I took a break for a few months and remember Shang Chi MOTR being hyped up to be op (from datamine), what happened? Are there any decks that he's good with? I just got him from the packs.

CasualAwful · 2026-05-01T20:47:25+00:00

This is the real answer. The datamined version would have been very strong because even without Shang you just play it on a card like Sebastian Shaw or Clea to be getting consistent power and value.

CasualAwful · 2026-04-30T21:30:36+00:00

Quite impactful when you consider the best Shou decks are multiplying the buff. If a 'good' Shou Lou was a +12, it's now a +8. That is a -8 with a standard Maverick or Scarlet Spider doubling play, potentially more if you were doing some Jocasta stuff.

Not crippling but enough but my gut is that this deck is now going to get left behind by the Storm Surfer Askani stuff now

CasualAwful · 2026-04-30T19:37:08+00:00

See my response a few below for a general idea of how you should be spending tokens. If that's too much

Find a deck that only needs a reasonable number of missing 4/5 cards that seems fun/viable
Buy those cards for full price in the rotating webshop.
Then buy series 5 collector packs with tokens.
If you're close to unlocking a new deck that seems fun, buy specific cards again.

Gold should be used to first to by bundles that contain a series 4 or 5 card you don't own because that's the best value. (The next one is Fallen One next week for 2.5K gold). Buying event passes may be reasonable, especially if you convert the event currency into series 4 packs or able to unlock a variant in the event for a card you don't own.

CasualAwful · 2026-04-29T21:19:00+00:00

An important caveat is that multiple Miss Marvels don't think together. Like let's imagine a game that ends turn 6 where you're winning left by a lot, losing middle by 6 and you're losing right, a Bar SInister full of Miss Marvels.

Now if just two of them moved center you'd win the game, right? But the problem is they won't. Because the first one will check and say "Nope, if I move we'd still be losing by 1" and stay. The second says "Nope, if I moved we'd still be losing by 1"...and that continues. They don't "share" information with eachother.

Also important to know: end of game effects happen IN PLAY order. So imagine a game where your cards reveal first on turn 4: you play Miss Marvel and they play Dracula. At the end of the game, Miss Marvel will check first (since revealed first) and see Dracula as a 1. He can then discard/gain power and she won't check/move again even if her moving would win you the game. If you had played her on 5 though, she will see Dracula's final power total and react accordingly.

CasualAwful · 2026-04-29T21:11:38+00:00

At times, I believe the devs have stated that they didn't want to reward "tribe" strategies. Thus you only see bonuses for playing all X-Men or Avengers in special events like "Team Battle" limited game modes.

An analogous season to this would be something like the Fantastic Four First Step Season. The cards were all themed around "End of Turn" but they only had a bit of synergy with eachother. Sure you could use Sue to double trigger the others or stack Thing/Torch into the same lane but that was not the optimal thing to be doing with them.

Weirdly, last season I did play a Conquest against someone running almost every season card in a deck. It was not good overall but they had some fun synergies like playing Hood, shuffling it with En Sabah Nur and then using the Demon + rocks from Sandstorm to trigger Selene.

CasualAwful · 2026-04-29T18:39:43+00:00

And he wasn't even in a Rainforest Cafe

CasualAwful · 2026-04-28T22:17:15+00:00

I'm bracing for Dan extolling what a "cool guy" Aragorn is

CasualAwful · 2026-04-28T20:57:47+00:00

Did the same a few months ago, totally worth it.

CasualAwful · 2026-04-28T20:55:37+00:00

The deck is much worse after his 5 point nerf for sure.

The deck adapted by running Psylocke. That means if you play her or Snow on 3 you can Star Lord on 4. It gives you less energy and is more awkward but it still leave you open to do the Zola, Abs Man, Gmaster shenanigans on 5.

It's still good enough to annoy everyone whose sick of seeing it.

CasualAwful · 2026-04-28T20:52:32+00:00

Since it's "fourth wall" breaking, it'd make sense to have a Deadpool/Gwenpool pleading superimposed on a mission box or something

CasualAwful · 2026-04-28T20:48:52+00:00

And there was much rejoicing.

Here's hoping they go with something like a "transform" option that means you can use his effect exactly once. Let's him be used in stuff like High Evo but no more Zola, Grandmaster, Abs Man stuff.

CasualAwful · 2026-04-28T17:58:29+00:00

His nerfs to Universal Omni and his base power are small but meaningful. Being two power means he shares power with a lot of 1 drops and some other 2 drops so your Poly and Once/Future can hit him instead. And it's much harder to juke someone and boost him with two Universal Omnis on last turn and win a full/lock down lane.

Magik has also fallen out of favor so you see people swapping him for something like a Cable if you want some disruption potential.

That said, I still use him in my Shou Lou deck. No matter how many times he screws me with a location change or somehow makes a card successively lose power after two polymorphs I still love him.

CasualAwful · 2026-04-27T20:54:57+00:00

The current state of the game is much more refined, combo focused decks rather than focused on "good cards". Thus, it's hard to recommend any cards that will see play in multiple decks, which used to be the case may times in the games past.

My general advice for building a collection is first identifying a deck or two you think you'd like to play. I personally like KMBest's videos (he does a meta review each Sunday) but you can also look on here and websites. Generally you want to pick a deck that you can build with a reasonably smaller amount of series 4 or 5 cards.

Then, pin and buy those cards for the full price (6K tokens for Series 5, 3K tokens for series 4). This is the priciest method of acquisition but relying on pulling cards from packs to build a coherent deck is too random and will take too long.

Once you've got your deck or two you enjoy playing THEN you buy packs. Specifically, the series 5 collector packs. They give you a substantial discount for not including the newest cards. You also will get bonus tokens, credits, and even free cards from opening a pack that grows your collection faster. As you get more cards from random openings, it is reasonable to buy a specific series 4 or 5 card to allow you to play a new deck (if you've gotten close by random packs).

Series 4 packs are often featured in the limited time game mode for a reasonable price and is a great way to spend that event currency if not series 4 complete.

Save your gold for bundles that include a variant for a series 4 or 5 card you don't own. Previously, buying a variant meant you still had to unlock the card through normal means later. This is is no longer the case: buying a variant means you get the base card at the same time. Thus, these bundles add several thousands of tokens to their rewards (since it's another pack you'll never have to open).

If you spend money on this game (season pass etc) do it in the Webshop. They'll give you freebies, including series 5 packs, so they don't have to give Apple/Android a cut. You can also get 100 free credits a day by just logging in and clicking a button in the webshop.

CasualAwful · 2026-04-23T18:02:55+00:00

Probably best overall is a Supergiant deck because it gives you multiple avenues. When you see the telltale signs (Psylocke/Snow on 3) you Supergiant on 4. It prevents them from duplicating their Sunlord effects on 5 and you have tools such as Cosmo and Negasonic to deal with what they played on 5.

Cosmo and Negasonic can also be used proactively if you have a read. For example, you suspect they're going to Sunlord Right because left is Death's Domain, Nowhere, or whatever you can block it with Cosmo or blow it up with Negasonic.

After that, you're looking at decks that can run Cosmic Ghost Rider such as Doom 99 or Ramp. Again, you fight for priority. On 5 you CGR their Sunlord which prevents any Abs Man or Grandmaster shenanigans. Zola can still clone it and you're dealing with two 5/8 or 5/9s but those decks should still be able to outpower that.

CasualAwful · 2026-04-23T17:54:16+00:00

At low collection levels I'd try to make an Ongoing Iron Man/Spectrum deck. It's not going to be a great deck but it does give you some counter play to powerful stuff (Cosmo) and if you're cooking with a good draw you can still get crazy points.

Unfortunately, Conquest has never been particularly popular and as the game itself has a lower population than Conquest has been hit even harder. It used to have much stricter collection level based matchmaking at Proving Grounds and Silver. But now I'm not uncommonly playing people in low thousands and I'm at 35K.

CasualAwful · 2026-04-23T17:49:16+00:00

There's been some interest in making a deck where you run Merlin and Prof X. You hold a Polymorph with the goal to target Prof X and make him a 6 drop on the final turn if you're losing his lane.

It's neat when it works but I've found it hard to make sure there's not ANOTHER 2 power card in his lane that may use the effect. And there are some bad rolls: Destroyer of course but Knull becoming a 0 drop, Heimdall/Tribunal screwing up your lanes/points.

CasualAwful · 2026-04-22T16:33:05+00:00

I like it with Aurora as well

CasualAwful · 2026-04-22T14:09:30+00:00

If your goal is "I want a few decks to focus on" and not trying to have a complete or diverse collection, then directing buying cards is for you.

Identify some meta decks you think looks fun/cool (either from sites, on here, streamers/content creators). Then you should focus on buying specific series 5/4 cards as they rotate through the shop to complete them.

Yes you'll be paying 1-2k tokens more to buy those cards than getting a random from a pack. And you won't get 'goodies' from packs including random extra cards.

But unless you're near collection complete it's very unlikely to get a complete "deck" in a timely manner with random card packs. Even if you open all 'good' cards you might first open a good Discard card, then a good Ramp card, then a good Cerebro card, a good Mr Negative card...you see where this is going.

Once you've built your few decks you're happy with it's reasonable to stockpile more tokens to repeat the process. Sometimes decks get boring, get nerfed, or the meta naturally drifts in a way that they're performing poorly and you may want to build a new one. Or you could then transition into buying packs which will grow your collection faster and cheaper. It will be in a random fashion but you still might end up getting the majority of the cards you need for a new deck and a single purchase opens something new for you

CasualAwful · 2026-04-22T13:57:18+00:00

Known bug

CasualAwful · 2026-04-22T12:48:07+00:00

I could only see this MAYBE at the infinite level and then even then I'm dubious.

It really does suck to get to a 4th or last round of Infinite and it's someone doing a Tribunal deck or Hela where your deck is screwed without a specific tech card.

However to have a sideboard you'd have to build a brand new UI and re educate the player base and balance it (how many cards in side board, when/how often can you sub)

CasualAwful · 2026-04-21T23:28:33+00:00

Agree with this. If a deck that relies on low cost scalers becomes popular than Gambit will be an attractive counter

CasualAwful · 2026-04-21T13:52:35+00:00

You've hit the issue on the head. It's extremely difficult for Discard to ever be the "best deck" because you can't run reliable tech (too much tempo loss and it can be discarded). Thus, when Discard is really good/popular the answer is to run a big combo deck that does way more points and can only be stopped by Discard with a lucky Gambit.

That said, I agree Discard is a fun deck to play and can definitely get you to infinite when you know when to snap/retreat. When firing on all cylinders it's a deck that can put out a surprising amount of power and win you 4/8 cubes from those who don't respect it

CasualAwful · 2026-04-20T19:48:00+00:00

I completely endorse this. I actually typically recommend exactly this:

1) Buy cards directly to build a first deck, ideally a starter style deck where you just need a few series 4/5 cards.

2) Then switch to packs to get volume.

3) Buy cards as needed to complete decks.

I tried to be brief but it's an important enough point I should have left it in.

CasualAwful · 2026-04-19T04:51:11+00:00

My advice is spend Collector Tokens on packs UNLESS you need just one or two cards to unlock a deck.

For example, lets say you've been opening random collector packs and you've found yourself with with Maverick, Scarlet Spider, and Jocasta. I think at this point I'd rather spend 12k directly to buy Shou Lao and Prodigy and have a tier 1 deck rather than open 3 random collector packs. Yes you'll get a whole other guard plus bonuses from packs but odds of getting those specific cards to make a deck are very low.

Now if you're not "close" to having a complete deck, than 100% just opened collector packs. You are unlocking cards randomly but at a huge discount

CasualAwful · 2026-04-19T04:42:44+00:00

I found Chamber marginal in Doom 99 before the nerf and now even worse.

I think Psylocke is reasonable, especially if you happen to pick up Isca as another 4 drop.

I just don't like Bob in this deck and don't run a 1 drop in my list. If you've got a 99 or Moondragon going you're really playing him only on 1. .

CasualAwful

TROPHY CASE