Decks to Play at the Start of the Days of Future Past Season!

I know there are demands to make a Tier List every week, but there would be little sense in making one this week. As it stands, the metagame is very similar to what it was in the previous weeks with Lockjaw Thanos and Shuri Zero dominating the field of play. These two decks still represent the best options to climb the ladder, and they should be among the top early performers on the way back to the Infinite rank if no changes are made.

Outside these two juggernauts, the arrival of Nimrod with the Season Pass should put the Destroy synergy back on everyone’s map and push some changes in the metagame – hopefully ones that stick around. So while we wait until the next Tier List and the changes to the ranked mode (50 bonus Cubes granted when going to the next rank tier), I wanted to offer some guidelines on what you could play at the start of the season.

In this article, I’ll highlight two kinds of decks:

• Decks that have proven their strengths and should benefit from Nimrod entering the fray.
• A couple of promising Nimrod decks, if you want to climb using the card.

As you might have guessed already, I will voluntarily leave Lockjaw Thanos and Shuri Zero out of the list as I expect most people know about these already. Slot Armor into your deck to annoy Nimrod and these are good to go. Let’s talk about some more spicy brews now!

Overall Good Decks

DeathWave

Death Wave

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

2

5x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

I wanted to start with a kind of controversial pick right off the bat, though I do believe DeathWave has a lot to gain from Nimrod entering the game:

• There should be more destroy based decks, which will help in reducing Death‘s cost easily.
• Aero seems like a great card in order to move Nimrod, or the cards aimed at destroying it, out of their intended lane.
• It is unlikely that Nimrod decks play Armor, Cosmo, or Leech, which might make for decent match ups against DeathWave.

This first entry might be wishful thinking. The metagame could simply end up as an Armor against Galactus fiesta, the latter being the only card able to destroy through Armor‘s effect. If, however, you are still working your way through Series 3, I think DeathWave is worth a shot early in the season. Make sure to check out my detailed deck guide on it for further reading:

The Ongoing Synergy

Ongoing Thanos

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

0

2x Collection Level 1-14

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

2x Recruit Season

3.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

With Armor and Professor X in the synergy, Ongoing decks look like they will be very annoying for Nimrod early on in the season. If you manage to lock a lane with Professor X, with Armor on another and Cosmo on the last, Nimrod will be impossible to destroy. The only exception, of course, is with Galactus on the Armor lane.

Even then, the Ongoing synergy recently started including Valkyrie which can turn Nimrod into a three power card and reduce its impact overall. Also, Goose might be secretly broken if Galactus ends up being the default archetype for Nimrod; the card prevents anyone from playing either Nimrod or Galactus on its lane.

Still missing a lot of Series 4 and 5 cards? No worries, the Ongoing Destroyer deck should still be able to work with similar results!

Pool 3 Ongoing

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

4

2x Collection Level 1-14

6x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Recruit Season

3.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Good Cards Archetype

Good Cards Pool 3

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

2

1x Collection Level 1-14

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.6

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

The biggest strength of the Good Cards archetype has is its adaptability. When the archetype knows what it’s playing against, it can change a few cards in the deck and become a total nightmare for some decks.

Since we expect a decent amount of destroy based decks, Armor will obviously be a hot commodity to run in the deck, and Cosmo should be as well. Together they remove lanes to destroy Nimrod and reduce the opponent’s flexibility. Iceman and Scorpion also look like annoying cards for Nimrod as reducing its power or increasing its cost should impair the synergies built around the card.

If Galactus has you worried, the deck can easily include the “move the opponent’s cards” package made of Polaris, Aero, and Magneto. These cards can counter Galactus‘s On Reveal ability easily by putting something in each lane.

Considering the flexibility of the archetype, don’t get too attached to these exact twelve cards if you are missing one or want to include other options for your meta.

Magik Disrupt

Magik Disrupt

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

21

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2.9

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Last in our first category, Magik Disrupt might be the most disrespected deck in the game considering how good it is vs. how little play it sees. At its core, the deck is great against Galactus thanks to Viper and Green Goblin, and it naturally slots in Armor to annoy the Destroy decks so Nimrod should be covered.

Against other decks, this one also has the added benefit of being unpopular – you might be able to catch a few opponents off guard. Indeed, it is pretty difficult to recognize this archetype outside of seeing Viper. The Hood can indicate a Destroy archetype to your opponent, Green Goblin might make them think you’re playing a Galactus deck, and Sunspot, Quinjet, and Armor probably won’t reveal anything since they’re very popular in the meta.

The lane disruption can also help against Lockjaw decks, an archetype that will still be among the most played for this new season. Overall, this deck might be the most promising on the list.

Nimrod Decks

There already are other articles covering Nimrod decks, either from SafetyBlade or highlighting decks submitted by the community; therefore, I’ll keep it short and only talk about two interesting builds around Nimrod. I think they are the easiest to figure out, so they could be the most viable for a fast climb with Nimrod.

Keep in mind: the Destroy synergy is already seeing a lot of counter cards in the metagame with Armor showing up as a staple in many builds, so a dedicated Battle Pass card might make these cards even more popular. Still, it would be a shame not to give the new card a spin, especially since it opens new play patterns thanks to its ability.

Nimrod Galactus

Galactus

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

3

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

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

4.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.6

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Considering Nimrod will bring back some Destroy hate with its release, Galactus has felt like the logical home to test it in first. Indeed, unless the opponent can cancel the Galactus ability, it looks like the safest way to destroy Nimrod while targeting where the card will end up.

Also, it gives Galactus more chances at being a relevant turn six play since we know Nimrod will come to support its location. Alongside Wolverine and Hobgoblin, a turn six Galactus could lead to a lane with 16 power for us and -8 for the opponent. A 24 power difference will win a lot of games.

The Galactus archetype has been a little all over the place lately, and there are tons of ways to build the deck. One can either look to play Galactus as soon as possible or find sneakier ways to play it without revealing to the opponent what is going on. I’m guessing Nimrod will be quite the tell, so I didn’t opt for a complicated build. This deck certainly isn’t the best Galactus deck out there by any means.

Nimrod Ramp

Electro Ramp

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

1

1x Collection Level 1-14

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

4.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Doctor Doom has always been one of the best cards in the Electro Ramp archetype, especially since Sandman joined the deck last month. In a way, I see Nimrod as a bit of a Doctor Doom: it’s able to spread five power cards across the three locations. Arnim Zola was already seeing play in the build, and its combo with Black Panther and Odin is one of the few to rival Shuri Zero‘s power output. Nimrod could be another card to abuse in that sequence of turns, replacing Black Panther and creating the Doctor Doom-esque result of having Nimrods everywhere.

Destroyer is a bit of a question mark here. It’s only included as a potential Nimrod follow-up since the deck isn’t specifically trying to destroy Electro. Together, the cards represent 25 power which could be enough to deserve a spot in the deck.
In addition, the deck is fine with including Armor to protect important cards from Destroyer‘s ability. There should be a lot of Armor running around anyway, so Destroyer might just end up being a free 15 power card to slam onto a location.

Closing Words

There are many other Nimrod builds that you could try. For example, I think Deadpool is a good home for the card; Shuri and Forge make sense in those decks, and buffing Nimrod is a fantastic way to abuse the card (even more so if we can destroy it several times on turn six with Venom, Deathlok, or Carnage). I was looking for archetypes that wouldn’t instantly retreat to Armor as I expect the card to be extremely popular, and that could be very impactful on a player’s climb.

As for the non-Nimrod decks, I tried to give Series 3 players some decks to consider. I would expect those with a bigger collection to default to Lockjaw Thanos or Shuri Zero anyway if they want to climb safely. No matter what you intend to play, I am eager to see what the start of the season will look like. Hopefully I find some crazy deck lists to share in the next Infinite decks piece, or even in next week’s Tier List! In the meantime, if you’re looking for more, check out KMBest’s underrated decks:

As usual, feel free to join Marvel Snap Zone on Discord, be it for some questions or just to have a chat with the community. I am mostly active on Twitter where I share decks and discuss everything Marvel Snap related.

Good Game Everyone.