Best Copycat Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide - Marvel Snap Zone (2024)

Copycat is the next Series 5 card to join Marvel Snap in the Maximum Effort Season. It is a 3-Cost, 5-Power card that reads: When you draw this, steal the text from the bottom card of your opponent’s deck. Today, we will take a deeper look at the new card and, of course, the best decks to try it out in.

Spotlight Cache

Series 5 cards can be purchased for 6,000 Collector’s Tokens from the Token Shop initially as a Weekly Spotlight card, or opened as one of the featured cards in the Spotlight Caches that are found every 120 Levels on the Collection Level Track after Collection Level 500 (until the next new card releases the following week).

Strengths and Weaknesses

Copycat is the first card to have an effect on draw, and I think she has the potential to be a very interesting addition to the game. She will steal the effect from the very bottom card of your opponent’s deck. This could provide you with useful intel because you’ll find out exactly what card your opponent won’t draw and what effect was stolen (meaning they will also know the card they are never drawing). Is this information enough to make Copycat worth it? Or do we just run her for value and the ability we get is the bonus.

The numbers are interesting to consider here. Copycat has the potential to be any card; however, the strength of this is very meta dependent. Her success or viability depends heavily on what people are running and whether the most common abilities are ones you can also use. Some rough estimates based on the entire card pool were completed some weeks ago by the excellent Willow on X (who you should consider following):

• 36 Disasters
• 19 No Impact or Effect
• 9 Bad
• 107 OK
• 21 Tech
• 72 Good
• 15 Incredible

In percentages, they estimated Copycat will be:

• 22% of the time no effect or worse
• 31% of the time good or better
• 76% of the time OK
• 5% of the time Incredible

Again, this isn’t representative of reality because the cards in the meta are not every single card (well, except Arishem in some ways), but it gives you an idea of how often the effect could be great. What is important to focus on is the 76% of time it is OK when every single card in the game could be the last card. The key point here is: players generally put good cards into their decks (except for Arishem, kind of). So, before we even consider the positives of the way the effect is triggered and the asymmetry of information, you could confidently say that over 3/4 of the time you’re going to get a positive effect on a five power card that you can play on Turn 3. The rest of the time, you’re going to get no effect or something “worse”, which may just be situationally worse. Thus, in a vacuum, this is just an OK card that will usually have a positive effect on the board and can sometimes win games.

The reason not to run this card is the complete lack of any synergy with any other card except Silver Surfer, which thankfully stops it from being the best card in Marvel Snap. Opportunity Cost in Marvel Snap is a real consideration and often overlooked. Including Copycat may at times get you game-winning effects or information (more on that soon), but you will be choosing to include it in the deck over something else. To be universally included in Marvel Snap decks is a very high bar that has only really been met by Jeff the Baby Land Shark so far. While this is certainly an interesting card—with all things being equal it should be the best card you don’t play—that unfortunately isn’t how Marvel Snap works as a card game.

This is where the rubber meets the road. While you might be initially excited by this card, you may grow to dislike it immensely very quickly. Theoretically, if a card is at the bottom of your deck, you’re never going to draw it so it doesn’t matter. However, the opponent doesn’t see what the effect is AND the Copycat player doesn’t have to play the card to see the stolen effect. They only have to play the card for you to know what they stole. If the game did not have Snaps, again this would be unlikely to change any outcomes. This game does have Snaps, though, so if this becomes a popular card then every Snap could become a question of is my key card at the bottom of the deck? We saw this play out with an early Spider-Ham where your opponent would instantly Snap when they hit your Apocalypse or Sera. Imagine that same scenario except you can’t see which card you lost to Copycat (or even that your opponent drew Copycat).

Hey everyone, Gwen here! I just wanted to say DON’T LISTEN TO SAFETY!! What about making a package based on seeing what your opponent is doing? What if you play Copycat with cards like Spider-Ham, Daredevil, and even… Wait for it… Drum roll please… Kang! Then you can frustrate your opponents while trying to make use of the information to Snap them early and often. Marvel Snap is all about bullying your opponent so you feel powerful instead of how you normally feel in your boring everyday life when your boss is looking for you while you play Snap on the toilet. Just saying. This little package may not be good, but you will feel like you know more. What’s that thing people say? Knowing is half the battle?

The Verdict

Theoretically, this card is not amazing. It will usually just have an average effect, and it won’t really synergize with anything in your deck. However, we have seen time and time again that the majority of Marvel Snap cards are designed to win games, and there are a lot of effects that can win games on a [3/5] body.

What Copycat does synergize with is the Snap mechanic itself. You’re essentially given information for the cost of a card slot since you don’t even need to play the card. In any other game, this probably wouldn’t mean much, but in Marvel Snap decks rely heavily on singular cards and Snapping makes each game worth a different value. Although not every deck can run Copycat since she dilutes synergy, we could potentially end up with a situation where not running Copycat incentivizes people to play certain deck styles exclusively because they can afford to play Copycat. The decision to make this information asymmetrical between players seems very risky, especially when you consider the reality of how players play over theory.

Pre-Release Score:

Silver Surfer

This Silver Surfer deck recognizes that the meta is still very Arishem focused. You can start with Darkhawk, but as the week goes on Cassandra Nova is likely going to be the better inclusion (you could potentially try Mockingbird). The goal here is to beat Arishem decks and still be OK enough to win other match ups.

I guess this guy is right… Being a spoilsport and putting all this hate into one deck seems kinda fun. Pfft, whatever. It’s not even an original idea.

Arishem

When you look at which decks can afford to include a random Copycat, one of the easiest decks is, ironically, Arishem. Copycat will be a lot better when played early, so the ability to play her on Turn 2 will negate a lot of the bad effects anyway. Plus, you still get the information without heavily relying on the card to do something. Arishem decks are effectively decks that are looking to use random cards efficiently, and Copycat is just another card you can include that works perfectly with the play style.

If you couldn’t tell, Safety is having a real easy time building decks lately. You just take a card out and put it in Arishem. Easy peasy, ta-da, presto chang-o. BOOOOOORIIIIIING.

Thena

You can also play the popular Darkhawk package with Copycat. She is potentially just a placeholder here for Cassandra Nova (who we will only see sporadically throughout the meta at first due to the way she is acquired), but this demonstrates how the best homes for this card are just good decks that can afford the deck slot. Playing around with the effect is limited due to the lack of synergy.

OK, he is just being lazy now. Surely he has more ideas than just “put the card in with 11 to 20 bajillion good cards and pray”, right? RIGHT???

Gwen Takes Over One Last Time

Ugh, fine! If he won’t try to do something else with Copycat then I will! This deck looks to use the adorable Spider-Pig (does whatever a Spider-Pig does), Daredevil (who can’t actually see so how does he even know which card is actually there?? Oh wait, I just Googled it. It’s not sight, it’s a sonar thingy. Like a bat. He should have been called Batman or something. Do you think cards smell? I know Loki and Arishem are stinky! Oh, sorry, back to the deck…), and Copycat. The idea is to see with your eyes as much of the opponent’s deck and hand as possible within a functioning deck. Maybe these three cards can become a “FOURTH WALL” Package! Man I am a genius!! One second, I better go back and fix Safety’s review and include them.

Anyway, the rest of the deck I stole from the CassandraNova article he wrote WITHOUT me (totally rude, by the way). According to him, the plan is to junk up the board and finish with Sage and Shang-Chi on Turn 7. Have fun everyone!

Variants

Closing Thoughts

Copycat has the chance to be a universally strong card. I think she is a legitimately concerning addition to the game. She could change how we feel about Snaps from Turn 1 and provide some some big effects for little cost. She has a general synergy with decks that can afford to run universal good cards, which, on top of the concerns with the effect, is a requirement that many decks right now meet. Otherwise, her synergies are low, so it is unlikely to be a card that you “need” to play specific decks. Which is a positive I suppose.

Good Luck, Have Fun, and Stay Safe!