Loki
Table of Contents
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
Loki decks are based on constantly having at least two game plans available: yours and your opponent’s. During the first three to four turns, you will develop your synergies (that are often based around Zabu and developing early points while keeping a big hand). Once you play your signature card, you are dealt a completely new hand that you can play more carelessly since the energy discount opens explosive play patterns.
Most of the time, a Loki deck won’t be packing much points potential in its base list. Instead, you will see cards that can limit the opponent (Mobius M. Mobius, Shang-Chi) or enhance your future potential (Zabu, Quinjet). Devil Dinosaur and The Collector are usually cards you can use as anchors for a location. Loki could be regarded as a combo deck that is looking to explode as late as possible, similar to Sera Control in a way. You want to keep the opponent in the dark for the majority of the match.
Once you are set and have built a cheap, super explosive hand, however, you don’t want to wait more than necessary. Loki isn’t trying to counter its opponent, and you want to go off whenever possible – especially if you need several turns to get all your points onto the field, or if you have counter cards to play on the last turn.
Current Loki Builds
Loki
Created by 
den
den, updated 12 hours ago
2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)
1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)
2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)
3x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)
4x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)
2.4
Cost
2.7
Power
Guides
Current Power Level in the Meta
Loki gained a ton of momentum towards the end of April, representing the best option to fight off the disruptive decks, dominant at the time. With the start of the new season, proactive decks came back, as they represent an easier option to climb back to the infinite rank. Naturally, this made Loki a little worse, as stealing synergistic cards doesn’t work as well as strong standalones. Plus, Blink pushed the Electro ramp deck to be very popular, and even if that one is only in tier 3, Loki doesn’t want to cross path with it.
Still a great deck, but a worse environment for Loki to leverage its synergies.
Conquest Performance
Probably the best deck in the game in expert hands, especially in Conquest, Loki only comes to the fourth place in this Conquest tier list, sporting a 63% win rate, for a few reasons:
- Ongoing Affliction was quick to add Mobius M. Mobius into the mix to adapt to that match-up, while Pixie decks already ran the card.
- Junk is using faster disruption, which is much more difficult to work around for Loki, compared to Annihilus lists.
- Loki is very popular lately, and the mirror match only grants a 50% win rate in the data as the archetype both won and lost.
- Loki’s snaps aren’t as simple as you might think.
This last reason is, to me, why Loki won’t take the top spot in the future, although it should stay in the discussion for it. Indeed, no one is staying in a game when a Loki decks snaps with Quinjet on the board, and you are about, or just played Loki. Then, you need to snap early in order to keep people in the match, but this is where the problem lies.
If you snap before turn three or four, you might not know if your opponent is running Mobius M. Mobius, or another annoying card for your synergies. With this in mind, playing Loki is actually riskier than it looks. Indeed, you need to risk being punished by Junk filling your lane, or Cosmo denying your Loki, if you want your opponent to stay in the face of your snap. Sure, you can wait and gain some information in Conquest, but you also give your opponent more time to draw into said card, and figure if they can beat a Loki or not.
Archetype Evolution Over Time
May 8th Update
- Loki remains a great deck in Marvel Snap, but the early season frenzy isn’t suited for the Trickster God, so it did worse compared to the end of last season.
April 28th Update
- Loki keeps gaining momentum lately, positioning itself as the best flexible archetype, with only Hela as a difficult match-up.
- Loki isn’t a bad deck, but it suffers from a difficult environment. Right now, the Trickster God needs more of the disruptive decks and less of The Living Tribunal around to really thrive.
- Loki was a Top 5 archetype this week, but it’s still quite far from the top three (Hela, Destroy, and Phoenix Force) because those match ups are simple to navigate. Then, Loki feels dependent on finding the right disruptive cards to gain an edge against the dominant decks. Cosmo looks like the answer so far.
- With Angela back in the mix, Loki has access to more points in its own deck (and it’s a nice target to steal later on as well). Indeed, as Loki relies on Kitty Pryde, Elsa Bloodstone, and Angela for points, seeing those cards played in other archetypes means you will often have a shot at getting second copies when you steal your opponent’s deck.Most decks saw Angela‘s buff as a great opportunity for more points; Loki saw two opportunities.
- The Mockingbird experiment seems to be a failure, and Loki is back to playing its core of card generators plus strong standalone options.
- Loki didn’t benefit much from Mockingbird, even if the card could replace Devil Dinosaur in a deck aimed at using its cards proactively. Either way, the deck wasn’t even popular enough to be ranked in this week’s Tier List.
- Expected to do great after the OTA by many, Loki didn’t post such a great performance in our first report after the update. Both featured decks have a lot of potential, but the pilot is responsible for most of their success.
- Both Loki decks are ranked in Tier 3 so far. However, the classic one is on the rise, while the Discard variant is getting Proxima Midnight as reinforcement soon.