Best Agamotto Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide

Agamotto is the next Season Pass card joining Marvel Snap for the March 2025 season, Prehistoric Avengers. It is a 5-Cost, 10 Power card that reads: Game Start: Shuffle 4 Ancient Arcana into your deck.

The Ancient Arcana are a new type of card that aren’t considered characters, and they won’t interact with certain abilities in the game because of this. For example, Ravonna Renslayer won’t discount the cost of the Ancient Arcana, nor will Lockjaw summon a card from your deck if you play one behind it. However, they can be duplicated with Wong.

To put it simply: if your character says “your cards”, the Ancient Arcana won’t synergize with it; if they say “your abilities”, then there is a possible synergy.

Today, we will take a deeper look at the new card and, of course, the best decks to try it out in.

Season Pass

Strengths and Weaknesses

I’ve learned not to bet against a Season Pass card in Marvel Snap, so let me start by saying Agamotto looks pretty good. However, the new card is also vastly different from the typical Season Pass cards we’ve had lately, all of which were kind of obvious in their possible uses.

Agamotto comes in as a versatile card that dilutes your deck in exchange for cards with various bonuses (sort of like Thanos). Agamotto is a bit different, however, as the card itself holds little synergy with the Ancient Arcana (except for Temporal Manipulation, obviously).

While you could consider Agamotto a [6/13] when combined with Temporal Manipulation, the other Ancient Arcana can be viewed as standalone cards with Agamotto being the tribute to access them (sort of like High Evolutionary).

This could be seen as a [2/5] that is able to move an opponent’s card, which is definitely a solid card if that is indeed how it works. I could easily picture this in a Toxic or Clog type of deck, or even as a strong 2-Cost card you can play to grab priority early on.

This one is kind of situational, and it really only gives you one bonus energy if you consider that you have to spend three in order to gain the four. It could be good in a ramp or combo type of deck that is aimed at getting a specific card out early, or if you want to plan a turn where you need lots of energy. It’s also possibly bonkers with Wong.

The most expensive card of the bunch, this one is possibly a location winner whenever you have a worthy target. Bolts of Balthakk sets it up very well for some combo potential on the following turn as well. You could also just play all your cards in the same place and copy your 3-Cost on Turn 4. Some targets that could be worth copying include Gladiator and Rocket and Groot.

Overall, I’m not particularly impressed with the Ancient Arcana, but I can’t say they are bad cards. My main concern is the fact that they don’t synergize together apart from the slight synergy between Bolts of Balthakk and Images of Ikonn. Winds of Watoomb looks like a nice standalone 2-Cost, but there are so many of those at the moment that I’m not willing to dilute my deck just for that.

This is where it gets tricky to guess the landing spot for Agamotto. The Ancient Arcana don’t really collaborate like some other cards do. You can’t use them like the Infinity Stones with a card like Lockjaw, and you can’t give them to your opponent with Viper because they disappear after triggering. Plus, all the decks that could value the synergy between Bolts of Balthakk and Images of Ikonn might not be willing to sacrifice their deck’s consistency to get it. I mean, we already have Psylocke, Wave, Wiccan, Sera, and other cards that are able to cheat energy.

In the end, the only obvious synergy I can see is with Mister Negative. But, once again, are you really willing to play Mister Negative with a 16 card deck? This would mean lowering your odds of finding your most important cards by about 15%.

Past this, there are a couple interesting interactions with Namora; the fact that the Ancient Arcana disappear from the board means they won’t get in the way of you having one card on two separate locations.

Both Mister Negative and Namora pair well with Wong, too, so I guess this is the most logical path to explore early on.

The Verdict

Honestly, Agamotto is tough to figure out. I want to slot him into strong archetypes that are able to use all the Ancient Arcana, but I can’t wrap my head around the idea of lowering my odds to find my key cards in time.

For example, I wouldn’t mind playing the card in a Scream deck since the Winds of Watoomb synergizes really well with the deck (and the other two are decent enough), but including Agamotto means I run the risk of not finding Scream or Sam Wilson Captain America by Turn 2.

The best Marvel Snap decks have always been the most consistent ones, or at least the ones with such a strong Snap that you almost always win double what you lose. I fear Agamotto won’t help you Snap enough in order to be worth the sacrifice to your deck’s consistency.

I am ready to be wrong on this one, though. Agamotto is very difficult to figure out without having the ability to tinker with it. Still, I’m going to guess this will be the weakest Season Pass Card of the past six months. Agent Venom, Surtur, Galacta, Iron Patriot, and Sam Wilson Captain America all looked much scarier before release, and they were all more in line with the way Marvel Snap rewards how we play.

Pre-Release Score:

Agamotto Decks

The On Reveal archetype makes the most sense in my opinion. Here you have synergies with Namora (since the Ancient Arcana don’t stay on the board). With Magik and Bolts of Balthakk, you can have 11 energy on Turn 7, which is perfect for playing both Black Panther and Arnim Zola together.

Images of Ikonn can be used on a big Scarlet Spider to create more copies of it before you activate to add clones on the other locations.

I took inspiration from the current best performing build of the archetype, but Agamotto might unlock other patterns I haven’t thought of. Symbiote Spider-Man is worth testing, Peni Parker is too, and maybe even Lasher. Plus, cards like Zabu and Psylocke will become less reliable, so you might need to rely on their help a little less.

I’m gonna say it: this one will improve with the new Season Pass card, guaranteed.

Scream Move is one of the few decks that is able to use all three Ancient Arcana as standalone cards. Winds of Watoomb synergizes with the deck’s main gameplan. Bolts of Balthakk opens the door for combo oriented turns, or playing an early Magneto to clog a lane. Images of Ikonn has great targets like Cannonball, Scream, Sam Wilson Captain America, or whatever card is created by Iron Patriot. I wouldn’t be surprised if Agamotto fits into the deck without changing much to its core strategy.

Eson is a card that you want to get out early, so you could consider using Bolts of Balthakk to accomplish that. However, this is the type of deck that I’m unsure if Agamotto‘s contribution will be enough. Indeed, lowering the chances to find Wiccan or Blink in order to get Eson out might not be worth the Ancient Arcana, in addition to Agamotto representing another target for Blink to pull over Eson.

This is exactly the type of deck that Agamotto makes sense in on paper, but we’ll only really know whether it is a valuable addition or a fun distraction once we’re able to test it. After opening that door, plenty of decks could be possible, but discussing them doesn’t make much sense because the only way to get the answer is to play them.

Variants

Closing Thoughts

I really like Agamotto because it breaks the recent tradition of Season Pass cards being solved before we even get our hands on them. I don’t think Second Dinner will release a bad card as a Season Pass (unless they already have a possible buff in mind if they’re unsure of its power cough cough Symbiote Spider-Man cough cough Gilgamesh), so I’m not really discussing the value of the purchase here.

However, although I have seen plenty of deck ideas with Agamotto, none of them have completely convinced me. Indeed, the card either fits into archetype we haven’t seen in a while or it entices us to explore new patterns of play. Among the current dominant decks, Scream Move and Mister Negative are the only ones that I think make sense, and I’m not sure Agamotto is required in either. At most it could be an exotic addition.

Ah yes, there is one possible deck where Agamotto might become a problem… Surtur 10 Power.

Not because the card has 10 power (although that is a nice touch), but because Bolts of Balthakk could turn that deck into an explosive Turn 6 power dropping machine, or because Images of Ikonn can annihilate a location with 10+ power cards. At least the Ancient Arcana mess with Ares, but making the switch back to Attuma isn’t that hard.

Please, Second Dinner, I hope this wasn’t the reason why the 10 Power deck was nerfed.

I hope this review of the new card was helpful. Feel free to share your opinions and excitement about the card in the comments. You can find everyone on the Marvel Snap Zone team in our community discord to have a chat or ask any questions.

Good Game Everyone!