Speaker #0Hello! Can you understand me? Hello everyone, Kier here, and welcome to the InfiNOT Podcast. I'm focused on the casual nature of the game, and each week I discuss a new patch, the new card, and my feelings on the game. I'm also a part of the Snap Judgments Podcasting Network, and today I'm going to talk about... Snap Judgments, the OG, the podcast hosted by Roy and Glazer. It is genuinely a joy to get some very big names on there, and... If you want some very in-depth discussion talking about meta analysis, they also do that extremely well. It's all thanks to Glazer's work, making sure he is on top of the meta and what the very best decks are. So if you have not checked it out, definitely do. And also, if you haven't checked it out, the Snap Judgments League is still going on. It's been really fun. I've gone up against some really cool opponents recently, and I'm having a blast with it. So if you haven't joined it already, it's still mid-season. But. Keep your eyes out for the next one because I think you would really enjoy it. Now, let's hop into it. So, this week we have a new season launch, which is really exciting. There's a couple of cards that I'm excited to talk about. But this week we have two new releases, and that is Esme Cucu and Surge. Notably, I was expecting to see another drop of the Series 4 cards that we saw last season, But from my understanding, they sort of. of push that forward from this season so it like the cards that we would have get gotten at the beginning of this season went to the launch of snap packs to make it feel more exciting so that's why we're not getting as many this season i think is the idea uh so it's going to be fairly standard this season but uh there's still a couple of cards that i think are going to shake things up and some already have i'm actually not going to start with the season pass card today because i I do have a deck that I want to talk about with... Esme that I made. So let's do Surge first. Surge is a 2-2 that says on reveal, give the top card of your deck minus one cost and plus one power. After you play it, repeat this ability. So this is in essence the new Zabu. And I don't mean to say that I think this card is a must play in any deck that you have a forecast in, but it almost is. Like, this ability rewards you for- playing a lower curve. And if you're playing a deck with four costs and below, you will always be able to play the Surge card and ultimately get a huge amount of value. You know, for reference, if you play the card every time after Surge, Surge is effectively a 2-6 that gives you minus four energy cheats. So it's incredibly good. I'm also starting to see a lot more like mid-range decks try to combat all the Thanos stuff going on, but... Another problem is that this card also goes into Thanos, which has been dominating the meta as of recently. So I think, first of all, she fits into a bunch of stuff, which is a good sign. And her effect is very powerful without being, you know, completely dominating, right? What she's giving you is the ability to play more cards with a little more power. And I think for that reason, she's an incredible card. I think if you haven't gotten her, you probably should. I'm a meta hipster, so I'm not personally that invested in Surge quite yet, but I'll definitely say I think her power is insanely good. For me, she's a 5 out of 5 release. I think that she's an incredible card. I would hope that the effect isn't too strong. Right now on Snapfan, she's running a 58% win rate, which is nuts. That is insane. So they might have to tone her down a bit. I don't know how you would do that, maybe by reducing her power, or maybe, I don't know, maybe giving the minus one cost is already powerful enough, and you don't need the plus one power. But in either case, she's extremely good. You almost have to feel bad for Fastos. I mean, the difference between this card and that card is just astonishing. Like, why would you ever play Fastos when Sturge exists? I don't know, but this card is very, very good. Next up is Esme Cucu, who is a 3-4 that says, on reveal, copy a card from your deck into your hand and set its cost to 3 and power to 4. So, this card is not doing as well as Surge, but it's still doing decent. I think it's at a 55% win rate on Snapfan, which is good. It's solid. And I think the reason why is, similar to Surge, if you're playing a low power deck, something like a Silver Surfer deck. She kind of just fits in and works. She's basically drawing you a card. And if you draw the card that you also copied, that could also be a bonus sometimes. I think Wiccan also really likes this card for a number of reasons. The paramount of that is playing something like Hawkeye Cape Bishop into Esme means that whatever card you draw from Esme can also be played with an arrow to keep your curve going. Or sometimes you just get to copy Wiccan, which is really, really powerful. She also goes into a bunch of different archetypes that want to do combo stuff. Things like Living Tribunal or Mr. Negative. Those copy effects really, really matter. Because if you get something like an Iron Man, you're extremely happy. And if you're getting something like a Mr. Negative, you're also really happy, right? All of those things just sort of make this card feel really, really good. I don't think that she's impactful in the same way that Surge is. Like, I don't think that... Playing her down is necessarily going to win you the game all the time. Sometimes you get something weird like, you know, that Hawkeye Kate Bishop I was talking about earlier. Maybe you get a Penny Parker when you're playing that Wicked deck and you're not so happy about it. But other times, she can get you something insane. The deck that I've been playing her in is called Magic Dinosaur. And I was initially trying to figure out, like, how to get the most value out of this card. And so I was thinking, you know, what kind of d***? deck wants to play a three cost late in the game and it's a wiccan deck right uh i think her effect does extremely good things um with wiccan in a multitude of ways and because of that i started thinking okay what else goes with with playing wiccan um and that's infinity ultron right because infinity ultron allows you to play a five cost and a three cost on turn six So, you could do something like play a Claw and an Infinity Stone on the last turn. And so that made me think Devil Dinosaur, right? Because Infinity Ultron is adding to your hand, Esme Cuckoo is adding to your hand, and the whole deck sort of fit together. So, in totality, here it is. Quicksilver, The Collector, Hawkeye Cape Bishop, Sentinel, Mystique, Speed, Esme Cuckoo, Kahori, Wiccan, Devil Dinosaur. Claw, and Infinity Ultron. And yeah, this deck is actually doing surprisingly well for me. I've only run it for about 15 games, but I'm running a 57% win rate in this current meta, which feels pretty awesome. The deck also just sort of synergizes with itself on a multitude of levels. Like, even if you don't get the whole Wiccan thing going, playing something like Infinity Ultron into a Devil Dinosaur is still decent. Like, you're getting a good amount of power, especially after Devil Dinosaur's buff. And when you get Wiccan, you can do some insane things, like play a Claw and a Mystique on the last turn. Or you could do, like, an Infinity Ultron with a Stone and a Claw. Or, you know, you could do something crazy like doing Kahori with Speed on the last turn, because your hand is so big. There's just a lot to do. And I really like that this deck doesn't have... a ton of weaknesses beyond the you know typical enchantress shang chi stuff uh you know i'm not that mad about getting afflicted with stuff and i don't particularly get affected by mobius right the only thing that really gets this deck is when something like gorgon goes down uh but even then like that stuff stays in my hand which is good for devil dino and kohori so like i i'm having a ton of fun with this deck and uh I think what Esme Cucu really allows you to do, or it's really good in this deck, because Quicksilver is your only one drop, everything above him is pretty good to get. I'd say with the exception of Hawkeye, Cape Bishop, and Sentinel, but those are still okay because they're adding to your hand still. So, like, overall, I'm having a great time with this deck, and I'm really excited to modify this when Prodigy comes out. he's the next card to come up And I have a deck that I've been cooking for him. Not quite the same shell, but it uses the same setup with the Wiccan sort of idea. So what do I think of Esme? I think she's good. I'd say a 4 out of 5 release. The 3-4 stat line doesn't feel the best, and sometimes she doesn't land correctly, but she's decent. She fits into a lot of stuff. I've heard some Luke 1 reviews, but I think we need more of those cards in the game. I don't think we need to have... an explosive season pass every season i think this one has enough nuance to make it interesting and fun but not broken uh which is good i like these kind of cards since we have a little extra time i do want to go over the new locations that came are coming to the game um These include Genosha and the Pit of Exiles, so we'll go over those really quickly. Genosha says, after turn 5, all but your highest cost cards here are destroyed. Which is interesting. I'm actually not that familiar with the lore of Genosha. The strategy here, I think, lends to really interesting interaction, which is what I say I like about locations. The... The after turn five stipulation also makes it so, you know, you're sort of incentivized to wait to play here, like Hala, which, unless your deck is, you know, built in a specific way, typically you avoid that location until later, until it's safe to play at, right? I think that sort of dynamic is really fun to play around with, and it's not something that you have to worry about your opponent at all. right you're sort of playing against yourself you you want to make sure that any card you put there is the only card you put there unless you're playing something like destroy uh so i i think it's really interesting i'd be happy to see this in the game the other location i don't know it's it's sort of interesting but not really cards with 10 or more power can't be played here um that's what the pit of exile does and i'm not really convinced that we need more of these kind of locations in the game. And in some respect, it's nice to have one every once in a while, because it forces a new kind of gameplay, and it rewards cards that are able to do things like Jeff or Mr. Fantastic. And generally speaking, you know, your decklist might only have one or two cards with 10 or more power. So in that respect, I think it's fine. But at the same time... You know, I don't know if restrictive locations are my favorite in this game. Certainly rewards things like bounce and all those card lists, but I don't know. Not my favorite. Could be better. But yeah, that is everything that I have for this week. Two great cards. We have some new cards coming up. And Snap Judges League, seriously, check it out. I should also try to plug my own stuff. I'm actually going to start doing a random conquest deck series pretty soon here. Right now I'm setting up the wheel for it, which is taking me forever, because I want it to be every card in my collection and not just like a random wheel spin from every card in the game. So I'm still working on it, but stay tuned for that. That'll be up on my YouTube channel once a week. Don't forget to rate and follow this podcast if you haven't already. It really helps me out. You can also comment on YouTube or on Spotify to let me know your thoughts. If there's one thing that you can remember, it's that I'm Infinite. Thanks for listening.
