How to Play Hope Summers
Welcome back to our weekly review where we’ll be covering Marvel Snap’s latest card, Hope Summers, along with the best decks and synergies. I’ll be covering new deck ideas in this article, but to stay up to date, check out our Full Tier List to see any new meta changes.
Hope Summers is the new Season Pass card for March, and from the looks of things, she might be the most impactful Season Pass card since Loki.
She allows you to cheat Energy, allowing you to do a large variety of crazy things. You can play 5/6-cost cards early, play more cards, etc. With Lockjaw receiving a big nerf recently, Hope Summer will likely take his spot in a variety of big Power card decks.
Let’s get right into the guide.
Hope Summers Effect
After you play a card here, you get +1 Energy next turn.
Hope Summers Analysis
To start things off, Hope Summer has a stat line of 3/4, which is honestly not bad. Outside of premium statted cards with downside like Gladiator (3/8) or Sword Master (3/7), we only really see 3-costs go up to 5 Power (Polaris/Spider-Man).
So all things considered, 3/4 isn’t a bad stat line, however, the main attraction is her ability. With Hope Summers, you can get +1 Energy with a very low cost.
Assuming you just play her on turn 3, and another card on turn 4, you can then go 6-cost into 6-cost or 6-cost into 6+1.
There’s a lot of powerful things you can do when you’re able to play an early 6-cost, and that’s a big reason why Thanos has always been a good deck.
While Lockjaw helped you cheat out stats for almost free, Hope Summers looks to be a more tame but controllable version.
Cards that Synergize with Hope Summers
Wasp
My secret power is that I get things done.
The first synergy that comes to mind is with Wasp. By having 0-cost cards, you’re able to play Hope Summers + Wasp on turn 3, giving you 5 Energy on turn 4.
This can be good depending on the deck you’re playing, but even something like Hope Summers + Wasp into Professor X can be quite good.
You can play other strong 5-cost cards like Devil Dinosaur, Vision, Iron Man, the list goes on.
You can even combine Wasp with another card to get +2 Energy on the following turn, allowing you to get 8 Energy on turn 6 or even 7 Energy on turn 5.
Jeff / Vision
You can move this each turn.
Another synergy to keep in mind is with cards that are able to move like Vision and Jeff. With these cards, you’re able to play in the location of Hope Summers without worry of filling it up.
As mentioned, you can go Hope Summers + Wasp on turn 3, playing Vision on turn 4, giving you 6 Energy on turn 5. If you couldn’t move Vision, you would only have one spot left at the Hope location.
By moving, you give yourself space to run cards like Doctor Doom or simply spread out your Power to more favorable locations.
Thanos
At the start of the game, shuffle the six Infinity Stones into your deck.
Thanos is another potential synergy that arise with Hope Summers. The nerf to Lockjaw hurt Thanos decks quite a bit, and Hope Summers could fulfill a similar role.
With Hope Summers, you’re basically able to turn any Infinity Stone into Time Stone. There is worry about potentially filling up your Hope location, but with powerful cards like Blob or Devil Dinosaur, you might not even need to care.
You can also run move cards like Vision and Jeff to get that Energy without clogging up your location.
I think a lot of players are going to experiment with Hope Summers in Thanos to see if it can get a similar level of power to the old Lockjaw Thanos.
High Evolutionary
High Evolutionary is another deck that loves having extra Energy. Cards like Cyclops, Hulk, She-Hulk, and Misty Knight all want you to end the turn with extra Energy.
With Hope Summers, you can potentially have that extra Energy while still curving out your deck.
Including High Evo also means that you can turn Wasp into Evolved Wasp, making her a much better card than regular Wasp.
There’s definitely potential for Hope Summers to slot into High Evo decks, but I’m unsure if it will result in a major upgrade or if it’s simply a side grade.
Elsa Bloodstone
After you play a card that fills this location, give it +2 Power.
The combination of Elsa + Kitty Pryde hasn’t been meta for a while now, but Hope Summers might change that. By playing Elsa and Hope Summers in the same location, you can keep playing Kitty to gain extra Power and regain your Energy.
It’s not an oppressive amount of Power, but it’s quite noticeable if things line up well.
Hope Summers Decks
For this section, I’ll be going over some decks that synergize with Hope Summers.
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.
Hope Summers High Evo
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This first deck looks to add in Hope Summers to SheNaut to play almost like a second Magik. If you’re able to play Hope Summers + Wasp on turn 3, you can play Leech on turn 4, skip turn 5 (soaking 6 Energy), and play The Infinaut + She-Hulk on turn 6.
While this does require both Hope and Wasp to do, it’s a solid backup plan if you don’t draw Magik. I replaced Caiera, which means your 1-costs are vulnerable to Killmonger, but Killmonger isn’t extremely prevalent at the moment.
Even if you don’t pull off the combo, playing Hope into Cyclops into Leech, into Hulk can still be powerful, as you’re soaking 1 extra Energy each turn for Sunspot/Hulk.
Hope Summers Thanos
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Up next, we have basically the old Thanos Lockjaw deck except we replace Lockjaw with Hope Summers.
With Hope Summers on turn 3, you can play a Stone on her location on turn 4, letting you play a 6-cost on turn 5. It’s not the most amazing thing, but the highroll is if you have both Time Stone and Hope Summers. With that, you can go:
- Time Stone Turn 2
- Hope Summers + Stone Turn 3
- 5-Cost Turn 4
- 6-Cost Turn 5
- 6-Cost Turn 6
This can definitely be a powerful line if you line it up well. It might not be more consistent than the old Lockjaw, but it’s a starting point. As time passes, I’m sure players will figure out more ways to optimize this deck.
Hope Summers Elsa
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Elsa Bloodstone hasn’t seen much play since the nerfs, but Hope Summers does potentially bring her back a little bit.
By constantly playing Kitty Pryde into the Hope Summer lane, you can get a bunch of free Energy while also refunding your Energy. The main downside to this is that you can’t really start doing this until Turn 4.
Even still, the synergy is definitely there. For this deck I decided to mash the Loki engine with it, as you spend a lot of cards to drop down Elsa and Hope early. Getting 7 Energy on turn 6 with a fresh hand of cards from Loki can be quite good.
Counters and Weaknesses
Hope Summers doesn’y rely on an Ongoing or On Reveal ability, so she can’t be directly countered. Even still some things can still disrupt Hope decks.
The main counter for Hope Summers would be Junk effects. Things like Debrii or the Goblins can clunk the location Hope Summers is in, making it difficult to gain Energy or play cards.
Should You Buy Hope Summers?
Overall, I would rate Hope Summers a 8/10.
Hope Summers might shape out to be a very good Season Pass card. While Skaar definitely found his way into decks, Black Swan and Sebastian Stan are somewhat niche right now.
With the Energy cheating, Hope Summers has a lot of potential to do very powerful things. It will take time to see how much she impacts the meta, but I’m quite hopeful for her.
Be sure to check out our Tier Lists for our current rankings on Marvel Snap decks and cards.
- Best Decks Tier List
- Series 4 Tier List
- Series 5 Tier List
Good luck in your games, and thanks for reading!
