How to Play War Machine
Welcome back to our weekly review where we’ll be covering Marvel Snap’s latest card, War Machine, 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.
Let’s get right into the guide.
War Machine Effect
On Reveal: Until the end of next turn, nothing can stop you from playing cards anywhere.
War Machine Analysis
War Machine is essentially a card that turns everything into Jeff the Baby Land Shark, minus the ability to move. You only get to do this for one turn, but it’s still a very powerful effect.
You can ignore both card effects and location effects that restrict you from playing cards for whatever reason. There are some potential combos you can do with War Machine, but overall, he’s a “good stuff” card.
He doesn’t play with archetypes like Discard or Destroy, but add flexibility to a deck, similar to a card like Legion or Quake.
His stat line is also fairly standard, as his 4/6 stats are the same as The Thing, a vanilla card. His effect can potentially be very powerful, but time will tell.
Cards that Synergize with War Machine
Before we go into certain archetypes, let’s first talk about what cards benefit from War Machine. There are also many locations that restrict playing cards, so having War Machine will also benefit you in those games. But for now, let’s just look at the list of cards.
Cards with Restrictions
- Ebony Maw
- Goose
- Storm
- Electro
- Jean Grey
- Cull Obsidian
- Sentry
- Crossbones
- Sandman
- Professor X
- Giganto
- The Infinaut
All of these cards synergize with War Machine, but War Machine also counters some. If your opponent plays Professor X, playing War Machine will allow you to play into Professor X. The same goes for Storm, Goose, Jean Grey, and Sandman.
We could see War Machine doesn’t just empower certain decks or cards, but can also counter other decks that try to lock you down.
Thanos
“You could not live with your own failure. Where did that bring you? Back to me.”
Once again, we arrive at Thanos for a new card release. This time, it is because the best “midrange” deck in the game is Thanos. Midrange decks of the past like Zabu or Sera decks have fallen by the wayside due to Mobius and other decks simply dodging tech cards.
However, Thanos is a deck that has ample power with cards like Cull Obsidian and Mockingbird. Other 6-cost cards like Magneto and Blob also can win lanes through Power as well.
The rest of the deck facilitates this strategy with utility through the Stones or tech cards like Mobius and Shang-Chi. Because of this, Thanos right now is not a synergy deck, it’s simply playing good cards that are above rate. There are combos like Professor X and Alioth, but overall, the deck simply a toolbox, with many tools to combat certain strategies.
War Machine is a card that looks to be played in a midrange deck. While you can play him in Zabu shells or Location control decks, any midrange tool can be shoved into Thanos and the deck will likely still be good.
While War Machine might not be ideal for Thanos, it can be a surprising tech card. (Once the new card hype dies down)
Zabu
Even though Zabu decks have fallen out of favor in the meta, they can still be quite good. Since Darkhawk is now a 5-cost, Black Knight decks seem to be the new strongest Zabu engine, with cards like Ghost Rider and The Ebony Blade being 4-cost.
War Machine doesn’t synergize particularly with any Zabu decks, but Zabu decks are also midrange decks. They want to play above rate cards while making room for tech cards.
Location Control
Another potential archetype for War Machine are location control decks. These decks use cards like Storm or Professor X to lock opponents out of certain locations.
However, War Machine doesn’t particularly synergize amazingly. If anything, he works better as a counter to these decks, rather than play alongside them.
Even still, you can potentially go Storm -> War Machine -> Legion to lock the game down on turn 6. This can be a fun meme combo to catch opponent’s off guard, but some decks will easily overpower you by turn 5 and not even need to play on turn 6.
Other decks might want to explode on turn 6, making this combo particularly potent.
War Machine Decks
For this section, I’ll be going over some decks that synergize with War Machine.
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.
War Machine Thanos Deck
First up, let’s shove War Machine into a Thanos deck. For this deck, I opted to replace Cull Obsidian with War Machine. You lose out on 4 points of Power, but War Machine cannot be hit by Shang-Chi and does provide upside with his effect.
He also doesn’t have the restriction of being needed to play in a location with a 1-cost card like Cull. There may be a different replacement you can make for War Machine to keep Cull Obsidian, as playing War Machine would turn off Cull’s restriction.
But for this deck, I found Cull Obsidian to be the natural cut for War Machine.
War Machine Zabu Deck
Once again, we are replacing Cull Obsidian for War Machine in this Zabu deck. This is a fairly standard Zabu Black Knight deck that can run War Machine, but you’re giving up other options like Cull Obsidian or even Enchantress.
This deck also naturally benefits from War Machine because you will be able to play The Infinaut on turn 6 without skipping turn 5. However, this would require you to play War Machine on turn 5.
Because of this, I do expect the deck to warrant further changes. Ebony Maw can potentially come in to be a strong 1/7 to play alongside Annihilus on turn 6 as well.
War Machine Storm Deck
Lastly, we have a location control deck that uses War Machine as a flexible 4-cost card. I spoke about the Storm, War Machine, Legion combo, but the deck also has some issues.
If you don’t have War Machine, Storm and Legion actually have anti-synergy. If you play Legion on 5, you could potentially just overwrite your Flooded location you played Storm to get.
It could be a potential turn 6 play to combat locations like Limbo, but the deck doesn’t have a strong 1-cost card like Demon from The Hood to pair with Legion on turn 6.
I simply put this together as a mostly functioning deck that can make use of a fun combo to surprise opponents.
Counters and Weaknesses
Overall, War Machine doesn’t have too many particular counters. Technically Cosmo could counter him since he is an On Reveal card, but that doesn’t really count. That would only occur in if your opponent played Cosmo right before your War Machine, which is quite unlikely in this current meta.
For a card like War Machine, counters and weaknesses are present more in the archetype he is in rather than he himself.
Should You Buy War Machine?
Overall, I would rate War Machine a 7/10.
At first, I rated War Machine quite highly as there is a lot of potential with cards like Ebony Maw, The Infinaut, Hope Summers, etc.
It’s possible that a simple Hope Summers deck that plays Ebony Maw + The Infinaut on turn 6 is enough to win games. 27 Power on the final turn is quite a big number.
However, it’s a fairly straightforward approach, and War Machine seems to be somewhat lacking in other archetypes. There are fine replacements such as Cull Obsidian or other 4-cost cards, so War Machine doesn’t seem to be a necessity like Hope Summers is.
Overall, he’s a solid and flexible card, but I doubt he will impact the meta in a large way. We may see cards like Professor X and Storm become less popular, but will likely fade once newer cards release and the hype for War Machine dies off.
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!
