Junk

Archetype pages are updated after each tier list is made. If a page isn’t up-to-date, it means there was nothing worth saying about in the last report, either because there was no data about it, or the archetype did poorly.

How to Play

At its core, Junk aims to limit what the opponent can do by eating up the space they have available. Ideally, the deck will be looking to take at least one lane away from the opponent when playing Annihilus. This will make it easier to figure out if you can win that location since the opponent will have a very limited impact on it later on, and it also makes Alioth much more reliable on Turn 6.

Junk started as an archetype that aimed to cancel the opposing game plan more than anything else, but recently there has been a need for more points. Indeed, with new cards constantly introduced in the game, the average amount of points a deck can develop has grown. Plus, disruptive cards such as Shang-Chi and Alioth have become increasingly important to further stop what the opponent does.

Junk has been relying on cheating energy to be able to keep up. Ravonna Renslayer is a way to do so since it reduces the cost of both Green Goblin and Hobgoblin. Zabu is the other possibility because it impacts Sentry plus the typical 4-Cost disruptive cards you could include.

Nowadays, the most important thing is to be aggressive with your disruption and pair it with other ways to answer or cancel what the opponent could do. Otherwise, decks in the current Marvel Snap are often too flexible or develop too much early on that you won’t be able to come back before the game is over.

Current Junk Builds

Guides

Junk Deck Guide: Bad Cards Gone Wild!

Current Power Level in the Meta

Although the early season mostly features proactive archetypes, and you could argue Pixie Junk is the most proactive build for Junk, disruption isn’t entirely gone. Right now, I would say this deck is kind of the police in the metagame, heavily limiting certain synergies.

Nocturne and Blink in particular, both dislike Professor X, as the card annoys Move and Hela in their development. Otherwise, Pixie just makes sense early on in the season, as it allows to blur your play-patterns, and have more flexibility in how you play your cards. A perfect way to confuse bots and players who just try to enforce their strategy without packing flexible cards.

Amongst tier 1 decks in this report, this is one I’m confident should remain a force going forward, as it proved its worth in the previous weeks as well.

Conquest Performance

If Ongoing Affliction is the hottest deck towards the end of the season, Junk probably is the one over the full course of April, even if this one is starting to be named Lockdown for some reason. As time passed, Professor X and Annihilus took over Annihilus, with Green Goblin, Debrii or White Widow being used for early disruption.

In a metagame where snapping as early as possible is key to gain more than one cube per round, relying on earlier disruption, so we can focus on winning lanes once in the later rounds, definitely makes more sense. At least, this is what the stats are telling us, with a 68% win rate over 250 games this week in the Infinity League.

Pixie Junk

Loki brought Mobius M. Mobius back into the metagame, naturally bad news for a Pixie deck. The other piece of bad news if the deck struggling to win when it doesn’t find Pixie early, explaining why the best performing list looks so empty on turn three and four, instead making the most of the energy costs being shuffled.

Basically, you would play this deck like a Bounce list if you couldn’t find Pixie, using Beast to craft a turn three or four if you can’t find Mobius M. Mobius or Sentry. If you do find your signature 2-cost, be willing to snap as this is how the deck should gain most of its cubes.

Archetype Evolution Over Time

May 8th Update

• Junk looks great early in the season, and one of the most annoying deck to go against for the emerging archetypes.

April 28th Update

• Junk feels like the best archetype in the game, although it needs to stay away from Annihilus, as the card has been adapted against lately.

April 19th Update

• Junk positioned itself as the most reliable counter against The Living Tribunal right now because it’s able to fill the board before they can get their cards in play. If the meta keeps heading this way, Junk could be a perennial dark horse that represents the counter power to an otherwise points dominated environment.

April 13th Update

• Junk feels like it needs to rebuild its strategy after the update. The traditional lists didn’t do so well in this super proactive meta. Clogging the opponent’s space is a good avenue to explore since Hela and Mister Negative are very slow to develop, but there needs to be more unpredictability to rack up more than one cube per game.

March 23rd Update

• Galactus Junk seems to have profited from the OTA overall and posted a better Cube Average than in previous weeks. So far, the additions of Cable and Cannonball have had a positive impact on the deck; they bring more disruption and control over the opponent’s deck.