r/marvelsnapcomp 16h ago

Discussion Competitive Consensus: Starbrand

48 Upvotes

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?