Kneel Before Galacta
Alright. Let’s set the scene. You love video games. You love comics. You see the brand new game: Marvel Rivals, featuring all your favorite Marvel heroes in an Overwatch-style hero shooter! That’s Spider-Man, thwipping across the screen! Star-Lord, blasting everyone in the middle of the battlefield! Hulk, smashing!
Wait, who the #!@% is Galacta?
Look, you’d be forgive if you asked that very question just about any time about 6 months ago. Marvel Rivals’ chipper poster-girl is a deep cut, even for comic fans. Galactus’ so-called teenage daughter, Galacta was born as a sort of intergalactic tapeworm in the big guy’s stomach— comic strangeness happens, she metastasizes into a conflicted teenage girl-shape with cosmic power and a hunger inherited from her pops.
And, uh, she tweets a lot. It’s a weird story— Galacta is, notably, not even in Earth-616, which means she’s never actually existed in the mainline continuity. However, Marvel Rivals has given her a new life in the limelight, restructuring her to be a sort of multiversal coordinator for our heroes trying to save both the past and future. (Broad strokes; I’m not totally caught up on Rivals lore yet.)
All that is to say, given her brand new status as a face for the exciting new Marvel hero shooter, it might be possible we see her start creeping into more and more places…
By Places We Mean Here
And that’s probably the best segue you’re going to get into the very first place she’s creeping in: Marvel SNAP, baby!
Galacta’s our Season Pass card for the crossover season with Rivals, and she’s bringing all the hallmarks of a Season Pass card with her: a broadly applicable, stat-positive effect with some niche applications but a high degree of flexibility. This is to say— she’s looking strong. +3 Power is a threshold that’s commonly cited as a dangerous one whenever it shows up: Elsa Bloodstone gave +3 power, back in her heyday, as did Silver Surfer, and both were terrors before necessitating a nerf. Galacta comes down later as a 4-Cost, but has plenty of room to give more than her fair share of stats if played on curve and then capitalized on.
Her effect sorta reflects her role in Rivals— coordinating and sending heroes out to other battles, while she manages things from elsewhere. It also lets her synergize with her old man, giving him power without disrupting the condition on his effect. But to really get use out of Galacta’s Power Cosmic, you’ll want cards that benefit from the specific window she buffs them: that is, as they reveal, letting (perhaps most prominently) the likes of Brood multiply her buff. Sebastian Shaw, as always, comes up any time reliable stat-buffing enters the conversation. And while Black Panther’s issue isn’t really ever not being big enough, Galacta certainly helps him get even larger.
So let’s put on our big, monolithic Jack Kirby thinking hats on and figure out the best place for SNAP’s newest devourer.
Decks
Cosmic Horror
This leads us sort of immediately to the first thought many deck builders will have: plugging dearest Galacta into a Surfer list. What can I say? Cosmic likes cosmic. Surfer’s the Ol’ Reliable of decklists, especially for the generalist 4-Cost design that Galacta fills. Like Gwenpool before her, the deck has multiple existing synergy points in Brood and Sebastian Shaw, and its straightforward game plan means that you won’t need to work too hard to enable those synergies. When it comes down to it? She’s the Daughter of Galactus and a force of nature unto herself, but she’s also just a possible 4/12 or larger. This particular list is running Zabu too, to take advantage of the slightly increased amount of 4-Costs in a deck otherwise centered on 3-Costs, but you might experiment with replacing Gwenpool or Absorbing Man instead of running them all. Similarly, Surfer lists have always been toolboxes— feel free to spec in or out of tech cards like Luke, Red Guardian, or Rogue based on what’s in vogue at the moment.
To Infinity And Beyond!
Another tack will be to use Galacta’s buffs as a more general stat buff to help buoy a deck like Thanos— a list that has enough utility that you just need a critical mass of stats to back it up into a real threat. Galacta really just requires you to Play Cards— her requirement isn’t really out of your way at all. And so we’re slotting her here into a Thanos deck already teched out for matchups and ready for a generalist beater to help you on neutral turns.
Now, the philosophy behind this deck is a bit similar to the full Arishem-Thanos list that’s been running around: good cards bolstered by the inherent advantages that the two deck-modifying cards provide. Galacta’s generic ball of stats might work just as well there— while I wanted to avoid just dropping an Arishem list in the preview because it’s a bit less of a deckbuild puzzle, if that’s your interest I suspect she’ll work great.
Bring Your Daughter To Work Day
Look, there’s just no way I wasn’t going to try and get some quality family time in here. And in time for the holidays, no less! And look— this is going to be bad. Galactus in general has been a relatively weak contender for a long time, with a gameplan much more centered on surprise-rugpull than anything else. But Galacta does synergize with Galactus, making it easier for him to get over that hill and, well, devour the other two locations. Symbiote Spider-Man both works with Galactus and forms a back-up plan with Black Panther/Zola, letting you win two locations another way. And Galacta manages to work with that backup plan, too, either further buffing Black Panther into an absolute unit or being the backup’s backup, in case you draw Panther and Zola but lack the punch Symbiote Spidey adds. Finally, the likes of Wave, Hobgoblin, Knull, and Alioth form Big G’s familiar cohort, letting you sometimes just curve out into a standard blow-up-the-world, summon the God of Symbiotes or the all-consuming void, call-it-a-day type scenario. Go figure.
Now, I’m Going To Level With You
Galacta’s an interesting case, in that she’s in the running for the character with the absolute least existing art from the comics— certainly the least existing art relative to the prominence she seems to have skyrocketed to. (You may have noticed a dearth of panels included so far already). What that means is almost every variant will be a SNAP commission— alongside her variant ported straight from Rivals. Now, I think her Rivals variant is probably the most stylish and interest design the character has ever had— apologies to the original creators, but there’s a lot more working there. We’ve also got a Rian Gonzales Chibi, which fits the character’s manga-inspired roots even more than the average Chibi variant. And finally, new studio on the block Creative House Pocket has crafted a similarly anime-esque variant for a third cute option for anyone who wants more than one. It’s welcome to see a card launch with multiple variants again; it’ll be interesting to see if we get a deluge of SNAP commissions for the Daughter of Galactus befitting a cute, popular mascot-type character, or if she’ll go without more variants for quite a while.
But here’s hoping we’ll at least get this Peach Momoko, at some point!
Verdict
Galacta feels like she’ll follow in the footsteps of Gwenpool and company— a card with enough gas behind its stats that she’ll be solid on-curve, with a powerful ceiling when you utilize her optimally. Of course, the Season Pass is already going to be the most value you get each month— but if you’re on the fence, Galacta will likely be, at the very least, playable, and quite possibly very strong. And what better to kick off a crossover season with the new Marvel game on the block?