Aurora
From the Comics!
Jeanne-Marie Beaubier is a Mutant with the powers of Flight, Speed, and Light Generation. SHe was separated from her twin brother at birth, but eventually were united. Her traumatic childhood caused her to develop Dissociative Identity Disorder, with her extroverted personality having the powers. When she is in contact with her twin brother she is able to use her powers to the fullest potential as Aurora and Northstar!
In Marvel Snap
Aurora looks like she is going to be a very fun card for this game. There’s nothing quite like the rush you feel on Turn 6 when you get to see the animations flash and your side of the board jumps in Power. Aurora lets you do this two or three times. In a perfect world you can get her to proc four times! Due to the nature of her ability you will be employing a strategy known as “going wide.” What this means is that as opposed to trying to stack as much Power as you can in dedicated lanes, you will be aiming to spread out your Power across multiple locations in an attempt to cover all the bases.
Compare and Contrast
The main question I’m seeing around Aurora is “is this better than Spectrum?”
At worst I see this as a second copy of Spectrum. In an Ongoing deck, Aurora will still be able to spread out points, just not effectively. Aurora is limited to only targeting one card per location, while Spectrum will hit every Ongoing card no matter where they are on the board. It’s because of this that in Ongoing decks specifically Aurora will always be the worse option of the two.
However, that doesn’t necessarily mean she will be worse than Spectrum. Aurora decks instead of trying to stick to one type of keyword, will be looking for ways to include as many of them as possible.
Just a reminder, Aurora doesn’t grant a buff to any keyword ability in this game but only a select few. They are:
- On Reveal
- Ongoing
- End of Turn
- Activate
Synergies
Thanos provides what I believe to be the main shell for an Aurora deck. Thanos’s Infinity Stones not only naturally want you to spread out wide throughout the board, but they also contain two cards with both an On Reveal and an Ongoing ability. The Space and Soul Stones can be hit twice by Aurora. Not only that, but Thanos cards also tend to spread out among the different types of keywords as opposed to stacking up on just one. Cards like Marvel Boy satisfy the End of Turn condition, while Lockjaw is your Activate card.
Zombie Mister Fantastic is one of the rare cards that carries two different keyworded abilities. It is both an On Reveal card and an Activate card, the only one of its kind. As discussed with the Infinity Stones, this means that Zombie Mister Fantastic is a valid target for two procs from Aurora. His Activate ability synergizes with the previous card, Thanos, due to the Infinity Stones being created cards.
Prodigy will copy any of your cards as long as you place him in the right spot. This allows you to double up on your keyworded ability cards. The main targets you will want to hit with this are the cards we’ve been talking about with more than one keyword, Space Stone or Zombie Mister Fantastic. You can also use Prodigy to set up a combo. Perhaps you want to create lane with Wong, Mystique, and Prodigy so that when you do play Aurora, you will be multiplying her output considerably!
Counters
The currently everpresent menace of “Green Power” will be one of Aurora’s top counters. Midrange decks these days tend to be a who’s who of Shadow King deck’s, so you’ll have to be aware of this card when planning out your Aurora endgames. If you are worried about Shadow King you will want to use Turn 5 to give up priority so that you are revealing your cards last on Turn 6.
As we’ve talked about, the Thanos archetype will be a common decklist for Aurora. This means that the Aurora Thanos strategy will revolve around filling the board with the Infinity Stones and buffing them throughout the game. Killmonger will be a great way to punish this. Imagine your opponent watching all their Infinity Stones suddenly be destroyed on Turn 6 when they were expecting them to be the reason they win.
These two options for tech are for preemptively shutting down Aurora before her ability goes off. In this case, you aren’t aiming to destroy the buffs afterwards, but rather stop them from happening at all. With Cosmo you get the added bonus of shutting off On Reveals that are in the deck to be buffed by Aurora, as well as being a counter for her. Alioth requires guessing or knowing where they are gonna drop Aurora, but if you can box them into a decision, then you’ll shut off a major source of their Power output.
Future Cards
Looking ahead into the data mines we can see a couple upcoming cards that synergize with Aurora. Both of these cards produce an additional card to play with a different keyword ability. That means they represent +4 Power from Aurora. Lin Lie’s On Reveal creates the Sword of Fu Xi which itself is an Ongoing. It also notably creates it in a different location, so it naturally helps you spread out in multiple locations. Shang Chi works similarly, but not as easily. This version of Shang gives you the Ten Rings in your starting hand, but it starts off as an On Reveal like Shang Chi. Playing Shang will turn the Rings into an End of Turn card, which makes it another target for your Aurora.
Now we need to temper our excitement because datamines can change and these cards are still a month away (Shang Chi changed once already)., but it shows that Aurora has some exciting days still ahead of her.
Day 1 Decks
Derek Day 1 Aurora
This deck was provided by top ladder player Derek! Derek also is looking at a Thanos shell to utilize Aurora’s spread Power. To compliment Aurora we have a bunch of cards with the necessary keywords. Chamber, Lockjaw, and Zombie Mister Fantastic are your Activate cards with The Thing First Steps is your End of Turn.
This deck also harkens back to classic Thanos decks by being a Ramp list. You want to use your deck building spaces for high cost cards since Thanos provides the lower end of your cost curve.
Variants
Final Thoughts
Aurora is a Series 5 card releasing Tuesday in the Seasonal Series 5 Pack for 5000 tokens and the weekly Spotlight for 6000 tokens. Let me know what you think about Aurora. Tell me about any synergies I’ve missed or Aurora decks you are excited about down below!