Ezekiel Sims
The shoeless millionaire who could probably take you in a fight. Ezekiel Sims is a mysterious businessman and shaman-like figure who shares powers similar to Spider-Man. He claims to understand the spiritual origins of the spider-people. Instead of using his powers to be a hero, he focused his many talents on personal profit.
Ezekiel’s arrival represents a major shift for spider-people, as he introduces a mystical side to Spider lore. It was quite a divisive moment, since most fans loved the humble idea that Spider-Man could be anyone, rather than this Spider Mojo, chosen-one, spider totem chosen by a God Spider. And yes, I’m being serious here, that’s a real thing that happened.
Ezekiel Sims arrives as a 2-Cost 2-Power card with a fascinating twist. His effect reads: “After you play a card with higher Power here, give this +2 Power and move this to another location.” What this means is that Ezekiel doesn’t like staying in one place for long. Each time you play a stronger ally, he gets a boost and immediately relocates. This could make him a powerful card if you manage to play bigger and bigger cards as the game progresses. I suspect that he can get up to 8 power on a typical match depending on your deck and if you drew him on time.
Web Designing
Ezekiel’s effect is quite simple and it doesn't look like much as you only get a +2 Power boost for each trigger. However, the real potential lies in taking advantage of all the times he moves to a new location. Every time Ezekiel moves, he can stack effects like Kraven’s, contribute to a powerful Hydra Stomper, take Batroc for a ride, and even discount your Miles Morales.
Being a slippery spider is always a good thing as you can take advantage of Ezekiel to reach hard to get into locations like a Flooded location or Sanctum Santorum. Also, you can easily get him buffed multiple times by moving him into K'un-Lun but it will make it quite challenging to move him more times as he’ll get stronger sooner than usual.
Powerful Sequencing
Playing Ezekiel has the unique challenge of needing cards that are big enough to trigger Ezekiel’s effect at least once per turn. If we play Ezekiel on turn 1, we can follow him up with Kraven on 2, Silk on 3. That is easy and clean so far. After that things get a bit more difficult since Ezekiel will be at 6 Power and I don’t see that many cards that slot in naturally in this type of deck that could boost him. On 5 energy we have Hellion or even Spider-Man 2099. and on the last turn we have Heimdall. Is that reliable enough? Do we have any other potential playlines to fall back on?
We could ignore all that moving nonsense and focus on playing bigger and bigger cards. Recruit yourself some Gladiators, Lizards and Crossbones. You know, cards that have huge power levels. We could leverage these heavy hitters into moving Ezekiel all over the place to get more out of our shoeless millionaire.
Countermeasures
Of course, not everything that moves is untouchable. Cards like Mercury can put a stop to your Ezekiel without breaking a Sweat. Kingpin can undo most of your hard work done with your millionaire. Lastly, Red Guardian or his effect in a bottle, Deafening Chord, can break Ezekiel's legs faster than his Spider-Sense can detect.
Dualgloves’s Day One Ezekiel Decks
Corporate Ladder
All the move cards and the newest member, Ezekiel working together as a happy family. We are trying to move the most cards we can and Ezekiel fits nicely with this team as he can move multiple times in a match. Your best cards are Batroc and Hydra Stomper, most of the time seeing them both is a Snap.
Evil Corporate Ladder
Evil version of the deck above. This one features Scream and her package. Multiple Scalers can be found here but it kinda limits how big Ezekiel can get. It seems like a nice trade-off to get a more consistent shell.
Thriller
We are threading highly experimental territory here. I want to use Elsa’s extra boost to make our boy Ezekiel glide through the board like a lizard on ice. We also got a ton of movers that we can use to stack on top of Zombie Scarlet Witch to make a huge Horde.
Variants
Fewer options this time around. From these two Collage to me is the obvious winner but I wouldn’t blame you if you prefer Brett Bean’s more cartoonish take.
Final Thoughts
Okay guys, I have to be honest here. I don’t feel it this time around, Ezekiel seems like a nice enough card but I could totally see him costing 1 Energy and not much would change. He is a scaler in an archetype that is filled up with those and I don’t know if he’ll be good enough to be slotted in. He is unreliable as you won’t know which location his power will be at the end of the game and drawing him on the last few turns of the game can be quite atrocious.
If you absolutely love move cards or spider-people of any type. I would consider getting this card, otherwise, my recommendation is a pass.