Kang the Conqueror is the newest card coming to Series 5 of MARVEL SNAP on February 28. In honor of this occasion, we've broken down Kang's comics history, looked at the card's best potential synergies, and theorycrafted some decks that feature Kang.
Five Best Kang Synergies
On Reveal: Look at what your opponent did, then restart the turn. (without Kang)
Kang the Conqueror can provide some helpful information on one of the final turns of the game - giving his controller a sneak peak of what their opponent is planning so they have a chance to go back in time and stop them. Like all time travel stories, seeing the future is likely to change it - the opponent also knows that the time-stream has been altered.
While he's not as deterministic as Daredevil, Kang is a tad more flexible, since you can use him on the final turn to see how your opponent plans on winning the game and use that information to flip the tables on them. It's also great for mind games, which are our favorite kind of games (Second place: reindeer games).
Here are five cards we think will work great with Kang.
Moon Girl
On Reveal: Duplicate your hand.
Moon Girl copying your hand gives you two copies of Kang, which can be used to scout out a pair of your opponent's turns and find the optimal strategy each time - or, just use him twice on the final turn to really aggravate your opponent.
Vision
You can move this each turn.
Vision is one of the most flexible (and possibly underrated) cards in MARVEL SNAP. The great thing about pairing Vision with Kang is that having Vision on the board gives you another variable to change once you know how the turn might pan out.
Captain Marvel
After the final turn, move to a location that wins you the game. (If possible)
Like Vision, Captain Marvel is just one more variable your opponent has to keep in mind when locking in their turn 6 play for the second time.
Sera
Ongoing: Cards in your hand cost 1 less. (minimum 1)
If you're too predictable, it doesn't matter how much you know about your opponent's upcoming turn because they'll know just as much about your turn without Kang. Enter Sera, the queen of letting her controller play multiple good cards on the final turn and who always keeps the opponent guessing.
Mister Negative
On Reveal: Swap the Power and Cost of all cards in your deck.
If it has 0 Power, then it should probably be played in a Mister Negative deck. Kang could be a very powerful inclusion in Negative decks, since those decks usually have enough cheap cards on the final turn to make a variety of different plays and should lvoe the chance to know what their opponent is doing. Most importantly, Kang can be drawn by Jane Foster once he's been Negatized.
Theorycrafting Kang
To go with our synergy picks, we've theorycrafted three decks that could do powerful things with Kang. As always, this comes with a caveat: as a Series 5 card, Kang is going to be a very, very rare drop from Collector's Reserves and, unless you're ready to drop 6000 Collector's Tokens on an unproven card, it's unlikely to become a part of your (or our) collection any time soon (Second Dinner has plans to make new Series 5 cards more accessible to players in a future update, although specifics at this time are scarce.)
As one of the "big bads" of the Marvel universe, Second Dinner said that Kang, like Thanos and Galactus, will stay in Series 5 for the foreseeable future.
That being said, let's look at these decks.
Negative Kang
With 0 Power, Kang should be a potent force in Mister Negative decks, which usually have a lot of cheap cards to play on the final turn and could benefit from the knowledge of what their opponent is about to do. Making Kang cost 0 doesn't necessarily open up flexibility (since he'll restart the turn anyway), but it does let us tutor him with Jane Foster.
Kang Control
Control decks are the spot we most expect Kang to shine, since knowing what the opponent is about to do is information best used by decks that have the tools to stop them. Unsure of where to drop your Shang-Chi or Aero? Let Kang sort that out for you.
Kang SheNaut
This one might look a little strange, but it could actually be the best proactive use of Kang. The standard combo for this deck is to use Magik to extend the game to turn 7, then skip turn 6 and play She-Hulk and The Infinaut on the final turn. But what if our opponent plans to use an effect to get rid of Limbo? Now we can use Kang to scout turn 6 while still leaving ourselves the freedom to play the combo on turn 7 (because, in the non-Kang timeline, we didn't play a card). He can also be used on turn 7 to make sure we know where to play our big bodies.
Who is Kang the Conqueror?
The time-traveling despot known as Kang the Conqueror has a long history within Marvel comics. A descendant of Reed Richards' time-traveling father, Nathaniel Richards was a scholar living in Earth's 31st century. His first experimentation with the time machine left behind by his ancestor took Richards to ancient Egypt, which he conquered (like you do) and ruled as the Pharaoh Rama-Tut. After his defeat at the hands of a time-displaced Fantastic Four, Kang traveled into the future and took over a war-ravaged 40th century Earth, laying the seeds for his conquests to come.
Kang's main weakness appeared in the form of Ravonna Renslayer, a princess of one of his conquered realms with whom he fell in love. Although at first rebuffing his advances, Ravonna eventually realized that she cared for Kang, just in time to throw herself between him and a fatal blast. Overcome with grief, Kang placed Ravonna in stasis and vowed to find a way to return her to life - at one point entering into a wager with the Grandmaster to gain power over death, but stupidly wasting his chance to resurrect his love by instead attempting to kill the Avengers (an attempt, as any comics reader can tell you, that was doomed to failure).
His various time-stream intrusions inevitably gave birth to a multitude of Kang variants, existing at different times and across different Earths. Among these variants are the beings known as the Scarlet Centurion, Chronomonitor #616, Victor Timely, and Fred.* Kang, convinced that the other variants were weaker versions of himself, formed the Council of Kangs to rid every timeline of inferiors. Immortus, a common ally of the Avengers against Kang the Conqueror, was one of the final variants of Kang who held the consciousness of every exterminated variant, which he used to briefly incapacitate Kang by driving him into madness.
Like most recurring Marvel villains, Kang the Conqueror can be thwarted but he never remains so. Thanks to time travel shenanigans, he can appear any time, any place, with a plan for domination and a will to seize power.
*And yes, there's also an ape variant called Kang Kong.
Card Flavor Grade: A. Kang is notorious for meddling with the time-stream, looking for ways to undo past mistakes or alter the outcome of myriad events. The card's effect reflects that perfectly; showing his controller a version of events so they have a chance to change things in their favor.
How do you feel about Kang? Share your thoughts on the new card in the comments!
Comments
Kang sounds like the objectively strongest card in the game, atleast in theory. Mainly because of 2 confirmed interactions:
There is one risk with snap, they can counter Kang with Cosmo...
No he gives you 11 card deck only if you draw him on turn 5 or 6, if you draw him earlier you don't get a redraw...