How to Play Man-Thing in Marvel Snap
Welcome to another installment in our series where we cover new card releases and how to use them.
Man-Thing is the first Spotlight Cache release in October, and while he hasn’t broken the meta, he definitely is finding a home in some archetypes.
Man-Thing is a 4-cost card that looks to counter decks that run mostly low cost cards. He can be a very high value play depending on your opponent, but he can also be quite low value against other decks.
Let’s get right into the guide.
Man-Thing Effect
Ongoing: 1, 2, and 3-Cost cards here have -2 Power.
Man-Thing Synergy
Man-Thing’s ability is effective at countering low cost decks such as Collector or Elsa decks. On a full location, Man-Thing can garner a total of -8 from his ability, effectively becoming a 4/13. However, against some decks, Man-Thing won’t get any value, in which case he becomes a vanilla 4/5 which is very below rate.
In general, Man-Thing will synergize with the “Junk” archetype. This archetype fills up the opponent’s board with clutter, making it harder for them to play. Man-Thing can then easily become a 4/7 or 4/9, making him quite good.
Junk Cards
Cards: Debrii, Black Widow, Green Goblin, Viper/The Hood
The “Junk” archetype has been a fairly weak archetype for a while. It can be very effective against certain decks, but in Conquest, the deck usually falls short once opponent’s play around your deck.
The deck also struggled because it simply lacks putting Power on the board and relies on filling up your opponent’s locations.
The Man-Thing is a step in the right direction as he synergizes very well with Junk cards. Anytime your opponent’s board is filled with a Rock or Green Goblin or Widow’s Bite, that can be an extra 2 value from Man-Thing. It’s perfect as Man-Thing helps you compete with Power, which is what the Junk archetype was lacking.
Evolved Abomination
Costs 1 less for each enemy card in play that’s afflicted with negative Power.
Another card that synergizes well with Man-Thing is Evolved Abomination. Since Man-Thing afflicts enemy cards with negative Power, Abomination can become a very cheap card. When combined, Abomination can easily become 2/9, 3/9, or even 0/9 which is great value.
The main downside to this is that you have to include High Evolutionary in your deck, which is a vanilla 4/4. Even still, the payoff can be quite worth it.
This High Evo engine can make the deck quite flexible. You can decide to run more Junk cards, or lean into High Evo with cards like Hulk, Cyclops, and Misty Knight.
Man-Thing Decks
For this section, I’ll be mainly going over some decks that synergize with Man-Thing.
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.
Man-Thing Junk Deck
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This first deck looks to simply fit Man-Thing into the junk package. You’re running a lot of the junk archetype cards and looking to get the most value from Man-Thing. After winning and clunking one location, you can look to win another with high power cards like Spider-Woman, Doctor Octopus, and America Chavez.
Man-Thing Evo Deck
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This first decks takes the core of High Evo (Sunspot, Misty Knight, Storm, Cyclops, Hulk) and combines it with an Abomination engine. I’m sure there’s improvements to be made to the deck, but the idea is to simply put out a ton of Power through either engine.
Debrii and Storm are nice to clunk up the opponent’s board, and you have strong finishers in Abomination and Hulk. Try to balance playing on and off curve to buff up Hulk or to apply negative Power to get more value through Abomination.
Man-Thing Counters
While Man-Thing can provide a lot of value against certain decks, there are also a lot of counters floating in the current meta. As such, we may see Man-Thing take a backseat until the meta changes.
Luke Cage
Ongoing: Your cards can’t have their Power reduced.
Luke Cage completely counters Man-Thing. Man-Thing’s effect applies negative Power, and Luke Cage completely mitigates that. It’s rough for Man-Thing as Luke Cage is a fairly common tech card for low-cost decks like Loki or Bounce.
Because of this, Man-Thing can struggle to get value even against the “good” matchups. However, in Ranked mode, you’ll often see decks cutting tech cards like Luke Cage. In these situations, Man-Thing can still succeed.
Even still, in Conquest Mode, you’ll often see decks cut Power cards for tech cards like Luke Cage.
Rogue
On Reveal: Steal the text from a random enemy Ongoing card here.
Rogue is another card that will counter Man-Thing, along with cards like Enchantress or Echo. Rogue can be rough as if you have a rock in your location (from Debrii), Rogue will get more value from stealing Man-Thing’s ability.
Luckily, Ongoing tech cards like Rogue, Enchantress, and Echo aren’t super common in the current meta. They will still be annoying when you run into one, but it won’t be as common as a card like Luke Cage.
Mobius M. Mobius
Ongoing: Your Costs can’t be increased. Your opponent’s Costs can’t be reduced.
The last counter card I want to talk about is Mobius. Mobius is virtually everywhere in the meta decks. Mobius doesn’t directly counter Man-Thing, but if you’re playing a deck with Evolved Abomination, Mobius will make it so Abomination’s cost can’t be reduced.
This turns him back into a vanilla 5/9 which isn’t great. As such, the Evo Man-Thing deck may struggle into the current meta where Luke Cage and Mobius are quite prevalent.
Conclusion
All in all, Man-Thing is a nice addition to the game as it powers up the Junk archetype a bit. If that’s your favorite deck to play, Man-Thing will be a great inclusion.
Even though the meta isn’t great for Man-Thing, you can definitely get a lot of value from him against certain decks if they don’t respect it. As the meta continues to evolve, we may see Man-Thing become more common if Luke Cage becomes less common.
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 out current rankings on Marvel Snap decks and cards.
- Best Decks Tier List
- Series 4/5 Tier List
Good luck in your games, and thanks for reading!
