With no major Marvel movie or show on the horizon—and the less said about last month’s Secret Invasion, the better—the latest Marvel Snap season pass hops over the Pacific to something else entirely: Big in Japan. This month’s card is Daken, Wolverine’s half-Japanese son, and he comes with a rather intriguing effect with a 3 cost 4 power statline: On Reveal: Add the Muramasa Shard to your hand. A Muramasa Shard, on the other hand, has a 1 cost 1 power statline and if it is discarded or destroyed, doubles Daken’s power.
This is quite the powerful effect that overshadows his father’s place in the Marvel Snap metagame. Fitting, as Daken blames the fan favorite mutant for the death of his mother and for abandoning him as a child. And he’s not the only Wolverine or Japan-themed mutant coming this month: later, we’ll see the release of Lady Deathstrike, X-23, and the Silver Samurai.
For now, let’s take a look at a couple of decks where Daken might fit.
Daken Deck Strategies in Marvel Snap
Because the Muramasa Shard has to be discarded or destroyed to double Daken’s power, he obviously fits into Discard and Destroy-style decks. Both decks aren’t in a bad place at the moment, but they’re also not particularly strong—so maybe Daken will help them find a better fit in the meta. Here’s Discard deck with him you may run into:
- Blade
- Morbius
- Wolverine
- Swarm
- Colleen Wing
- Daken
- Lady Sif
- Dracula
- Hell Cow
- M.O.D.O.K
- Apocalypse
- America Chavez
The star of the show in this ever-present deck isn’t Daken or his father; rather, Dracula and Apocalypse work as your primary win condition. Having Dracula copy Apocalypse on the final turn when you plop down an America Chavez along with a handful of Swarms is powerful enough to win many games. Here, M.O.D.O.K is absolutely key in making sure that combo goes off. Colleen Wing works quite well into activating Daken by discarding his Muramasa Shard, and M.O.D.O.K can as well for massive value.
A destroy deck, which might work a little bit better, would look like this:
- Deadpool
- Nova
- Bucky Barnes
- Carnage
- Wolverine
- Killmonger
- Venom
- Daken
- Deathlok
- Hulk Buster
- Death
- Knull
The win condition here is to destroy as many cards as possible to make Death cost little, in order to drop her on the final turn along with Knull. To facilitate this, the recently-buffed Hulk Buster being placed on Daken or Deadpool can provide massive value. Remember, if the Muramasa Shard is destroyed after Hulk Buster makes Daken a 9 power card, he’ll double in a whopping 18 power—a combo that can win a lane, freeing Death and Knull up to win another.
Daken Weaknesses and Counters
Three standard tech cards will stop Daken in his tracks if he becomes a problem. Cosmo, if you can predict where your opponent will play him, hampers the amount of work Discard decks can do. On the other hand, Armor is an absolute killer against Destroy decks. And finally, if your opponent is all-in on buffing Daken, Shang-Chi can always knock him out of the game, though if it’s a Destroy deck, be wary of powering up a Knull. Depending on which Daken deck becomes popular or whichever you decide to play, keep these three techs in mind.
And that’s all we have on Daken heading into the Big in Japan season. While it doesn’t seem like he’ll be a meta-defining card, Daken will likely find a place the same way Thor does—a great value 3 drop card that finds a home in certain archetypes. When the latter X-men-themed cards drop this month, however, expect him to see a bit more play.
