing a single copy in your deck. Mystique is one of the only ways to circumvent this deckbuilding restriction. It’s effectively the second copy of your key ongoing ability, which is often your most important card –Patriot and Cerebro, for example.
Related:Marvel Snap: The Best Ongoing Cards
There’s a timing element involved, requiring you to pay attention to the order in which you’re playing your cards. However, sequenced correctly, Mystique can become anything from a 3-cost Devil Dinosaur to an extra copy of Wong.
5Taskmaster
If you can focus all of your energy into a single card to shore up one lane, Taskmaster can usually steal a second location for the win. Venom and Shuri enable big Taskmasters, it’s a great follow-up to Red Skull, and a fully charged Kitty Pryde plus Taskmaster makes for a big turn-6 finisher.
Taskmaster has remained unchanged despite playing a key role in theShuri/Red Skull deck. Those cards received debuffs, but Taskmaster’s trickier to use and has some awkward timing restrictions, so it was never truly a problematic card.
4Kitty Pryde
Kitty Pryde’s introduction to Marvel Snap was marred by technical issues, resulting in a reworked version given to you free of charge. The Kitty you received is a top-tier performer in multiple decks.
At the cost of one energy per turn, Kitty can work herself up to a 10-power play on turn six. The energy commitment is a real tradeoff, but Kitty compensates by being able to combo with other cards. Bishop, Angela, Hit-Monkey, and The Collector all benefit from Kitty’s rinse-and-repeat play style, and it slots in perfectly with High Evolutionary’s band of misfits.
3Dracula
Dracula and Morbius feed off many of the same cards, but Dracula has applications outside the typical discard engines. The use case for Dracula is certainly a discard deck, where it can gain the power of Apocalypse or The Infinaut without actually committing to playing those cards. It takes some luck and maneuvering, but it’s one of the best plays the discard deck is capable of.
Related:Marvel Snap: Best Cards For A Discard Deck
The alternative ‘Dracula Zoo’ deck looks to flood locations with cheap plays, emptying its hand and leaving behind nothing but a big finisher for Dracula to suck up.
2Angela
Second Dinner sought to reduce Angela’s ubiquity by dropping it down to a 0-power card, which ended its reign as the clearbest 2-cost cardin the game. Angela regularly ended up as a 7-power card or higher, well above the competition at this cost. Nerfing its starting power to zero dropped its popularity but didn’t push the card out completely.
Angela’s still played alongside Kitty Pryde and Beast, as well as move cards that proc her ability and then switch locations. Nightcrawler, Jeff, and Vision help unlock Angela’s top-end.
1Sunspot
Sunspot was once one of the most played cards in Marvel Snap, if notthemost played. Its nerf from one power to zero took it down a notch, but it remains a key 1-cost play in multiple strategies.
At the very worst, Sunspot filters any unspent energy into power, which means your energy never goes to waste. The next step up is combining it with lockdown cards like Storm. Perhaps its best home is High Evolutionary decks, where it slots in perfectly beside cards that benefit from having unspent energy.
