With another season of Marvel Snap under our belts comes another season pass card: Nimrod, which means there is new deck strategy and weaknesses to discuss. This month’s theme centers around Days of Future Past – Sentinels culling mutants with a futuristic dystopian aesthetic, basically. Nimrod is an advanced Sentinel from the future, built to make sure mutants stay in their lane with deadly force. It’s kind of like Marvel’s version of a Terminator. Along with a handful of variants, some cool card backs, a bunch of gold, and a deluge of credits, it’s all yours for $9.99.
Much like its power level in the comic, it looks like Nimrod will make an impact on the Marvel Snap meta immediately with a powerful ability that reads: “When this is destroyed, add a copy to each other location.” At 5 energy and with 5 power, destroy decks might have gotten a significant power boost, so let’s take a look at what kind of decks and synergies you should expect players to run with Nimrod early in the Days of Future Past season, along with a handful of ways to counter the big pink robot.
Strategy and Weaknesses for Nimrod Decks in Marvel Snap
Nimrod, obviously, works well in decks with cards that can destroy it. You may think that, since cards like Carnage, Deathlok, and Venom have some natural synergy, slotting Nimrod into a typical Deathwave deck would take that archetype to the next level. Yet as you almost always want to play Wave on turn 5 in such a deck, a Nimrod turn 5 followed by something like Venom to gobble it up is hardly better than just playing Doctor Doom on the final turn. Instead, decks that try to ramp into Nimrod with Wave, Electro, or Psylocke on turn 3 with a deck list like this would fare better:
- The Hood
- Nova
- Bucky Barnes
- Carnage
- Wolverine
- Venom
- Electro (or Psylocke)
- Wave
- Deathlok
- Nimrod
- She-Hulk
- Death
This deck follows two different play paths. The standard Wave on turn 5 followed by a cheap She-Hulk and Death for 22 power across the board is still a viable combo, even if it isn’t the meta-defining powerhouse it once was. Otherwise, ramping into Nimrod and destroying him twice – or more – on turns 5 and 6 with Venom, Carnage, and Deathlok can spread a lot of pink robot power everywhere. That said, it’s hard to tell whether or not Nimrod will improve the Deathwave set or dilute it.
As the copies of Nimrod don’t lose their power, Nimrod seems much more powerful in a deck that looks to both buff and destroy him along with another card like Deadpool. I think such a deck has a chance at challenging for a place in the high-ranked later, though only time will tell. Be warned that if you haven’t devoted either your life or your wallet to Marvel Snap, this deck makes use of the Series 4 card Shuri and Black Panther if you didn’t nab him in a previous season:
- Deadpool
- Forge
- Carnage
- Okoye
- Venom
- Nakia
- Deathlok
- Shuri
- Taskmaster
- Black Panther
- Nimrod
- Arnim Zola
The primary game strategy with this Marvel Snap deck is simple: buff Black Panther and Nimrod with Forge, Okoye, Nakia, and most importantly Shuri, then hit them with Arnim Zola to spread an insane amount of damage across the board. Anyone who has played around with Black Panther knows that slapping down the Wakandan Cat Man just asks for an Aero, Armor, or Cosmo to block your Arnim Zola, so a card like Taskmaster can take Black Panther or Nimrod’s buffed power level into another lane to fake out opponents that try to counter such a play. Deadpool buffed and killed over and over again can make for a tertiary win condition.
Look for Series 5 behemoths like Galactus and Knull to also make use of Nimrod. If you’re high on the ranked ladder, expect plenty of experimentation with these cards, though I believe Nimrod doesn’t improve Galactus decks too much.
So if Nimrod becomes a problem like it did/will do for the mutants of the past and future, how can you counter it? The answer is the same as countering other destroy decks: Cosmo, Armor, and Aero. I highly recommend taking Armor into your deck heading into this latest season, as she’s the cheapest way to stop the pink robot from running you over. It’s fitting, as Armor is a mutant. Otherwise, the lane Nimrod gets destroyed in usually will have less power than the other two, allowing you to push more power into another lane and nab them both.
We won’t have to wait for a dystopian future to see if Nimrod will make as big of an impact as pre-nerf Silver Surfer and Zabu, or if it will fit nicely into a fun but counterable deck like last month’s M.O.D.O.K. My guess is that Nimrod will fall somewhere in the middle, making for a great inclusion in a bunch of different archetypes rather than grinding the ladder under its pink-hued heel as if we’re all puny mutants.
That is everything there is to know about the best Nimrod deck strategy and weaknesses to address in Marvel Snap.
Related: What is Fast Forwarding in Marvel Snap Explained on Twinfinite
