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Looking for a sweet decklist to climb the Ladder? Every week, we scour the community for decks and highlight the interesting ones that reach the Infinite rank on the Marvel Snap ranked Ladder. We also provide commentary on each list, which allows us to discuss how the overall Marvel Snap metagame is developing and how these players took advantage of it.
Overview of the Week
Just like Loki was last month, Elsa Bloodstone has been quite the star for this first week of play, dominating Marvel Snap and helping several archetypes become juggernauts. Move and Loki, already dominant archetypes in September, feel improved and ready to remain among the elite decks of Marvel Snap. As for archetypes on the rise, Bounce and Thor Miracle both drew a lot of attention this week. Although they remain much less popular than the other two established builds, they have grown from relatively unknown to popular enough to be considered in our latest Conquest Tier list.
However, card games are not just about abusing the very best decks to climb the Ladder. Sure, it works, and it will likely get you to the Infinite rank, but where is the glory in doing so? Instead, let’s look at the other side of the coin, the one where players are already trying to find strategies to abuse the popularity of Elsa Bloodstone.
Several ideas have popped up already, and, while we will need to see how they perform on a larger scale, they have all already managed to climb to Infinite. This week, I would like to give some love to the Guardians of the Galaxy, as they abuse the fact that you will know where the opponent will play most of the time with Elsa Bloodstone on the board. Junk, which is able to fill the board and punish Elsa for trying to rely on a lot of cheap cards. Shuri Nimrod, for its ability to go both big and wide, which can compete with the points Loki or Move can put up on the different lanes. And finally, The is also back with a similar concept to Shuri Nimrod. I guess they heard Season Pass cards were on the rise lately, and that one never got its chance to shine back in July.
Elsa Bloodstone is included in almost half of the decks you will face on ranked ladder currently, which clearly shows how good the card is. Still, part of the community decided to profit from that trend, and that’s exactly what we’re going to explore in the Infinite Decks of the Week.
You Know Where Elsa Bloodstone Will Play
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This deck is built to limit the playing space already, so, even against a deck with a different strategy, Drax, Gamora, and Alioth should have plenty of chances to see their abilities trigger. Against Elsa in particular, this deck can be a bit tricky, as those archetypes tend to be quite flexible since they are built around cheap cards. Then, Storm and Professor X can be scary to play because you can anticipate that the opponent will not let you get that set up so easily. However, if you make the commitment, it will be valuable – even if you don’t end up winning the lane – since it will strengthen your chances of winning another one.
Indeed, even with a lot of cheap cards in the deck, it isn’t so quick to fill a lane for any deck. Turn 3 is the earliest it could happen most of the time. Therefore, if the opponent goes all in after your Storm, they are likely far from filling any of the other two, which sets you up nicely to win them with your big cards (while they will need to fill it to reach a scary number of points).
Plus, as Elsa Bloodstone generally entices them to play all their cards in the same place, you can generally easily estimate the risk that they will be able to adapt to another lane. The same can be said for Professor X on Turn 5. If you have seen their Kitty Pryde grow huge through the course of the game, or they already built a six power Jeff the Baby Land Shark, then the 5-Cost X-Men feels a bit risky. On the other hand, if they have not started super strong and just had their first lane full on the previous turn, or they have two lanes with two or three cards that are ready for future buffs, then the situation should be much easier to read and exploit with this deck.
Fill Their Board Before They Can!
One of the archetypes on the rise lately, Junk feels perfectly equipped to take on the Elsa invasion. At first, you might think you are helping your opponent get their lanes full quicker and shooting yourself in the foot. However, if you push a little further past this first impression, you will quickly realize the opponent is very limited regarding what they can do as the game progresses.
In the first four turns, you might have the that feeling you are far behind and there is no way of coming back. But, because the opponent is forced to play high power cards in order to score points with little space available, they are opening themselves up to your punishes. Shadow King and Shang-Chi will be more than happy to transform that Kitty Pryde back into a 0-Power card, or simply destroy it.
You might think this is a risky gamble; after all, the opponent can simply stay behind on priority until they can play their big cards on their own terms. Well, if they do this, they open themselves to seeing a lane be fully locked since Titania and Doctor Octopus are safe cards to play when the opponent only has one slot left in a lane. Either we take it from them, or we get a high power card for cheap. Lastly, Alioth remains one of the strongest, if not the strongest, cards in Marvel Snap right now, and it will punish the opponent for being overly careful as well.
Junk isn’t the best archetype in the game, but it can be really annoying against certain opponents, and Elsa Bloodstone feels like one of those.
Attack Every Location At Once
One of the biggest strengths of Elsa Bloodstone is growing Kitty Pryde to an insane amount of power, which gives the deck a lot of flexibility for spreading points going into the last turn of play. One of the biggest upsides of this is buying time to figure out where the opponent will invest their points.
When it comes to Shuri Nimrod, the deck doesn’t really tell you where the points will be. Apart from “probably everywhere”, you really don’t know whether they will go big on two lanes or just summon a bunch of Nimrods at random. Plus, if Invisible Woman is in play, you might not even know which deck they are running at all. Another upside is Killmonger, which can destroy a couple of the opponent’s cards – particularly their mighty important Kitty Pryde.
Except for Loki Collector, most of the decks running Elsa Bloodstone are currently very light on disruptive cards. This opens the way for highly synergistic decks to get their game plan underway in a relatively safe manner. Then, if you are able to hide that game plan, you might get away with Snaps, or at least draw some ill-advised ones from the opponent.
Go Much Bigger Than Elsa Bloodstone
Flexible decks are able to develop a solid amount of points with most of their draws, as they have multiple cards that are able to carry the deck to victory. Inflexible strategies, on the other hand, tend to sacrifice the ability to score points in various scenarios, and instead choose to go big or go home.
While this often results in frustrating streaks of games without much capacity of playing the game (either because of bad draws or opponents who are able to disrupt your sole game plan), these archetypes can shine when the environment is right. Then it’s easy to know they’ll surely win whenever they draw what they need. This situation leads to incredibly simple Snaps for those decks, as they have all the information they need to make the decision.
Closing Words
As many anticipated, Elsa Bloodstone has created a very powerful package of cards alongside Kitty Pryde and Angela (and often Jeff the Baby Land Shark as well). Around those cards, you can build a variety of decks, as the only thing they really require is four slots in your deck.
On the back of this massive flexibility, this package of cards has found a home in many of the high profile decks early in the season. Logically, those looking to grind back to the Infinite rank will then be drawn towards those decks, as they appear to be the best option right now.
However, when a strategy becomes too prevalent, running a counter to it can be a smart thing to do – even if it might cost you to find it. Indeed, even if you lose a few ranks learning a new deck, it isn’t such a steep price in order to unlock a very favorable situation down the line. We are still early in the season, but, considering the prevalence of Elsa Bloodstone, looking for a way to benefit from its immense popularity seems to have paid off.
I’m sure other decks will rise in the future and keep on pushing diversity in Marvel Snap. If you have a deck that feels good against the current Elsa Bloodstone archetypes, drop it in the comments below. Also, 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.
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