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Marvel Snap’s newest season pass, Savage Land, brings us a new card: Zabu. Zabu is a 3-Cost card with 2-Power and has a powerful Ongoing effect that reduces the cost of 4-Cost cards in hand by 2.
This essentially allows, on turn six for example, to play up to three 4-Cost cards with Zabu on the board due to their reduced cost from its continuous effect. This Ongoing effect can also be multiplied with Onslaught, Mystique, or Onslaught’s Citadel location. The only downside of this reduction is the 4-Cost cards are capped to costing at least one energy. They will never reach 0-Cost territory through Zabu’s usage specifically.
Season Pass cards are always especially powerful, since they, like Zabu, can only be unlocked for the time being by purchasing the roughly $15 Premium Pass. This guide will cover a few of the best Zabu-based decks, and even if you are not the type of player to purchase Marvel Snap’s season passes, these decks will still be worth checking out in the future when you do obtain the inevitable Zabu due to the game’s card rollout system.
Negating Negatives
Negating Negatives is all about playing powerful cards that do have major deterrents such as allowing your opponent to draw cards, decrease your board’s power, or destroy your own cards, but negating these downsides to only have the upsides.
Maximus, Typhoid Mary, Red Skull, and Attuma are powerful cards for their costs, but they provide major downsides. By using Zero’s On Reveal effect that removes the abilities of the next card you play, we can keep those cards such as Typhoid Mary or Attuma on the field without their effects activating. Zero will also negate Red Skull’s effect that grants each card on your opponent’s field at the same location +2 Power each.
Armor is a great counter to decks that run Shang-Chi since we have many cards such as Typhoid Mary, Attuma, Red Skull, and She-Hulk that are susceptible or can be destroyed through Shang-Chi’s On Reveal effect to destroying cards with 9-Power or more.
Zabu will reduce the cost of Typhoid Mary, Shuri, and Attuma for this deck. Each of these will become 2-Cost cards instead. One tactic on turn four is to use Shuri’s effect which will double the power of the next card played. Then on that same turn four, play the Attuma that is powered up through Shuri’s effect on the location you have Armor on. You will have a 20-Power Attuma that will not be destroyed since it shares a location with Armor. After turn five, play Taskmaster right after Attuma, and since Taskmaster copies the power of the last card you played, Taskmaster will now be a 20-Power card, as well. Turn five, and you already have two 20-Power cards on your board with one of them protecting from destruction effects through Armor.
Cosmo is able to negate On Reveal effects from activating, so playing Maximus on Cosmo’s location will not allow your opponent to draw two extra cards, while you have a 3-Cost 7-Power without any downside. Cosmo is also a perfect counter to decks opponents use that rely on On Reveal effects such as Wong, Iron Heart, and Odin.
Make sure you do not accidentally use Shuri on your Cosmo location or that when you play Attuma or Typhoid Mary, play Zero beforehand or play Attuma at a location with Armor present.
We circumvent all of the negative aspects of these formidable cards by creating scenarios with zero downsides for us.
Faithful Flipper
Faithful Flipper hinges on the usage of Mister Negative. Mister Negative flips the cost and power of all cards in the deck. Many cards such as Bishop, Mystique, Ironheart, Rogue, Jubilee, and Wong are more potent with their high costs switched with their low power.
Silver Surfer, Mystique, and Ironheart all become 0-Cost cards through Mister Negative, while each has 3-Power due to the swap.
There are a few different routes for this deck. Ideally, you want to play Psylocke on turn two, then on turn three, you will have four energy, so you can play Mister Negative. Mister Negative swaps the cost of all cards in your deck. Wong will become a 2-Cost with 4-Power and you can play Jubilee and/or Ironheart on top of Wong’s location to trigger both of their On Reveal effects twice due to Wong’s double On Reveal effect.
Sera can be swapped out for White Tiger instead, then playing White Tiger on Wong’s location will create two 7-Power Tigers at other locations. If White Tiger’s stats have been swapped due to Mister Negative, White Tiger will be a devastating 1-Cost card with 5-Power.
The 4-Cost cards in this deck that are reduced by Zabu are Jubilee, Wong, and Mister Negative. If you manage to play Zabu on turn three, then on turn four you can play both Mister Negative alongside Jubilee to synergize. Have all of the cards cost/power swapped, then Jubilee will grab one of those swapped cards from your deck.
Other cards you can substitute are Bast, Patriot, and Iron Man by swapping out Psylocke, Rogue, and Sera. By including Patriot, you can boost the Broodlings from Brood, since they have no abilities. Brood, Patriot and the broodlings will all also be powered up through Silver Surfer’s On Reveal due to them being all 3-Cost cards/units.
Having a 0-Cost Iron Man with 5-Power due to Mister Negative can make your location soar. Even just having Iron Man solo at a location, would already be a 10-Power location with ease.
This deck can take many different paths due to the combination of Zabu with Mister Negative. A proficient, ferocious, downright deadly duo that complements each other super well that can aid you in climbing the Ranked Ladder.
Ruthless Rocks
Ruthless Rocks’ ace card is Darkhawk. Darkhawk’s effect is that it gains +2 power for each card in the opponent’s deck. By combining Korg and Rock Slide, they will stuff the opponent’s deck with extra cards–in this case, Rocks, which are 1-Cost cards with 0-Power. Essentially pretty useless, if your deck is not using Patriot to power them up.
The 4-Cost cards in this deck that are reduced by Zabu are Shuri, Moongirl, Darkhawk, Spider-Man, Rock Slide, Wong, and Absorbing Man. Plentiful 4-Cost cards will be reduced by Zabu. Adding in Mystique, then those 4-Cost cards will be reduced even further.
For example, on turn four with Zabu already on the field, we can place Wong and then play Rockslide on top of Wong’s location. That will throw four Rocks into the opponent’s deck. Korg placed on Wong’s location will throw in two more Rocks. The opponent will have added six Rocks in their deck just from Korg and Rock Slide, which would have Darkhawk at 13-Power without counting the non-Rock cards. Using Shuri before playing Darkhawk, we can get to more than 20-Power on Darkhawk.
Absorbing Man copies the last card you played, if it had an On Reveal effect. Spider-Man prevents your opponent from playing cards next turn at the same location it is played. Using Absorbing Man after playing Spider-Man will allow you to create two locations the opponent cannot play cards the next turn. Forcing your opponent to lose two locations either early on or late in the game due to Zabu reducing both Absorbing Man and Spider-Man’s card costs.
Since we already have so many 4-Cost cards already, America Chavez will always be drawn on turn six. America Chavez is a strong powerhouse, but more importantly–having America Chavez in the deck allows us more opportunities to draw into Zabu and our 4-Cost cards.
Hopefully, these deck lists and strategies have given you more insight into Zabu’s abilities alongside how to make its effect work in tandem with other cards such as Mystique, Mister Negative, Darkhawk, and Shuri.
Be sure to check out our excruciatingly detailed best Pool 1, Pool 2, and Pool 3 deck guides and/or our tips and tricks for beginners in Marvel Snap.
