If you’re excited for Black Knight to join Marvel Snap, you may be wondering what the best decks for him are. Like most sword-wielding heroes in the game, the Black Knight falls into the discard archetype. As a 1-Power, 2-Cost card with the ability that reads, “After you discard a card, add the Ebony Blade to your hand with that card’s Power. (once per game),” it opens up the archetype to some massive power swings. The Ebony Blade itself is a 4-Power, 0-Cost card.
As one of the more specific abilities in the game, here’s an example of how the Black Knight works: With him on the board, the first time you play a card that has an On Reveal discard effect – such as Lady Sif – it will gain the discarded card’s power. So if you hit an Infininaut with Lady Sif and Black Knight is on your board, you’ll have a 4-Energy and 20-Power Ebony Blade in your hand.
All you need to know about the character himself – if you’re unfamiliar with the Black Knight – is that he’s a man named Dane Whitman and a descendant of a medieval knight who passed down his magic sword the Ebony Blade; however, while the sword comes with great power, it is also cursed. Kit Harrington also played Dane Whitman in the most forgettable Marvel movie: Eternals.
With all that in mind, here are our picks for the best Black Knight decks in Marvel Snap, how to counter him, and whether he’s worth your Collector’s Tokens or a Spotlight Cache.
Related: I Finally Hit Infinite in Marvel Snap, and All That Effort Wasn’t Worth It
Best Black Knight Decks in Marvel Snap
As the discard archetype is a rather narrow one, the Black Knight doesn’t currently fit into a lot of popular meta decks; however, he may have the power to facilitate the rise of a standard discard deck. Two decks, one of them long since overshadowed by the introduction of more powerful cards, look to benefit from Black Knight’s release:
First, standard discard revived:
- Blade
- Black Knight
- Morbius
- Zabu
- Lady Sif
- Black Cat
- Dracula
- Ghost Rider
- M.O.D.O.K
- Apocalypse
- Death
- Infininaut
Here, Black Knight serves as a high roll win condition: play Black Knight, use Lady Sif to discard Death, Apocalypse, or preferably the Infininaut, to create a high power Ebony Blade. Then, with Zabu on the board, you can drop both the Ebony Blade and Ghost Rider, the latter of which will bring back another powerful discarded card, with the highest possible outcome of dropping a total 43 Power on the final turn. M.O.D.O.K is used here to dump your hand so Dracula, also discounted by Zabu, can grab something powerful if the Black Knight path doesn’t materialize.
Then, Black Knight looks like it will provide another layer of gambling to the Hela Tribunal deck:
- Blade
- Black Knight
- Invisible Woman
- Magik
- Iron Lad
- Iron Man
- M.O.D.O.K
- Hela
- Onslaught
- The Living Tribunal
- Giganto
- The Infininaut
You may notice that the only discard effects in this deck are Blade and M.O.D.O.K. While M.O.D.O.K can discard a high power card which will spawn an Ebony Blade, you’ll want to save M.O.D.O.K to hide behind Invisible Woman with Hela. However, with Blade’s recently buffed effect of hitting the rightmost card in your hand, you have a cheap way to target a powerful card such as Giganto or The Infininaut, that you can later bring back with Hela if you do not draw Invisible Woman.
How to Counter Black Knight in Marvel Snap
As a 1-Cost card, Black Knight is susceptible to counters like Elektra, which never sees play, and Killmonger, which is fairly common, but the chances of killing Black Knight before your opponent gets a discard effect off is slim. However, one card that has steadily risen in popularity over the last month – Shadow King – can revert the Ebony Blade back to 0 power. Shang-Chi can also kill a massive Ebony Blade. As discard decks typically don’t have the room to run Luke Cage or Armor, Shadow King and Shang-Chi are your best bet if you’re running into a lot of Black Knights.
Is Black Knight Worth Your Collector’s Tokens/Spotlight Cache?
First and foremost, the Black Knight is a Series 5 card, meaning he’ll cost a whopping 6000 Collector’s Tokens. So no, he is definitely not worth your Collector’s Tokens. This week, Stature and M.O.D.O.K join the Black Knight in the spotlight caches, so if you enjoy risky discard gameplay and don’t have those cards, opening your caches for the Black Knight isn’t the worst idea; however, as it seems unlikely discard decks will become powerful staples in the meta, it’s probably best to leave Black Knight and the Ebony Blade sheathed.
If you’re looking for more on the game, check out our picks for the best Man-Thing decks in Marvel Snap.
