What to do with Venus
The god of love is coming to Snap and you're going to love the way she increases your buffs. Love is empowerment and Venus also centers a brand new keyword: Empower. Here's everything I want to try with Venus (spoiler: A LOT!).
Note about Jeff the Baby Dolphin:
If you have Venus, you're likely going to want Jeff and vice versa. If you're not a Season Pass buyer and are getting Venus with Tokens, you may also need to find substitutions for Dolphin Jeff in decks you find here and see elsewhere.
What is Empower?
The new keyword Empower refers to permanent Power increases. Ongoing buffs do not count, but things that “set” Power higher than base do count. Anytime you Empower a card with Venus out, she'll add an extra Power to that buff.
How Does She Actually Work?
Anytime a card is Empowered (gains permanent Power), she will add one on top of that. It's a static ability, so not subject to Cosmo, but Cosmic Ghost Rider can wipe her ability and Shadow King can take away her buffs afterwards. She'll still go off if something gains Power after the game, so she has some tricks to play around Shadow King alongside End of Turn cards like Marvel Boy and Objective cards like Horseman Wolverine. No, she doesn't get into an infinite loop with Sebastian Shaw, the devs considered that interaction.
Buff Wide or Buff Tall?
Because Venus adds a flat +1, it may be more advantageous to use her in decks that spread lots of small buffs wide. However, the current meta is centralized around making a single super tall Maverick (or Captain Carter or Stick, etc) and then passing that buff on to something like Brood or Mister Sinister. Does this mean Venus won't have a place in those decks or this meta? Not necessarily. Decks that buff tall multiple times will still be able to leverage all of those extra +1s, and she will (hopefully!) lead to some diversity in the way decks built around Empowering cards are organized.
Wide Buffers
There are plenty of cards that buff wide that have fallen out of the meta. Can Venus revive them?
Multi-Gainers
These are cards that can easily gain Power multiple times per game, making Venus especially valuable. Venus makes several of these cards feel a lot more threatening.
Scott's Day One Venus Decks
Venusian Aurora
Aurora hands out a bunch of +2 buffs and Venus makes them 1 bigger! Plus she's sneaky with Adam Warlock and powerful with Sam alongside the other self-Empowerment going on here.
Sailor Surfer
It remains to be seen if the go-wide Venus versions of these Carter/Maverick decks can compete with the existing go-tall ones, but the advantage of this deck is we can happily play Killmonger and get real upside from him, beyond just his defense as a 1-Cost killer.
BatWolf
Both Batroc and Werewolf grow extra thanks to Venus in this deck that aims to steal one lane with Professor X and win another with your scalers.
Strange Love
Every time Strange Supreme eats, he'll grow by an extra point. Plus, even if you don't get him out, Aurora can swoop in for a board-wide set of double buffs.
Can't King Me
This deck can dodge opposing Shadow Kings by having most of its Power gain come after the final turn is already over! You could go with Isca/Bruce Banner over the Marvel Boy stuff, but this build leverages Venus more.
Love Scratch
Cheap and free skills send Bishop and/or WWBN to the Moon! Prowler's Skill should be reliably free and Nicholas Scratch finally feels like a scaling threat.
Buffing Orders
You can play this deck in a variety of sequences from leading off with Jeff on Clea or Storm on Clea to building up a giant pair of Shaws or 'Squatches to slam down late. Kahhori seems built for Venus, even despite her recent subtle change (if she hits the same card more than once, that will count as a single empowerment).
Bishop's Littles
Bishop is one of the cards I most want to try with Venus. This deck is very light on bounce, but you don't need to be bouncing every game with this deck. Some games you'll just go for an aggressive flourish at the end with the help of Mother Askani.
Is She Worth It?
Venus is a powerful new way to extensively multiply buffs. She's going to succeed, the question is just if she does best in a couple of wide buffing strategies or if she is a new auto-inclusion in anything with multiple Empowering cards. She's worth your Tokens or $10.
There are an awful lot of ways to Empower cards in Snap, so I've tucked four of the more outside-the-box ideas below the paywall including some that can reach silly numbers, as well as the idea I want to try first!
