What to do with Boomerang

The Spider-Man: Brand New Day season is in full swing! We've gotten yet another Peter Parker, plus his girlfriend and even his Aunt! With apologies to the reformed Tarantula, bring on the bad guys already!

Boomerang takes center stage like he rarely has before as this week's highly-anticipated Series 5 card! He fits into a beloved archetype and as a 2-Cost (kinda) scaler! Is he worth the hype?! Here is everything I'm excited to try with Boomerang!

Is he good enough to be a bounce card?

Bounce as an archetype hasn't had the best time lately. The entire theory of the deck is that it can stack an enormous amount of points, while still throwing priority and keeping safe from opposing tech. Well, a lot of that goes out the window when it's no longer making the biggest points stacks in the game. Instead, it ends up losing to more linear decks on points, while being a lot harder to play itself.

Could Boomerang make it into lists as a top 12 bounce card? Could he revitalize the archetype and bring it back to the top?

The points ceiling on Boomerang is around 26 points, assuming you bounce him three times, play him out at the end, AND your opponent plays out the Afflicted cards. A more realistic high-end is something like 18, with two bounces and your opponent bravely plays out one of the Afflictions anyway. 26 for 6 Energy or 18 for 4 Energy represent really solid rates, but hardly earth-shattering ones as our top end, given that this doesn't factor in the cost of playing the bouncers.

Collector Bounce

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Boomerang has some solid synergy with The Collector and Mother Askani. I don't know if three bouncers is the way to go if you're not running The Collector, but Boomerang will likely always want both Beast and Toxin.

WWBounceN

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Annoy your opponent plenty while sending your Wolf's Power to the moon!

Is he just a bounce card?

You'll obviously get more value out of Boomerang alongside cards like Beast and Toxin, but is that the only type of deck he can fit in? The other synergy hook Boomerang has is Affliction. Next week's Scorpion Brand New Day card gives us a way to really punish our opponent for playing out any Afflicted cards. Could there be an Affliction deck that plays some classic Spidey-Villains?

Superior Foes of Spider-Man

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This is already an extremely flavorful deck, deliberately so, but if you really want to go full flavor pop in Spider-Punk over Red Guardian and Spider-Woman over Man-Thing!

Silver Sable and Scorpion can make sure all of our opponent's options are terrible, and Doctor Octopus can fish out the cards that are so Afflicted our opponent really doesn't want them to hit the board. Boomerang is probably our best Doctor Octopus partner we've had in a while!

Is He Worth It?

I'm not amazed by Boomerang's Power-scaling, though it can be strong. That, plus just how niche this card feels – it has a single home in a struggling, high-skill archetype – makes it hard to recommend this card for the average player. If you're just a bounce-lover or a big fan of the classic Spidey villains from Superior Foes of Spider-Man, he's a no brainer.

Below the paywall, I've tucked two intriguing Boomerang decks, including a particularly exciting hybrid of the two above and my favorite Power bounce deck!