Best Marvel Snap Decks – The Summer of Arishem

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 Spot

No new card has affected the Marvel Snap metagame as heavily as Arishem has since, at least, Loki, and that was a Season Pass card! Arishem‘s play-rate is truly through the roof, so it behooves us to spend a bit of time looking at the very best Arishem decks.

Owi Arishem

Deck Thoughts

Owi, the top-ranked French player comes up with multiple new brews every day. This deck was able to claim multiple Infinity borders.

Arishem decks usually come with a very similar card package – Quinjet, Agent Coulson, and Loki are joined by Blob and Darkhawk. Often, Mockingbird, a very cheap 9 stats, joins them. There are numerous great ways to take advantage of this card outside of that package though. Owi settled on using Adam Warlock to see more cards. A great play on turn 4, Warlock as a consistency piece that draws 2-cards can be game-winning. The other key package is Phastos and Wave. This discount package offers you more to do against the opponent with your extra energy, it making a strength and further amplifying it.

We aren’t going to do card replacements for Arishem decks here, as you can mix and match between different versions found in this section. I am convinced that all the best Arishem decks want Blob and Loki, so try to not replace those.

Bynx and Lamby Arishem

Deck Thoughts

Bynx and Lamby independently came up with an Arishem list that’s 1-card off from each other, suggesting (to me) that this is probably where the deck wants to be currently.

Again, we see the same core package – Quinjet, Coulson Loki; Blob, Darkhawk, Mockingbird – but here surrounded by some different choices, most notably White Widow and Legion. These two cards give the player a chance to scam an opponent – unexpectedly filling a lane or making a location game-winning. Also of note, there are two tech cards – Rogue to kill a Darkhawk or copy a Bob, and Shang-Chi to answer either.

Antonio Tarquini Arishem

Deck Thoughts:

The first two decks took a look at where the standard Arishem was, so for the next two, let’s look at some wild yet successful takes. First, we have Arishem Negative from Twitter user Antonio Tarquini.

This list is kind of hilarious, yet it has really worked! The idea here is to play Mister Negative early – if possible – and follow that up with explosive later turns. You have your regular plays here for Negative with Jane Foster, Iron Man, and the Arnim Zola package, but joining them is Blob, another card with awesome synergy with both Mister Negative and Arishem. Heck, you can Zola a Blob or even a Sage for a ton of power, making cards like Knull and Mystique play for huge numbers, as well, especially with Wong in the deck.

Owl God Arishem

Deck Thoughts: Speaking of Unique builds, Owl is always one to have a fantastic and unique take on a card.

Owl doesn’t forego all the normal cards here, as Blob and Shang-Chi are in most lists while Phastos and Leech make a ton of sense here. What Owl adds that’s so wild is a Lockjaw package. There are a ton of cards who’d love to go into the doggy here – from M'Baku who will pop out at the end of the game to great effects on weaker bodies like Jubilee, Phastos, and Leech. To pop out we have Blob, Magneto, and Giganto, and, of course, to copy any of these you happen to just play, Arnim Zola. This list is really cool.

Top Climbing Decks

The best players in Marvel Snap never stop brewing. These players were climbing towards the top of the Infinite Leaderboard over the past week.

DaiCavallo/Sizer Loki Main

Deck Thoughts

DaiCavallo, an Italian player, took Sizer’s Loki deck that finished #2 on the Infinite Leaderboard last season and added Darkhawk to make the Arishem match easier.

Loki himself is quite good against Arishem. Arishem decks usually run Darkhawk and getting their Darkhawk for cheaper can be game-winning, as can claiming a Shang-Chi. Cosmo is quite strong at stopping Blob or various other shenanigans, and with priority Juggernaut can pop a card into a Cosmo for a win or, even better, into an uncontestable Darkhawk lane. Shadow King stops al the Thena floating around or even Blob, as well. This deck has an answer for everything except Mobius M Mobius, a card that is returning to the meta.

Red Guardian here can be Rogue – great for killing Darkhawks, but in this deck less awesome for stopping Blobs. Blink can and probably should be Devil Dinosaur. Snowguard can be changed to Maria Hill, and Jeff is fine as like 7-different cards from tech like Rogue or Mobius to early power like Angela or Thena to card generation like Valentina or Mirage.

YoWoodyMJ/Dubos Meta Eater

Deck Thoughts

Woody and Dubos took the deck that was best before the meta-shifted and added Darkhawk and Mystique. It was no surprise to see this deck climb to #2 on the Infinite Leaderboard.

Thena, along with Angela, Kitty Pryde, and Ravonna, are an awesome early power package. Joining them for mid-game power and misdirection are Mockingbird and Mysterio while Sage and Iron Man offer end-game punch discounted by Ravonna. Ravonna and Hope Summers can also allow a last turn play of Mystique and Darkhawk, an all but unbeatable combo against current Arishem builds.

The one card Dubos and Woody disagree on is Mobius. Woody has Juggernaut there, to push an opponent card into a Darkhawk lane and for free wins while Dubos would rather focus on beating the Loki playline. Either way works!

This list is just expensive, unfortunately, as Thena and Mockingbird are really the only cuts. Without Thena, you can run Elsa or maybe even Bishop. If you don’t have Mockingbird, cut Mysterio and go further in with Mister Negative and Jane Foster.

KX4N Loki Force

Deck Thoughts

KX4N climbed hugely with this Phoenix Force deck before the addition of Arishem to Marvel Snap, and the deck has only gotten better since then.

A lot of it is the tech that’s in the game. Shadow King is rare, as is Cosmo, and so few decks have an answer to Phoenix Force just going wide. Most of those answers, too, are answered by an end-game Alioth. Of course, the Phoenix Force combo can be inconsistent, so Kx added an entirely extra way to win – Loki. If you see your combo, you win. If you don’t see your combo, just drop Loki. You win.

Snowguard for this list can be replaced by Maria Hill. The other card you can take out is Alioth, who can be the Living Tribunal or Arnim Zola.

Fed1BP Snap Masters Qualifier

Deck Thoughts

Snap Masters is a tournament that was held this week by team FAK and features many of Marvel Snap’s best players. There were two rounds of open qualifiers, the second of which is this deck that’s been eating up the leaderboard since.

Sandman is a forgotten card, but this simple tempo list is wildly effective. It puts a lot of power in every lane while limiting the opponent with Sandman, White Widow, Red Guardian, and Alioth. White Widow and Nebula, too, go great together, as many opponents have difficulty stopping both of these cards played in the same lane to clog and grow Nebula or different lanes forcing one effect to go off.

Nebula or Nocturne can be Nightcrawler or Makkari, while Gladiator can be Polaris. Red Guardian is okay as Rogue or Shadow King. The other high-series cards are needed.

Sizer #2 Mover

Deck Thoughts: Sizer is currently sitting at #2 on the Infinite Leaderboard playing almost exclusively this deck.

This deck is super difficult to play – as in it’s too hard for me to win with. The basic plan is to pass on early game or grow a move card just a bit. Then you want to bounce it back and at the end of the game use Hercules to create two huge move cards that, since you throw priority, cannot be interacted with through tech cards. Dagger, Human Torch, and Vulture all get unaccountably large, often outpowering even an opponent Blob in Arishem. You need to know what your plan is from turn 1 and adjust it based on where and how the opponent plays cards. If this style of combo is appealing to you, this is one of the best decks in the game.

Hercules and Ghost-Spider are needed in this deck. Sage can be Wolfsbane – a significant downgrade – and Nico is almost certainly just better as Cloak or even Heimdall.

DottGeo WolfHawk

Deck Thoughts: A few weeks ago this deck sparked a huge controversy. To me, this is one of the best decks in the game and one I had a 70% win-rate with. The meta… was not good with this, and it had a 45% win rate in most other players’ hands. Jeff Hoogland pointed this out and Geo responded and it was a large, fairly silly controversy.

Well, with Arishem back, I decided to give this deck another try…. and I maintained a 70%+ win rate, got to the top 500 on the Infinite Leaderboard, and won an Infinity border. I’ve seen a ton of players misplay this, but if you can handle it, the deck is stellar.

A lot of the trick here is playing to the corners so that you can use Beast twice as needed and keeping White Widow + Black Widow in a different corner for the potential of Beasting that or using Grandmaster. You’ll need to learn when to prioritize Werewolf by Night over Black Widow, too, as there’s a lot of the time one or the other is right, and dropping Darkhawk to eat a Shang-Chi is often fine if Werewolf and Shadow King can win two other lanes.

This deck is finicky enough that the only change that makes sense to me is Absorbing Man for Werewolf By Night, though you can try Falcon for Nico or Grand Master.

Closing

Thanks for reading! Check back all next week for so much more great content from Marvel Snap Zone, and read my article previewing the Season’s new cards with a deck for each!