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The latest Big Bad High Evolutionary released about two weeks ago now; that’s enough time to take a look back on both its performance and its popularity. In the second category, High Evolutionary hit a home run. Ever since its release, the card has pushed the most popular archetype in the game, Pure High Evolutionary, clocking in at almost 30% play rate during the first week and around 15% in the second. However, the archetype never posted the best cube rate for a High Evolutionary deck.
This distinction goes to Evolved Lockdown, the control archetype using the new card. Although it started a bit slow in the first week, the deck posted an insane performance during the second and competed for the highest cube rate in the game with the likes of Sera Control and Evolved Lockjaw. Speaking of Lockjaw, this is another archetype on the rise that uses High Evolutionary – especially in the tournament metagame.
After spending the first week wondering whether one should play the Thanos version or the basic build, the archetype took off in the second week and, unfortunately, left Thanos in the dust. Thanks to its insane points potential and fairly simple game plan, Evolved Lockjaw easily takes the crown for the most shared archetype on social media at the end of the Guardians’ Greatest Hits season.
There are many more archetypes with High Evolutionary. Junk, Galactus, and even She-Hulk Combo have tried to pair with the Big Bad, but none stayed relevant for long. Today, let’s take a look at the three best High Evolutionary builds, how they operate, and why they’re worth investing into in the long run.
Evolved Lockjaw
den
This is the best deck in the game according to the competitive community and a top five archetype in Marvel Snap according to the data. Evolved Lockjaw is the archetype on the rise for the end of Guardians’ Greatest Hits. A testimony to its power is Shang-Chi beginning to reappear in several lists, replacing Enchantress (the previous go-to counter card since her buff earlier in the season).
One might say it was to be expected since many called Lockjaw a great home for High Evolutionary. Indeed, with the archetype already including Wasp, and Evolved Hulk being one of the best 6-Cost cards in the game, it was more of a “when” than an “if” regarding Lockjaw.
Nevertheless, the archetype had a slow start to its High Evolutionary journey. For the majority of the first week, the results were mixed at best; the Thanos version was popular too, and there were numerous lists built around Thor Lockjaw as well. Once in the second week, though, more players grouped around the same ideas, and the deck took off and immediately started to post insane results. I wouldn’t be surprised if it cracked Tier 1 on the ladder next week, as long as the focus does not completely change towards the Move synergy.
Gameplay
Based on its signature card, the deck aims to use cheap, weak cards behind Lockjaw in order to summon much stronger ones without paying the required energy. In that sense, Lockjaw’s lane is often very strong, and it is important to keep in mind how to win another one and not get caught up in abusing Lockjaw.
Without Lockjaw, Jubilee and Dracula will serve a similar purpose and try to cheat points for less than the usual amount of energy. We’ll usually throw the cheap cards behind Lockjaw in the last two turns, so Dracula isn’t so difficult to abuse in the deck. Make sure to play Jubilee before doing so if you have both cards available.
The first two turns of the game can be very quiet for a Lockjaw deck, as we aren’t looking to do much (which now feeds Evolved Hulk). On Turn 3, we will either look to have Lockjaw paired with Wasp, or Thor to shuffle Mjölnir into the deck. Turn 4 will typically be Jubilee or Dracula; Jubilee will be stronger behind Lockjaw while Dracula is good to set up on the board with Evolved Hulk or The Infinaut in hand already.
Once in the final two turns of the match, the goal is to think about our best outcomes and how we can high roll enough to win the game. If ahead, a simple Doctor Doom or Evolved Hulk could be enough to secure the win. If behind, it is important to know the chances of winning Lockjaw‘s lane based on what is left in our deck, while counting how big we can get Thor and Dracula to challenge the second lane.
Evolved Lockdown
Kingvenom
Already on the rise with Nebula proving to be a great 1-Cost for the archetype, Lockdown spent most of the season with the Guardians of the Galaxy handling points development. Once High Evolutionary released, though, it took little time before Nebula, Storm, and Spider-Man to jumped ship and joined the new card. As of the end of the season, the deck represents almost 10% of the metagame in the higher ranks, and it easily takes the crown as the best disruptive archetype in Marvel Snap. Compared to Evolved Lockjaw, the deck relies a lot more on High Evolutionary. Evolved Cyclops and Evolved Hulk, in particular, are often expected to win the lane they are played on. If Evolved Cyclops receives some help from Sunspot or Nebula, Evolved Hulk can routinely beat the opponent on its own.
It has a great match up against Galactus in particular, which helped the deck solidify a position in the metagame. With the Move synergy anticipated to come back strong, limiting the playing field to one less lane seems to be an interesting idea going into the new season. As such, it is difficult to rule against Evolved Lockdown in the current metagame, especially if you enjoy this kind of game play.
Gameplay
The whole point of the deck is to get a lane under control before Turn 6; then, Evolved Hulk can come in and take the necessary second lane. In that regard, Storm, Spider-Man and Professor X work the same way they did in the previous Lockdown builds by reducing the space our opponent has available to play and securing that first lane during the mid-game. Also, thanks to cards like Evolved Cyclops and Sunspot, we can still impact a lane after it’s been locked, either by growing our power or reducing our opponent’s.
The new High Evolutionary package does push the deck towards a different play pattern, though, as several cards need some unspent energy. Indeed, in order to grow Evolved Hulk and Sunspot, as well as abuse Evolved Cyclops, the deck is looking to delay certain cards to end up with one energy left at the end of each turn. Depending on your hand, whether you lean towards the more traditional Lockdown plan, or if you try to abuse Evolved Cyclops and Evolved Hulk, your play patterns should adapt.
Pure High Evolutionary
This was the first deck to come out with High Evolutionary, and it features most of the Evolve Package alongside some of the metagame’s strongest tech cards. Honestly, for a deck so easy to build (as it is really just throwing all the High Evolutionary cards together – with the exception of Shocker since it does not fit either package), the results are well worth the investment. Simply finish the deck with Wave, Enchantress, and the newly popular Luke Cage.
After more time to figure things out, the deck found its place somewhere around tenth place if we look at statistical rankings, which puts it in a similar spot as Silver Surfer. Usually, these decks are able to shine and post great results when their tech cards align with the metagame; otherwise, they fall a little short in the points department to be able to contest their strongest opponents.
I think this is a fair assessment of the all-in archetype for High Evolutionary. It is a good deck, more than capable of getting you to the Infinite rank with the right amount of knowledge. But if we were to look at the deck in a more competitive environment, you really have to perfectly nail your tech cards in order to punish the most popular decks.
Compared to Lockdown and Lockjaw, both of which have more potential in their base game plan, the deck naturally feels a little behind and give a large chunk of its popularity to these two during the second week of play.
Gameplay
High Evolutionary seems to push a proactive play style and tries to play cards while keeping unspent energy in the process. Ideally, the deck will be able to build a very strong lane in the first few turns on the back of Sunspot and Evolved Misty Knight, building our points total early on. Then, Wave can shut down any potential comeback when played on Turn 5 while Evolved Hulk dominates any lane on Turn 6.
Due to of its off-curve play style that typically looks to keep one unspent energy to trigger Evolved Misty Knight, Evolved Cyclops, and Evolved Hulk, the deck can be a bit awkward at first. Keep in mind that each point of unspent energy can be worth up to six total points if all your cards trigger their abilities. Here is a normal play pattern with the deck:
- Pass on Turn 1.
- Sunspot on Turn 2.
- Evolved Misty Knight or Luke Cage on Turn 3.
- Evolved Cyclops or Evolved The Thing on Turn 4. If you get a shot at discounting Evolved Abomination enough with Evolved Wasp, you should take it.
- Wave plus Evolved Abomination (or Evolved Misty Knight if still in hand). Play Wasp now if still in hand, otherwise Wave will make it unplayable.
- Evolved Hulk on Turn 6.
Although this looks suboptimal for many decks, the various synergies in the deck will make such out of sync play patterns worth it in the end.
Note that this kind of pattern is only worth going for if you have several cards that gain something from unspent energy. Otherwise, you should not purposefully waste resources for cards you are not guaranteed to get a return from.
Closing Words
Overall, High Evolutionary should go down as one of the most impactful, if not the most impactful, Series 5 releases of 2023. I would argue that Iron Lad is a stronger card due to its flexibility combined with its synergies with Zabu, Darkhawk, and other dominant cards in the metagame.
Still, Iron Lad did not push an archetype, let alone two and a half (I’m still not buying that Lockjaw is unplayable without High Evolutionary in it, sorry). As such, if we consider the global impact each card had on the game, High Evolutionary probably gets the nod thanks to the much bigger contribution in the deck building category.
With a new season starting, most of the focus will switch to a completely different synergy: Move. Even if you don’t have enough Collector’s Tokens to get all the cards coming out in June, I’m sure High Evolutionary will remain a valid pick for climbing the ladder in the future, in addition to being flexible enough to allow you to explore different archetypes.
I hope this little insight on the new Big Bad’s influence on the end of the Guardians’ Greatest Hits season was helpful. As usual, if you would like to get in touch, you can find me on the Marvel Snap Zone community Discord, or follow my Twitter page where I share decks and biased opinions about the game.
Good Game Everyone.
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