A How To Guide to Quake
Quake is one of my absolute favorite “bad cards.”
She’s incredibly fun to play, certainly underrated, and the preeminent “I don’t believe you!” farmer in the game. Her playrate currently sits at the second lowest in the game, just behind Angel. She is seen in a staggeringly low 0.3% of games. Her win rate when played is 50%, with no effect on your cubes (0.01 cube rate). Not great! She’s hard to play because of the restriction that she only has an effect when played in the middle location. But can we get her to actually have an effect when we are able to play her?
First, we need to talk about what her function in a deck actually is. She is a control card. She can trap your opponent's cards in an unfavorable location. She can put you in a position as the only player with cards in a closed-off location. She can remove an advantage your opponent was planning on. Moving Nidevellir can totally change a game’s dynamic.
She is best played with priority in order to steal Kamar-Taj away from an opponent before they reveal, take Onslaught’s Citadel away from an opposing ongoing card, or force an opponent to unwittingly play into Death’s domain, Bar with No Name, or Luke’s Bar. Quake is the Queen of the bar locations in this game. Furthermore, her bigger, badder, spiritual uncle, Legion, can be denied his intended effect, but only if you have priority.
All of this points to a 2-cost card that is best played well after turn 2. She has much more impact on 4 (after her best friend Storm) or on 6 (to just totally wreck an opponent). I think if you can first grasp that she’s not the kind of card you just play out when you can, you’ll have a lot more luck with her.
Quake did develop a very small but devoted following after Kawa featured a Quake deck made by Shayed on stream back in March.
That deck was actually pretty good, and when all in on the concept of making sure locations benefit you rather than your opponent by playing Scarlet Witch alongside her. Legion can do that on his own these days, so does Quake still have a place? Try her out with these ideas.
Quake - Shuri
This deck can be seen as the spiritual successor to the Shayed deck. The basic play pattern is to play Storm on 3 followed by Quake on 4. You can play Storm into the middle, but it works best if you play her to the left or right (on a different lane than your Nebula) and then Quake into the middle. Silk represents a massive upgrade for this deck as a card that can be played before Storm but still get into a Stormed lane later if needed. Feel free to snap if a location like Sanctum Sanctorum pops up. Shadow King is a flex spot and could be Killmonger, Jeff, or Enchantress, but Shadow King can be quite good against opposing Forge / Brood / Absorbing man combos, but be careful not to undo your own Shuri buffs. If none of the locations are massively beneficial to you, play Scarlet Witch at some point before turn 6 so that you can potentially use Quake to shift things in your favor. On turn 6 we generally want to finish with Doctor Doom. We can also play Shuri on turn 4, skip turn 5, and play She-Hulk and Captain Marvel on turn 6. It’s still unclear how detrimental the Captain Marvel nerf is, but you could definitely consider swapping in Vision.
Another new card that has some interesting synergy with Quake is Jean Grey. Quake, at heart, is a control card, just like Jean. This deck can also utilize many of the other most underutilized control elements in the game, with Echo or Negasonic Teenage Warhead also putting in work in a Jean Grey lane; armor and cosmo are also good in that slot. This deck utilizes Legion to ensure that location is an element of the game that will go our way for certain, and we can end the game after turn 5 if we choose to. This deck can also be converted into a Silver Surfer deck by swapping in Silver Surfer, Brood, Juggernaut, and Sera.
With Doctor Doom’s doom bots restored to their former glory, Wave + a 2-cost card into Doom on 6 has once again become a very powerful play pattern, and Quake can fit in these types of decks quite well. This deck includes a small Angela / Movement sub-package to ensure we get ahead before turn 5 and can get into any closed-off locations, whether we close them off ourselves or not. Doom is our most powerful play after Wave, but occasionally we can guarantee victory against certain decks with Wave followed by Leader as long as we can get far enough ahead beforehand.
Here is a more experimental build of the same concept and my current favorite Quake deck. We can make some sweet plays with Yellowjacket. Play him on the same turn as Storm to get a headstart in that location. Better still, play him with Quake on turn 4 after a turn 3 Storm. That’s our Plan A for this deck. Cheese out a lane with Storm, Yellowjacket, and Quake however we can. Be sure to move Jeff or Silk early to be able to play Miles before turn 6; we won’t be able to play him efficiently after Wave, but he’s good at making sure we can win a flooded location or get ahead and win with Leader if we are able to play him early enough. On turn 5, play out Silk and bump her where you need her to go with Wave. Wave is a low-tempo play on turn 5, but alongside Silk, we can still have a great turn. You don’t need to hold Silk for 5, though; you can play her earlier and play Wave out alongside Jeff or Quake (possibly Yellowjacket too). The play patterns for this deck may take some getting used to, but you can make it rain “I don’t believe you!” reactions from your opponents if you can master this deck.
Here is a very strong Magneto control deck that utilizes Quake as an additional control element. Between Vision, Jeff, and Magneto, we can make sure cards end up exactly where we need them and where the opponent doesn’t want them. This deck will keep your opponents off balance with Ice-Man, Zabu enabling our tech cards in Enchantress and Shang Chi, and Quake making sure our opponents don’t have a location advantage. You can follow the same play pattern as above with Quake on 4 after a Storm to potentially fully steal a location. We get to play the classic combo of Jessica Jones behind Storm to potentially secure a lane early as well.
Quake also slots into this High Evolutionary deck really well. Storm is Quake’s best friend again. You can play Storm on 3 and follow it up with Cyclops, or totally juke your opponent by playing Quake instead. This is a bit of a toolbox deck, with different tools for different situations. Don’t play out your cards just because you have the energy. Play them if they will give you a clear advantage. We can always just soak up our extra energy with Sunspot while buffing HE Hulk into a huge closing blow.
In conclusion, is Quake actually good?
Ok, so it’s still a card that leaves a lot to be desired. Hopefully she’ll someday be changed to be consistent with Scarlet Witch (she can change Death’s domain and live; if Quake swaps into it, she’ll die). If Legion can be a 5/7, then surely Snap would survive with a Quake that can be played anywhere.
However, I still think she’s a bit underrated. She has actual use cases. She can improve a deck’s win rate. She can be featured on a deck that you can definitely climb with in ranked. At a minimum, I think she deserves to be experimented with more. While I don’t think she’s great, she definitely doesn’t deserve to be over a hundred spots behind Scarlet Witch in play rate. She should probably see more play than Rhino, and hopefully if enough people give her a chance, she can claim her rightful place as a middle of the pack Marvel Snap card.