Altar of Death Featured Location Guide: Strategy, Best Cards and Decks

This week’s Marvel Snap Featured Location is Altar of Death: When you play a card here, destroy it to get +2 Energy next turn. This is a brand new location for Marvel Snap’s Savage Land Season, now added to the Location pool. For the next 48 hours, it will show up 40% more frequently in games during this feature period. Let’s find out what the best strategies, cards, and decks are!

Variants

Altar of Death

After you play a card here, destroy it to get +2 Energy next turn.

released

view card details Start a deck Decks with Altar of Death

What is Altar of Death?

Our next stop on the tour of the Savage Land, is the Altar of Death! Here is where the Swamp Men place sacrifices to their gods. We hold no liability if they capture you during our stop here and sacrifice you for extra energy.

Strategy

This is an interesting location which has the potential to significantly warp the game for the next 48 hours. +2 energy on any turn of Marvel Snap can be a significant advantage. Playing a 0-Cost card and a 1 cost card into Altar of Death on turn 1 for example gives you 5 energy on Turn 2.

Additionally, this location includes the text destroy which has synergies with cards such as Death, Nova, Bucky Barnes and The Hood. We also need to include ways to push power into the location – cards which can go wide (such as Doctor Doom) or can lock the location, will have higher value during the location.

Altar of Death potential ramp curves for Turns 1, 2 and 3 can be sketched out to some degree. The location is counting played cards, so the following are just 3 examples all considering running Wasp as a 0 energy card:

• Turn 1: 1-Cost card + 0-Cost Card – 6 energy on Turn 2.
• Turn 2: 2 x 1-Cost Card + 0-Cost Card – 9 Energy on Turn 3.
• Turn 3: 3 x 1-Cost costs + 0-Cost card – 12 Energy on Turn 4.

There is a daunting range of possibilities for this location. Destroy cards, 1 drops (especially Deadpool), Wasp and Yellowjacket may all help you unlock these, but which one is going to be the most consistent is difficult to predict. Some ideas to consider:

• Turn 2 – Galactus (with no cards on board)
• Turn 3 – Professor X + Attuma or Warpath
• Turn 4 – Doctor Doom + Odin (or Leader)

Also good cards are better played early, so if you are limited in accessing some of these options, playing Leech or Hobgoblin early for example is always an option. If you are limited in your collection, we recommend you looking at the Series 2 build for this week and adjusting from there.

Cards and Deck Ideas

The best version of these lists are starting to be built with Series 4 and 5 cards. Where they are not the required for the strategy I will include a note on what cards to swap in.

Destroy (Death & Galactus)

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

Galactus

On Reveal: If this is your only card here, destroy all other locations.

Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Galactus

This is a Death Wave list which uses Galactus also and has Spider-Man for the lock put play. If you miss Galactus play towards Wave on 5 and Death + Leader on 6.

Altar of Death – Altar of Galactus

Created by SafetyBlade

, updated 5 months ago

0

Pool 5Featured Location

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.2

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Deadpool may not be required but is a great 1 drop for Altar of Death as we can use him to reactivate the effect multiple times allowing for flexibility on when we try to make our Galactus play. We want to Play Galactus on 4 primarily if we can in this deck as that allows Turn 5 Spider-Man or allows us to play Leader / Death from behind on 6 avoiding a lot of the potential counters.

Note on the lack of Knull. Knull can take advantage of yours and your opponent’s attempts to use Altar of Death and can combo with Galactus and could be a consideration. However, Leader appears to be a better option in most circumstances. Most destroys into Altar will be low value and therefore the payoff does not appear high on the surface. This could be wrong and worth watching.

If you’re missing Galactus, he can be replaced with Professor X for an early lane lockdown.

Ramp (Electro)

Variants

Electro

On Reveal: +1 Max Energy. Ongoing: You can only play 1 card a turn.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Electro

This is a traditional ramp list which can take advantage of Altar of Death to play the big cards earlier. It has the Electro Ramp core as we can sacrifice Electro and open up large amounts of energy for later turns. The Hood, Deadpool and Wasp are our sacrifices and going with the Thor On Reveal and Doctor Doom / Leader packages.

Altar of Death – Ramp

Created by SafetyBlade

, updated 5 months ago

1

Pool 3Featured Location

1x Collection Level 1-14

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

10x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.9

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

If we can land Doctor Doom or Leader early, we can replay these with Odin. Absorbing Man could be a potential inclusion for this one.

Ongoing Location Control (Professor X)

Variants

Professor X

Ongoing: Lock down this location. (Cards can’t be added, removed, etc.)

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Professor X

This one is a wild swing and may be entirely too clunky if you don’t draw the early game. However wanted to feature an all in deck to present some ideas which may lead to ideas for you, the readers.

Altar of Death – Wild Swing

Created by SafetyBlade

, updated 5 months ago

3

Pool 3Featured Location

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x 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+

This is all in on getting Altar and activating 2 or 3 times allowing for Professor X + Something plays as soon as possible. We have a lot of big plays aimed at winning lanes early or using up your opponent’s resources.

Turn 2, 3 or 4 Doctor Octopus for example can be devastating as your opponent’s gameplan can be ruined early and you can plan whether you lose the lane or can destroy the lane with Shang-Chi later on.

What You Should Play

Altar of Death – Altar of Galactus

Created by SafetyBlade

, updated 5 months ago

0

Pool 5Featured Location

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.2

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Destroy with Galactus or Professor X appears the strongest direction on the surface. The deck as simple synergy with destroy effects and can use the extra energy efficiently throughout the game.

Series 1

Altar of Death – Series 1

Created by SafetyBlade

, updated 5 months ago

1

Pool 1Featured Location

5x Collection Level 1-14

6x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Recruit Season

2.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.6

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

We have no 0-Cost cards in Series 1 so we feature a few 1 drops we get some value from and can potentially lead to an early Gamora, White Tiger or Professor X.

Mister Sinister and Armor can helps us consistently win Altar of Death also when required.

Series 2

Altar of Death – Series 2

Created by SafetyBlade

, updated 5 months ago

4

Pool 2Featured Location

4x Collection Level 1-14

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

5x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

1.9

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

This deck could form the basis for Series 3 decks for the location and is entirely Series 2 cards. We have 3 5 Energy cards which are all significantly better if we can play them early, Leech, Hobgoblin and White Tiger. Professor X once again features alongside Odin to retrigger White Tiger.

Jubilee has very few bad hits in this deck and is playable on 2 with one activation from Altar of Death also. She also activates the location again for the next turn and plays a card to the location. There are less activations in this deck than the full Series 3 decks so we want to get a few big plays out then continue with our On Reveal plans.

Final Turn

Remember at the time of writing, these starter decks are untested. These are theorycraft ideas to get you going and looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with for Altar of Death. Make sure to leave a comment below, share your ideas on our Deck Builder and discuss with the community on our Discord!

Good Luck, Have Fun, and Stay Safe!