Spooky season is upon us, and with it, an appropriately themed season pass card for Marvel Snap. This month, Elsa Bloodstone headlines the appropriately named “Bloodstone” Season Pass, which will also see the releases of Man-Thing, Black Knight, Nico Minoru, and Wolf By Night. If you haven’t heard of Elsa Bloodstone, she’s a monster hunter that utilizes the power of the Bloodstone to give her superhuman strength, durability, agility, regenerative healing, and even energy blasts, though some of her abilities were inherited from her monster hunter father. She’s also immune to vampire bites. With that in mind, here our are picks for the best Elsa Bloodstone decks in Marvel Snap and whether she’s worth buying the Season Pass for.
Best Elsa Bloodstone Decks in Marvel Snap
Elsa Bloodstone is a 2-Cost, 2-Power card with an ability that reads, “If you play another card to fill a location, give it +3 Power.” While a conditional 11 Power for 2 Cost seems great, Elsa Bloodstone begins to seem truly overpowered when combined with cards such as Beast, Kitty Pryde, Mysterio, Beast, and any card that can move those cards to a different location to fill them up. In fact, many think Kitty Pryde was nerfed in advance of Elsa Bloodstone’s release, as the former could keep capping out a location and receiving her buff.
Do note that cards have to be played to receive Elsa Bloodstone’s buff. Moving a card to cap out a lane, for example, doesn’t count as playing a card. However, Mysterio’s clones count as played cards, so they’ll all receive buffs. Furthermore, she doesn’t work retroactively: play her before you drop cards into the 4th slot. With that said, two powerful decks come to mind that she can slot into easily: Wave Move and Shuri.
Related: How Do Tie-Breakers Work in Marvel Snap?
First, the powerful Wave Move deck, that makes use of a few move-based cards to gain initiative before playing Wave on turn five, has a home for Elsa Bloodstone. Here’s what the best Wave Move deck with Elsa Bloodstone in it would look like in Marvel Snap:
- Nightcrawler
- Angela
- Kraven
- Jeff
- Elsa Bloodstone
- Silk
- Jean Grey
- Wave
- Spider-Man
- Miles Morales: Spider-Man
- Alioth
- Doctor Doom
Kraven and Angela help keep initiative heading into turn 5, where you’ll play Wave (hoping your opponent doesn’t drop a Mobius against you), before using Alioth or Doctor Doom to win the game. While Doctor Doom’s Doom Bots won’t trigger Elsa, filling up one lane with Angela, Elsa Bloodstone, Jean Grey, and a move card such as Silk or Jeff, will almost certainly guarantee you win that lane, freeing you up to Alioth another spot for victory.
While Kitty Pryde did get nerfed, the second deck plans to cap out a single lane by dropping Shuri into another high-statted card will make great use of Elsa Bloodstone in Marvel Snap, making for one of the best possible decks. Here’s a list of what would go best in that deck:
- Kitty Pryde
- Angela
- Forge
- Elsa Bloodstone
- Armor
- Jeff
- Hulkbuster
- Shuri
- Taskmaster
- Vision
- Red Skull
- America Chavez
This deck has an ideal playline, with Elsa Bloodstone serving as a backup. Kitty Pryde, when buffed up by Forge, Hulkbuster, and then Shuri, reaches insane power levels for a 1-Cost card. Then, on the final turn, playing Kitty Pryde into Taskmaster usually seals the victory. Kitty Pryde can also gain power by filling a location with her over and over again, gaining the benefit from Elsa Bloodstone, though this will be a rarer scenario. The better backup scenario would be playing Shuri into a big card, preferably Vision, to double its power and add plus 3 from Elsa Bloodstone. This would give you a 19 power Vision that you can also copy with Taskmaster, making it nearly impossible for your opponent to guess which lanes you’ll play for.
Bounce decks get an honorable mention here, but as both Mobius M. Mobius and Wave are seeing a lot of play recently, those types of decks will greatly suffer – even if they’re likely to be the most synergistic spot for her.
How to Counter Elsa Bloodstone in Marvel Snap
Elsa Bloodstone is not an Ongoing card, meaning staples such as Enchantress or her lesser-used cousin Rogue will not cancel out her effect. However, expect the recently buffed Shadow King, which removes power increases to all cards, to see more play. Furthermore, junk cards that clog your opponent’s board, such as Debrii and Green Goblin, will stifle her effect. If Elsa Bloodstone proves too popular, expect to see annoying junk decks on the rise – they’re already better than you’d think.
Is Elsa Bloodstone Worth Buying October’s Season Pass For?
Yes, Elsa Bloodstone is worth buying the “Bloodstone” season pass for if you’re an avid Marvel Snap player. For $9.99 USD, you get a card that will likely be a meta staple for the foreseeable future, along with 1200 gold, 2600 credits, and some awesome variants for Ghost Rider and Blade. That said, she will enter Spotlight Caches at some point after November, and you can purchase her in the shop sometime well after her release for a staggering 6000 Collector’s Tokens, if you’d rather not shell out real-world dollars.
If you’re looking for more no the game, check out our thoughts on whether reaching Infinite rank in Marvel Snap is actually worth it.
