AlanDood
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6 Min read Welcome back to our weekly review where we’ll be covering Marvel Snap’s latest card, Corvus Glaive, 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.
Corvus is the third Spotlight Cache card for February, and based on first impressions, he seems to be underwhelming. He synergizes with the Discard archetype, but can be played in other shells as well.
Let’s get right into the guide.
On Reveal: Discard 2 cards from your hand to get +1 Max Energy.
First off, Corvus Glaive is a 3/5, which is a competitive stat line for 3-Cost cards. Other cards like Lady Sif or Viper are also 3/5, making Corvus competitive in that regard.
Looking at his effect, you will be discarding 2 cards in order to gain +1 Max Energy. This is similar to Electro who is also a 3-Cost card. However, with Electro, you can only play 1 card a turn.
Overall, discarding 2 random cards is very likely a worse downside than Electro’s Ongoing downside. You can build Electro decks to only play one card a turn, negating his main downside. For Corvus, you can build your deck to benefit from discarding cards, but you’re introducing a lot of variance into your deck that simply can’t be mitigated.
Corvus is in an awkward spot because Discard decks also don’t really need the extra Energy. You’re often playing cards on curve and finishing the game with Modok and Dracula. In Ramp style decks, you don’t need to play more than one card a turn, so Electro is simply a more consistent version of Corvus.
If you want to play Corvus Glaive in a “midrange” style deck with tech cards and efficient cards, the random discards can be extremely detrimental.
Because of this, it’s hard to imagine many decks that can synergize with both the +1 Energy and Discard effect.
When this is discarded, jumps to your lowest-Power location. (that isn’t full)
The first clear synergy for Corvus Glaive is with the Discard archetype. There are many cards that benefit from being Discarded like Swarm, Wolverine, X-23, etc.
Proxima Midnight will be the next Spotlight Cache, and she provides arguably the biggest upside from being discarded. However, opening two Spotlight Cache cards is quite expensive. I would argue that Proxima Midnight is a more important card to open than Corvus Glaive, but that’s just an initial impression.
At the start of the game, shuffle the six Infinity Stones into your deck.
First off, let’s talk about Thanos decks. The Black Order season thematically revolves around Thanos, and Corvus could provide some interesting synergy with Thanos decks.
Thanos decks naturally draw a lot of cards with the Infinity Stones, so Corvus’ discard effect can be seen as less of a downside. Thanos decks can also easily utilize the extra Energy as the Infinity Stones provide flexible options on your turns. You can play an early Blob or Magneto on turn 5, or finish the game with a 6-Cost + an Infinity Stone.
The potential is definitely there, but it’s hard to imagine it being better than other Thanos decks. Discarding the wrong cards can turn your game into a quick loss.
Ongoing: If your hand is empty, +6 Power.
Corvus will likely be the most interesting in Discard decks that don’t run Dracula/Apocalypse as one of their main engines. You can simply use Corvus Glaive on turn 6 to empty your hand, buffing up a card like Strong Guy to 3/9, which is extremely powerful.
Hell Cow provides a similar effect, but Corvus Glaive does only cost 3 Energy instead of Hell Cow’s 4. This can be impactful if you’re trying to play a hybrid deck of something like Silver Surfer and Discard.
For this section, I’ll be mainly going over some decks that synergize with Corvus Glaive.
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.
First up, let’s simply shove Corvus Glaive into the generic Discard Apocalypse deck. While he’s not an amazing inclusion, he can be a fine option to play if you want to. The random discards can be very detrimental, but maybe you’re able to hit Swarm and Apocalypse.
Getting an extra Energy is fairly useless in this deck, but if you don’t have Dracula, maybe you’re able to play Apocalypse + Blade on the final turn. Or maybe you can play both Hell Cow and Lady Sif.
In the end, Corvus Glaive isn’t that big of an upgrade over playing another card like Gambit, Swordmaster, or Storm.
Up next, we have a somewhat meme deck that utilizes Black Swan to go for a large turn 6 play. All of the 1-Cost cards can be played on turn 6 for free with Black Swan, letting you play your other 3-Cost cards.
Proxima can be discarded by either Blade or Corvus Glaive toward the end, and you have other scaling cards like Dazzler and Strong Guy to boost Power.
While this deck can work, the consistency is lacking and the ceiling is also lower compared to some of the other decks in the meta. There’s likely plenty of optimizing you can do with this deck, like maybe trying Hit-Monkey or Silver Surfer. Even still, I expect this deck to be more of a fun meme deck than a competitive one.
Lastly, let’s talk about this Thanos Corvus deck. Hela is already a strong high variance deck, and Thanos Lockjaw is a strong deck as well. So why not combine it all with Corvus Glaive.
We have a traditional Lockjaw Thanos list, but with Corvus Glaive to provide some extra spice and variance. Funnily enough, this might be the archetype that fits Corvus Glaive the best. While it may not be better than running cards like Shang-Chi/Leech, it can definitely be fun.
Playing an early Corvus can discard powerful cards, but you can draw through your deck with Stones and revive the big boys with Hela. You definitely will have some low roll games where you Discard Hela or don’t find Lockjaw, but this deck likely will still be strong.
While Corvus Glaive can technically be stopped by Cosmo, that isn’t a particular hard counter. Corvus himself isn’t really stopped by many things. +1 Energy can’t be stopped by things like Mobius, so Corvus is fairly safe card.
However, the archetypes that Corvus goes into can be countered by certain cards.
For example, in the Black Swan deck, Mobius can stop you from playing your 1-cost cards for free. In the Thanos deck, Shang-Chi blows up a majority of your deck, etc.
Overall, I would rate Corvus Glaive a 3/10.
In my initial Spotlight Cache Review, I rated Corvus Glaive a 3/10. After thinking about it more, I haven’t really changed my mind and am still rating him so.
Discard and Ramp decks can’t utilize his effect very easily, but there is possibly potential with Strong Guy decks or Thanos decks. Even still, I don’t think he is quite impactful enough to warrant opening for.
If you’re a die hard Thanos player and want to try out a new version, Corvus Glaive can provide some value. However, if you need to open 4 caches to open Corvus, I wouldn’t think of that as a great deal.
I definitely think Corvus Glaive is skippable, but who knows, maybe Second Dinner buffs Corvus Glaive like they did with Gladiator and he becomes a meta card. However, as he stands, I don’t think Corvus Glaive is a meta card.
Hope this guide helped you out a bit, good luck in your games, and snap away!
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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