The Sentry and Darkhawk come crashing into Marvel Snap!
Learn about the two newest Series 5 cards coming out on December 20th.
We have two new 4 energy cards coming out in one day on December 20th! Check out The Sentry and Darkhawk!
Before we jump into these cards, I want to briefly touch on what I think makes a card powerful in Marvel Snap.
Power Rules
Put simply, cards with more power are better than cards with less power. Devil Dinosaur, given you can enable him, is better than Abomination.
This may sound obvious, because it is. But Power is our one master in Marvel Snap, everything we do is to meet the end of the put more power in play than our opponents.
Cross-Lane Power is stronger than Single-Lane Power
All other things equal, I’d rather my cards be able to impact multiple locations rather than just one.
Assuming you can fulfill their conditions, I think Iron Heart is a stronger card than Captain America. Even though both cards have the same cost and both produce 6 power.
Cheaper the Better
Cheap cards with similar effects are stronger than more expensive cards with similar effects.
Given that both Kazar and Cerebro provide cross-lane power for cards that meet a certain condition. I’d expect Cerebro to have a more powerful impact in decks that enable it.
This isn’t to say that expensive cards aren’t good. There are a lot of very powerful 5 and 6 cost cards. It’s just important to think if the effect you’re getting is available at a cheaper cost.
The Sentry
On a base rate The Sentry is an 8 power card for 4 energy. We can compare this card to: Attuma, Warpath, and Rescue. All of these cards see some amount of play; I’d expect The Sentry to see a similar amount of play, maybe more if we can find a way to use the Void really well.
These high power 4 energy cards all share a common theme, they have a side-quest for you to complete in order to get full mileage out of them.
I am going to assume the -8 Power Void has no abilities, if it has an ability like, Ongoing: You can’t play cards here or Ongoing: Can’t be destroyed, The Sentry this card is significantly worse than the alternatives at 4 energy. The cost of not being able to play into the right lane would greatly increase variance in your games. We have to find some way to make The Sentry’s Void a resource and not a downside to get full mileage out of this card.
Exploiting the Void
Combining Viper with the -8 Power Void is an exciting combo! The Sentry and Viper is a 2-card combo that nets you 19 power for 6 energy. Now that’s a lot of power!
Another way to get around the Void drawback is to destroy it with cards like, Destroyer, Carnage, or Deathlok.
It’s a small thing, but worth noting, if you are playing a destroy deck with The Sentry, destroying the Void is really strong against an opponent’s Knull.
Sentry Starting Point
Here is where I’d start with The Sentry. I’d play The Sentry in this deck, and see which aspects I find powerful and iterate further.
Darkhawk
At the end of a normal 6 turn game where your opponent doesn’t draw extra cards, Darkhawk will be 7 power. This is a touch less than power than the 8 and 9 power 4 energy cards we talked about above.
Darkhawk can get much better or a bit worse based on locations in the game. For me, this is a strong selling point for the card, because I like when my deck lets me benefit from as many locations as possible.
Subterrenea gives our man Darkhawk +10 power, while both the shuffle locations give +6 power for each time they’re trigger. While Lamentis-1 makes Darkhawk 1 power and Limbo makes him 5 power.
Card Synergies
Black Widow and Korg, if drawn with Darkhawk can pump him for +2 power. Rock Slide, can do the same but provide +4 power, but Rock Slide and Darkhawk both being 4 energy is cards makes that synergy a little worse.
Darkhawk is also an ongoing card, so it works with both Spectrum and Onslaught. But I would expect Ongoing deck to still want Warpath unless there was a Hot/Featured location that greatly favored Darkhawk.
Darkhawk also has the chance to be very strong against Thanos decks. This is probably my favorite card synergy. I’d rather not have to put cards in my deck that work with Darkhawk, I want him to do his job by himself.
Darkhawk Starting Point
If you have Darkhawk and are just dying to try him out, this is the list I would start with.
Similar to my approach with The Sentry, my goal with the first 25 games with a card is to observe and note different game states in which it has a powerful impact on the game.
Darkhawk is also a strong card when flipped by Mister Negative.
Conclusion
The Sentry and Darkhawk are both moderately exciting cards. I don’t expect them to define the metagame or create entirely new decks by themselves. I wouldn’t spend Collectors Tokens on either of these cards.
But if you happen to open one of these rare Series 5 cards, I hope this article gave you some inspiration.
If you haven’t please subscribe to my Substack or considering upgrading to a paid subscription so you can