Marvel Snap: Cull Obsidian Best Decks and Synergies

Cull Obsidian Effect

You can only play this where you have a 1-Cost card.

Note: You can play Cull Obsidian on the same turn you play a 1-Cost card in the same location. The 1-cost card does not already have to be there.

Cull Obsidian Analysis

Off the bat, we can see that Cull Obsidian has a clear synergy with Thanos decks. All of the Infinity Stones are 1-Cost, making Cull Obsidian basically a free 4/10. By comparison Attuma is also a 4/10, but with a more restrictive downside.

Being at 10 Power does make Cull vulnerable to Shang-Chi, but that goes for other cards like Sentry as well. If he had any more Power, he would be too good, and if he had 9 Power, he likely would be very strong as well.

Overall, a 4/10 is just very strong. If you’re playing a deck like Thanos Lockjaw, you’re able to have a very strong turn 5, playing a Stone into Lockjaw and Cull in another location.

Cards that Synergize with Cull Obsidian

Technically, any deck that plays 1-Cost cards could play Cull Obsidian. Even a deck like Bounce does run a lot of 1-Cost cards like Nico Minoru, Spider-Ham, etc. For this section, I’ll be going more over archetypes that can fit Cull Obsidian.

Thanos

At the start of the game, shuffle the six Infinity Stones into your deck.

As previously mentioned, Thanos is the clear card to pair with Cull Obsidian. I already touched on Lockjaw variations and how Cull can be strong in those decks.

However, it’s unclear whether Cull Obsidian is a straight upgrade for the deck. The deck already runs strong 5-Cost cards like Vision and Devil Dinosaur. Cull Obsidian fulfills a similar role by being a high Power card that you can play before turn 6.

Cull does also synergize with Skaar, but a card like Vision synergizes better with Lockjaw. Cull Obsidian likely isn’t a downgrade for the deck, but if he’s not clearly an upgrade, it may be tough to open valuable Spotlight Caches for him.

Outside of Lockjaw Thanos, Cull can also be a strong option for other Thanos decks. Thanos Ongoing/Zoo could make use of a high Power card, but Cull doesn’t have an Ongoing effect unfortunately.

Even still, with more ways to put Power on the board, Cull does open up potential for other Thanos archetypes to improve, not needing to rely on Lockjaw to push high Power.

Zoo

Ongoing: Your 1-Cost cards have +1 Power.

Zoo is an archetype that exists, but doesn’t see too much play. There unfortunately just isn’t enough Power in the 1-Cost cards to justify running a majority of them as your deck.

Cull Obsidian is interesting because he provides another way for 1-Cost heavy decks to get a lot of Power on the board. Ka-Zar can often provide 10 or even more Power depending on how the game goes, but having another 4-Energy option can be strong for a Zoo deck.

Zabu

Ongoing: Your 4-Cost cards cost 1 less. (minimum 1)

Another card worth mentioning is Zabu. Since Cull is a 4-Cost card, there is definite synergy with Zabu. At his core, Cull Obsidian is simply a card that puts efficient Power on the board, similar to Ms. Marvel.

There are limitations as to where he can be played, but it’s not major enough that it’s deck warping. Because of this, Cull Obsidian can potentially find a place in Zabu decks or just “midrange” decks in general.

As long as the deck is running maybe 2 or 3 1-costs, Cull can definitely fit.

Cull Obsidian Decks

For this section, I’ll be mainly going over some decks that synergize with Cull Obsidian.

Keep in mind that these decks are all first impressions, so things can definitely change rapidly. As new discoveries are made, I will be updating our Full Tier List, rather than update this article.

Be sure to check it out to see what the best decks are.

Cull Obsidian Thanos Deck

This first deck is the easiest deck to slot Cull Obsidian into. For this list, we replaced Leech with Cull Obsidian. Leech is a very powerful card that enables you to win a lot of games, but for this list, Cull provides just more Power.

You can also try something like replacing Devil Dinosaur, Vision, Jeff, or Wave for Cull as well to keep Leech.

The deck will likely perform quite well as it’s a majority of the current Thanos lists that are already doing well.

Cull Obsidian Zoo Deck

Up next, we have my first take on a potential Zoo deck that runs Cull Obsidian. There are plenty of 1-Cost cards, meaning Cull will basically be available in any lane. Shanna is also there to fill up more locations and summon more 1-Cost cards.

Dazzler can easily become a 2/6 by filling two locations, and 2/8 can also be very likely with both Squirrel Girl and Shanna filling up locations.

Ka-Zar and Blue Marvel provide some extra Power onto the board, and Quake is a tech card to help win some games by surprise. You can definitely experiment by dropping some cards like Nico Minoru or Quake for other tech cards like Shang-Chi or Legion.

Cull Obsidian Zabu Deck

Lastly, we have a take on the Zabu archetype with Cull Obsidian. With Cull, we can opt to drop the Darkhawk package in favor of other cards like Echo, Snowguard, and Quake.

Sera and Zabu are already a very strong combination, and Legion provides some extra surprise as well.

I’m fairly confident that a deck like this can be good for similar reasons to Thanos. Sera tech decks are already in a great spot this meta, and Cull simply provides another engine to run. You can also experiment a lot with this list, adding or removing things based on what you have or what you want to counter.

Cull Obsidian Counters

Here are some quick counters to Cull Obsidian:

• Shang-Chi
  • As mentioned, Shang-Chi will be able to Destroy Cull Obsidian very efficiently, but it’s not the end of the world if he’s the only 10+ Power card in the location.
• Killmonger
  • A timely Killmonger can be very tough as it can make Cull Obsidian impossible to play. Even if you can play another 1-Cost card, it might ruin your curve and force you into suboptimal turns.
• Elektra
  • Lastly, a funny counter is Elektra. Elektra was recently buffed, and she can have the same effect as Killmonger. Destroying an enemy 1-cost right before they planned to play Cull can be a niche, but funny counter.

Should You Buy Cull Obsidian?

Overall, I would rate Cull Obsidian a 7/10.

I find it quite difficult to imagine a world where Cull Obsidian is a bad card. A 4/10 that has an easy condition to fulfill simply sounds good. However, he may not always make the cut in decks over other cards.

Even still, he does have a few archetypes he can fit into, making him a semi-flexible card. He’s not an archetype defining card, but he’s a solid role player for a couple decks.

Furthermore, being in the same Spotlight Cache is quite valuable if you don’t already have Thanos. If you already have Thanos or don’t enjoy Thanos decks, Cull Obsidian is likely a safe skip. There is the possibility that Cull becomes part of the best “midrange” deck with Zabu and/or Sera, so keep that in mind as well.

Hope this guide helped you out a bit, good luck in your games, and snap away!

Be sure to check out our Tier Lists for our current rankings on Marvel Snap decks and cards.

• Best Decks Tier List
• Series 4/5 Tier List
• Upcoming Spotlight Cache Review

Good luck in your games, and thanks for reading!