Marvel Snap has entered its "Animals Assemble" season, which brings a variety of new cards for players to collect. In addition to variants for Cosmo and Goose, the Season Pass for Animals Assemble includes the brand-new card Hit Monkey for anyone who purchases the Season Pass. While the Season Pass cards in past seasons of Marvel Snap have typically been quite powerful and meta-defining at their debut, Hit Monkey might have trouble finding a place in the meta due to the prominence of Sandman.
On top of Hit Monkey, the Animals Assemble season of Marvel Snap is adding plenty of animal-themed cards like Jeff the Baby Land Shark, Snowguard, and Stegron. With a series of recent balance patches, Marvel Snap's meta is primed for a new dominant deck, but it's currently unclear how the latest cards will play. Unfortunately, the likelihood of Hit Monkey becoming a meta-defining card this season is low given a buff to Sandman has made him a staple card in many deck archetypes.
How Hit Monkey Could Factor Into Marvel Snap's Meta
Hit Monkey follows the trend of several other cards including Angela and Morbius, being 2-Cost/0-Power cards that gain more Power depending on other gameplay factors such as whenever another card is played or discarded from the hand. Hit Monkey is a 2-Cost card that starts with 0 Power, but has the "On Reveal" ability to gain +2 Power for each card the user played that turn. This ability could allow Hit Monkey to gain a surprising amount of power if slotted alongside the right combination of cards.
Thematically fitting for the Animals Assemble season, Hit Monkey would play best in a Kazoo deck that takes advantage of its ability to get a lot of low-cost cards on the field quickly. Ideally, Hit Monkey would be saved for turn six, at which point the player could throw down four 1-Cost cards and then Hit Monkey, netting it 8 total Power. Coupling this strategy with a card like Wong, Forge, or Shuri could help give Hit Monkey even more Power for a relatively low Cost. Hit Monkey could also be a great candidate for a deck themed around Mr. Negative, since his ability would give Hit Monkey 0-Cost.
However, there is a simple way for opponents to effectively shut down Hit Monkey's ability. Using Sandman, the 5-Cost/5-Power card with the ability to prevent opponents from playing more than one card per turn, Hit Monkey would not be able to get the Power boost from playing multiple cards in a turn. To play around this, Hit Monkey users would need to play the card early on, making it much less useful than if longer set-up time was available.
Although it's possible Hit Monkey will still fill a certain niche within the meta, it likely won't be the same kind of powerhouse that many of the past Marvel Snap Season Pass cards have been thanks to Sandman's current prominence. With it still being early in the season, there's a lot of time to see how these new cards will affect the meta, and what sorts of deck combos will be possible. It's likely that Sandman will be used in most decks to counter players trying out their new Hit Monkey card, so those who decide to purchase the Season Pass should be prepared for that possibility.
Marvel Snap is available now for Mobile and PC.