Aero Is the New Face of Death Wave

The combination of Death and Wave in Marvel Snap has been the foundation of many decks, but I’ve been pretty out on most of them. They felt too reliant on drawing the Death/Wave combo, and not good enough at capitalizing on the power of Wave, outside of playing Death cheaply.

In my view, much of this was because people were deckbuilding with incomplete collections, and didn’t have the resources to figure out what an actually good version of the list looked like. It was also because every single player in the game underrated Aero.

Variants

Aero

On Reveal: Move the last enemy card played this turn to this location.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Aero

Aero is a patently ridiculous card if you play it on a lane you don’t care about. Let’s say you are winning two lanes on Turn 5. You play Aero, put everything into the lane you aren’t winning, and lock up the game. That’s awesome, right?

The counterplay here is fairly obvious: your opponent fills up the lane that you want to Aero, or the lane they’re winning is already filled up.

Wave not only fixes that issue with Aero, by making it so that your opponent can only play one card, but also unlocks the extremely unfair Death + Aero on Turn 6. With that, you only have to be winning one lane, and you can drop Death in the other, and Aero whatever single card your opponent plays to the lane you don’t care about.

I believe it was FuzzyCB who first noted the power of Aero in Death Wave, and this deck evolved out of those experiments. I also know that Lootmuncher0 has been a major proponent of Aero, so shouts to both of them.

BAEro

Created by KMBest

, updated 5 months ago

15

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.2

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Let’s break the deck down, card by card, so you can get a better feel for how it works.

Get Ahead And Get Two Kills

Variants

Carnage

On Reveal: Destroy your other cards here. +2 Power for each destroyed.

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Carnage

Variants

Deathlok

On Reveal: Destroy your other cards at this location.

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Deathlok

Variants

Nova

When this is destroyed, give your cards +1 Power.

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Nova

Variants

The Hood

On Reveal: Add a Demon to your hand.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with The Hood

Variants

Mysterio

As you play this, play Illusions to other locations. Disguise this as an Illusion until the game ends.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Mysterio

Variants

Bucky Barnes

When this is destroyed, create the Winter Soldier in its place.

Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Bucky Barnes

Variants

Yondu

On Reveal: Destroy the top card of your opponent’s deck.

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Yondu

Variants

Killmonger

On Reveal: Destroy ALL 1-Cost cards.

Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Killmonger

This is the first step of every game. Your early game is built around doing two things: getting ahead in as many lanes as possible, and getting two kills so that you can discount Death by two, allowing you to play her and another card after you play Wave.

You have several efficient ways of doing this. Carnage + Bucky Barnes is an incredibly efficient threat, Mysterio creates tokens that can be killed off by Carnage and Deathlok while being five hidden power, and The Hood and Nova die to Carnage, Killmonger and Deathlok while also leaving some power behind.

Yondu is in the deck because discounting Death is paramount, and Yondu’s trigger counts as a destroy effect as far as Death is concerned. Sometimes it’s cool to know what your opponent is playing in advance, but make no mistake: we wouldn’t be playing this card without the interaction with Death.

I think most people are pretty aware of how these cards work, but you do have to keep in mind what your goals are: being ahead going into the Wave turn, and getting two kills so you can play Death.

If you are worried about cards like Armor and Cosmo, you can respect them by not tipping your hand, and playing something like Nova into a lane before Carnage + Bucky Barnes on Turn 4. Note also that you can play Wave + Carnage on Turn 5 if you need more kills. It’s not the greatest thing ever, but your endgame is so good that you sometimes have to do it.

Slam The Door Shut

Variants

Wave

On Reveal: Next turn, cards in both players’ hands cost 4.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Wave

Variants

Death

Costs 1 less for each card destroyed this game.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Death

Variants

Magneto

On Reveal: Move all opposing 3 and 4-Cost cards to this location.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Magneto

Variants

Aero

On Reveal: Move the last enemy card played this turn to this location.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Aero

Here’s where stuff gets ridiculous.

The move cards are already very powerful, but they get SO MUCH BETTER when you combine them with Wave, who removes all ambiguity from whether they’ll work or not. Typically, the move cards are countered by having full lanes, but Wave prevents this from ever happening. This turns Aero into a card that almost always wins the game if you’re ahead after playing Wave, even if you don’t have Death.

Magneto is just flat out incredibly strong. I originally started playing him as a way to remove power from locations that Storm flooded. Basically, he was a backdoor Aero, allowing you to win two lanes on Turn 6 in yet another way. He gives you so much control over how the game plays out, even if you aren’t doing the combo. You can win games by just playing your earlygame cards into Aero and Magneto, because that’s a fairly strong interactive midrange gameplan on its own.

You can snap as early as Turn 4 as long as you’re winning a lane, have your kills, and have Wave + Death and one of the two movers in almost every situation. You can snap even earlier if you have a reasonable likelihood of fulfilling those conditions. This allows you to have MASSIVE snap equity, since you know, for example, that Magneto is going to pull Jessica Jones out of a contested Storm lane, or that Death and Aero are going to end the game two turns before they actually do.

The deck is doing something that is just incredibly powerful. There aren’t a lot of singular cards that can win games in a way that counters this deck. It’s pretty much just Hela, Leader and Doctor Doom that can reasonably beat you after you pull off the combo, and otherwise, you’re just doing too many things for any other deck to match on Turn 6.

You do need to get some experience with the deck before you can snap efficiently with it. It’s also a deck that benefits heavily from snapping efficiently, so it might take some time. I still mess Magneto math up sometimes, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Wrap Up

This has been the strongest deck for me on my climb to and above Rank 500 Infinite. I’m friendly with a lot of the players that I face off against, and the ones I can reach unanimously agree that this is the best deck that I play. That’s the best endorsement I can offer. Is it quantitative data? No. Do I honestly believe it? Yes.

Thanks for reading! If you’re interested in more content about Marvel Snap, you can check out my YouTube channel, where I go over the Marvel Snap basics. I also recently started a Discord, and I’m active in the Marvel Snap Zone Discord as well. You can also follow me on Twitter and on Twitch for more Marvel Snap goodness!