The Heir to the Tome of Zhered-Na
Jennifer Kale, the heir to the Tome of Zhered-Na joins Marvel Snap, bringing her own spin on magically enhancing your games.
Kale is a Witch with a history with some of Marvel’s oldest legends such as Altantis and the Man-Thing! MCU fans will recognize a version of her from Agatha All Along.
Kale can tap into the universe’s ambient magical energy, bending it to her will. This enables her to conjure powerful magics both for offense and for manipulation.
In Marvel Snap
Jennifer Kale is the latest in the line of “Ramp Cards”, cards who help either give you more energy or make your other cards cheaper to play. By putting this ability on an activate, it gives you the agency of when to use it. This allows you a flexibility not offered by other similar cards.
Compare and Contrast
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Psylocke. They both are very similar cards, 2-Cost and 2 Power to give yourself 1 extra energy in the following turn. Psylocke already only sees niche play so why would you want Kale?
Psylocke is best used when played on turn 2, jumping you from 3 energy to 4. This is mostly used for Mister Negative decks, which want you to play him as soon as possible. This type of interaction won’t be possible with Kale due to the differences between On Reveal and Activate.
The earliest you can use Kale’s energy would be turn 4, ramping you from 4 energy to 5. While not useful for Mister Negative, it’s much more useful for getting into 5-Cost cards early.
Kale also doesn’t need to be played the previous turn like Psylocke. You can play Kale on turn 2, and then wait for the appropriate moment to get your energy.
Comparisons between the two cards can definitely be made, but I think they are different enough that they won’t be stepping on each other’s shoes.
Synergies
Let’s talk about some of those 5-Cost cards that Kale would love to be partnered with.
While many have found this card falling flat on release, there have been many top level players who have found success with it instead. The key to Infinity Ultron seems to be getting it out as early as possible, whether with Corvus or Luna Snow. This same playline can be achieved now with Jennifer Kale. The sooner you can get Infinity Ultron on the board, the more flexible you can be with the generated stones.
Legion is a powerhouse of a card. WIth the return of 3-Cost Storm, Legion is seeing a bit of a resurgence in the meta. You are going to want to get Legion out a turn earlier in order to create advantageous boardstates by manipulating the locations. Ramping out to triple your Flooding won’t work anymore, but what Kiln?
Another great card to ramp out is Lady Deathstrike. The faster you can use her to kill your opponent’s set up pieces the better. Think of all the early scalers that you would be able to destroy before they have a chance to get them going.
You can also go all in on cost reduction, by getting out Sera as soon as Turn 4. This allows you to have TWO turns of Sera discounts as opposed to the usual one.
Counters
Jennifer Kale has the same usual counters most Activate cards do. She also has the natural counter of “drawing her too late”. Like all other Activate cards, if Kale is drawn on Turn 6 you won’t be getting any benefit from her. She also has the added issue of her effect working “next turn” so if you draw her even on Turn 5 you still won’t have enough time.
Red Guardian will shut off any Activate abilities before you get the chance to use them. If you wait too long to trigger Kale you might not get an opportunity to!
August’s Day 1 Decks
Kale Sera Surfer
Let’s go back to classic, with a new twist. Sera Surfer was a build of Silver Surfer decks that liked to leverage the cost reduction of Sera to allow for more than two 3-Cost cards on the final turn. Kale allows us to lean into this a little more. We can use Jennifer Kale’s Activate to ramp into Sera on turn 4. We haven’t talked about this yet, but Kale also allows you to leverage 7 energy on turn 6, which in Surfer decks will enable a 3-Cost and 4-Cost together. Perhaps a surprise Absorbing Man and Silver Surfer combo?
2 Big Dudes
This deck was built to use Jennifer Kale’s ramping to get us into our “Big Dudes” as soon as possible. The new and improved Infinity Ultron combined with a simple Quinjet will allow us to steal games with Infinity Stones reduced to only costing 1. In addition to that we have Agamotto and his skills. I can’t wait to use Images of Ikonn on Infinity Ultron or maybe even one of his stones!
Final Thoughts
Like many direct to Series 4 cards before Jennifer, it’s more about her finding her niche as opposed to her being good generically. She is currently available in the Seasonal Series 4 Pack. You won’t be splashing her into everything, but the things she enables are going to be unique to her.