Best Marvel Snap Decks – Best of July and August

Hello everyone and welcome to Best Marvel Snap Decks of the Week! I’m Glazer of Snap Judgments: The Official Marvel Snap Zone Podcast, and in this article, I’m going to take you through all of my favorite decks this week. In addition to the podcast, I do my own daily videos where I scour the darkest corners of the internet (ahem X and the various Marvel Snap sites) to find the best decks in Marvel Snap before the meta notices.

Remember: Each deck title will take you to a video explanation of the deck, so don’t be shy – check them out!

Top 5 Players and Decks of the July Season

Let’s start this week by looking at the best decks of the previous season. I’m actively choosing decks (each player played more than one deck, click the title if you want to see them all) that I expect to still be powerful and meta-relevant in the new season.

#5 Barzy Little Movers

Deck Thoughts

Barzy and Sizer are the two people who brought this archetype back to prominence as both a counter to the Doctor Octopus decks that were everywhere and as a way to get around the most common tech card, Shang-Chi. Doctor Octopus has been replaced by clog and Shang remains popular, so this deck is still top-notch.

The list is a Thena deck at its core that uses Thena‘s and Angela‘s scaling to combine with unpredictable power from the movers like Jeff and Nightcrawler. And it gets better; Juggernaut and Shang-Chi both let you win a lane with minimal commitment. If you guess wrong about power, Captain Marvel helps make up for mistakes. And Gwenpool just gives the opponents fits trying to figure out how much power to play around.

Copycat is totally replaceable and can be Nocturne, Miles Morales, or Red Guardian. Hope Summers can really only be Elsa Bloodstone, but the rest of the cards are requirements.

#4 Desperate Jill Mill

Deck Thoughts

Desperate Jill is a Chinese player who was running away with the top spot until the Arishem nerfs. They were able to compete with this Mill deck, and they even managed to get back into the top spot with it.

This deck took a good sized hit with the Doctor Octopus nerf, but it’s still quite powerful. With Cable, Baron Zemo, and Gladiator, the deck is great at emptying the opponent’s options, and both Doctor Octopus and Spider-Ham further help with that plan. Copycat might or might not assist that plan, but it does at least make one of the opponent’s cards utterly useless—and that’s got plenty of power all by itself. Outside of that, the list has some tech in Shang-Chi and Shadow King along with Magik to make the card advantage really matter. Grand Master is here to tie the room together like a good rug; he’s able to be either extra mill or an extra tech card.

Spider-Ham can be Yondu or Iceman here. Copycat is very important, but White Widow, Kate Bishop, or even Green Goblin are okay as replacements. Red Hulk is here as the biggest thing, but Magneto is comparably large and helps with clog.

#3 Woody Surfer

Deck Thoughts:

YoWoodyMJ, the top American player, has been crushing with a variety of decks… and very few decks are as cool and powerful as Silver Surfer.

Surfer got two powerful new cards here in Cassandra Nova and Gwenpool. Cassandra Nova not only gives play into Arishem, it is also a great second target for Absorbing Man. Meanwhile, Gwenpool means a late-drawn Brood or Sebastian Shaw can still have game-winning power. The rest of the deck is pretty standard Silver Surfer stuff. The beauty of Hope Summers, though, is that she allows you to play an extra 3-Cost card on Turn 5 if you play a card behind her on Turn 4. That’s both important and powerful.

Despite this use, Hope can be replaced by Sera. Red Guardian and Nocturne are likewise able to be replaced by other good 3-drops like Gladiator and Polaris. Neither is pivotal to the deck’s strategy, merely potent options.

#2 Derek Fairishem

Deck Thoughts

Derek, who plays as Havok OP, was at or near the top of the leaderboard with a variety of decks, but it’s his Arishem list that I’m going to focus on here since it has an absolutely huge Win Rate.

This list is built around assuming you’ll either get early plays from Arishem or make them yourself with Loki and Agent Coulson, so it focuses on big ways to use the extra energy whether by going wide with Doctor Doom and Klaw or tall (and controlling) with Arishem and Magneto. Mockingbird is absolutely stellar at giving you an early threat and drawing out that Shang-Chi. Zoo and Thena can try to compete in power, so Shadow King and Shang-Chi finish off that problem.

Alioth can really only be Blob here. Mockingbird is stellar, but She-Hulk or other cheap, big power cards (even Jessica Jones) do totally fine. Copycat can be Nocturne, Cosmo, or really any good 3-Cost card. The rest are required.

#1 Sizer Darkhawk

Deck Thoughts

Sizer got into first place with this list and then basically played defense with the deck’s consistency.

Darkhawk is just powerful and disruptive. In a game where you see 75% of your deck, lowering that with a Rock is huge, and then getting a cheap big card that absolutely bodies Arishem is pretty great. Cassandra Nova is awesome with Rocks and further makes the Arishem match easy. Sometimes Darkhawk isn’t tall enough, though, and that’s when you can use Iron Man or Shang-Chi to problem solve. Thena gives scaling, and both Juggernaut and Cosmo steal lanes and cubes in this simple, powerful deck.

Nocturne and Jeff are great here, but plenty of 2- and 3-Cost cards can replace them. I suggest starting with Kate Bishop and Spider-Man.

The 5 Best Decks so far in August

Crazy Loki Junk

Deck Thoughts

Crazy, the #1 player in March and April, has been cleaning up with this Loki Junk deck.

The great thing here is you can absolutely mess up an opponent’s board using White Widow, Green Goblin, and all the clog tools. When the opponent has limited space, playing their cards for cheaper with Loki or using tech cards like Shang-Chi and Shadow King can answer what limited cards they can play. It’s a thing of beauty, and Kate Bishop really puts it over the top.

You can try Wolfsbane for Sage, but there aren’t really any great replacements for this list.

Woody Kate Deck

Deck Thoughts

YoWoodyMJ’s Kate deck is absolutely everywhere right now!

This deck is about clog, sure, but the real trick is how much power it can put out after clogging the board. After dropping Ajax on Turn 5, the deck can move Dagger to win a lane along with playing Hazmat to take Ajax up to 20 or so power. Sage offers a powerful backup plan for whichever combo doesn’t work, and Ravonna makes all these cards just cheap enough to play them all together.

Cassandra Nova is the one non-required card here, and either Gladiator or Polaris would make a great replacement.

Derek’s Loki

Deck Thoughts

Derek and Barzy are ranked #1 and #2 on the Infinite Leaderboard right now with this deck.

The idea of this deck is to use Marvel Boy for some nice scaling power and Loki for cheap cards until ending the game with the perfect tech card. This feels a lot like the old Sera Control decks, and it is just shockingly effective against almost the entire meta. The trick is to not play Loki until you have the tech you need for the match up. After that, it’s time to go to town with cheap scaling power until the game ends.

Copycat is good here, but hardly pivotal, and the same is true of Nocturne. I suggest starting with Juggernaut for replacements, but Cosmo, Polaris, and even Ghost make a bit of sense. Spider-Ham and Nico Minoru are just good 1-drops, and something like Iceman, Hydra Bob, or even Elektra could replace them.

Butt Negative

Deck Thoughts

Butt’s Negative list is just absolutely crazy strong—whether it sees Mister Negative or not!

The list can win by double-hitting a Dagger across two lanes or making an absolutely huge Sage, both possible thanks to Wong. Once that’s accomplished, a Taskmaster can give you another powerful, game-winning card. Of course, there’s also the Cassandra on Wong play against Arishem, as well as the regular Mister Negative + Iron Man and Mystique stuff. This deck is pretty awesome; Ravonna Renslayer enables everything here, and there’s really no card you can replace.

den’s Top o’ the Conquest to Ya

Our very own den had a similar deck to this one, but adding some more clog in exchange for the move subtheme lead to amazing stats for this list in Conquest.

Werewolf By Night is fantastic right now. It’s especially dominant against clog because you can save your Beast in that match, leaving plenty of space for an insanely strong Werewolf (especially given how easy Kate Bishop makes it to move the card around). Clogging the opponent doesn’t really give them space to counter you, and if they try, Cannonball is often a win.

Spider-Ham and Selene are extra cards here, and they can be any good 1-Cost with an On Reveal. Start with Iceman and Korg and go from there. Copycat is really good here, but she could be Juggernaut, as can Cannonball (who is also fine as Shang-Chi).

Closing

Thanks for reading! Check back all next week for so much more great content from Marvel Snap Zone!