How to Play Skaar in Marvel Snap
Skaar is the upcoming Season Pass card for the January season, Planet Hulk. Skaar is a card that synergizes with high power cards, and has a cost reduction effect similar to that of Evolved Abomination. Unfortunately, Evolved Abomination doesn’t see too much play, and I expect Skaar to be in a similar boat. Because of this, my first impressions of Skaar aren’t extremely high.
Even still, the meta can surely prove me wrong. Balancing Skaar’s effect along with the rest of the deck will be an interesting challenge, but some decks definitely fit him better than others.
Let’s get right into the guide.
Skaar Effect
Costs 2 less for each of your cards that has 10 or more Power.
Skaar Analysis
As previously mentioned, Skaar is very similar to Evolved Abomination. He is a high Power card with the ability to reduce his cost. Abomination requires your opponent’s card to be afflicted with negative Power, while Skaar needs to see cards on your board with 10+ Power.
On the surface, his effect is quite solid. With just one 10 Power card, Skaar turns into a 4/11 which is very respectable. With two discounts, 2/11 is amazing, and of course, a 0/11 is also superb. However, let’s think about how difficult it may (or may not) be to fulfill Skaar’s effect.
While high Power cards like Hulk seemingly synergize with Skaar, you need to play out Hulk before turn 6 or on turn 6 with Magik in order to make use of Skaar. This makes me want to look toward other potential cards that can be played earlier than turn 6.
Cards that Synergize with Skaar
Any 10 Power Card
It goes without saying that cards with 10 Power will synergize with Skaar. However, I will refrain from listing 6-cost cards as these cards will need additional support to combine with Skaar in a meaningful way. You likely will still run high Power 6-cost cards, but here’s a rundown of some lower cost cards you can utilize as well.
- Red Skull
- Doctor Octopus
- Sentry
- She-Hulk
- Typhoid Mary
- Atuma
- Namor
- Devil Dinosaur
- Ronin the Accuser
- Darkhawk
- Warpath
Wave and Magik
On Reveal: All cards cost a maximum of 4 until the end of next turn.
There are plenty of 6-cost cards that reach 10 Power or above. Because of this, Wave can also be a strong tool for Skaar. By playing Wave, you can cheat out a 6-cost card early in the game, thus reducing Skaar’s cost.
It’s a similar situation with Magik. By extending the game to 7 turns, you can play out a 6-cost card, followed by Skaar and another card on turn 7. While this is possible, you would need Skaar + (a card) to be extremely impactful on turn 7 to be prioritized over something like Hulk + She-Hulk.
High Evolutionary
One deck archetype that comes to mind with Skaar can be High Evo decks. Some Evo decks run cards such as She-Hulk, Hulk, and Magik. You can also slot Wave into the deck as well. These cards can synergize quite well with Skaar, and while I don’t think it will beat the perfect curve, Skaar can be a solid secondary game plan if your cards don’t line up well.
However, I will say that the current iterations of High Evolutionary don’t work amazingly with Skaar. These decks often save their big Power cards for the last turn of the game, which doesn’t help Skaar out. Even still, with some changes, I could potentially see it working out.
Sauron
On Reveal: Remove the abilities from all Ongoing cards in your hand and deck.
Another card worth mentioning in this section is Sauron. Sauron doesn’t synergize directly with Skaar, but Sauron decks will run cards like Typhoid Mary and Red Skull.
A simple curve of Sauron -> Typhoid Mary -> Red Skull turns Skaar into a 2/11, which is very good. Of all the decks that can run Skaar, I think that Shuri Suaron will be the most natural fit.
Lockjaw
After you play a card here, swap it with a card in your deck. (once per turn)
Let’s talk about Lockjaw next. Lockjaw has been seeing an uptick in play as the preferred Thanos deck instead of the Professor X version. Skaar fits into this deck very nicely as the deck naturally cheats out high Power cards, letting you discount Skaar easily.
Furthermore, Thanos decks naturally have a lot of cards to play with, likely giving you a lot of options to play with on Turn 6 with a discounted Skaar.
Buffing Effects
On Reveal: Give the next card you play +2 Power.
One other thing you can look into is playing Forge to buff up other cards that have 8 or 9 Power. With this, you can reach 10 Power to fulfill Skaar’s condition.
It likely will be a little awkward playing Forge in a deck with a lot of higher Power cards, but it’s still something worth mentioning. An engine of Forge, Gladiator, Doctor Octopus, and Skaar could prove to be quite decent.
Skaar Decks
For this section, I’ll be mainly going over some decks that synergize with Skaar.
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.
Skaar Shuri Sauron Deck
First up, we have the classic shell of Shuri Sauron with Skaar slotted in as well. This deck is quite simple as you simply just play out your big Power cards and hope that’s enough to win.
Sauron is absolutely the key to this deck. With Sauron, you can play Ebony Maw on turn 6, you can play out Typhoid Mary and Red Skull without their downside. Skaar is nice to add into the deck as an alternative to the Shuri, Red Skull, Taskmaster line.
Since the removal of America Chavez, the deck hasn’t had a great replacement, trying things like Echo or Alioth. However, with Skaar coming out, the deck will have a solid back up game plan to play toward.
Skaar “Good Stuff” Deck
This deck is my first go at a deck that specifically doesn’t run High Evolutionary. The deck simply looks to play a lot of strong High Power cards, with hopefully just enough room for tech cards. We have some form of disruption with cards like Gladiator and Doctor Octopus, who can either win or lose you games on the spot.
The main issue with a deck like this is that the ceiling can be quite low. Even if you play out cards on curve perfectly, you can still just lose to Shang-Chi, Tribunal Combo decks, Loki decks, and more. The deck has Rogue and Shang-Chi to help counter against other strong decks, and Wave to help cheat out some high Power cards. I imagine this deck will need more fine tuning before it’s in a good spot.
Skaar High Evo Deck
This next deck is taking the High Evo “She-Naut” deck and simply replacing The Infinaut with Skaar. The game plan of the deck is mostly similar, with some minor adjustments, most notably with Wave.
With only Wave on turn 3, you can cheat out The Hulk on turn 4. Followed by Skaar on turn 5, soaking up 1 Energy for potentially 3 extra Power on Sunspot and The Hulk. However, this strategy makes the deck extremely susceptible to Shang-Chi. You still have the game plan of Magik into Leech into She-Hulk + Hulk on turn 7.
Overall, this was a minor change made to the already existing shell of SheNaut, and The Infinaut likely is a stronger card in this style of deck. I imagine more changes can be made to better synergize with Skaar, but I’m struggling to find that balance at the moment.
Skaar Counters
Here are some quick counters to Skaar:
- Mobius M. Mobius: This will just make your Skaar a vanilla 6/11 which is very bad.
- Shang-Chi: Will target your whole deck if you’re building around 10+ Power cards.
Should You Buy Skaar?
Overall, I’m quite uncertain on how good I think Skaar will be. I think that Skaar has the advantage of being played in a lot of potential decks. However, in some decks like High Evo or a Darkhawk/Sentry deck, I’m doubtful that Skaar will make the cut.
Even still, decks like Shuri Sauron and Thanos Lockjaw look like they will benefit quite well from Skaar.
Overall, I’m giving Skaar an initial rating of 3.5/5. In general, I prefer to underrate cards than overrate cards. I think Skaar’s biggest selling point is how flexible he is. There are quite a few archetypes that can play Skaar, giving you a lot of value.
However, Skaar has some big weaknesses being countered by Mobius and Shang-Chi, arguably the two most common tech cards right now. Furthermore, he’s more of a side grade in many archetypes, but he does look to be ideal in some decks like Shuri or Lockjaw.
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!
