Infinite Decks of the Week – Old Shells Reappear on the Road to Infinite!

Last week’s piece was focused on the aftermath of the biggest OTA patch we’ve had yet in Marvel Snap. It reshaped the metagame completely, bringing Lockdown and Thanos Control to be the decks to beat, alongside a lot of confusion regarding what was good — and what wasn’t.

In that elusive metagame, a lot of the old staples regained popularity as solid comfort picks for a lot of players. From Shuri to Darkhawk to Destroy, these shells have started populating the ladder again, but not all for the same reasons.

Shuri, just like its old days, represents one of the simplest decks when it comes to figuring out a Snap and Retreat strategy. In a blurry environment, being able to rely on such a deck can be very valuable to reach your goals.

Destroy has filled a similar role for many players since the archetype has not moved in the recent month, ensuring some stability from one season to another, regardless of the changes going on around it.

On the other hand, Darkhawk has been the flexible package that many are including in a lot of archetypes. With Lockdown thriving lately, strong 4-Cost cards are the perfect anchor for a lane you expect your opponent to drop a Professor X or a Spider-Man. Also, Zabu remains one of the strongest 2-Costs in the game, simply for enabling a double 4-Cost on Turn 6 plan, which is often Enchantress or Shang-Chi paired with another card on a second lane.

Newer decks are still around, although they aren’t as prominent as last week. It feels like the metagame is starting to head to a more balanced state. Today, we explore the first step in the search for balance by testing archetypes from the previous metagame to assess how much gas they still have in this new environment.

Shuri is Simple and Effective

Infinite Shuri

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

3

3x 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)

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.9

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

In a metagame where it isn’t such a good idea to hoard resources and try to play it smart on Turn 6, Shuri has both strengths and weaknesses.

The biggest plus is the ability to develop power through the whole match with cards like Lizard, Typhoid Mary, and Ebony Maw. In that regard, the new Legion deck that tries to end the match on Turn 5 doesn’t seem to be too big of a problem. Even if you have to wait for a Turn 3 Sauron, as soon as you anticipate the Storm coming you can dump a lot of power on Turns 4 and 5. Plus, Vision is very nice for his flexibility in challenging different lanes. Even after the nerf to Doctor Doom, the card has gained a bit of momentum and is starting to become the best card to challenge unplayable locations.

However, even if you routinely put up enough power to challenge most decks in the metagame, Shang-Chi is still quite popular. As such, Armor remains a very important card in the archetype, and then the few Thanos Control decks running Valkyrie will eat you up.

Still, if you manage your Snaps and Retreats effectively, Shuri looks like a “minus one, plus two or four cubes” kind of deck right now.

Stature: The Flexible Archetype

Infinite Stature

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

2

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

3.2

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Black Bolt and Stature were almost gone after both cards lost a power last month because many players dismissed the duo. Even though it remained a consideration at times, the deck never reached the same heights as it did before the nerfs. That is, until the last OTA changed a lot in Marvel Snap. Indeed, for the past week, the Good Cards Stature archetypes have been posting great numbers, both on Ladder and in Conquest, and they seem to be working to reach the game’s highest rank, too.

Quite the opposite of Shuri, the huge upside to this kind of deck is being super flexible through the whole match, only committing to a plan on the final two turns. Through staying flexible for the majority of the match, we can gather more information about our opponent’s strategy and make up for the lack of clarity in a difficult metagame. Particularly for players who enjoy the feeling of being able to play against a wide variety of decks, the Good Cards Stature archetype is perfect. Indeed, you can decide to be a proactive deck by relying on Darkhawk and Stature to score a lot of points, or take the opposite direction by using Enchantress, Shang-Chi, and other disruptive cards to focus on derailing your opponent’s plan.

While the deck has kept the name centered around Stature, one might wonder if the discard duo is really still the core of the deck. Indeed, while we are seeing Stature included most of the time, it seems like it is Darkhawk that is being experimented around.

Darkhawk Goes With Anything

Legion Infinite

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

1

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

3.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

A bit of a follow-up to the previous entry, it seems like the Darkhawk package is slowly going back to being the most used package of cards in Marvel Snap. Alongside Stature, the cards guarantee solid points, and they could be kept until the game’s end to remain flexible. Here, it seems like other players took the complete opposite direction.

In these two control oriented builds with Darkhawk, the goal appears to take the lead and make sure we are covered in the points department by the end of Turn 4. Then we can use our disruptive cards (Legion, Doctor Octopus, Professor X…) in order to lock the game for good.

In a way, this reminds me of the old Leech, Leader combo where the deck was almost unbeatable if it turned the corner in the lead.

While we lose some of the flexibility featured in the Stature archetype, this kind of build might be much easier to Snap with. Indeed, we should have a very clear picture of where the game is heading by Turn 4, which is still in time to raise the stakes or just scare the opponent for a cheap win.

I’ve said it countless time in this column in the past: creating a clear strategy you can rely on game after game is probably the best way to develop comfort and boost your win rate in the process. If that strategy isn’t also one the opponent can easily figure out (as Darkhawk isn’t typically used in control shells), it should be even stronger. This creates a situation where we have a lot of information regarding the end of the game while our opponent is completely in the dark as to what might come (or worse, think something else is coming). This kind of situation often leads to the opponent making bad decisions. In a metagame where everyone is trying to find their footing, this kind of strategy will probably throw off a lot of players. They will either take the bait, or give up their cubes as they can’t figure out how to win.

Destroy Remains a Marvel Snap Staple

Infinite Destroy

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

1

4x 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)

3.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Last on our list is the “good ol’ reliable” archetype of the past few months: Destroy. It has remained one of the most popular decks in the game over that period.

Currently, the archetype might be a bit of a risk; Armor and Cosmo are both seeing a decent amount of play, limiting how easy it can be to get the destroy synergies online. However, Destroy also has a major upside in the current metagame — the ability to develop quite a bit of points in the first four turns. Indeed, through Bucky Barnes, Venom, Wolverine, and Deathlok, it isn’t that simple to set up a great Professor X lane against Destroy. Similarly, Nimrod is a great way to play around Spider-Man and Storm.

Overall, Destroy isn’t a default, best deck in the game kind of archetype. It is, however, a good and simple archetype (in the same vein as Shuri) because the match up spread seems easy enough to read. This time, though, instead of trying to abuse certain decks we know can’t beat us on points, we are looking to abuse those who can’t stop our early game synergies that put us in too much of a lead by the second half of the game.

Closing Words

It is quite rare to see a metagame need more than a week to start showing some kind of stability. Here, though, we have some established strong decks (Evolved Lockdown and Thanos Control, in particular). Still, past these two, it is really the older, tenured archetypes that we have been seeing.

One could see this as bad news, claiming the game isn’t able to produce enough novelty to keep some relevancy in the long run. Or (and I like to think it is more of this scenario), everyone is still experimenting since it isn’t easy to create new decks, especially when you need to beat Lockdown strategies in the process.

In the climb to the Infinite rank, it appears more established builds are dominating for now. The more creative brews usually appear in Conquest or from players who are already above the 100th rank. We still have a week to go in the season, meaning we could start seeing more desperate strategies show up that are looking to climb fast enough to make it through the gate before the reset. This is usually one of my favorite moments in the season because players with their backs against the wall can be incredibly creative at times.

I’ll make sure to look for these out-of-the-box decks next week and showcase the creativity of those who built them. If you are still fighting for that Infinite rank, best of luck to you!

As usual, if you have a question about this article or a coaching inquiry, you can 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.