Thor and his fellow Norse gods may get the most focus within the Marvel universe, but they exist alongside many other pantheons too. It likely won’t surprise you to know the Greek gods exist in Marvel too. However, only one of them has ever been an Avenger and fought alongside heroes like the Hulk, Captain America, and even Thor: Hercules.
He’s the first Olympian to be added to Marvel Snap, having joined as part of the Planet Hulk-themed season in January 2024. If you’re a fan of movement-based decks, Hercules may be the perfect addition to your own. So, here’s a rundown of Hercules’ stats, his ability, and a few of the best decks featuring him.
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Hercules card abilities in Marvel Snap, explained
Hercules is a four-Cost, six-Power card, making him a decently strong character to help take or maintain control of a single location. However, if you’re going to have Hercules in your deck, you’re going to want to make the most out of his ability.
His ability text reads, “The first time another card moves here each turn, move it to another location.” This applies to both your own cards and those of your opponent, and since it resets each turn, you can potentially trigger another card’s ability multiple times. Of course, you need cards that can move themselves or other cards to take advantage of this. Hercules requiring four Energy to play also means you can only really use him during the second half of the match, unless you manage to play him early. A feat that is impossible without the right set-up and a bit of luck.
Hercules is currently part of Series 5, alongside super rare Marvel Snap cards such as Galactus and Caiera, so he can be rather difficult to unlock. If he appears in the Token Shop, you’ll need a whopping 6,000 Tokens to purchase him. Barring that, he may appear in the weekly Spotlight Caches as one of the possible cards. To get a Spotlight Key to open the caches, you need to raise your Collection Level by upgrading cards. The keys will only start appearing every 120 levels once you pass Collection Level 500 and while the cards available in Spotlight Caches rotate every week, there’ll always be a chance you unlock a random Series 4 or Series 5 card.
Strategy for Hercules decks in Marvel Snap
Since Hercules is all about moving cards multiple times, you ideally want to pair him with other cards that have abilities that activate whenever they are moved. Human Torch is a perfect example since his Power doubles every time he moves. So, using someone like Ghost-Spider or Phoenix Force to move him to Hercules’ location will quadruple his Power in a single turn. The same technique can apply to Vulture too since his Power increases by five every time he moves. Combined with Hercules, it can leap from a measly three to 13.
Kraven can also reap the benefits of Hercules’ ability. Kraven’s Power increases by two whenever a card moves to his location. Kraven sharing a location with Hercules means the Olympian will knock away any card that comes their way, allowing Kraven to get the Power boost while leaving a space open for another card to take its place and add more Power to Kraven next turn.
If you’d rather disrupt your opponent, Kingpin may make a good deck addition, especially after the changes made to him. Originally, Kingpin was a three-Cost, four-Power card that would destroy any card that moved to his location, but only on turn six. He’s since been reduced to a two-Cost, three-Power card but, instead of destroying cards, he reduces their Power by two and this can trigger on any turn, not just turn six. Since Hercules’ ability applies to your opponent’s cards too, he can help hamper them by knocking them to Kingpin’s location. This is a riskier strategy, though, since you need to hope they get sent to the same location as Kingpin. On the bright side, Kingpin’s ability only affects enemy cards so you don’t need to worry about weakening your own.
The best Hercules decks in Marvel Snap
Hercules Zabu
Despite what the name says, this deck involves synergy between Hercules and Kingpin to cripple your opponent’s cards. However, Zabu plays a very important role as his ability reduces the cost of your four-Cost cards by one. This obviously applies to Hercules, so it’s possible to get him on the board earlier than usual. Iron Lad makes for a good alternative if you need it. Aside from enjoying the same Cost reduction benefit from Zabu, Iron Lad copies the text of the top card in your deck. If that’s Hercules, he’ll copy his ability. Having both of them on the field may be a tad chaotic, but it could help throw your opponent off-guard and force them to rethink their strategy.
Spider-Man and Juggernaut exist to knock enemy cards Kingpin’s way. I’d recommend having Kingpin and Hercules in separate locations if you can—if Spider-Man or Juggernaut send a card to Kingpin, its Power goes down. If they’re sent to Hercules’ location instead, then there’s a chance Hercules will bounce them to Kingpin anyway.
You’ll want to be careful with where and when you play Enchantress since her ability to remove Ongoing abilities from cards at the location she’s played at can affect Zabu too. Fortunately, Hercules and Kingpin’s abilities aren’t classified as Ongoing ones so they’ll be unaffected. Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Shang-Chi, and Alioth can also disrupt your opponent by destroying their cards though it might be worth swapping Alioth out for Magneto. He’s another six-Cost card but is much stronger (12-Power compared to Alioth’s paltry two-Power) and has an ability that moves all enemy three and four-Cost cards to his location. Pair him with Kingpin to deal some last-second Power reductions.
Hercules Phoenix Force
Much like other Phoenix Force decks, this one blends movement and destroy strategies together. As a reminder, Phoenix Force revives one of your destroyed cards and merges with it, granting it a five-Power boost and the ability to move to another location once per turn. Your goal is to ideally destroy either Human Torch or Multiple Man, be it with Venom, Carnage, Deathlok, or Nico Minoru, so you can bring them back with Phoenix Force. Then, with Hercules in play, you can move them to Hercules’ location, triggering his ability to move them again. For Human Torch, this means doubling his Power twice in one turn. For Multiple Man, this means creating two copies of him in a row.
Merging either Human Torch or Multiple Man with Hulkbuster will only make them even more powerful though this comes with the caveat of having all your power isolated to one location. Having a big number in only one spot is meaningless if your opponent can easily capture the other two locations. Fortunately, you have The Living Tribunal, who can spread that Power evenly across all three locations on the final turn to secure a win. Barring that, Heimdall’s ability to move all your cards one location to the left can not only catch your opponent off guard but also trigger Human Torch and Multiple Man’s abilities yet again.
Just be careful about destroying any other cards besides Human Torch and Multiple Man. The card Phoenix Force revives is randomly chosen, so any other card can’t make the most out of the added movement ability. The extra five-Power is still a nice bonus, though, and the synergy between Carnage and Venom means you can beef up the latter, even more so if you combine him with Hulkbuster as well. As a reminder, Carnage destroys all your cards at the location he’s played and gains two-Power for each one. Venom does the same thing except he absorbs the Power of each card.
Darkhawk Hercules
This deck also makes use of the Zabu/Hercules combo to get the latter on the board ASAP. However, its focus is on trying to have a lot of Power across the board to ensure a safe victory. With the right moves, Kraven can become quite the powerhouse when combined with Silk since she moves locations any time another card is played where she is. If she moves to the same spot as Hercules, she can potentially be moved to Kraven’s location, granting him an extra two-Power, and then moved away so she can be sent back later. Hercules’ ability will only trigger for Silk once per turn, but other cards can be played to bounce Silk about multiple times in a single turn. The Cost reduction from Zabu should make it more feasible to play more cards in one turn to help with this.
Elsewhere, you have other high Power cards that can ideally be easily played. Miles Morales is typically a four-Cost card, but with Silk or Jeff the Baby Land Shark (whose ability lets him move to any location once per match), Miles will drop to a Cost of one. Likewise, if you get both of them in your hand, you can use the seven-Power Black Bolt on turn five to discard a card in your opponent’s hand, which triggers the ability of the six-Power Stature and drops her from five to one, letting you play her as well at least one other card on turn six.
It helps that Hercules himself has a relatively high Power of six, but you also have the usually reliable Darkhawk, whose Power goes up by two for every card in your opponent’s deck. That’s something you can help fill out with Korg and Rock Slide while filling the enemy deck with useless rocks. And then you have Shang-Chi as a safety measure to get rid of any particularly powerful enemy cards. There’s a chance your opponent will have a Shang-Chi too but he only destroys cards with 10 or more Power, meaning Black Bolt and Stature won’t be targeted.
How to counter Hercules decks in Marvel Snap
Hercules’ ability isn’t classified as an Ongoing one so cards like Echo and Enchantress can’t nullify it. The best thing to do is to target the other cards in the deck, especially ones that gain a lot of Power from using Hercules’ ability. If your opponent manages to get a beefy Human Torch or Kraven on the field, Shang-Chi can destroy them and invalidate all the work spent on boosting their Power. Shadow King is a good alternative as he resets cards to their original Power, so that boosted Human Torch will drop back down to a measly one-Power.
Published: Jan 15, 2024 09:35 am