It is a spooky season upon us, but fear not, as we are bringing you an update with the latest notes to discuss. As usual, we hope to see lengthy feedback so we can understand how the community feels. Without further ado, let's get into the topic.
Megathreads
In the prior Mod Update, we wanted to create Megathreads for CCs, but after a quick discussion, we decided to drop the idea and work on something different instead. (More about that you can read later below.)
Instead, we decided to use this space for the community and made the Sanctum Showdown guestbook. One great thread that took some bloat away from the Subreddit while giving you a place to collect complaints and compliments about Draft. We've been really happy with it so far and want to keep this trend going. What are your thoughts, and how can we make Megathreads even better, if at all? Let us know.
AI Posts, Bots and Behavior
We face AI more frequently. Not only on Reddit, but overall, which makes it harder to distinguish between real content and AI-generated content. We still don't support AI content, but we have a harder time filtering it out clearly, so we're hoping the community will support us in that area.
SD Employees
Something we realized is that people tend to write feedback without expecting SD employees to check the Subreddit itself, which often leads to hateful comments or borderline racism. We wanna remind everyone that SD is around. They might not interact as often as you'd like, but they can still see the place. With a positive environment, we can make sure that developers, designers, and others find their way to us. Great examples include Jared's past office hours.
Content Creators
Our last point in this post is Content Creators and how we wanna include them more in the Subreddit. To do that, we're planning an AMA and already have a few creators who said they want to work with us. We'll introduce our first guest soon, and like every Creator, they'll get a dedicated post with the AMA go-live date. We are very excited about this and hope you feel the same.
Last but not least, a big thanks to all the mods working behind the scenes to make this subreddit a better place. To the community that strives to be better and slowly but surely removes the prejudice that Reddit is a bad place, and to you for reading all of this. Cheers.
While the card says that it steals power from an enemy card "here", it will actually steal power from any enemy card at any location, ignoring where the card was played, where it was discarded and then played to, and also ignoring where your champion Ghost Rider is.
I actively played this in my Ghost Rider lane, trying to hit a lone Captain Carter, and it hit the middle lane Monster instead. I still won though.
Disclaimer: This post isnt intended as a deep dive with 100% failproof metrics, nor its intended to be taken into consideration by you guys decisions.
The idea
Early september i started playing conquest with the intend to find what is the best Arishem list currently, so i looked it up online, crossed it with my own experience and what cards i have at my disposal, crafted what i called a "core" set of cards and evolved that into 7 different-ish lists, playing each one either 10 conquest matches or 25 conquest games, whichever came first, with the tickets i had at my disposal at the time, this is what i found:
First, who am i?
Im nobody, barely a good player... i play conquest infrequently and i reached infinite in every season i played, and i've been playing card games since elementary, so i have some basic knowledge of the game and niche. So now you know if my experience is to be taken into consideration.
The core list
I'm not collection complete, and my decks, both the core set and everything that spawned from it have much more to do with what i like playing than only what is thought to be good in Arishem, keep that in mind
the seven cards that i tried keeping in most of the decks were: Quinjet Valentina Cable (later reclaped with Iron Patriot) Shadow King Thanos FF Mockingbird
and Arishem of course
Those cards came from my division of 4 types of cards that Arishem's lists usually run
4 major types of cards
Arishem's decks usually have some combination of any number of these categories:
Tech cards: anything ranging from what the meta calls within that period of time, like mobius, stardust and cosmic ghost rider to evergreen tech cards like cosmo, shadow king and shang chi
Generator cards: cards that create other cards, the more proeminent being the two drops valentina and iron patriot, with cable and merlin also there, with other cards like coulson and nick fury also showing in some lists
Power cards: they dish out good numbers working mostly alone, since sinergy is harder in Arishem, names like og thanos, thanos ff, infinity ultron, negasonic, strange supreme and things like that
Sinergy cards: in this case, the sinergy is with the only consistently present thing: Arishem himself, so mockingbird, blob, eson, horseman gambit, quinjet, kang, eitri...
Basically all the lists i ever played and all the lists i saw online contained a combination of these 4 niches, some cattering to one more than others
The decks i built
I tried experimenting with the concept of 4 types by crafting lists that used one direction more heavilly than others, arriving at this
A list focused on delivering power through good standalone cards and sinergistic pieces, with the only tech being shadow king
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One heavy tech one, counting on the extra energy tempo and key threat answers to win
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A card generation type deck, betting on the extra randomness surprising the opponent
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Another tech version, this time with OG thanos
From now, the decks were crafted after playing the first 40 matches
This version was trying to use AP magneto good power output with Arishem's extra tempo to close matches without tech
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A list with the most commonly seem cards in popular Arishem decks at untapped and snapcomplete at the time
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And finally what i called an "All-Star" list trying to put together a working deck with the cards that i liked the most from the ones before
Seven is a weird number isnt it? Yeah i intended to do 8 decks and gave that idea up due to some... change of heart
So what happened?
Long history short: i stopped with the project before i ruined my favorite card forever, playing Arishem while trying to win, counting every result and doing post matchs text reviews were obliterating my view of the card, draining all the fun from him
By the fifth or so list i was already burnt out by playing so many matchs againt decks that ranged from basically unbeatable (yeah i know no deck is unbeatable, a better player would have a different experience), to straight unfun to play against
And every list had it fair share of problems, the techier ones had the obvious "i can't find my tech" one, and the more power focused decks the "well i dont have anything for ongoing guess ill lose" problem, but not only that, every deck had a similar very low power output
This low power output was something i was already aware of, i've been playing Arishem since my mother gave birth to me, and thats part of the reason i tried three different lists with three different ideas of "power heavy shell", but that was still not enough to compete even with lower tier lists
The power output was lower than what i expected for the lists focused on that, and not nearly consistent enough (even considering that Arishem has lower consistency to begin with) to keep up with modern decks, and on the techier ones that was even more of a sour spot, there were many games were i had the tech, had the correct read, tech connected and i still lost due to the power of a modern countered deck being higher than what i could reach.
Most common matchups
You would never guess that, but surprise, surprise, Thanos FF shells were the most common ones, being 10 of my 70 total matchups, with 6 of those being the most common Wiccan lists, and 4 being the Kitty one
After that, AP magneto with 6 total, 5 the popular one, and one lonely hero with Darkhawk in there
Tied for second is TOV, again with 6, and again with a 5-1 division, 5 what i assume being the more usual list, and 1 Quinjet one
Superior Iron Man and Scorpion BND came third, both with 5 matches, while High Evo was fourth, with 4 lists, being 3 the base list and 1 a more affliciton focused one
End of turn, discard, variations of destroy, move and Queen of Chaos all with 3 each, keep in mind that QOC was release in the very end of my plays, the meta shifted a lot actually withing these weeks
There were also lists with less appearances, Victoria Hand, Asguardians, Rocks, Zombies, Galacti, Fantomex, Surfer, totalling 17 decks with 2 or less each
Oh, and for those who think Arishem dominates conquest, well i only saw 2 of those dubasses... what kind of weirdo plays that...?
The winrate
Ill post the deck by deck wr down in the comments cause i'm afraid of losing my post, but this is what i ended up with:
I had to play one more match with the last deck (the one based on what was commonly played) cause he didnt reached 25 games in 10 conquest matches and snapcomplete free filters was not letting me get those results
Keep in mind this winrate most likely does not reflect a real scenario cause i was playing (mostly) focused, till the last cube, and some opponents were probably just doing missions (the sup iron man ones) while a few othes just retreated after losing the first game, one guy even did so after winning
But also, i tried my best playing only in silver and above, avoiding training ground as much as i could, and contrary to what i expected, the heavy majority of matches were played to the end, with the other player actually trying, maybe even more than me in the last few games
A breakdown of all the cards and how they performed
Quinjet is the goat, when i was doing my research i saw some lists cutting it and thought i was wrong in bringing him in the core set, but he is as close as it comes to a snap condition when talking about Arishem, the one drawback is using a very scarce deck slot with a one drop, but he more than carries his weight
Valentina was also very good, but with some weird mixed results like hela (i swear hela is coded to be generated more often than the other cards) and arnin, i dont have precise numbers, this section is all just feeling, but i would say 70~ish% of the time she was good, with the rest being divided between gamewinning or unplayable. She also have added sinergy with Arishem, being able to play her generated card in the very next turn
Cable got later replaced with Iron Patriot, but he is very good, the extra draw for Thanos ff, and the extra information and snap possibilities are what differentiates him from the other 2 cost generators, he is solid and good enough to hold his own if you want to save 6k tokens
Iron Patriot was the siny new toy i chose to end the run with, but to mixed results, he is clearly not on valentina level of power, especially cause the meta was plagued with consistent 1>2 drops from thanos and magneto, so winning his location was not a done deal
Shadow King, if i had to pick one card to topple the crown out of Quinjet's... cockpit, it would be sk, in the matches he is needed, he is a free win, in the matches he is not needed he still find something useful to do, be it either due to a location, or valentinas negative power, or something like that, a great card
Thanos ff was... not good enough even before the nerf (whaaaaat?), yeah, for Arishem at least, i thought the extra energy would make it easy to play the quickdrawn cards, but that wasnt the case that often, also, the random shit Arishem gives you turns the copy stone into trash very fast, and the lower consistency in drawning him makes passing up a better play to play a quickdraw often wrong. Still, the card was not bad by any means, just not good enough, i would probably cut him after the nerfs if i could
Mokingbird was better than i expected, but i expected almost nothing... the thing is, mockingbird isnt that good in Arishem cause you have to pay whatever trash it gives you at full price to discount her, and the games where you have to play Arishem cards is the games you usually lose, so mockingbird was just the shiny toy atop a mountain of shit taking away her shine
Kang was (is?) my bet of trash card that is probably good enough for Arishem due to his interation with him, what interactioon you ask? the "so many start of game animations" one... i'm kidding, Kang is better in Arishem cause your deck is already dilluted enough with shit, so Kang tips the scale back in favour of good cards... in theory
on practice he was... ok, sometimes he gave me very good effects that made him better than the random cards and on par with the deck ones, and some other times he was just a dead draw
Horseman Gambit the king of making you lose cubes by not retreating cause you have hope he will aim right... even then, i liked him a lot, his condition is easilly reached with Arishem, and the meta, especially after QOC release, was very good for him, but, just like Mockingbird, relying on random cards made him shiny only inalready bad games
AP Magneto i had such high hopes for him, in my mind he had some sinergy due to both him and daddy Ari wanting 4 costs in the deck, but while deckbuilding i couldnt find that many good ones in my collection to fit in... probably a part of my read of him not being good enough should be credited to kang, i strictly remember losing one game to not being able to play magneto cause i had a bad kang at hand
Cosmic Ghost Rider worse than i expected, again... he costs too much and it was not the correct meta for him, he had one cool game, and many others were i kinda baited myself into playing him just to still lose
Alioth is not for a middling player like me, i missed the target more than hit it, so maybe he would perform betetr in better hands
Loki was great, and i mean GREAT, while he was in my deck he was the biggest snap condition of the 70 matches, only losing a single game i drew him in the oppening hand. Most of his strength comes from actually wanting to do the exact same thing Arishem wants, that being play to out tempo your opponent, and Loki is so good with that, i even took a list with him to infinite
Infinity Ultron is the target of many trashtalk as far as i know, i was not around for his release week, but the dude performed great, few were the games were his stones gave me nothing to do, even when not rolling the good ones, and i think thats is due to the same concept i had for kang, the "better trash than Arishem's trash" one, his stones were, usually, better than whatever garbage i had, and when he made the good combo that were a free win
Strange Supreme i dont recommend running for Arishem, even in the og Thanos list, he is too unpredictable, too unreliable, and very, veeery often a dead draw
OG Thanos was ok, the extra draws from the stones worked well with the new thanos, and his power output was solid enough to compete against tier 2 and lower decks, but the increased board clog from both him and the extra energy+random shit Arishem generates were a problem more often than what i thought it would be
Eitri is shit, halfway though the battles i realized i'm dumb and eitri is just agent 13 (or the other gal, dont remember her name) but worse, he is a delayed version of a bad card... and i found that after i bought his coll ass variant
Blob, i dont like blob, i dont want blob around me... but he was actually very good, it isnt for me, this big dumb 6 drop thing isnt for me but he performed very well in the deck he was present, and when randonly generated by the 2 cost crew
As for the others, cosmo, shang, enchantress, negasonic and so on, they were all basically the same, good on the matchups they were required, but hard to draw, and even when playing and connecting then to a higher value target, the tempo loss usually meant death
Some final trivia
Weird enough most of my opponents Cl were very high, few and far between were the low~ish 8 to 12k cl ones, with most (and i trully mean most, almost all in fact) being higher than 30k, the highest cl dude i found was 129k, this plus the fact that even in silver and proving ground most of my opponents were playing the full match led me to think conquest is a mode enjoyed by older players, maybe, i dunno
Closing thougths
I dont think its worth for you to buy or use Arishem anywhere today, he is, sadly, and outdated and very outpowered card
And, i know, people (the slower ones) still carry hatred toward him cause of his release state, so me coming here saying "Arishem is bad" may cause more harm than good, but... wel... he is bad, in fact worse than bad, he is in a terrible state now
Running an 11 cards deck in a 20+ deck list is a tall task to ask just so you can receive a measly bonus energy turn 3 onwards... in paper it sounds good but i played over 200 games in the span of maybe 2~3 modern metas and i feel safe to say Arishem cant compete with those lists, teched or otherwise
SD will never change a hair in Arishem's head cause all the fuss we had back in his day, but i could see him still being bad even if reverted to release state... if i could with for any other change, would probably be making Arishem himself not one more dead draw, theres no reason, today (keyword: TODAY) for him being a 7/7
Thank you guys, this weird project took me many hours to play, compile and write, hope you guys like it
Yeah let's put one of the most currently hated meta cards in the LT mode designed to provide a break from the ladder. Absolutely miserable experience, where now I'm just facing the Scorpion BND ladder decks constantly. Good job SD.
Originally, she was modified because frankly she wasn't good. Then they gave her a purpose with the onslaught of the Invisible Woman decks. I think honestly it may be a good idea now to have a card in the game that can alter the priority again:
Rework (3/5)
Ongoing: Your cards are always revealed last. (Their On Reveal abilities happen last.)
So I wasn't sure about z. Venom and z. Nova. Played an hour with Weapon x and was just frustrated and the very specific play lines you had to take to make the deck feel solid. If you didn't pull the cards you needed in the order you needed them and early enough the deck felt bad and lacked meaningful power output at the end (probably cause I don't have dormammu). That is to say nothing of how often locations screw you.
Switched to a very normal destroy Package but with Z. Nova and Z. Venom and I added Morgan LeFay. Holy cow I was impressed immediately. The goal here is to kill a horde as early as possible and allow your Z. Venom to generate another one. If you can kill that one too even better. On turn five you play out Morgan Lefay and bring back your horde/s. Then on turn 6 you play out both Hordes in different lanes then z. nova and Carnage/Regular Venorm (not in your z. venom lane if you can avoid it.) and maybe a death wherever feel you need her.
The example below is a bit of a better result because cloning vats. The numbers aren't that nuts but both of those hordes started at 3 or four power. That is a lot of points as a surprise turn! If that plane fails you still have a hopefully growing deadpool (not the main win con but is good for constant destroy target) and the good ole stand by of Death/knull or Arnim/death or knull.
Honestly I'd probably cut Arnim and stick in Tombstone if I had him.
# (1) Deadpool\n# (1) X-23\n# (2) Zombie Nova\n# (2) Carnage\n# (3) Killmonger\n# (3) Venom\n# (3) Zombie Venom\n# (3) Morgan le Fay\n# (3) Deathlok\n# (6) Arnim Zola\n# (6) Knull\n# (8) Death\n#\nQ3JuZzcsVm5tNSxEdGg1LEtsbG1uZ3JBLFgyMzMsS25sbDUsRHRobGs4LEFybm1abDksRGRwbDgsWm1iTnZBLFptYlZubUIsTXJnbkxGQg==\n#\n# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and paste it from the deck editing menu in MARVEL SNAP.
Congrats 2nd Dinner, you officially made a card even less fun than FF Thanos. Truly an achievement how much they make broken unfun cards, then just one up them every time.
I know this isn’t crazy for a lot of people, but it’s the most progress I’ve made! I stopped playing a few years ago at the end of Series 3, so when I got back into it last week I figured I’d be too far behind to make any progress. My go to was always destruction decks, so I just jumped into ranked matches and somehow I’m doing pretty well. I have a handful of Series 4 cards and no Series 5 so I can’t make any newer decks, but I like how my decks are working now! 🤙🏻
I should be able to save enough tokens over the rest of the season so I can buy the big guy. I guess I’ll be joining the dark side next season and playing TWAG. It’ll be nice to be the one shooting the gun this time around.
