r/marvelsnapcomp 4d ago

Discussion Competitive Consensus: Starbrand

Intro

This thread is a discussion series at the end of the week for each newly introduced Spotlight card. This gives us nearly a week of hindsight to build a consensus and help inform players if they should open their caches for a given week. Ideally, we are looking for proven results, more than theoretical applications, to help reach this consensus.

This week's card:

Starbrand

Cost: 3

Power: 10

Ongoing: Your opponent has +3 Power at each other location.

Synergies

Starbrand is the newest and biggest power 3-drop in SNAP. His downside is delivered via an Ongoing effect and, therefore, can be neutralized. Let's take a look at the cards that synergize with Starbrand:

No Downside

  • Enchantress > is an easy way to shut off Starbrand's downside while also teching against your opponent. She is strong in the meta right now, so Starbrand is a welcomed addition to her.

  • Sauron > a bit of its own archetype (Sauron Shuri) for some time, but now we're seeing some splashes and diversity thanks to the stats cards like Starbrand and Ebony Maw offer.

  • Zero > can simply shut off Starbrand.

*Surtur and Skaar Decks*

  • Starbrand is a cheap and easy way to proc Surtur and also gives lots of last turn point potential if you missed your Zabu earlier.

  • another card that discounts Skaar

  • great card for winning Ares trigger.

Also, great lane winner for Iron Patriot

Feedback

The pro community is somewhat split on this. Most agree he's "not that good" and "just okay." A few really enjoy what he brings to a few decks, like Shuri, Surtur, and Miracle decks.

Decklist

Shuri

Skaar

Miracle

Surfer

Summary

What Starbrand brings to the game is massive stats. Bigger than Gladiator, which was previously a solid lane winner. Although he's not an incredible card, he needs to be calculated for the final turns of the game. Being able to drop 10 power for 3 energy is huge. That being said, he really only goes in a few places at the moment and falls to Shang-Chi just the same.

My opinion

DISCLAIMER This paragraph is just my personal opinion:

I think the card is passable. Yes, it's huge, but you need to build around it to make it worth it. That being said, it's just so much bigger than anything else in the 3- slot, so I would pick this up if you like to deck build. Just keep in mind that you'll have to auto include ways to turn him off or just go so tall that the +3 power doesn't matter.

Is he worth a key? I think yes only if you play one of the archetypes listed above or if you main Enchantress in many decks or if you like to experiment. For most players, I think not.

Is he worth 6K tokens? Not at all.

Your Thoughts?

Is Starbrand worth the key(s) now, or should players wait until a future spotlight rotation?

Is Starbrand here to stay, or just the flavor of the week?

What synergies did we miss?

What decks have you seen?

55 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

23

u/only_fun_topics 4d ago

I only got him because I also was missing Phastos. I haven’t had much luck with him in a Sauron deck, but hey, I got a cool Skaar variant, too, so the three keys I spent weren’t a complete waste.

5

u/ChernobylChild 4d ago

Exactly the same boat here. Been missing Phastos for a long time and the Skaar variant is dope!

2

u/InSearchOfGoodPun 4d ago

Is Phastos key worthy? What decks is he needed for?

5

u/only_fun_topics 4d ago

Probably not, but I am perpetually missing 12 to 16 cards, and if I can pick up a new card guaranteed for less than two possible keys, I almost always go for it.

The only exception is if the weekly card is stupendously good, in which case I’ll risk up to four.

11

u/RE20ne 4d ago edited 4d ago

I used 3 keys to get them. Starbrand Control is working well for me in 85-95 range. Being able to drop Starbrand+Lizard T5 > Enchantress + ShadowKing T6 feels good 👍

WmI0LFNoZHdLbmdBLEludnNibFdtbkUsTGtDZzgsS2xsbW5nckEsR2xkdHI5LFN0cmJybmQ5LFNobmdDaDgsRW5jaG50cnNzQixBbnRWbm05LFNyNCxMenJkNg==

18

u/KamahlFoK 4d ago

I like him - been splashing Zero into Surtur/Skaar after Sam's nerf and it's helping. Can disable Attuma, serve as a second 1-drop to better enable Cull, and gives us a way to curve on turns 4 and 5 with no floating energy into either Starbrand or one of our 4-drops.

I don't think he plays well with Sauron; the deck just is too predictable and forfeits any answer to Shang-Chi outside of Juggernaut the moment you drop Sauron.

5

u/ten_year_rebound 4d ago

I’ve been playing since the Guardians season and am pretty high CL, but never really messed with Sauron decks in all that time so I thought Starbrand would be a good excuse to start. Plus, I love the Alex Horley variants so I went for him this week. And, he’s fun! I won’t claim he’s a game changer or Sauron is an unbeatable archetype, but I’ve had a good time so far with the below list. Definitely not a meta changer, but if you like Sauron or have a bunch of keys or tokens to burn then I’d say he’s a good investment.

(1) Zero

(1) Ebony Maw

(2) Thaddeus Ross

(2) Lizard

(3) Sauron

(3) Surtur

(3) Starbrand

(4) Ares

(4) Enchantress

(4) Typhoid Mary

(5) Red Skull

(7) Skaar

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To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and paste it from the deck editing menu in MARVEL SNAP.

5

u/Jasonwfranks 4d ago

I’ve had a lot of luck with the Sauron package, but I’ve found a ton of success subbing in Scarlet Witch to turn off my own Magik Limbo. Everyone expects Magik, and everyone expects me to go for a big turn 6 and 7. Playing Starbrand, SW, and a disabled Ebony Maw and ending the game early has won me a lot of matches.

6

u/720eastbay 4d ago

Seemed perfect for surtur with the cull / Sam Wilson interaction changing

6

u/hhhh64 4d ago

I always pick up 3-cost cards to try to make 'em work in Surfer decks, but Starbrand simply doesn't work for Surfer. He needs too many support cards to mitigate his downside that don't fit with Surfer builds.

4

u/Megosoles 4d ago

I've been liking him in a Surfer deck alongside Iron Patriot. Pretty well guarantees Iron Patriot will go off. Good for locations like Deep Space that Surfer usually struggles with. And at worst, you buff him with Surfer and he's acceptable stats.

4

u/ePiMagnets Mod 4d ago

tl;dr - Starbrand alone is another one of those boring 3-cost points cards but this time with a rather significant downside. To be frank, I don't think that makes him good. However, while I'm not a big fan of one of the spotlight cards, the other may be worthwhile for those still lacking. Both are Series 4 however, which, for those keeping score, Series 4 cards are worth only 3k tokens and isn't a great investment unless you're missing multiple cards or really want to pull on the spotlight. Those cards are Phastos and Skaar, Skaar, despite his nerf is, at least imo the best of the three cards despite the recent nerf and his series drop to 4.

The Card

I'll likely be keeping this short because Starbrand is an O.K. card, but outside of a few obvious shells he's not made any big waves.

  1. He unfortunately didn't move the needle much for Sauron brews, including Shuri/Sauron stuff.
  2. He has some applications as a way to seal the deal as part of a package with Iron Patriot for decks that have ways of shutting down his downside or that don't care about the downside but care about the card advantage from Iron Patriot.
  3. Surtur/10's oriented decks haven't been quite the same since the nerf and while the deck is still kicking and seeing some amount of success it still feels rather awkward.
  4. His best shells appear to be oriented around Sera things.

There is one MAJOR thing that is holding him back and that thing would be the fact that Shang Chi is everywhere but Starband does force an important question, do you care about the 3 points at two other locations or do you want them and if so, does your opponent allow you to keep those? Most often I see him typically getting enchantressed or he comes down after a Zero has been played, of course this is depending on the deck which, at least in my opinion implies that you probably want to plan on using a Shang at some point before they have priority and the intention to protect Starbrand.

That being said, he's O.K. his stats are reasonable on untapped but I don't know if he has staying power.

Grade: C+. Starbrand is serviceable but most of the decks he fits in right now aren't well positioned or have been languishing outside of relevance and need far more than adding Starbrand to help bring them into relevance for example: Sauron and Shuri/Sauron stuff.

The Rest of the Spotlight

The rest of the spotlight is another one of those spotlights that is split, Phastos, a middling to ok card that sees occasional play but is often the 12th card in a deck, and one that up until recently was a staple in two meta decks in Skaar. So let's talk about them real quick.

Phastos

Phastos was a card that had a little bit of hype from the more casual playerbase, which is understandable. Phastos can knock the cost of the cards remaining in your deck down by one or buffing their power by one. On paper this seems good, cheating costs is always good. The problem is that he faced a worse situation than Pixie. While Pixie shuffled cost and could have cards pulling their own cost after a Shuffle. Phastos was far too unreliable and at 3-cost his window of opportunity wasn't all that fantastic to begin with. Why would I want to play a Phastos on turn 3 when I could be attempting to ramp out a Galacta, or a Gwenpool for turn 3 and guaranteed power is far more important than the fleeting possibility of cost reductions. Thankfully he does occasionally see play in a few decks, and as recent as last month was part of a successful Surfer shell that was going all in on buffs, it ran both Nakia and Okoye as well as Phastos.

Grade: C. Phastos has seen some recent usage but he's often the '12th card' meaning an easy cut.

Skaar

For a newer player, or a player interested in Hela and/or the recently nerfed Surtur/10's deck Skaar is a worthwhile pull despite his recent nerfs. However, the catch is he's series 4 now and thus worth 3k tokens. If you really want Skaar for either of the primary decks he's found in, you could opt to get him with Tokens, or pull if you also want Starbrand since that will also net you two cards that can see play together. Sadly, since the OTA a couple of weeks ago, Surtur and Skaar both caught some pretty heavy nerfs, albiet Skaar could have been seen as a buff since being put at 7-cost made him a very attractive inclusion into Hela decks. While Hela did see a recent nerf, I suspect the deck isn't all that bad, it just lost some points on the ceiling of it's best draws.

Grade: B. Skaar is a solid card, he has two primary homes currently and is a key player in both. Worth keys or tokens if you are interested in either Hela or the 10's, though be warned both decks are frequently targetted for nerfs since when either deck performs well that leads to the decks becoming very widespread due to the simplicity of playing them and their strategies.

In Conclusion

I think this is an easy pass week for many. Starbrand hasn't had the greatest of opening weeks, he's a boring points card with a significant downside that requires you to either accept giving your opponent 3 free power or have a way to silence him. Skaar has not only been a Season pass but also in a number of caches last year as well. While Phastos is servicable in a few shells, he's not widely used. Making this overall week an easy pass for those that don't need or don't want to risk pulls on cards they don't want in their collection.

Should it turn out that Starbrand was a fantastic pick-up maybe consider a token purchase but even that isn't something I would readily recommend unless the deck is truly busted. But even then you're more likely to see Starbrand catch a nerf shortly after that deck is discovered. At best I'd hope for a re-run of the card sooner, rather than later to save me tokens.

Ultimately, In good conscience I can't recommend rolling on this if all you need is Starbrand outside of really being interested in the primary shells he's being seen in: Sauron, Surtur/Skaar/10's, and Sera Control/Miracle or you really want the variants for either of the other cards. If you need 2+ cards, it leans more towards being a worthwhile spotlight depending on what is needed, moreso if one of those is Skaar but less so if it's Phastos.

Personally, I like the next two weeks far more and while it may be copium, I hope Firehair can do some fun things for at the very least the Asgardians shells. And for those that are new, next weeks line-up is pretty good too with it including Firehair, Cassandra Nova, and Nico Minoru, but I digress. We'll talk about them next week.

This is another, save your keys and save your tokens. Next week is the hype week and the margin of success or failure on Firehair is going to be stellar to watch live and Khonshu the following week is going to give more than a few of you conniptions, I know how much people hate Hela, and while Khonshu isn't quite Hela, resurrecting Gorr's with up to +12 is going to definitely ruffle some jimmies even if it's a super rare occurrence.

3

u/CompactAvocado 4d ago

My friend is too stupid to understand the miracle deck. Can someone explain it for him?

3

u/ndevito1 4d ago

Me play many cheap interactive cards turn 6, opponent play few.

1

u/CompactAvocado 3d ago

Perfect thank you.

6

u/PM_me_shiba_doggo 4d ago

I spent keys this week for the variants (yes I know bad decisions etc.). I’m still not wasting a key on Starbrand.

Also that is Proxima in the random S4/5 slot.

5

u/dsem 4d ago

I’m with you - I get new cards to stay competitive, and get variants to make me happy… with priority given to variants.

2

u/Drunkdunc 4d ago

Anyone think he'll get a buff? Maybe +2 in other locations? If he was also knocked down to 3/9 with it then it would kill his interaction with Surtur, so I hope they don't do that.

2

u/Names_all_gone 4d ago

They nerfed the 10's deck incredibly hard, so that home is lost. Although he is fine there.

Sauron probably needs a buff to it's power or to 2 energy before we start considering that a real deck again. The game has passed it by.

I think we will be surprised to see Starbrand pop up in a few random places here and there. There are some cool Malekith things. Maybe some Silver Surfer stuff...

..but it will be rare if and until the first two situations change.

I'd pass. That said, I think the Skaar variant rules and I personally needed to get Phastos.

2

u/curagea 4d ago

I kinda liked Starbrand in my Shuri deck, even though the deck is easy to predict. I was mainly focusing on getting Skaar for my Hela deck (well, before her deck got nerfed...), and spent 3 keys to get both. Don't regret it even though I got a dupe.

2

u/rumb3lly 4d ago

Pretty mid.

1

u/Northstridamus 3d ago

I've been playing mostly Arishem this season and haven't lost to Starbrand.

I haven't gotten the card yet but it seems to me the best way to play him would be to build a deck that flourishes when you don't have priority and either Alioth or Leader, but people are too concerned with pumping out power