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 the new patch, the new card, and my feelings on the game. I'm also a part of the Snap Judgments Podcasting Network, and I'm going to talk about... Snap On This! With two exclamation points. If you're not aware, Snap On This! is a fantastic podcast hosted by... Lauren Whatevs, Ben Roller, and Rhi. And it is a great time, especially given all the things going on in Snap right now. I find that their show is a really great meshing of both, you know, serious car discussion with some extra fun stuff that makes their podcast stand out. If you don't know, they do things like secret homework every week that, you know, sort of spices up what they do outside of the show to, you know, bring it in and have like a bit of a show and tell. And during the episode, uh, Rhi in particular really loves to go off on some rants, and I am there for it. So if you have not listened to Snap on this, I would definitely recommend it if you're a fan of Snap. Now, let's hop to it. So, a couple of things. First of all, I have just upgraded my microphone. I now have a pop filter, so hopefully my pops and pips and, um, uh, popcorns... are a lot less annoying to listen to. So that's exciting. And the reason this episode is so late is I had a crazy weekend. Not that anybody listens to this podcast for me, but I did just watch the new Superman, and I found it really refreshing. I'm not exactly a Superman guy, so it was going to be really hard to win me over. But James Gunn did an incredible job of really making the character feel... Uh, like the classic Superman. We're talking like, you know, the 80s Superman. The sort of corny, but well-meaning Superman, and I'm actually really, really for that. I think that's the best version of the character, and I feel like this movie is a good return to form. So yeah, I'm really excited about the DCU going forward. I think this is a really good start. Enough about me. Let's get into the actual show, shall we? So we have three cards to discuss, and uh Normally we'd only have two, but there's been an addition to the Season Pass that I was afraid was coming, and we'll discuss all that stuff after we discuss the actual cards. I don't want every episode here to start with a downer, so we'll talk about that at the end. But be warned, I'm going to talk about it. Okay, let's start with the Season Pass card. uh mr fantastic first steps um this is of course based on the uh new fantastic four first steps movie that is coming out very very soon i'm excited to see that uh he is a tutu that says end of turn give a card in your hand minus one cost or plus two power and you know i don't say this often but this is just crazy power creep this this is this is nuts um And it's going in every deck. It's doing extremely well. On Snapfan, it's 57% one-win played, which is very high. But it's also being seen in a ton of decks, both on Snapfan and in Untapped. And it's not surprising why. It's crazy to compare this card to some earlier series cards like Forge. Or Psylocke? Because once you do that, you begin to realize just how much value this card is giving you. Is it different than those cards in that it's random? Yeah. But it's not really different in a lot of other ways, right? Psylocke is giving you a max energy. This guy is giving a discount on a random card in your hand. And Forge is giving you a static plus two to one of your cards. while this guy is giving a plus to... Every single turn that you play them down. So, I don't think it's even a contest. You know, I don't think there's really a point to running those cards. And really, not running a lot of cards in comparison to this. And now that I'm free to play, you can imagine it's made me a little bit envious seeing people play with it. But I'm sticking to it, man. For that reason, I'm going to give this a 5 out of 5. I think that this is, you know, doomed for a nerf. Probably. I would hope. Um, it just seems too good to be put into everything. Like, it's at such a cheap cost, it can fit into most decks. It's, you know, sort of a Sam Wilson situation where the card was just so universally good, you should put it in every deck. I feel like... This new Mr. Fantastic is doing the exact same thing, and yeah, very, very good. Next up in the super premium season pass, it is the Fantasticar, which is a 4-7 that says, Activate. Give your end-of-turn cards plus 2 power. Now, initially, this card sort of seemed niche. Like, the uses for this card seemed, you know, like, what, am I gonna add plus 2 power to my Adam Warlock? um Which, you know, you totally could. But what this card actually does really, really well is fit into high Evo. And just looking at the stats here, one win played percent, 63% on SnapFan. That is ridiculous. That is, and if you want to know why, it's because of high Evolutionary, right? All of those cards have an end-of-turn effect, right? like Misty Night, Sunspot Hulk. She-Hulk is also bugged right now and is working with this. And when you think about it that way, this is a silver surfer for high EVO. It is way, way too strong. And the fact that it has a 4-7 body is ridiculous. You hit one card with the Fantastic Car and you're running a 4-9. Once you start thinking about it like that, then it becomes obvious that this card is way you way overtuned um and i you know the numbers just are are so crazy with a high evo deck like you can easily add 14 power to the fantastic car like easily making this a 421 it's it's shocking how much this card impacts the board um and it's a shame because i i thought that this is going to be like a, you know. again like a niche sort of uh cool finisher in some decks but it turns out it's just really really good in the high evo deck um which you know i i'm happy that the high evo deck is getting some sort of buff you know that that deck should um be like a really great entry point for people it's a deck in a box but the problem is now that this isn't you know the super premium season pass for a whole month. People are just going to be able to abuse this until it gets nerfed, which is a shame. Obviously, I have to give this a 5 out of 5, but not because I think that it was implemented well. I think it's just really, really strong. So if you're paying for the premium season pass and the regular season pass, you're eating good this month, no doubt. Okay, last card to talk about here is Herbie. Herbie is a 2-3 that says, each turn this is in play, swap to a new activate ability until one is used. And we'll go through each of those. Each of these are based on the Fantastic Four, which is cute. Like, you know, when Herbie's presenting, which power he's going to use, he has like an effect that goes on his card, which is awesome. The first one is activate, next turn you get plus two energy. Then there is ac- Activate, give two of your cards at each other location plus one power. Then there is activate, create a rock here, set its power to four, and activate, double this card's power. So this card is powerful, but it has the Niko problem, which is that all the effects, you know, for the most part are good. But you're not given a choice on, like, what you have unless you wait. And this obviously has to be, you know, down on the board in order to get value, since an it's an activate card so that's two downsides to this but the effects are all like relatively good um it's running a 57 win rate on snap fan which is good right and it's it's not surprising why when you look at what you get um if assuming that you get this down on turn two um having the ability to ramp or turn this into a two six or to turn this into a two seven with the rock it all just really adds to this card's versatility. I can say I like this card. I think that it can fit into a lot of good cards lists, and I'm sure that there's ways that you could implement this in a ton of stuff like Hand Buff or even Patriot, maybe, just because it has good value and has the rock thing. I might try that. I don't know. But yeah, Herbie is great. I don't see why this wouldn't also get a five out of five. I also really like that Herbie's in the game. You know, there's a brief stint where Herbie was a part of the Fantastic Four because of licensing issues with a human torch. So it's cool to see it implemented in this game. And yeah, really great card. I would recommend getting it. I already have because I think it's neat. And yeah, those are the three new cards. We don't have a major patch to talk about, really. So let's talk about the elephant in the room here with the super premium season pass getting the Fantasticar. Judging by how much I've seen the Fantasticar, I really thought that their strategy wouldn't pay off by paywalling a second card, but it seems like people love it. So, you know, egg on my face. I thought that after the Kid Omega debacle, people would be interested in, you know, voting with their wallet. And I'm not saying that people don't. I'm sure some of you might be doing the same thing I'm doing. um it just i i thought that more of the player base would be resistant to that sort of thing but you know a card for 10 bucks is a good deal in this game so um i'm not gonna blame anybody for buying the new card. It's just a shame, really. I really don't like that they're pushing these practices that we've seen in mobile games since their very inception. Like, I spoke about this a bit when the whole Kid Omega thing came out. I really wish that this game wasn't a mobile game. And to its credit, it works well as a mobile game because it's quick. Right, the collection system is easy to understand. And, you know, that's the whole appeal of the game. It's small decks, small games. You can squeeze it in, in between things. That's why I like it. I don't have, like, a ton of time to game during the week. But this is just really, really scummy to me in a way that I'm really not comfortable with. You know, it sort of reminds me of why I can't get into a game like Candy Crush or... and of any of those other like marvel-esque games uh that you find on the mobile store because a lot of them are just like you get to a certain point and then you gotta pay um in order to progress and i'm really not a fan of that and i know that the the biggest uh counterpoint to what i'm saying is that oh well these are gonna be released into uh you know the pools for you to buy later. But you and me both know, if a card is really, really good, it's going to get nerfed before it ends up in that pool. That's just sort of how it works. And that's not an issue. I'm happy that they do that, right? I'm happy that they nerf these cards that are clearly over-tuned. But I think we need to stop giving them credit by saying, like, Oh, well, you know, maybe this was missed in testing. I think they know what they're doing with this sort of stuff. I think part of the problem with locking cards behind a paywall is it creates a feeling of missing out which is the thing that i hate most about mobile games and then you get like absolutely crushed if you're not using the new thing um i think this season you know i i'm even less inclined to climb on ladder just because um i'm not as invested but Certainly, it doesn't help when every other time I'm on the ladder, I see Mr. Fantastic First Steps, and I'm like, damn, yep, sucks to be me, I guess. But I just, I can't support this game if it continues to make these practices standard. Like, at what point does it stop, is really the big question. Like, do they start selling exclusive bundles that have a card in it that you could only get in the bundle? Yay. You might be saying to yourself, well, that sounds crazy, but it's not. They just introduced a thing to the super premium season pass that you have. That's an extra ten dollars a month if you want to be caught up. So, like, I don't know. I don't know. It's a slippery slope and I'm not a huge fan of it. And I hope I hope things change. I do. I've been playing a lot more Hearthstone recently, but that has. Brought me into a whole world of controversy as Blizzard continues to make bad decisions with that, which is a shame. Recently, I picked up Mystic Mayhem, which is another Marvel game, and it's, you know, it's kind of fun, but it's not a card game. It's like a, you know, your typical auto-battler sort of thing, and it's a good time waster, but I'm just feeling kind of lost, man. I don't know. Like, do I go back to magic? Do I just throw in the towel and say, you know what? That game had it right. Let's do that. I don't know. I don't know where I'm at. It really feels like I'm hitting a wall here. I'm still playing Snap, by the way. This is me just sort of venting at the end here. But I'm so frustrated that this has to be the way that it is. I really hope that they turn this around and make this into the kind of game that I want it to be. But in the meantime, this is what we have. So if you... If you have bought the Super Premium Season Pass, I hope that you enjoy the new card. It seems really powerful. We'll have to see if they'll end up changing it or if this is just the way things are going to be. That is everything that I have to talk about this week. I'm sorry for the late episode. Super busy this weekend with everything going on. I had to do a lot of driving, but I'm happy to say that I'm back in it. and you can expect some more content from me soon. So thank you for listening if you decided to listen and don't forget to check me out on my socials. I am on Blue Sky pretty frequently and you can catch me in the Snap Judges and Bleed Discord. If you're not aware, there's a way to chat with me directly in the Infinite channel. There is a directory when you get in there to help you figure that out. So definitely check it out. And if there's one thing that you can remember, it's that I'm Infinite. Thanks for listening.
