The Searcher is searching for his place in Snap!
A second Celestial is coming to Marvel Snap! Will Eson the Searcher be a game-changer like Arishem the Judge or the Celestial of infinite cope? Let's find out!
Eson is, essentially, an energy cheater. He lets you get a card onto the board without paying its energy cost. Redwing does something similar with the condition that you need to move him. Eson’s condition is that you have at least one card in your hand that didn't start in your deck. What will be the best way to create cards for Eson? Do we need to play him early? How much value can he usually add? We'll explore those questions below and I'll give you a variety of decks to try Eson in.
Synergies
Card Generators
There is a wide variety of card generators in Marvel Snap nowadays. Recently buffed White Queen makes the perfect partner for Eson, since your opponent will likely have a high-value card as their highest cost in hand. Nick Fury is another way to ensure a 6-cost card for Eson to target. You'll be left to pray he pulls the right one, though. Eson as a fail case for Iron Patriot when you don't get your discount is interesting, ensuring that card can still come down efficiently if you need it to. Moon Girl gives you some degree of targeting if you're able to trim your hand in just the right way. Valentina is another way to generate a powerful card. Frigga (or Nico's copy spell) is an attractive way to target a specific card, but will it prove too slow or not worth the effort of adding a smaller card? The question of smaller cards is an important one. Will Eson feel valuable even if he's just pulling down a couple of Kate's Arrows or a Demon or will he need to be pulling massive game-changers to feel worthy of a deck slot?
Energy Ramp
In order to get maximum value from Eson, you might want to get him out a turn or two early. The tricky thing about this is that you need to ramp Eson out, while still having time to generate cards for him. Of course, Arishem solves both issues on his own. Of the remaining options, Hope and Wiccan probably have the most potential. I'm pretty skeptical of Wave and Electro leaving you time to also generate something of value while also executing a viable game plan. Magik is important because she gives you an extra turn to play Eson before the end of the game.
Additional synergies
Victoria Hand and Collector both work with a game plan that wants to generate cards, as does Devil Dinosaur.
Is Eson on 6 Enough Value?
Eson has a lot of power built in. As a 10 cost card he has a big enough body that even pulling a smaller card will mean having a lane with competitive stats. If you just play Eson on turn 6 so that he pulls a second big card, that may leave you free to spend your earlier turns pushing in the other two lanes. Eson could lead to some big swings on the final turn, even if you don't ramp him out.
Is Arishem Eson's best home?
Most of the chatter I've seen about Eson has centered around Arishem. I might be lonely in this position, but I'm not sure Arishem is Eson's best home. Because Arishem creates an entirely random deck, you will often have unwanted Eson targets instead of powerful ones. I'm sure there will be plenty of Arishem/Eson games that are blowouts, but there will be others where he's a liability or just a 6-cost 10 to 12 power play.
ScoSco’s Day One Eson Decks
Celestial Moon
This is the most promising home for Eson. We have Titania in over Hydra Bob because Shuri into any of our 5-power cards can be an additional trigger for Surtur in a pinch. The ideal play line with this deck is to slam 50 or more power onto the board on the final turn. You can swap Silk for Nebula or Martyr if you want, but I like her as a Hope trigger.
Celestials
This Arishem deck is built to leverage generated and random cards as much as possible with Quinjet and Eitri at the low end. We also have plenty of interaction with Shang, Enchantress, and Alioth to give us a fighting chance against Mr. Negative and Hela.
Lean Eson
This deck asks the question of how small a package Eson can be in and still have value. If this style of deck ends up being competitive, it means Eson is a must-get card.
Wiccan Eson
We use Eson's spotlight mate Wiccan to try to extract extra value from Eson by potentially playing him a turn early. Even if Eson pulls smaller cards here, we can buff those with Victoria.
Celestial Dino
This deck has two paths it can follow: keep your hand full for a big Devil Dinosaur turn 5 into Mystique on turn 6, or slam an Eson on turn 6 for a power spike in one lane.
Celestial Animals
This deck tries to rush out a Mockingbird or Sasquatch early, copy it with Frigga, and then pull the copy with Eson. The ramp from Luna Snow gives us a way to get Eson out early so we can play Frigga (or Nico's copy spell) after Eson as well.
Celestial Evolution
Similar to the She-Naut list above, this list can occasionally high roll by discounting something big with Shocker or copying something with Nico to fuel a blowout win. Otherwise, we have our traditional Magik, Moon Girl plans.
Spaceways
A pretty far out experimental idea, the dream play line would be to play Eson out on turn 5 and follow it up with a Silver Surfer into Frigga play. Another post-Eson play line is White Queen and Silver Surfer on turn 6. An early Frigga can also pay dividends late. This deck is firmly “fun tier” but it allows for some surprising plays.
Eson Arcana
This Agamotto deck is focused on using Agamotto’s Images of Ikonn skill to convert a couple of low-cost cards into 10+ power beasts at the end of the game. Bolts of Balthaak can ramp Eson out early and Eson can pull Images of Ikonn at the end of the game to dominate a lane.
Variants
Final Thoughts
If Eson is unable to find traction outside of Arishem decks, he will be an easy skip for most people. He has enough upside in She-Naut decks that he'll be worth testing. Also, the most underrated part of Eson is his 10 power body, meaning even pulling smaller cards will be enough at times. I only included one Agamotto deck in this preview since not everyone is getting both cards, but there will be plenty of ideas to explore there as well.
Unless your primary interest in new cards is to brew and theory-craft, you should wait until the end of the week to get Eson. As a lightly-played series 4 card, Beta Ray Bill is a bit of a dud in the spotlight lineup, but Wiccan is one of the best cards in the game that fuels a variety of strategies.
