Marvel Snap Conquest Meta Tier List: September 13, 2023 – A Lot of Decks Waiting to Break Through

Welcome to our Marvel Snap Meta Tier List for Conquest mode! Each week, we review the best decks in the ever-changing Marvel Snap metagame. Then we bring you the decklists, and we provide an in-depth report about them. This report contains information like how their ranks are justified, how to play the decks, and how to build the deck with alternate cards to accommodate different collections.

Marvel Snap Conquest Meta Overview

Similar to what is happening on the Ladder, Loki‘s popularity in Conquest is through the roof – a little over the 20% mark. However, if this popularity doesn’t hurt the deck too much on the Ladder (since the deck is competing with Shuri to be considered the best in the game), Conquest has been a bit of a different story. Loki is posting a very reasonable Win Rate; its many builds range from 51% to 56%. This might be a case of the deck facing itself so much that it naturally drags its performance towards 50%, as it both wins and loses every time a mirror match happens. Or, and I like to think this is the bigger reason, Conquest has revolved a lot around the decks that are able to go up against Loki.

If we look at the best performing decks for this week, we see some familiar faces from the ranked Tier List, which means those decks have been able to post solid numbers in both modes. Both Shuri decks, Hela Tribunal, InSheNaut, and new king of Conquest, Evolved DoomWave, were all part of the Top 5 in Ladder Tier List. This has to mean something.

The impact from Loki is mostly in the decks we are not seeing this week. Indeed, when an archetype is about a fifth of the entire pool, you are bound to see a lot of other archetypes lose some popularity as a result. Patriot, Sera Surfer, Lockjaw, and Thanos, to name a few, are usually staples that are perfect when someone doesn’t know what to play, and none have passed the 1% popularity threshold this week. As such, even if the performance is subpar compared to the Ladder, Loki is still widely regarded as the best deck to play. Or, at least, a very fun option.

Overall, even if you don’t think Loki is that good, or if you believe it is the best archetype in the game, you need to build a game plan with enemy Lokis in mind when you run the Conquest gauntlet. Several decks appear to be able to do that quite efficiently, so let’s take a look!

Happy Conquest Tier List, everyone!

Marvel Snap Conquest Meta Tier List

Disclaimer and Tier Explanations

Conquest is not played as much as the Ladder, so it is difficult to have a clear representation of the metagame in the game mode. Indeed, there currently is not enough data to precisely assess the power of each deck – even more so when the Proving Grounds have become the default unranked mode for Marvel Snap. Nevertheless, by scanning social media, looking at what players are having success with, and which decks are performing on Ladder, we can form an educated opinion about the best performing decks in Conquest, as well as those worth keeping an eye on.

This Tier List won’t be as detailed as the Ladder one; instead, it will focus on the very best decks right now and a few more worth keeping in mind (similar to the Silent Performers in the Ladder Tier List). I would rather keep this to a shorter list for now so I can provide a more in-depth reasoning, rather than a longer list that I would have to extrapolate on.

Tier 1

Evolved DoomWave

Evolved DoomWave

Created by den

, updated 8 months ago

1

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3x Starter Card

2.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
Conquest rewards flexibility much more than Ladder does. That’s just a given at this point. The fact that you cannot get away from a bad match up for just one cube will ruin the potential of a lot of decks that would otherwise do great in the other mode where Retreats let you be much more permissive with your strategy. With that in mind, it feels logical to have Evolved DoomWave best Shuri and Hela Tribunal in Conquest, even though it was behind these decks in the other Tier List.

Both in terms of deckbuilding and during the game, Evolved DoomWave is much more permissive than other proactive decks. That doesn’t necessarily make the deck much harder to play, though. Indeed, you have the choice of which 3-Cost card you want to include: Mister Fantastic, Storm, and Cosmo are all vying for that spot. You might even want to include Luke Cage for the mirror match over Armor or Jeff the Baby Land Shark. You can also pick how you want to develop during a match: a very proactive pattern centered around Nebula and full use of your energy to build a lead until you go for Wave, or a more passive pattern with purposefully leftover energy to build up your Evolved Hulk while your other Evolved cards add up points on the board.

Compared to Hela Tribunal, which is very dependent on its draws, or Shuri, which basically only performs when it finds its signature card, Evolved DoomWave seems much better equipped to tackle on a mode where you have to be able to win several matches against the same deck – no matter which deck that might be.

How to Play:
Similar to other High Evolutionary decks, Evolved DoomWave tries to create power while not spending all of its energy every turn. If you have Evolved Hulk in hand, one energy is worth two power, plus the other bonuses you would get from the cards you have on the board. If you have at least two of your four cards (Sunspot, Evolved Misty Knight, Evolved Cyclops, Evolved Hulk), it is usually worth looking for a play that leaves an energy to spare. Otherwise, Sunspot or Evolved Misty Knight alone are rarely worth the deal of one energy for one power.

More often than not, the turns you are likely to leave some energy on the table are Turns 4 and 5, which are typically dedicated to Evolved Cyclops and Wave, respectively. Turns 2 and 3 will depend on your hand, but you often play a 1-Cost, 1-Cost, 2-Cost pattern over the first three turns. Then, you will naturally float some energy on Turn 6 if you played Wave.

Outside of this signature High Evolutionary game play, the rest of the deck is centered around Wave limiting what can be done on Turn 6, which usually rewards the player in the lead. By that point, you have two options: go tall with Evolved Hulk, or go wide with Doctor Doom. Considering you run America Chavez, this choice is usually set in stone by Turn 4 (or Turn 5 if you are still missing a key card). This makes it easier to craft a game plan where your big 6-Cost card can be at its best and seal the deal.

Another big strength of this deck is its ability to play into any kind of location and impact those that have been locked during the whole match. Indeed, with Jeff the Baby Land Shark and Doctor Doom, you can easily reach any location. Then, Sunspot, Evolved Misty Knight, and Evolved Cyclops are also able to impact a location after it’s impossible to play there, like after Professor X has locked it down. In that regard, knowing early on where your opponent might be playing some of their space limiting cards can have a big impact on the match.

Potential Additions:
Cosmo did better than Mister Fantastic and Storm in Conquest, but the other two remain potential inclusions. Luke Cage can be played for the mirror match, and Magneto is another 6-Cost card you could consider running.

Shuri

Shuri Sauron

Created by den

, updated 8 months ago

0

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.9

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
A stalwart of consistency, even with Shadow King gaining a lot of momentum lately, both Shuri decks seem to be elite in the hands of anyone with a solid understanding of the Snap and Retreat mechanics. Plus, Shuri has been around for so long at this point that I wouldn’t be surprised if the deck was one many people default to whenever they aren’t sure of what to play.

Once again, the Sauron list posted a slightly better performance than the one based around Kitty Pryde. However, if America Chavez was included in the Ladder build to increase consistently, Enchantress was the better card in Conquest. It once again helped gain an edge in certain match ups that you can’t get out of with a one cube Retreat.

As for the Kitty Pryde list, it is definitely more flexible and able to dodge Shang-Chi better. It is also much weaker to Shadow King, and it is also very annoyed by Wave in a few decks since it prevents the Kitty Pryde plus Taskmaster pattern on Turn 6. Once these two cards lose a bit of popularity (which doesn’t seem like it’s happening soon), this deck could take over as the best Shuri build.

How to Play:
Shuri Sauron is based around the idea of cancelling negative Ongoing abilities with Sauron and abusing Shuri to create a huge amount of points. In that regard, the deck is very rigid in the mid-game since Turns 3, 4, and 5 are almost always the same: Sauron → Shuri → any card worth doubling the power. Often times, Turn 2 will also be dedicated to Armor as a way to prevent an opposing Shang-Chi from ruining your plans. Speaking of Shang-Chi, Vision is another way to play around it, as hitting a moving target isn’t so simple.

This leaves only Turn 1 and Turn 6 to be truly flexible, with Nebula or Zero taking up the 1-Cost slot and Taskmaster usually being the default Turn 6 play alongside Ebony Maw.

If this very straightforward approach can lead to a ton of points on two lanes, it also often doesn’t equate to a lot of cubes. Indeed, unless you are Snapping aggressively, the opponent can see the points coming and will rarely stay in the game once you show Shuri (and they can’t handle it). This creates two important factors to take into consideration when playing Shuri Sauron:

• You have to accept Snaps early in the game, especially when Sauron and Shuri show up.
• You need to find lines of play even when you don’t have the best play pattern with the deck, especially when the opponent does not Snap. Even without Shuri, the deck can develop a solid amount of points, and Enchantress is able to steal a few wins.

The last important point to cover is positioning, especially when you don’t draw into Sauron or Shuri. Indeed, while both cards will dictate a lot of your strategies, there are other pairings to know about:

• Nebula and Armor is nice against Killmonger, and you could even follow it up with Ebony Maw if you don’t expect Sauron to show up.
• Enchantress can cancel the abilities of Lizard, Typhoid Mary, and Red Skull.
• Taskmaster into an unprotected card is better to play with priority. On the contrary, if the target can’t be destroyed, playing without priority protects Taskmaster. Position your cards in order to gain or lose priority depending on the situation.
• Invisible Woman allows you to hide Taskmaster so it copies your last played card on Turn 6 (or the card that reveals before it behind Invisible Woman). This is a great way to lose priority and make an opposing Shang-Chi worthless.

Potential Additions:

Shuri Kitty

Created by den

, updated 8 months ago

0

5x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

2.6

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.5

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

InSheNaut

InSheNaut

Created by den

, updated 8 months ago

0

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

3x Starter Card

3.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

5.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
In the other Tier List, InSheNaut had lost a step compared to the Tier 1 archetypes; it was even ranked below Hela Tribunal. But the more flexible nature of this deck compared to the purely proactive ones gives it more of an edge in Conquest. Plus, Luke Cage is nowhere to be seen lately, which is a great upside for a High Evolutionary deck.

Also, it feels like the way Conquest works is a little better for InSheNaut compared to Ladder play. Indeed, when one of your disruptive cards lands in a Ladder match, the opponent is often quick to Retreat – especially if you Snap. While you will get a similar reaction in Conquest, it isn’t just a cube you won. You will go against that same opponent, so you also gained the information that this disruptive card is very annoying to them. This gives you great input in order to leverage your future Snaps.

Playing these kinds of mind games with your opponent isn’t a simple strategy to navigate, and it can lead to crushing defeats when your early Snap based on having the disruptive card in hand doesn’t translate to a win. Still, this aggressive mindset should net you a few one cube wins for little work, as the opponent might Retreat out of fear or because they have a subpar hand. Even if they stay, the rather slow game plan of InSheNaut often leads to your opponent revealing more information than you do before you get to play your high power cards on the last turn. On some occasions, they might believe you are a Evolved DoomWave for a few rounds.

Speaking of Evolved DoomWave, the return of that duo might be bad news for InSheNaut. It limits She-Hulk quite a bit, even if Leech is a decent alternate game plan in that situation.

How to Play:
In this new and improved build around She-Hulk and The Infinaut, the goal is to make the game about points – a battle you are more than suited to win. Ideally, the deck wants to play Magik on Turn 3, Leech on Turn 5, and profit from passing Turn 6 with Sunspot and Misty Knight before dropping two high power cards on Turn 7. However, there are many more play patterns in the deck to achieve victory:

• With Armor, Cosmo, and Leech, the deck has quite a formidable disruptive ability against many different decks, in addition to the ability to protect it’s own important cards.
• If Shocker hits The Infinaut, it unlocks a pattern where you pass on Turn 4, play The Infinaut on Turn 5, and then play Evolved Hulk on Turn 6. When reducing either of your 6-Cost cards, you can pass on Turn 5 and play the reduced one plus She-Hulk.
• Without Magik, you can try passing Turn 3 or 4 to play She-Hulk early and follow with a big Evolved Hulk on Turn 6. With Limbo and no Leech, you could also pass on Turn 5 to do the same “The Infinaut into Evolved Hulk” kind of pattern.
• With a hot start through the 1-Costs giving you a nice lead, you might not want to create Limbo and give your opponent more time to mount a potential comeback.

Through these various scenarios, you can see that this build of InSheNaut is actually trying to get away from the very rigid patterns Moon Girl was pushing for that made the deck too predictable. Right now, you should consider this deck a High Evolutionary tempo build, except it can play around with its energy to change which turns it develops points and which it adopts a more passive stance.

Potential Additions:
Shocker remains a popular card in the deck, even if it seems clear at this point that the card is a notch below Cyclops and Cosmo.

Tier 2

Hela Tribunal

Hela Tribunal

Created by den

, updated 8 months ago

1

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x 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+

6.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
Although this ranking for Hela Tribunal is its best in Conquest for a long time, the deck feels a little too predictable to become a juggernaut in Conquest. While other proactive decks like Shuri can keep some opponents in games (since it isn’t necessarily obvious as to which lanes it will contest by the end of the game), Hela Tribunal has barely any surprises left in it, and the opponent will quickly know whether or not they should stay in that game.

As such, Hela Tribunal remains a solid pick thank to its favorable match up against Loki Collector, as well as the relative lack of counter cards for now. Still, we can see several signs foreshadowing the future of Hela Tribunal. Cosmo is gaining momentum in several lists, like Evolved DoomWave, Loki Collector, and InSheNaut. Also, Move Legion doesn’t seem to have gone away after its nerfs; instead, it’s rebuilt a new list that has been doing great so far. In the past, this was the deck that made Hela Tribunal difficult to rely on.

How to Play:
This deck looks to merge two synergies in the hopes that one makes it through and scores a lot of points. Here is what you are looking to accomplish:

• Discard your hand with MODOK and bring everything back with Hela to summon a ton of points at random. With The Living Tribunal, you are guaranteed to impact every lane.
• Have Iron Man and Onslaught together on the same lane with The Living Tribunal in play. Make sure to maximize points on the Iron Man lane.

For one of these two play patterns to happen, you need to use your support cards to maximize your chances of pulling it off:

• Invisible Woman can hide MODOK, which will only reveal on Turn 6 and before the Hela that you also played behind Invisible Woman. The card can also serve as protection from Enchantress for your Ongoing combo.
• Magik allows you to play MODOK on Turn 5 if you haven’t drawn Hela yet, giving you two more turns to find your second combo piece. Otherwise, the card enables the Iron Man → Onslaught → The Living Tribunal pattern on Turns 5, 6, and 7.
• Crystal helps with finding your important cards. As all your combos are made of 5- and 6-Cost cards, you can play Crystal on Turn 3 without losing any tempo. Iron Lad serves the same purpose, albeit with a slightly different ability.

Potential Additions:
Several players have mentioned how they liked Jubilee instead of America Chavez in the deck. Both cards help the reliability, but a Turn 6 Chavez never helps the deck if you haven’t gotten your important cards by then.

Move Legion

Move Legion

Created by den

, updated 8 months ago

0

1x Collection Level 1-14

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

2.9

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
The more I look at it, the more Move Legion seems to become another take on the Evolved DoomWave deck, with the Move synergy replacing High Evolutionary. Looking at the success of the other deck, it seems like a great model to emulate – even if it doesn’t seem to be able to match it yet.

Nonetheless, this is still not the most popular build for Move Legion. That list is closer to what it was pre-nerf, but the Wave and Doctor Doom list is easily the best performing one. This week, this build was well above the 55% Win Rate threshold for Tier 2, while most of the other lists for Move Legion would have ranked in Tier 3. As such, once more players pick up on the idea and it gets fully refined to abuse its strengths, we might have a very solid Move Legion archetype on our hands.

If you enjoyed the deck in the past and you want to revive it, this should be a great foundation to work with. You even have another established deck to draw inspiration from!

How to Play:
Mostly looking to build points proactively, Move Legion relies on Kraven and Angela to anchor your lanes. Either card is able to grow to eight, maybe even ten, power over the course of a match.

Then, with one lane contested via points, the second lane can be challenged through three different means:

• You can easily get points on a locked or unplayable location with Silk, Jeff the Baby Land Shark, and other move cards.
• You can play a disruptive game with Legion, Spider-Man, and Shang-Chi.
• You can win a second lane on points with Silk, Spider-Man, or a 1-Cost Miles Morales all representing good points for their costs.
• Wave and Doctor Doom represent a disruptive pattern impacting all lanes at once, which is perfect for when you are in the lead.

Overall, it feels like once this deck is in the lead, its flexibility allows the pilot to dictate how the rest of the game will go. It can either use Legion to make the locations more favorable, Wave and Doctor Doom to lock the game to one card only, or simply keep developing points around the move synergy.

Potential Additions:
If we consider the deck is rebuilding around the Wave and Doctor Doom duo, it opens a lot of ideas for the first four turns of the match. Cards like Cloak, Magneto, Polaris, and other high power cards that are able to give us the lead make a lot of sense in the deck.

Tier 3

When some players claim these rankings make no sense and think it is impossible that a deck is ranked this low or high, I often answer with the same line: “I don’t decide which deck goes where, I try to stick to what the available date is telling me.” In the end, the goal of this report isn’t to be “den’s opinion of the current metagame.” It’s a reflection of what the various deck trackers can tell us about the popular decks.

As such, let me start by saying that I don’t think Loki Collector belongs in Tier 3. The deck is probably much closer to Evolved DoomWave than it is to Discard Dracula. However, when a deck represents a very large part of the metagame, its performance is impacted by so much that a deck everyone believe is Tier 1 material actually puts up much worse results. Don’t get me wrong, simply being mentioned in the report means the deck has some upsides in the current metagame. It is worth playing if you enjoy this kind of play style. However, when it comes to Loki, you better be really good with the deck if you pick it for your Conquest run. You will have to win the mirror match, likely on several occasions, alongside a few decks that had your archetype in mind when they picked the last tech card to include in their deck.

As for the other decks, most of them are very synergistic, and it just so happens that some annoying cards for that precise synergy are popular. Destroy still have to go through Armor, Cosmo, and Shadow King, and Cosmo is joined by Wave when it comes to limiting Surfer and Discard. None of these decks are bad, but their run can be short lived if they face the wrong deck.

Discard Dracula

Discard Dracula

Created by den

, updated 8 months ago

1

5x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

2.9

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.5

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Loki Collector

Loki Collector

Created by den

, updated 8 months ago

1

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

2.2

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Deadpool Destroy

Destroy

Created by den

, updated 8 months ago

1

5x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

2.9

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Negative Surfer

Negative Surfer

Created by den

, updated 8 months ago

1

1x Collection Level 1-14

8x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Recruit Season

1x Starter Card

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

1.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Sera Surfer

Sera Surfer

Created by den

, updated 8 months ago

1

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

8x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2.9

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.9

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Closing Words

I am among those who like to follow their guts when it comes to judging a deck or testing cards in an archetype. I believe numbers are important, and a small number of players will never manage to get as many games in as the sample sizes we have access to thanks to deck trackers with thousands of players. However, Marvel Snap is a pretty flexible game when it comes to deckbuilding. An archetype with a few flexible slots could very well target a match up that is considered to be a bad one. Especially with the variety of counter cards at our disposal, it is hard to find a deck that we can never beat. Some are much harder to disrupt, as Shuri‘s longevity can attest. And we can’t ever counter everything at once, hence why proactive decks other than Loki are doing so well right now.

Nevertheless, always keep in mind that a metagame is a moving entity where a deck can go from best in the game to a bad idea overnight. In Conquest, targeting popular decks is even more important, as we cannot get out of a bad match up. Knowing this, I’m not shocked to see Loki down in the rankings – although I still consider the deck one of the very best in Marvel Snap. It might not be ideal to run right now since the whole environment is focused on it and is including cards or picking synergies that Loki can’t leverage very well. But, if a new card gains a lot of attention or Loki reduces in popularity, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Loki take the top spot in a metagame where it benefits from the same liberties Hela Tribunal is currently enjoying.

For this reason, I do believe the rankings are telling a story we need to consider. Just keep in mind that the story can quickly change depending on future events.

As usual, I hope this report was informative and helps you in your future Conquest runs. If you need anything, 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.