What to do with Jeff the Baby Dolphin?!
If you saw a fin cutting through the water at your beach party, what would you do? You'd scream and get out of the water! Well, Jeff may be a shark, but he doesn't want to ruin everyone's fun, he wants friends! He dresses up as a Dolphin to be less intimidating. But it's not all fun and games. The friendliest new card in Snap is also an instant metagame staple! Here's everything I want to try with Jeff, the Baby Dolphin!
The Fish that Scales You!
Jeff is reminiscent of Angela, once a dominant meta force herself before being nerfed. Except that instead of needing to play movers and other things that can leave space for more Angela buffs, Jeff buffs the other cards themselves and can then himself move somewhere else to hand out even more buffs. He's the perfect friend! Plus, he moves!
Best Friends
The Super Premium Season Pass card, Venus, amplifies Jeff in a very powerful way. If you only have resources for the Season Pass card, you may need to replace Venus in decks you find here and elsewhere. Clea is a strong card, but has lacked enough reliable ways to buff her. I think we may have hit critical mass and it will be easier to include her in buff decks. In the comics Jeff's best friends are Gwenpool and Kate Bishop. Could either work out in Snap as the ultimate friendly flavor win? Eh, maybe. Kate does give us cheap cards to play and Gwenpool hooks into Empower buffs, but not in a way that directly synergizes with Jeff, sadly.
Small Cards
If you play a bunch of smaller cards, Jeff will account for A LOT of points. The dream is to play a full three cards onto Jeff and then move him to buff three more cards elsewhere.
High Impact Buffs
Some cards are thirstier for buffs than others. Jeff's +1 can add up on multiple cards, but cards that can magnify it make it more impactful as well.
Scott's Day One Jeff the Baby Dolphin Decks
Stick Jeff
I expect this deck or some close variation of it to be the best deck for the entire season, or until there are some nerfs. You could try to work Venus in or try out Okoye to see if she finally has enough value.
Dragon and Shark
This deck is just too much of a flavor win not to try. We've got Kate and her best bud Jeff, as well as Kitty and her pet Dragon. Though I'd love to fit Gwenpool in, we have to go with the current powerhouse, Mother Askani in her place. At least that's technically Rachel Summers. Prowler is one of the cards I'm most excited to use with Jeff since we can easily put a couple more incidental Move cards into a deck to make his skills reliably free.
Shou Shark
Jeff has a chance to revitalize Shou-Lao, who has fallen out of favor in recent weeks. This deck will most likely need some additional tech, but Shadow King is the card that would probably solve the most problems for this deck, and he is tricky to use with this set of cards. We should try to out-power people with this Bishop/Scarlet Spider build first.
Fallen Baby
I think Jeff could be the core of a variety of Fallon One shenanigans, since Jeff specifies that your cards reveal with +1 Power. Jeff → Luna → Fallen One sets you up with a lot of Energy fast. Plus, Jeff works surprisingly well with Wong since you can move him out of the way to Zola a Panther later, for example.
Is He Worth It?
The Season Pass card once again looks like the best card of the season, but this time it's not in a way that will rule over the meta in a way that centralizes around a single deck. This time, the Pass card is flexible enough to be used in a variety of packages and, if anything, I would expect him to get other cards nerfed rather than needing to be extensively changed in the way Star Lord and Shou-Lao were. Get him – he's fun, flexible, and powerful.
I've put a four more ideas behind the paywall including some of the more greedy Jeff concepts. As always, we appreciate the support of those of you who want to secure a future for written Snap content that is ad free!
