Infinite Decks of the Week – A Brand New Metagame!

After many weeks of trying to find some spicy decks to feature here through an ocean of Bounce decks, this week was a breeze! Indeed, the large OTA balance patch released on Thursday seems to have had a huge impact on the metagame already, completely changing the popular decks on the road to the Infinite rank.

Sure, a few of the old staples are still around (and important to know about). Destroy, in particular, is extremely popular in those ranks. Silver Surfer and Thanos decks are also ones to keep in mind from before the changes. As of now, these three probably represent the best comfort picks for a lot of players since they were left out of the balance patch.

For the more daring, though, plenty of new decks have risen since Thursday, each on the backs of the buffed cards that all feel worthy of building around. As such, The Living Tribunal and The Phoenix Force both saw their previously abandoned archetypes massively rise in popularity. Alongside these two, Magik might have just become one of the most played cards in Marvel Snap.

It might be a little early to assess everything about the metagame following the recent OTA, but we can at least take a look at the early development. Let’s dive in!

The Living Tribunal is Now a Threat

Infinite Tribunal

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

2

1x Collection Level 1-14

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Starter Card

3.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Completely overlooked when it released, The Living Tribunal got some sort of notoriety when it was included in the same Spotlight Caches as Jean Grey (the latter card being hyped by a decent portion of the community).

With a lot of us getting the card in the Spotlight Caches and an extra three power from the OTA, The Living Tribunal suddenly became one of the hottest cards in Marvel Snap. In addition to being tested in the Hela and Lockjaw decks, the card mostly brought its own archetype to relevancy on the road to Infinite.

The concept behind the deck is fairly simple: Get Iron Man, Onslaught, and The Living Tribunal all together on the same lane. This alone will amount to 64 points, split between each lane as 21, and it doesn’t account for the other cards played before.

On the way to the Infinite rank, such a simple game plan, paired with a lot of points on each lane, allows the pilot to focus on their Snaps and Retreats. It is hard to tell if the deck will make it into Conquest since counter cards can be much more punishing. On Ladder, though, it’s working like a charm.

Magik Helps Highly Synergistic Decks

Infinite Hela

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

2

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

2x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

1x Starter Card

4.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

6.9

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

As a [5|3], Magik was seeing very little play, but it still existed in decks looking to either draw one more card or needing a bit more energy to get some combos done. Now a [3/2], Magik is seeing play in a lot more decks while also keeping its contribution to highly synergistic decks such as Hela and Mister Negative.

In both decks, the card simply provides more time and draws to make sure the deck fulfills its potential — something that is extremely difficult to match when it goes according to plan. I guess that is the reason Tyler Crowell went with just MODOK in the deck to discard the hand. Then, through Invisible Woman, Magik, and Crystal, you have several tools to draw and set up your fireworks:

• The basic Invisible Woman with MODOK and Hela hidden behind.
• With Magik, you can still hide Hela behind Invisible Woman and then play MODOK on another lane on Turn 7 so it reveals first.
• Without Hela in hand, you can simply play MODOK. Then you have Turn 7 to draw Hela from a very small pool of cards.

The Phoenix Force Has a Second Awakening

Infinite Phoenix

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

1

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

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

3.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

This month’s Season Pass card disappointed a lot of people as a [5/6] card. It struggled to find a good deck to be slotted in, and it felt like a very creative ability was going to waste. Fortunately, Second Dinner pulled the trigger on a huge buff for the card, reinvigorating it and its signature archetype.

There are several builds of decks with The Phoenix Force running around, although the backbone seems similar in a lot of decks. I will keep begging for people to run Human Torch, but I feel this is a lost fight, so let’s focus on the other differences instead. Currently, Shuri sees a lot of play in the deck, so we’ll consider that card to be core for now. Then, the ongoing debate appears to be around how many Destroy and Move cards one should play; supporting both synergies is impossible with just 12 cards. The extra cards are usually responsible for the deck having a competitive shot outside the go-to game plan of destroying Multiple Man and reviving it with The Phoenix Force.

Personally, I like the Nimrod + Iron Lad duo the most, especially with Shuri in the deck. In addition to providing a secondary game plan with a 12-Power Nimrod, Iron Lad increases the odds of getting The Phoenix Force, Shuri, or Nimrod on time, and any of these three will typically be a great hit for the deck.

In BaldingEmo’s deck, I’m not sure if we need to go all the way with Magik, Crystal, and other such support cards. Still, I like the dedication to doing something stupidly strong during the game and committing the deck to that specific goal. Indeed, even if flexible decks with multiple play lines and many flexible ways of developing points tend to be the best ones overall, committing to a game plan allows you to focus on the real important part of grinding to Infinite: Snaps and Retreats.

Closing Words

Looking for decks to feature in this series right after an OTA is often an all or nothing kind of bet. If the updates were great, the metagame features interesting decks to talk about, and this series is a first look at the potential of these new archetypes. Otherwise, it can sometimes be difficult to find decks worthy of being highlighted when the metagame barely changed after a patch.

To my immense pleasure, the last OTA was great. It checked all the boxes of a successful balance update. Not only did I stumble upon plenty of new archetypes, there were also different builds among each of them. This leads me to believe the metagame is still very far from being solved. Right now, the domination of the recently buffed card could be attributed to these cards being excellent, but also just because they’re being tested extensively. As such, I’m very curious to see how the metagame will develop in the near future, as well as how much space these newer decks will occupy now that their power is not a surprise anymore.

A first answer will come in the ranked Tier List in a few days, but I hope we can keep the uncertainty as to which decks are best a little longer. I love unsolved metagames, especially after we had a very solved one for several weeks.

As usual, it will be my pleasure to inform you on how the metagame unfolds. Until then, find me on the Marvel Snap Zone community Discord, or follow my Twitter page where I share decks and biased opinions about the game.

Good Game Everyone.