Best Marvel Snap Decks – Arishem Time!

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!

The Arishem Takeover

Arishem has completely taken over the Top of the Infinite Leaderboard. I think that may be a problem, but we’ll see what Cassandra Nova and/or Second Dinner do about it.

Batman99 Arishem

Deck Thoughts

Batman99 hit #1 on the Infinite Leaderboard with his version of Arishem. Whenever he grinds, he’s almost always in the top 10.

This version is distinct among the lists we’ll be looking at today in that it foregoes Quinjet for Echo. The deck can only handle one 1-Cost card, and Echo guarantees that a lane will always be free from Darkhawk and/or Mystique.

The other major changes here from the norm are twofold. This refrains from running Doctor Octopus and instead plays Legion and Leech as the two 5-Cost cards. Doctor Octopus and Leech occupy a lot of the same space, each winning a ton of low cube games, while Legion is the opposite. The latter is often a way to steal a ton of cubes to end the game with a sudden location change. Finally, with locations being such a consistent potential concern for Arishem, Nocturne—arguably the best card in the game right now—takes the last flex spot.

I’m only doing card replacements here since the decks are relatively similar (I’m proving a point). Mockingbird can be replaced with She-Hulk. Loki and Blob are irreplaceable. For other high series cards, see the other decks present.

Owi Arishem

Deck Thoughts

French phenom Owi hit #3 on the Infinite Leaderboard and #1 on the European server with this great list.

Quinjet is often a silly powerful card in Arishem. In a deck where the downside often comes down to drawing the generated cards at the wrong cost curve, giving them -1 cost to go with your +1 energy is game-changing. And Quinjet pairs even better with targeted generation like two mainstays in Arishem, Loki and Agent Coulson. Receiving -2 cost for a bunch of Loki cards on top of +1 energy is insane, as is playing Agent Coulson on Turn 2 and then immediately jumping into his generated 5-Cost on Turn 3. Owi leans into this even further with Cable with the assumption that opponents mostly run good cards in their decks, and being able to play those good cards ahead of the curve is even better.

This also seems a good time to talk about Mockingbird. Yes, the change to the card made her worse for this deck. It takes longer to get her cheaper, but, given the card generation of Loki, Agent Coulson, and Cable, on top of the fact that those cards are cheaper with Quinjet, in addition to Arishem‘s natural advantages, Mockingbird is still a way under-costed card for her stats. At least she is now far more easily replaceable.

YoungNewNew Arishem

Deck Thoughts:

Stop me if you’ve heard this, but YoungNewNew hit #1 on the Infinite Leaderboard with this Arishem list.

This one is fairly similar to the next list, but there are two notable things about this version. First, this list removes Alioth—the only list today to do so. I would have thought that card would be core to the package, but YoungNewNew (YNN) chose instead to run both Enchantress and Rogue. That’s the second interesting thing, by the way.

Darkhawk is one of the best and only ways to consistently top Arishem, and YNN chose to run on-board counters rather than about-to-be-played counters. Rogue can be played with Shang-Chi or Enchantress to end the game without assistance, which creates a way to steal cubes from Darkhawk players who think they’re set. Alioth does the same, but it is almost always played alone and requires priority. And for that, playing against priority, this deck is much harder to play. A Blob on Turn 5 is harder to protect without priority, and the counter cards all require prediction.

If you only have space for one of Enchantress or Rogue in your deck, I would probably suggest Enchantress at this point. Playing against Arishem, I fairly often play my Ongoing cards in a lane together since Rogue is so popular, especially when there’s a Widow's Kiss involved. Rogue means you still have a chance to lose that lane, but Enchantress can wipe a player out for more guaranteed cubes.

Desperate Jill Arishem

Deck Thoughts

Desperate Jill has been #1 with this version of Arishem for most of the past week and a half.

I’ve come to think of this decklist as the baseline, average version of Arishem. You have Quinjet for Agent Coulson, Loki, and Arishem-generated cards. Mockingbird, of course, fits with this package. Shang-Chi and Enchantress are your problem solvers, and you don’t want to get fancy here; just keep Blob for games he automatically wins. Speaking of auto-wins, there’s no messing around with Legion for cube equity. The #1 player just brings in Leech and Doctor Octopus—playing either of them on Turn 4 is often a Retreat and free cubes.

There’s only one swing/interesting card in this deck, and that’s Nick Fury. Fury ties a lot of the room together here. You can play two of his 6-Cost cards with base Arishem energy, and all three with Quinjet. That’s also three cards for Loki when needed, or another way to make Mockingbird cheap. In addition to surprise 6-Cost cards like Leader or Doctor Doom, it’s also another chance to generate Blob and/or Alioth for even more game-winning power. This is easily the best home Samuel L. Jackson has ever had in Marvel Snap.

FAK Crazy Arishem

Deck Thoughts

Crazy, who has begun streaming as CrazyMSnap, was the #1 player on the Infinite Leaderboard in March and April with Thanos. He was dominating at #1 with a new huge card, Arishem, but went off to get married and is now merely in the top 10.

This list doesn’t bother with a lot of answer cards. For Darkhawk, there’s only really Shang-Chi. Instead, this list relies on a more heavy Loki package along with Doctor Octopus and Alioth to beat the omnipresent Darkhawk. The deck is powerful otherwise since Super-Skrull has the ability to give so many benefits—even copying a Luke Cage or Ravonna Renslayer can be game-winning. This is more technical and less powerful than the other versions, but the results speak for themselves.

Ajax is Underrated

Ajax is a card that a lot of people are sleeping on, largely because Arishem is so powerful. As a two-card package with Hazmat, Ajax is often a [5/20] or more!

KM Ajax

Deck Thoughts

Huge creator, KM Best, cracked the Ajax code; he’s a card that simply goes with Hazmat alone and wins lanes.

This combination of Ajax and Hazmat has an absolute ton of shells, but three have emerged so far. First, the Thena package puts up about as many points as anything. Thena and Angela both grow huge, especially in games where you also see Kitty Pryde. Sage gives another piece of lane-winning and game-ending power to close out wins.

The finisher is just Ajax and Hazmat. You can do that on the same turn with a single play on Hope Summers, but just playing out Ajax against an opponent with no counter—especially if you can lose priority—is backbreaking. Ajax (which at that point is Shang-Chi-proof) shoots up to lane-winning power while Sage, Thena, or Juggernaut can win another lane.

White Widow is replaceable in this list with… Scarlet Witch, Baron Mordo, or Scorpion. The same cards could replace Jeff the Baby Land Shark. You can replace Nocturne with Red Guardian if you have Jeff, but you need one of the two. It’s worth exploring Thena or Hope Summers for Elsa Bloodstone.

TLSG Junk

Deck Thoughts

TLSG, a huge YouTuber, found another awesome spot for Ajax: Junk!

Recent vintage junk decks had been running Dagger with Ghost-Spider and Iron Fist as a way to get power at the end of the game. Astute readers will notice that’s a three card combo that requires board space. Well, Ajax and Hazmat are a two card combo that requires fairly little, and it can almost always win a lane against a clogged opponent. Indeed, Ajax is so good at stealing lanes that following it with a Hazmat and Shang-Chi means the deck sometimes won’t even need to risk Magik. Junk the opponent up and win with two cards. This is sick!

You can run the Dagger version if you don’t have Ajax. Red Hulk can be Magneto. Nebula is often replaced by Cannonball, but Nightcrawler, Jeff, or Shadow King work, too.

Gnome Ajax Bounce

Deck Thoughts

One of my favorite lists in Marvel Snap right now is made by Twitch streamer and Bounce guru Gnome__Plays.

Werewolf By Night has been getting better and better during the Arishem reign (check last week’s article for the Werewolf By Night/Darkhawk deck that I’ve been dominating with), and Gnome decided to add a simple Ajax package to it.

The list is simple: play the usual Bounce gameplan and drop Ajax on Turn 5 if you have Hazmat. If not, you still have plenty of win conditions still. You can keep moving Werewolf, or use Rocket Raccoon and Demons, or play huge Sage to steal a lane. A late addition, Shang-Chi lets you beat even the tallest decks, and he can win one lane while an often 20-power Ajax or Werewolf By Night can take another.

If you don’t have Ajax, adding Korg and Rockslide or White Widow with Darkhawk is totally fine (cut Hazmat, too). Nico Minoru is nice, but replaceable here with Iceman. Sage can be Wolfsbane while White Widow is pretty easily Baron Mordo, Quake, or Scorpion.

Closing

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