What to do with Scorpion: Brand New Day
Get ready for our latest Series 5 card, Scorpion: Spider-Man Brand New Day! Scorpion: Scorp’s New Scorp! Scorpion: Scorpin’ Time! Scorpion: Brand New Day! Here’s everything I’m excited to try with our second Scorpion card and first new Affliction payoff following the Luke Cage nerf rework!
6-Cost Finishers
In order to see play, 6-Cost Finishers have historically needed to have incredibly powerful effects to make up for the predictability and relative weakness of playing a single card on the final turn. Examples of powerful 6-Cost finishers of past eras include Hela, Galactus: First Steps, Blob, Arnim Zola, Aurora, Galactus, and, from much earlier metas, Doctor Doom and Magneto. In other words, 6-Costs need to either be gigantically Powerful on their own, or affect multiple lanes. Does our new Scorpion do enough?
There are quite a few 6-Cost finishers that have felt like traps more often than they’ve felt powerful. Cards like Onslaught and Odin are only good when you’re leveraging them for truly silly combos, while Spectrum spent most of her life feeling underpowered. But the king of the losing 6-Cost finishers is Heimdall. Heimdall seems like he should be great for classic Move decks. In reality, he just doesn’t do enough and often ends up losing, despite appearing to be the ultimate synergy payoff. Is Scorpion: Brand New Day more like Aurora for Affliction or Affliction Heimdall?
Cut Deep, not Wide
Even before the change to Luke Cage, the best-looking strategy for Scorpion: BND was to heavily Afflict a few cards, rather than pinging a bunch of opponents cards and Afflicting wide, like more classic Affliction decks. Doubling Omega Sentinel’s cut from -7 to -14 feels a lot more powerful than doubling a few -1s. This is especially true now with the Luke Cage change. Reliance on Afflicting a bunch of your opponents cards is going to get shut down hard by the new 2/2 Cage far more than going for magnifying deeper cuts on big cards, who may be sitting in the back row.
Aside from our girl Karima (Omega Sentinel), I think each of the 3 Afflicting Skills are going to put in a lot of work with Scorpion: BND. Horseman Polaris is a card that I feel is already being a little underrated, but works well to either use Scorpion: BND to fulfill the Objective or to get the Scorpion into play for free!
Scosco’s Day One Scorpion: Brand New Day Decks
Straight Afflict
Just Afflict deeply and abuse Polaris' ability to get a card out for free.
Groove and Cut
Jocasta has plenty of Juicy targets and Scorpion: BND won't feel especially predictable in this hybrid shell.
New Agamotto Day
The dream is a Turn 5 Images of Ikonn on Omega Sentinel, but there are plenty of other clever Images plays.
Double Scorp Evo
High Evo with a different use for its Turn 7. The goal is to get Hulk, Scorpion: BND, and Abomination all into play by the end of the game.
Clea Wiccan
If you've never played a Clea/Ten Rings deck, give it a try! They're really fun and can snowball out of control. Scorpion BND is a much better payoff for the effort than just a big Galactus: First Steps or some Sub-Mariner cards.
Is He Worth It?
Even with the Cage change herding us towards a deep-cut style of Affliction that favors Scorpion: BND over classic Ajax Affliction, I’m still not confident in this archetype. Luke Cage still hampers us and any deck that relies on slamming down a predictable 6-Cost finisher is going to have trouble climbing against better opponents. Still, I’m excited about how he hooks into some of my favorite (and more underplayed) Afflictors, so I’ll be picking him up. At the end of the day, he’s a build-around that might soar or fall flat. If it looks like something you want to build around or place your bet on his power-level coming in high, grab him and have fun trying to crack him. But don’t feel like you’re missing out on a new must-have if he doesn’t appeal to you stylistically.
If you're a paid supporter, you'll find a several more shenanigans-y Scorp decks below, including the one I think will be the most FUN! Thank you for your support and enjoy!
