Deck of the Day – Lamby’s Thanos Bounce

Hello everyone, and welcome to Deck of the Day! I’m Glazer of Snap Judgments: The Official Marvel Snap Zone Podcast, and every weekday I’m going to be highlighting a different deck for you to try out!

This deck absolutely requires Thanos, obviously – it’s a Thanos deck! The other Series 5 card in the list is Jeff the Baby Land Shark. I’m in no way sure Jeff is right here. I’d consider running Spider-Ham, but likely just replace Jeff with Shang-Chi.

Intro + Disclaimers

Lamby hit Infinite with this deck in less than a day. He’s one of the best players and deck builders in the game. It’s early, but there’s a real chance this deck is Tier 1.

Sometimes the decks featured in this article will be Tier 1, the most competitive decks in the metagame. Sometimes they will be fun tier. Often, they will feature Series 4 and 5 cards (which is hopefully less of an issue with the Card Acquisition change), but sometimes they will be Series 3 or even lower.

Additionally, these decks can come from anywhere – they could be homebrews, a really cool idea from your favorite content creator, a tried and true meta deck, and sometimes, well, we won’t really know where the deck came from. We endeavor, however, to credit original deck creators whenever possible, so if we miss one, please do let us know! Want to submit a deck for consideration? Email me [email protected].

The Deck

Lamby’s New Thanos Bounce

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 3 months ago

5

5x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

1x Recruit Season

1x Starter Card

3.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Deck History

When Thanos was released, for a good while, most people thought it was a bad card. The decks it was played in struggled mightily, and while some had success it was limited.

At around the time, people had written Thanos off, the metagame was made of Zabu and Silver Surfer decks. As both of those got nerfed, Shuri went from Series 5 to Series 4 and the era of Shuri Red Skull was upon us. It was thought that this would be the single scourge of the meta.

Variants

Zabu

Ongoing: Your 4-Cost cards cost 1 less. (minimum 1)

Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Zabu

Variants

Silver Surfer

On Reveal: Give your other 3-Cost cards +2 Power.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Silver Surfer

Variants

Shuri

On Reveal: If you play your next card here, double its Power.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Shuri

Enter Lamby. At around this time, a regular Rank 200+ player (and our friend, so go support him!) Elite Hassa convinced a former Hearthstone Grandmaster named who goes by LambySeries that Thanos was worth playing. The Infinity Stones, he argued, were cheap versions of cards you’d play anyway and they drew cards. What’s not to like?

Variants

Time Stone

On Reveal: Draw a card. Next turn, you get +1 Energy.

Unreleased

view card details Start a deck Decks with Time Stone

Variants

Space Stone

On Reveal: Next turn, you can move one card to this location. Draw a card.

Unreleased

view card details Start a deck Decks with Space Stone

Variants

Reality Stone

On Reveal: Transform this location into a new one. Draw a card.

Unreleased

view card details Start a deck Decks with Reality Stone

In short order, Thanos was on par with the Shuri Red Skull lists, largely using Lockjaw and Quinjet abuse. It went from a pure power dump build, similar to the current High Evolutionary Lockjaw to a bounce/lane control as nerfs came for it, such was the power of the deck. Eventually though, too much was nerfed, and Thanos fell by the wayside… but a card this powerful will never be out of the meta for long!

How to Play

The concept of the deck is to use the utility of the Stones to draw into and cheat out powerful effects. With Carnage and Beast to ensure you have space on the board with all the Stones, while Bast and Blue Marvel make the Infinity Stones useful.

Bishop and Angela take advantage of the Stones utility, and Kitty Pryde works with literally every card noted except Carnage, and even then, if you draw her late enough and have extra energy, it’s not terrible.

Finally, you win by locking a lane with a card like Professor X or going super wide with Stones and Blue Marvel, then tall with Iron Man. There are just so many ways to win!

Kitty Pryde or a bunch of draw early basically win the game, and this is the rare Thanos deck that doesn’t really suffer from bad draws!

Variants

Kitty Pryde

When this returns to your hand, +1 Power. Returns at the start of each turn.

Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Kitty Pryde

Variants

Angela

After you play a card here, +2 Power.

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Angela

You end the game by playing multiple 5s and rarely a 6-coster. Again, another card that wins games in place of Jeff the Baby Land Shark might be useful, but with the main three 5s – Iron Man, Blue Marvel, and Professor X, it’s impossible for most opponents to play around all the ways you can beat them.

Variants

Professor X

Ongoing: Lock down this location. (Cards can’t be added, removed, etc.)

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Professor X

Finally, the keys to various matches: An early Professor X is the key to the bounce matchup. If you close a lane they cannot get over you in, they will usually struggle for space late. Against High Evolutionary Lane Control, Reality Stone on a flooded location is absolutely stellar.

Against Destroy- lock their location where they want to Destroy cards. This is often the worst match-up. Lockjaw isn’t too bad. Bishop and/or Angela can take anything but the Lockjaw lane, and Iron Man handles anything else.

Finally, don’t worry about shrinking Thanos with Bast. You’re very unlikely to get every Stone out between Beast and Carnage, and, at that point, America Chavez is only one less power than Thanos.

Here are the play lines:

• Turn 1: Kitty Pryde is absolutely the card you want most, but Bast is usually the first play. This is followed by various Stones. The Mind Stone is basically always the priority Stone to play. The others I will play in this order: Soul, Space, Reality, Time, Power. You play all the draw ones first. Soul Stone is just fine to have out early, and it’s affect doesn’t add much later. Space Stone is good for moving a card out of a bad spot or off Angela, so better later than Soul. Between Storm and general bad locations, I like to hold the Reality Stone when I can. After that is Time Stone which can give you an early lock with Professor X or just help you ramp out more Stones.

• Turn 2: If you had Kitty, it’s Kitty and a Stone. If you don’t have a Stone, but have Angela, play her instead of the second Kitty trigger – the end-game power should be the same either way. I’d play Stones, Bast, or Kitty over any of the other 2s here. Carnage is basically never played on 2. Jeff the Baby Land Shark is a fine play when there’s nothing else.

• Turn 3: If you have a bunch of Stones in a lane, Beast is the priority, then Bishop. If you Beast before playing Bishop, you can drop Bishop and immediately get all the extra points from him. Angela and Kitty or Bast are more important here than playing Bishop usually. Bishop is, of course, still a very good play here in most circumstances. It’s worth abandoning any of these if both Time Stone and Professor X are in play.

Variants

Beast

On Reveal: Return your other cards at this location to your hand. They cost 1 less.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Beast

Variants

Bishop

After you play a card, this gains +1 Power.

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Bishop

• Turn 4: This is your double (or more) play turn. Bishop and a bunch of ones are fine. If you didn’t see Beast, this is where Carnage comes out almost always, and usually with Jeff or some more Stones. If you were able to get Time Stone out last turn, Professor X is great here.

• Turn 5: I usually have a big enough lane to drop Professor X in safely. This is the real joy of Jeff, in that if he was out, he adds extra safety here. If it’s not Professor X, I want to play Blue Marvel here and make all my cards more useful. This, ideally is close to winning a location.

• Turn 6: Iron Man and Kitty Pryde is the absolute perfect last time. You’re also okay with Iron Man and Power Stone, though that’s much worse. Angela and Bishop should still be growing by some of these plays though, which helps.

Variants

Iron Man

Ongoing: Your total Power is doubled at this location.

Starter Card

view card details Start a deck Decks with Iron Man

Variants

Blue Marvel

Ongoing: Your other cards have +1 Power.

Recruit Season

view card details Start a deck Decks with Blue Marvel

Card Substitutions

Jeff the Baby Land Shark is the least powerful card in the deck, and also the only Series 5 besides Thanos, so that’s convenient. He could be almost anything, but these are my main contenders: Spider-Man, Spider-Ham, Shang-Chi, Devil Dinosaur. All of these add something extra and powerful to the deck that help you win a lane except Spider-Ham who often tells you how to play out the game.

Variants

Spider-Ham

On Reveal: Transform the leftmost card in your opponent’s hand into a Pig, keeping its Power and Cost.

Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Spider-Ham

Variants

Spider-Ham

On Reveal: Transform the leftmost card in your opponent’s hand into a Pig, keeping its Power and Cost.

Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Spider-Ham

Other Thanos Decks

If you want to try other decks with the new season pass card, check out these great videos right on my YouTube!

• A Thanos Destroy Phoenix List, which is also embedded below.
• Thanos Move Destroy
• Thanos Lockjaw with Huge Cards
• Thanos Magik Combo
• Thanos High Evolutionary

Conclusion + Video

Thanos can win enough games to get you to Infinite, but it requires practice. This is one of the strongest Thanos builds of the past few months, though, and definitely a force in the meta.

If you’d like a video discussion of this deck, check my page out. You can also watch the video here: