Deck of the Day: Shuri Red Skull Returns

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!

Today, we’re looking at a Shuri Red Skull deck, as the title suggests. This deck is entirely Series 3 or lower except for Kitty Pryde, who was given for free to all players who had accounts when she was released.

Sometimes these decks 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 (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 – sometimes they’re homebrews, at times they’re a really cool idea from your favorite content creator, sometimes they’re meta decks, and sometimes, well, we won’t really know where the deck came from. We endeavor, however, to credit original deck creators where possible here, so if we miss one, please do let us know! Want to submit a deck for consideration?  Email me [email protected].

One last thing before we start. Want a free Rise of the Phoenix Season Pass? I’m running the largest Giveaway in Marvel Snap history (as far as I know, anyway) on my Twitter. Check it out!

The Deck

Royce Townsend Shuri Red Skull

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 3 months ago

3

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

5.6

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Deck History

Once upon a time, a new group of cards was released into Marvel Snap. For the first time, though, this big release wasn’t into one of the existing Series. No, these cards would make up Series 4 and Series 5. Among these cards, released into Series 5 was Shuri. For a while Shuri was just a very good role player – Series 5 was expensive and outside of whales, at first, it was hard to have too many cards of that series. And so, as the Silver Surfer and Zabu Darkhawk decks took over the meta, Shuri was a strong, but relatively unremarkable card. Enter the Nerfs and Series drops.

Zabu and Silver Surfer both got nerfed just as Shuri fell to Series 4. She was basically immediately meta in combination with Red Skull, Taskmaster, and She-Hulk. These cards were so insanely strong in combination, that for a time, Sauron was the highest win-rate card in the game. This, naturally, lead to the rise of Shang Chi as a must-play, and when the dust settled, we were left with this:

Shuri Zero

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 3 months ago

1

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

8x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.2

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

For a month, this deck and Thanos Lockjaw ran neck and neck as the best deck, and when Thanos was nerfed out of the top spot, Shuri sat alone for a while longer. Slowly but surely though, all the key cards here got Nerfed – Taskmaster couldn’t copy something already destroyed, She-Hulk lost a power, Red Skull lost three power, and Shuri only worked in the lane in which she was played. It was the end of an era…

Variants

Red Skull

Ongoing: Enemy cards at this location have +2 Power.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Red Skull

Until this Thursday’s OTA! In this patch, Red Skull regained 2-strength. It took almost no time before players put him back in. Royce Townsend over on Twitter is how we found this very deck, as he started cleaning up Infinity Tickets with it, and since then, it’s crushing ladder too!

Thanks to Royce for the great deck!

How to Play

You’ll notice one major card difference between my list and Royce’s. He was running Captain Marvel, who he didn’t really like in the deck. I changed that for She-Hulk, as she’s part of the classic core and opens up an extra last-turn play.

Here are the deck’s play lines for non-Kitty Pryde centric Games:

• Turn 1: Drop Zero if you have Lizard. Drop Kitty Pryde if you have Armor.
• Turn 2: Lizard or Armor.
• Turn 3: Sauron is usually the best play here, but if you have Shuri and Red Skull, Armor can be right instead.
• Turn 4: Shuri if you can. This is the key to the deck and why America Chavez is here.
• Turn 5: Red Skull if you can. Typhoid is a reasonable back up if you used Sauron. If not, you likely pass…
• Turn 6: If you played a huge card, you want Taskmaster here. Ideally with Taskmaster, you have a 1-drop to play. Ebony Maw is obviously best here. If not, you want to play She-Hulk into the Shuri lane then Taskmaster elsewhere.

Next up will be the Kitty centric playline:

• Turn 1: Kitty Pryde
• Turn 2: Kitty Pryde again and then Zero.
• Turn 3: Ebony Maw or Lizard and, you guessed it, Kitty Pryde.
• Turn 4: Sauron and Kitty!
• Turn 5: Shuri and Kitty if you can or Typhoid Mary with Kitty.
• Turn 6: Ideally, a Shuri doubled Kitty and Taskmaster. You can conceivably go just Shuri Kitty here (maybe with Maw or Zero last) or Kitty and Red Skull.

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

Card Substitutions

You should have all of these cards if you’re late enough into the game, but Series 3 is now a bit of a bear to get through, so here are some alternative cards.

First, you MUST have Shuri, Taskmaster, and Red Skull in order to play this deck! Obviously, without She-Hulk, Captain Marvel doesn’t prevent the deck from being quite good. Aero works well there, too. Sauron really helps, but without it, you can just cut Typhoid Mary, too, and play Cosmo and Polaris or Maximus. Without Zero, you’re playing Sunspot. Sunspot is, in fact, the single card I’d like most that isn’t here.

Conclusion and Video

Shuri Zero Red Skull is back in the meta. Can it regain its position as THE dominant force in the metagame? Let’s test it more to find out!

Want a video of me talking about the deck? It’s right here along with a great Thanos Lockjaw build. It’s the MODOK Season all over again!