5 awesome cards to use at Marvel SNAP’s Hot Location, Bar Sinister

Marvel SNAP has released this week’s Hot Location and its Bar Sinsiter. These mini-events are definitely worth some deck adjustments if you’re looking to win some matches.

Hot Locations, for those unaware, typically change over on Sunday and make a specific location much more likely to appear (more on them and their counterparts, Featured Locations, below). In this case, we’ll be taking a look at some nice cards to use while Bar Sinister is the Hot Location, though all of these will work whenever you encounter the Bar Sinister Location.

What is Bar Sinister? What’s the key to winning when Bar Sinister is up?

In the comics, Bar Sinister is part of Battleworld, a place we may visit in Phase 6’s Avengers: Secret Wars. It is ruled by Mister Sinister and his army of clones. Cloning is key to the Bar Sinister Location in Marvel SNAP. Bar Sinister will fill with clones… err… copies of whatever card you play here.

SNAP has several mechanics, but the key one for Bar Sinister is On Reveal. This is an effect that fires when the card is flipped or revealed. It works similarly to the Battlecry mechanic in Hearthstone. What is absolutely key is On Reveal effects fire before Location effects. This means your cards On Reveal will happen and then get copied.

Great cards to use on Bar Sinister

Patriot

If you play Patriot (Ongoing: Your cards with no abilities have +2 Power) at Bar Sinister, you’ll have four Patriots giving a total of +8 Power. Your 1-Cost, 2-Power Misty Knight becomes a 1-Cost monster. That’s more offense than the NFL Patriots mustered on Monday Night Football.

A Patriotthemed deck contains Patriot, Mystique, Onslaught and a bunch of “No Effect” cards like Misty Knight, Shocker, Cyclops, etc. It is currently a very competitive deck. Running it for Bar Sinister should still give you a good chance to win on those matches where you don’t get Bar Sinister.

If you don’t have Eli Bradly just yet, you could try something similar with Kazar, or Blue Marvel, but as we’ll discuss in a moment, planning on using any card in Bar Sinister that costs more than 3 Energy is a risky preposition.

Hulkbuster

I’m calling in Veronica!

You play Hulkbuster (On Reveal: Merge this card with a random friendly card at this location) and it’s On Reveal will initially say “No Target,” but then Bar Sinister activates, and now you’ve got three more Hulkbusters. They start merging with each other and by the end of the play, you’ve got a 3-Cost 16-Power Hulkbuster. Even better, unlike some other Bar Sinister plays, you’ve got three open spots so you can drop another card and have it cloned.

If you’re going to try the Hulkbuster play, it is absolutely essential that the location have no other cards. If you have say a Squirrel from Squirrel Girl at that Location,  when Hulkbuster plays, he will merge with the Squirrel to become a 4 power, but then, when Bar Sinister activates, it doesn’t see your Hulkbuster anymore it sees the 4-Power Squirrel and copies that. You now have four 4-Power Squirrels.

Venom plus a tasty snack

We. Are. Venom.

Venom (On Reveal: Destroy your other cards at this location. Add their Power to this card) needs a tasty snack. I like using the Demon from Hood, but any low cost card you have can work. You play both Venom and his snack at the location, just be sure you play the snack first. The snack will reveal and Bar Sinister will copy them two times. At this point, you’ll have three snacks, and one Venom. Now Venom reveals, and goes NOM NOM NOM on your three snacks.

Let’s say your snacks were a 1-Power Squirrel from Squirrel Girl. Venom at three of them so now you have a 4-Power Venom. After Venom chows down, Bar Sinister activates. Now you have four 4-Power Venom. They proceed to eat one another, and suddenly you have a huge Venom and three open spaces left on Bar Sinister.

Green Goblin

Green Goblin (-3 Power, 3-Energy, On Reveal: Your opponent gains control of this) is your Bar Sinister counterplay. You play Green Goblin and he hops over to the other side. Then Bar Sinister activates giving you four Green Goblins on your side. One by one they hop over until you have four on your opponent’s side for -12 Power and one on your side for -3 Power plus three open spots. You’ve effectively shut your opponent out of Bar Sinister.

Green Goblin costs 3 Energy which is why its risky to plan on a Bar Sinister strategy with a card that costs 3 or more. If you are going with a 3 Cost card like Patriot or Venom, the order between you and your opponent is paramount. If the enemy goes first, they’ll still fill up your Bar Sinister, expect for the one card you play, but if you go first, they’ll be stuck with all those Goblins on their side because your side will be full.

So how do you know who goes first? It’s the player with the glowing nameplate. How do you ensure that’s you? You need to have a lead. For this reason, I like to include some low-cost cards in my deck. Domino (You always draw this card on turn 2, and not before) can really help here. I also like Uatu the Watch (Once this is in your hand, you can see the unrevealed locations) to let you see where Bar Sinister will pop.

Another idea is fill your Bar Sinister with 1-Cost cards like a Nova (When this is destroyed, give your cards +1 Power). With your Bar Sinister filled, your opponent can’t Goblin you. You’ll need a Killmonger (On Reveal: Destroy ALL 1-Cost cards) to clear your Bar Sinister and then immediately play a card there the next turn.

Devil Dinosaur / Hulk

If you are lower on the Collection Road, you might not have some of these cards. In that case, either Devil Dinosaur (Ongoing: +2 Power for each card in your hand) or Hulk (6-Cost, 12-Power, no effect) might be your best play. You are vulnerable to a Goblin play, but not everyone runs that.

What is a Hot Locations in Marvel SNAP? What’s the difference between Featured Location and Hot Location?

You’ll see two types of Location driven events in SNAP : the Featured Location and the Hot Location. Featured Locations are the way SNAP introduces a new Location to the pool of randomly selected Locations. For the duration of the event (usually about 48 hours), there is a 40% chance you’ll see the Featured Location in your match.

Hot Locations use a Location from the existing pool. These tend temporarily warp the meta because they have a 60% chance of being one of the three randomly selected Locations. Hot Locations tend to stay “hot” for about 24 hours.

No matter why Bar Sinister is in your Location pool, hopefully these cards and tips help you win!

Originally posted 10-27-2022, updated 12-4-2022