Mathing Out Fantomex

What to Do With Fantomex

Fantomex is the lynchpin of this season as the huge payoff for building a deck that includes both Destroy and Discard cards. Second Dinner wants us to build hybrid decks, but what can we get away with? Can we include just one Discarder in a Destroy deck? Can we build a deck with just one of each effect? How consistent would that be? Is Fantomex’s payoff big enough that it would be worth it? Let’s dive into all the numbers and play lines behind Fantomex.

Fantomex Calculations

There are four different ways you can envision a Fantomex deck:

• Hybrid Destroy/Discard with multiple of each trigger
• Mostly Destroy with 1-2 token Discarders
• Mostly Discard with 1-2 token Destroyers
• “Good Cards” decks with just 1-2 of each effect to enable Fantomex

So, if we are just shoving a Blade into a deck that is otherwise heavy on Destroy, what are our odds to actually draw the Blade?

The odds of drawing any particular card in your deck in a normal (non-Limbo) Marvel Snap game is 75%, which is very high compared to other card games. Fantomex smooths out a lot of this variance by being an Activate card – we don’t need to play Fantomex before Blade, we can play the Blade on turn 6.

The odds of having access to any individual card can be increased by adding cards like Magik, Iron Lad, or Jubilee.

But we don’t just need Blade, we need Blade and Fantomex. What are our odds to get both cards? The odds of seeing any two specific cards is 54.5%. However, here is where Fantomex having Activate text can be a downside. We can’t get any use out of him if we draw him on turn 6 -- we need to have him on board by turn 5 at the latest.

If our task is to draw a 4-Cost Activate card, Fantomex or otherwise, and get it into play by turn 5 at the latest, we have a 66.7% chance to do that -- no wonder so many 4-Cost activates flop. 

So it’s a 75% chance we see Blade at all and a 66.7% chance we get Fantomex in time. We have about a 48.5% chance to do both.

So, if we want to go absolute minimal on Fantomex, the full greedy play line, and just want to include Fantomex, Gambit, and Misery in our deck along with a bunch of good cards. What are the odds we draw Fantomex in time to play him out and both Gambit and Misery on before the end of the game? About 33.9%. 

Is this worth it? Is this viable? It would depend on the other cards in our deck and the play lines it has. If we can add a devastating 33.9% play to our otherwise consistent and powerful deck, we should absolutely do that! But if this 33.9% play is the primary play line we’re leaning on to win, then that would be disastrous for our rank.

How about a deck with Fantomex, Black Cat, Killmonger, Gambit, and Misery? We have approximately a 59.4% chance to draw Fantomex by turn 5, plus at least one Discarder and one Destroyer by turn 6. Those are honestly pretty good odds, assuming the rest of our deck is built around powerful cards that give us alternate play lines. It is obviously massively complicated by whether or not we have a Killmonger target, and if we want to play the Black Cat out instead of letting her jump to the Discard pile, but 59.4% is our baseline to see the cards required to get value from Fantomex. This boosts to 65.5% if you add one more card each to the Discarders and Destroyers sets.

Odds to draw:

• Any single card in a game: 75%
• Any two specific cards in a game: 54.5%
• A card by Turn 5: 66.7%
• One specific card by Turn 5 and one specific card by Turn 6: ~48.5%
• One specific card by Turn 5 and two specific cards by turn 6: ~33.9%
• One specific card by Turn 5 and one each from a sets two by turn 6: 59.4%

Is Fantomex Worth All of This Effort?

Let's take a look at what Fantomex's power output is. He has 6-Power himself, which isn't awful for a 4-Cost card, and 4/7 would probably be too outrageous given he has powerful potential upside. If you are able to fulfill his condition AND your opponent has the front row of all three locations occupied, Fantomex will afflict -12, making him essentially a 4/18. That second clause is important. Your opponent often will not have all of their front rows occupied meaning 4/16 or 4/14 are much more likely. I'd peg his range at around 12-18 power, though you could get him up to 30 with a cheeky Jocasta.

Self-Servers

The Discard and Destroy archetypes are highly synergistic, so trying to pull pieces from them as small Fantomex packages is tricky. Here are some of the most independent Discarders and Destroyers that we might be able to splash into a Fantomex deck with a minimal footprint.

Destroyers

• Fastball Special
• Kid Omega
• Killmonger
• Luna Snow (the Ice Cube!)
• Zombie Captain Marvel 
• Misery
• Attuma
• Lady Deathstrike
• Arnim Zola

The Discard side of the ledger is a lot more sparse. There are far fewer “free roll” Discarders and even the ones below will need to be considered to at least some degree during deck-building. Their effects can be mitigated with a variety of cards like Swarm, Ghost Rider, and Hela. 

Discarders

• Black Cat
• Blade
• The First Ghost Rider
• Bullseye
• Gambit
• Moon Knight, Sword Master, and Silver Samurai may be able to slot into a deck without a downside, or with a very minor one. I wouldn't necessarily build around them, but would check if they fit a deck at the end.

Small Packages

Sometimes all you need to justify one of the two effects is a small 2-Card package.

• Silver Samurai and/or Moon Knight + Stature
• Lady Sif + Ghost Rider
• Red Shift + Agatha
• Colleen Wing + Swarm and/or Scorn

The Hybrid Deck

Below, I've also built out 6 possibilities for other approaches to Fantomex including those with just a sprinkle of either effect. If you'd like to see them all, consider supporting Fourth Location at either the Supporter ($4) or Champion ($12) levels! 

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