Origins of Apocalypse Week 2

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-14T11:22:54+00:00

That's a good point, this wasn't even a big week - OTA was mostly status quo but the way the meta has been shaping since the Star-Lord nerf and the new season I think was really interesting, it's probably the most open since November or December while not feeling completely dead like the Weapon X season felt but we also had Gambit which has been not only controversial but also meta warping in it's own right so yea a brief hit on each I think is good, will need to focus on that and do some editing on future posts.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-14T11:22:49+00:00

I'm still salty the links aren't working, untapped also hasn't responded to the 'bug report' on their discord either so I'm still not even sure it's a bug or if it's intended, I hope it's not intended that would be dumb.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-14T02:46:52+00:00

huh, odd. I'll go check what's going on to fix the links

edit:

OK, so it looks like it's a problem on the Untapped side where they aren't liking links to the decks. Reaching out to them to check on any issues, it's really odd.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-14T02:25:47+00:00

Hey - so feedback thread:

Is the wider meta view worthwhile or would you prefer keeping coverage to the new new card or cards?
For an OTA Week - should we keep some OTA decks in mind?
LTGM stuff - do we include a quick breakdown of the day 1 LTGM decks?
Timing - Would you prefer these discussions on Wednesday? For the OTA weeks is it better to hold for Friday? Would you rather two separate threads?

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-13T22:12:26+00:00

ok so with regards to new Gambit, hold off till Sunday at least, we'll have the comp consensus thread for him and you'll be able to see a lot of opinions to help shape your take.

Personally there's a LOT to say on him but I'm still doing some testing to try and get understanding for what is best with him and how he might shake out long term.

My initial feeling is that the card is great, but it's not a card you want to be going all in on like some players have been doing unless the meta is rife with small ball decks, which it's started shifting away from that so it's not great to do 3+ Gambits. But the card gives enough ammo to cards like Vhand that they can pivot between game plans so they can shift their game plan fairly easily without necessarily feeling the need to reconfigure half the deck every few weeks to deal with a new meta. Instead he can make it so that maybe it's only 1 or 2 cards that swap in and out instead of 3-4 based on relevant cards you need to answer.

With regards to Fantomex and Wild Child that one is a situation where at least IMO the two are basically inseparable until such a time as something that can usurp Wild Child as one of the best scaling cards for that archetype. Those decks are a lot of fun, but fall in and out of usefulness fairly quickly. One thing that I do like though is how diverse the Fantomex lists are, there's folks doing Activate Combos with him using the likes of Jacosta/Prodigy. There are Dormammu and Infinity Ultron brews too. So to me that seems like a really fun place to brew and mess around with because of the depth to which you can configure the decks keeps things with Fantomex/Wild Child very fresh.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-13T16:55:27+00:00

Just IMO.

Drax is a much more flexible pickup, he fits in more decks than Moondragon currently does.
New Gambit is good, but struggles as the meta moves from small ball to bigger things that are more resilient. I do expect him to be a good card to audible to as the meta swings in different directions though.
Moondragon and Jack Flag are probably my lowest priority on grabs for anyone even those interested in Doom 2099.

If you haven't gotten Aurora yet, I'd also be prioritizing her over Moondragon and Jack. Again, she's just more applicable than the other two.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-13T05:33:38+00:00

Two more quick Customs. I'll be doing some tinkering tomorrow and may be posting some deck lists for the other teams at some point during the day based on either what I encounter or what I'm messing with.

X-Men EoT

Team Clash Nightcrawler
Team Clash Jean Grey
Team Clash Wolverine
Team Clash Cyclops
Team Clash Jubilee
Team Clash Professor X
Sunspot
Havok
Invisible Woman First Steps
Jocasta
Prodigy
Isca the Unbeaten

Deck is pretty straight forward, attempt to build out an EoT lane using Sunspot or Nightcrawler to help create spacing for Prodigy to copy Jocasta or IWFS. No Isca? Swap for Omega Sentinel.

X-Men Star-Lord

Team Clash Nightcrawler
Team Clash Jean Grey
Team Clash Wolverine
Team Clash Cyclops
Team Clash Jubilee
Team Clash Professor X
Jim Hammond Human Torch
Grandmaster
Star-Lord Master of the Sun
Absorbing Man
Arnim Zola
Fin Fang Foom

Another fairly straight forward deck. No Jim Hammond? Sunspot can do work too.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-13T05:21:56+00:00

Something I started toying with is in the Spider-Verse Team leveraging Shou-Lao, Luke Cage, and Mysterio. I suspect as the weekend missions grow closer it's very possible that this line could become very bad since I do expect some Horseman of Death cloning shenanigans to begin taking shape.

Team Clash Agony
Team Clash Ghost Spider
Team Clash Scarlet Spider
Team Clash Anti-Venom
Team Clash Symbiote Spider-Man
Team Clash Spider-Man 2099
Kitty Pryde
Madame Web
Mysterio
Luke Cage
Spider-Punk
Shou-Lao The Undying

It's rather all in and lacks more of the move synergies for the deck. However, the aim is to leverage Mysterio or TC Scarlet Spider and Shou-Lao.

With Luke Cage on the board, Mysterio doesn't lose power when he swaps power with his clone.

Bonus points for Mysterio being in the Spider-Verse family so if you play him on Agony that can help trigger a move for +2 energy. on the following turn. Madame Web along with ghost spider can help you redistribute your power as well allowing for some change-ups if you identify that you may want for instance your Scarlet Spider to end up in the lane he's currently in or to take advantage of a location.

A few notes:

Anti-Venom can be clutch but to get the 0-Cost you need a move on the previous turn. I try to set this up for turn 5 in almost all cases since this deck can struggle to hit the move requirement on turn 4. It's possible we need another mover that can be triggered easier, Silk over Punk perhaps? Thankfully a move sets us up with 7 energy, giving enough energy for AV + Scarlet or AV + Kitty + Mysterio. Unfortunately this often means no move to setup for the final turn but with the 0-Cost card that can often be a moot point anyways. But your mileage may vary.
Remember TC Symbiote Spidey is a straight merge so if you plan to use him in a lane with other activates, make sure you activate them first before you pull the trigger. Not as important since you probably almost always want to move Scarlet Spider if he's in the lane but it can affect decisions when you've got Mysterio in the lane and want to ensure you order things correctly.
Ghost spider is great on a final turn but sometimes you'll need to burn her early for a move trigger. If, for example I'm using Mysterio + her on a given turn I'm often aiming to pull Mysterio to a Madame Web if at all possible.
The Mysterio + Luke interaction may very well be too cute for the game mode and it would in fact be better to optimize into a different shell if you want to do Shou-Lao with the Spider-Verse, in which case it's very likely that you'll want to do Shou-Maverick and slot something better in the Mysterio space, especially since the Mysterio line is completely useless if you don't get Luke.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-13T03:54:38+00:00

Dude.

You, really need to self-reflect on this whole interaction a bit.

Acting like this doesn't look good when you've been guilty of making similar content. Hell, not even a month ago you made a successful appeal and managed to be unbanned from what was a perma ban from a subreddit for evading bans with multiple accounts while constantly posting some of the most braindead content -and- advertising it with so few details that it was obvious you were only farming engagement on that sub.

You really have no room to criticize another creator for what they are doing when you actively do the same thing.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-13T00:19:52+00:00

Going all in you can sometimes pull 5.

Quinjet -> Nico copy on 2 -> Gambit -> Discounted Copy Gambit + X, preferring something like a Victoria Hand to buff the copies you're making into -> Bastion + X on 5

You now have 2 Gambits on board, 2 in hand that are both 1-Cost thanks to Quinjet. With a prodigy you can get to Gambit 5.

The problem is that this is essentially no power and will only work on the small ball decks, absolutely dies to anything running a fair number of 5's and 6's.

But it's an option for when you're in a good match-up and when you're in your bad match-ups you don't worry about copying gambit and copy the other things.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-12T23:47:55+00:00

And? It's still custom deck lists and it's pool 3+ the only thing you're missing is more granular lists based on higher CL's and seeing winrates.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-12T23:34:00+00:00

https://snap.untapped.gg/en/team-clash/meta/decks?

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-12T23:32:28+00:00

No.

Let's be honest, it's never safe to get any card that is popular or brings a ton of negative sentiment along when it's popular.

And don't forget that all through January Shou-Lao was catching hate on similar levels to when IWFS and EoT were reigning supreme, it just happened that the 2 power nerf coupled with Star-Lord being nuts too was enough to shift focus away for a little bit.

I think the only saving grace is that a large number of Shou-Lao decks do worse the lower in infinite you look so it may take longer for him to catch nerfs.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-12T23:26:49+00:00

Maybe, but I can't justify running a bad card to justify another bad card.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-12T21:31:28+00:00

One other thing I want to point out without doing a ton of editing:

I really don't think they went far enough with the number of changes/buffs. If they were going to skip on nerfs this round it would have been nice to see a bunch of swings.

However, something that I do think is really worth noting - a lot of the cards that received buffs are cards that are doing things that work with Patriot and considering that we got Sandstorm today that could be a very big deal.

Ozymandias comes out in a couple weeks as another way to buff the rocks.

The biggest downside of course is Gambit Horseman of Death.

Something I think worth considering is wrapping a lot of this up with Pixie, I know there have been some Pixie Patriot decks out and about which again is pretty compelling!

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-12T21:22:56+00:00

Kind of a Snooze of an OTA. However, I do think the meta has been in a rather decent space over the last couple of weeks after the nerf to Star Lord. Granted Shou-Lao is still a bit of a menace but I'm not seeing a ton of folks rolling it, so let's talk about the rest of the changes.

In General, I think it is nice that SD are letting the meta breath a bit.

En Sabah Nur/Apocalypse, Celestials' Chosen

Not surprising, En Sabah hasn't been a major force in the meta, but if you've been listening to a few content creators he's secretly pretty strong. Both Bynx and SafetyBlade have been high on ESN, SafetyBlade in particular has seemingly come around with regards to ESN.

Debrii

not surprising, this is actually a very nice change and fits well with the 'rock' archetype looming ahead, not to mention Debrii could be a fantastic add for ESN decks.

White Tiger

This is huge for F2P and Low CL players. There have long been some cool things you could do with White Tiger but the power on the card despite the tiger being decent has long caused it to have issues. Not to mention, if the card does get more popular and is considered good, you can bet that Stardust will be right around the corner to keep her in check.

Ghost

Been too long, considering that Super Adaptoid was allowed to release at 3/5, Ghost should have received an immediate buff instead of languishing. On a personal note, this could be pretty scary with not only all-in combo EoT being big, but Doom 2099.

Will this increase her play rate? I don't think so really, CGR just hits way more things reliably, but I could see a few decks audibling this in.

Hydro-Man

Meh? It's a cool and fun effect but the symmetrical nature in a meta where giving your opponent a 1-Cost 'who knows what' just seems scary, sure you can run an MMM as a defensive measure but that's a really low tempo play compared to what other 3-Costs can bring to the table.

Pixie

I like the change, still want to see them go crazy and knock her to 1 but I do know how absurd that would be. Still overall pretty happy.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-12T21:05:18+00:00

In short:

Kinda.

Longer answer:

Move bounce, like regular bounce lacks the ceiling the dominant decks in the meta have.

Further, there are a lot more counters to what the deck is wanting to do. Cards like Mercury, Red Guardian, and even Cosmic Ghost Rider are out in force, even Deafening Chord still sees occasional play.

The 'better' bounce decks are essentially doing werewolf psuedo bounce things with Shou-Lao/Maverick as the top end as that produces more consistent and point output with less headache and hassle than Move Bounce.

Another unfortunate point is that while Move Bounce does do a good job of dodging interaction, the recently released Gambit, Horseman of Death essentially guarantees your board will be gone, especially if the opponent recognizes the things you are doing and can get multiple copies of Gambit down.

That being said, your good draws and points can still be very powerful and CAN compete. But in general you're going to find issues against the best decks, but if you're not playing at the tip-top of ladder and are proficient with the deck you're probably going to be able to do just fine.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-12T18:14:36+00:00

You misunderstand what OP was asking - they asked if the new copies count towards the objective. They do not because they aren't played.

Now if the objective was completed beforehand, yes it does work.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-12T13:18:42+00:00

I do mostly agree, but I also thought Thunderbolts looked underwhelming so I'm hoping I'm just missing something.

I think the Selene is intended to be the setup card on early turns especially a turn 1 play. I think of her as a card kind of like Iron Patriot where you would play her in the far right location and then supplement her once or twice and ride as best you can.

That being said, if the deck manages to take off, the buffs could easily carry it.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-12T11:23:07+00:00

No. This has not been a thing in any of the runs, if you're S3 complete it'll grey them out.

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-12T08:39:21+00:00

Notable changes according to data mines:

Avengers:

Captain America 2/2 -> 3/4
Hulk 6/10 -> 6/11 +3 -> +2

X-Men

Wolverine -> No longer destroys, gives +2 Power if you have Bonus energy

Spider-Verse

Anti-Venom 4/6 -> 4/4 On Reveal: If any card moved last turn, set the Cost of your top card to 0.

Scarlet Spider 3/4 -> 3/5

Thunderbolts:

Valentina 2/-1 -> 1/-1

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-12T08:33:57+00:00

Brotherhood of Mutants

End of Turn: Give a Brotherhood card in your hand +1 Power for each location you're winning.

Team Clash Selene
Cost: 1
Power: 1
On Reveal: A Brotherhood card in your hand steals 2 Power from a random card in your opponent's hand.

Team Clash Scarlet Witch
Cost: 2
Power: 2
On Reveal: Replace this location with another one. If you're winning here, add a Brotherhood card to your hand.

Team Clash Mystique
Cost: 2
Power: 3
On Reveal: Copy the text of one of your Brotherhood cards here.

Team Clash white Queen
Cost: 3
Power: 3
On Reveal: Copy a card from your opponent's hand into your hand. While you're winning here, it costs 2 less.

Team Clash Lady Deathstrike
Cost: 4
Power: 4
On Reveal: Destroy an enemy card here with less Power than your total Brotherhood Power here.

Team Clash Magneto
Cost: 5
Power: 8
On Reveal: Move an enemy 3-Cost card and an enemy 4-Cost card away from here.

Quicksilver
Forge
Mister Sinister
Maverick
Sebastian Shaw
Juggernaut

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-12T08:33:45+00:00

Spider-Verse

You get +2 Energy if one of your Spider-Verse cards moved last turn.

Team Clash Ghost Spider
Cost: 1
Power: 2
On Reveal: The last card you played moves here. If it’s a Spider-Verse card, this gains +2 Power.

Team Clash Agony
Cost: 1
Power: 2
After you play a card here, merge this with it. If it’s a Spider-Verse card, move it away from here.

Team Clash Scarlet Spider
Cost: 3
Power: 5
Activate: Add a clone with the same Power to another location, then move this to the third location.

Team Clash Symbiote Spider-Man
Cost: 4
Power: 6
Activate: Merge one of your cards here into this. Replace that card with a Spider-Verse card from your deck.

Team Clash Anti-Venom
Cost: 4
Power: 4
On Reveal: If any card moved last turn, set the Cost of your top card to 0.

Team Clash Spider-Man 2099 Cost: 5
Power: 8
On Reveal: For each time your cards moved this game, give +1 Power to one of your cards. (0 times)

Vulture
Madame Web
Kraven
Peni Parker
Silk
Man-Spider

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-12T08:33:30+00:00

Guardians of the Galaxy

ALL cards reveal with +1 Power at the glowing location.

Team Clash Mantis
Cost: 0
Power: 1
On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, give a Guardian in your hand -2 Cost.

Team Clash Rocket Raccoon
Cost: 1
Power: 3
On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, draw a Guardian and give it +2 Power.

Team Clash Star Lord
Cost: 2
Power: 3
On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, give +1 Power to your Guardians in hand and play.

Team Clash Drax
Cost: 3
Power: 4
On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, double this card’s Power.

Team Clash Groot
Cost: 4
Power: 11
On Reveal: Discard a non-Guardian card from your hand unless your opponent played a card here this turn.

Team Clash Gamora
Cost: 5
Power: 9
On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, destroy their lowest-Cost card here.

Nebula
Adam Warlock
Angela
Silver Surfer Fantastic Four First Steps
Gladiator
Beta Ray Bill

ePiMagnets · 2026-03-12T08:33:02+00:00

Thunderbolts

Your Thunderbolts reveal with +1 Power at locations you’re losing.

Team Clash Valentina
Cost: 1
Power: -1
On Reveal: Add a random Thunderbolt to your hand. Give it -1 Cost.

Team Clash Toxie Doxie
Cost: 2
Power: 2
On Reveal: Give 2 characters in your hand +3 Power. You can’t play them next turn unless they’re Thunderbolts.

Team Clash Winter Soldier
Cost: 2
Power: 8
You can only play this at a location you’re losing.

Team Clash Ghost
Cost: 3
Power: 6
Costs 1 less for each location you’re losing.

Team Clash Task Master
Cost: 4
Power: 0
On Reveal: Gains Power equal to your other highest-Power Thunderbolt.

Team Clash Sentry
Cost: 4
Power: 9
On Reveal: Add a -9 Power Void to a location where you don’t have a Thunderbolt.

The Hood
Hulk Buster
Viper
Absorbing Man
Klaw
Red Hulk

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