How to Play Baron Zemo
Welcome back to our weekly review where we’ll be covering Marvel Snap’s latest card, Baron Zemo, 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.
Baron Zemo is the new Season Pass card for April, and his effect is quite universal. He isn’t an upgrade to existing archetypes like Discard or Destroy, but appears to be a more of a midrange tool.
Let’s get right into the guide.
Baron Zemo Effect
On Reveal: Recruit the lowest-Cost card from your opponent’s deck to your side of this location.
Baron Zemo Analysis
Firstly, Baron Zemo is a very competitive card when it comes to stats. If the card you pull from your opponent is 1 Power, he essentially becomes a 3/6 minimum.
Against Thanos, you can pull things like the Power Stone for +3 or even the Soul Stone, which can potentially be worth 5 Power. The worst case scenario is if you pull something like Sunspot or The Hood and don’t have leftover energy to soak/play the Demon.
Overall, Baron Zemo is competitive with Gladiator as a 3-cost stat stick. Gladiator has more potential downside, but Baron Zemo might not reach 8 Power worth of stats.
Lastly, with Baron’s effect, there is now another card that steals from your opponent’s deck. This could potentially make a mill strategy possible, running your opponent out of cards.
However, if you run into Thanos, you’ll definitely struggle thinning their deck down to 0 cards.
Cards that Synergize with Baron Zemo
Mockingbird
Costs 1 less for each of your cards in play that didn’t start in your deck.
First off, there’s an easy synergy with Baron Zemo and Mockingbird. Since Baron takes a card from your opponent’s deck, this will discount Mockingbird by 1 Energy.
There are plenty of shells that include Mockingbird like Thanos, Zoo, or Patriot Surfer, and Baron Zemo likely fits into the latter the most.
Silver Surfer
On Reveal: Give your other 3-Cost cards +2 Power.
Every time a 3-cost card releases, people usually default to seeing if the card works well with Silver Surfer. The same happened with Gladiator, and just about every past new 3-cost card.
Overall, Baron Zemo likely can fit into a Silver Surfer/Patriot engine. Patriot decks run things like Brood or Absorbing Man to discount Mockingbird, and Zemo does the same.
He benefits from the Silver Surfer effect, so his fit is natural. However, I wouldn’t say he buffs up the archetype in a major way. He’s likely to be more of a side grade, but time will tell.
Yondu
On Reveal: Destroy the lowest-Cost card in your opponent’s deck.
We haven’t seen a mill strategy in Marvel Snap yet, but with the release of Baron Zemo, that may change. Cards like Yondu, Gladiator, and Cable all take cards from your opponent’s deck.
While this isn’t always impactful, if you do it enough times, your opponent will simply have less cards to work with.
Furthermore, if you play Yondu before Baron Zemo, you have a better chance at stealing a higher cost card, giving yourself more power. However, this is anti-synergistic with Gladiator. If you take the weak cards out of your opponent’s deck, it’s more likely that Gladiator will pull a high power card.
Overall, people might give this archetype a try with Zemo, but I expect it to be more of a meme deck rather than a meta deck.
Midrange
Ongoing: Cards in your hand cost 1 less. (minimum 1)
Lastly, I put Sera as a synergy, but this is less about Sera herself and more about “midrange” style decks. Baron Zemo can often simply be a 3/6 to 3/8, which puts him around the same level as Gladiator.
If you play Zemo later in the game, you might have slightly better odds at pulling a high Power card as well.
Because of this, you can look at Zemo as simply an efficient card to put Power on the board rather than a key synergy piece with other archetypes.
Sera has become less popular as of late with Hope Summers in the game, but Zemo can definitely slot into both.
Baron Zemo Decks
For this section, I’ll be going over some decks that synergize with Baron Zemo.
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.
Baron Zemo Patriot Deck
This first deck looks to utilize Baron Zemo as a 3-cost stat stick. Mockingbird fits into the Surfer Patriot archetype, and Baron Zemo helps there as well.
This deck can somewhat work well, but is quite vulnerable to things like Junk. Other versions of Surfer have also been creeping back into the meta, so we may see a pure Surfer deck work as well.
Baron Zemo Loki Mill Deck
This next deck mixes the Loki archetype with Baron Zemo. We have mill cards like Yondu, Cable, Baron, and Gladiator to potentially run your opponent out of cards.
You can steal their cards with Baron Zemo and steal them again with Loki. I don’t expect this version of Loki to be better than other versions, but it’s definitely an option to try out.
Counters and Weaknesses
Deck Thinning
One of the main weaknesses of Baron Zemo is that you actually are thinning your opponent’s deck. Since Zemo always pulls the lowest cost card, this can be advantageous for your opponent. They might not want to draw Sunspot on turn 5 or Mind Stone on turn 6. With Baron Zemo, you’re taking away a potential bad draw for your opponent.
While you can potentially take away a good draw, it’s often going to be more beneficial for your opponent, even if only slightly.
Wasp
Any deck that plays Wasp makes Baron Zemo less effective. You only pull 1 Power from Wasp, and you also thin your opponent’s deck.
Junk
Any deck that clogs your locations will be difficult for Baron Zemo. While Baron can be efficient stat wise, he does take up 2 spots on any location with his ability.
This makes you vulnerable to junk strategies with cards like Debrii or Goblins.
Thanos Decks
Thanos decks are quite difficult to analyze with Baron Zemo. If you pull an Infinity Stone, you’ll often get strong Power with Power/Soul Stone, or some free card draw with Reality/Time/Space Stone.
Because of this, you’re actually getting great value from Zemo against Thanos. However, you do thin your opponent’s deck slightly. This increases the odds they draw into their more powerful high-cost cards in the final turns of the game.
Overall, I wouldn’t consider Thanos a counter, but it’s something to mention since Thanos is one of the strongest decks at the moment.
Should You Buy Baron Zemo?
Overall, I would rate Baron Zemo a 6/10.
In general, Season Passes are very worthwhile as you get a free card and a bunch of Credits/Gold by leveling up the pass. When it comes to Baron Zemo, I don’t expect him to change the meta drastically.
He’s an efficient card with some archetype synergies, but he doesn’t seem to push anything over the top. Unless other nerfs come in the patch, we’re likely still in a meta where decks like Thanos and Phoenix Force are on top.
However, if other decks get nerfed, it’s possible for Baron Zemo to be a major player in the meta, so only time will tell.
Be sure to check out our Tier Lists for our current rankings on Marvel Snap decks and cards.
Good luck in your games, and thanks for reading!
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