Marvel Snap Meta Tier List: January 12, 2024 – Thanos, Undisputed Titan of the New Post-Patch Metagame!

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

This report is updated twice a week to make sure it is as close to the current meta as possible. Looking to figure out the impact of the newly released card or the latest balance changes? This is the place to be!

Marvel Snap Meta Overview

To make sure you understand how good Thanos is a few days after the patch, here are a few important notes about this report:

• Thanos is the sole deck in Tier 1, as no other deck could cross the 0.5 cube average threshold.
• Thanos is the only deck with a popularity above 10%, with Good Cards Black Knight and Hercules decks around7% play rate behind it.
• I had to lower the requirements for a deck to be in Tier 2 (from 0.35 to 0.3 cube average) and Tier 3 (0.2 to 0.1 cube average) so we had enough decks to talk about in this report. If I kept the 0.35 cube average, only Lockdown would be in Tier 2, and neither Loki or Cerebro 3 would have made Tier 3 with the 0.2 threshold.

There are a couple of Silent Performer decks to look at, such as Electro Ramp or Good Cards Darkhawk, both challenging Thanos in the cube average category. Also, it seems InSheNaut has a new twist to it, with Skaar now replacing The Infinaut in the deck for a deck I labeled “High Shevolutionary” for a lack of better name. This seems to be an attempt at adapting to InSheNaut falling off in performance recently. The deck did well this week, we’ll see if it can maintain this kind of performance. However, with very little games to support their cube average, it would be a reach to say they are on the same level. As such, I could honestly just write this report around the narrative “as expected, the patch pushed Thanos to the moon” and dismiss the fact most decks are trying to rebuild while Thanos just kept on the path it has been following since the start of the season.

Of course Thanos is the best deck in the game right now, but I could, just like many other players did, have told you that even before the patch went live. It is more than common to see one of the strongest decks, not impacted by the changes, take over while the other archetypes have to rethink their strategy. The interesting thing nobody knew however, and still feels up in the air, is which decks would have a shot at competing with it. In that sense, the focus shouldn’t be around Thanos, but its competition, and whether there is one or are we stuck waiting for the next OTA to see a change in the metagame.

Early after the patch, I would be lying if I said there is a deck definitely on Thanos‘ level we all missed. Hercules hasn’t pushed anything convincing yet, even if Phoenix Force might have some potential, but we aren’t even sure the new card is needed at this point. Good Cards Darkhawk is the other deck with a cube average north of 0.5, but Thanos is a Blob deck, meaning it has built in disruption against Darkhawk. As for direct counters to the deck, the answer to this one isn’t apparent yet. Shang-Chi is useful, but Caiera is a good answer to it.

The Junk synergy was doing well before the patch, but needs to recover from the nerf to Annihilus for now. There are promising decks still running Annihilus, The Hood and Sentry, but the sample is so small I’d rather give it a bit more time and see how it looks next week with more time under its belt. Indeed, the real star against Thanos was Debrii, and Annihilus does not work with the Rocks any more.

Overall, there are several directions still left to explore before we can say we are doomed to wait for the next OTA. The situation isn’t looking good early after the patch, but this is no surprise, as most players will gravitate towards the proven strong deck rather than try to innovate or counter it. Winning is what the game is about for most people.

Then, let’s see this first report after the patch as only the first step towards figuring what happens with less of Loki and other cards which dominated the end of 2023. Thanos took the hottest start, and is far ahead of the rest, but this is a marathon, not a sprint.

By the way, did I tell you Thanos‘ best list was not a Lockjaw based list, but the old school control one with Professor?

Happy Tier List, everyone!

Marvel Snap Meta Tier List

Disclaimer and Tier Explanations

In order to be featured here, a deck needs to represent at least 1% of the current environment and have a positive cube average in the Ranked mode. Win Rate is also taken into consideration, and it can greatly impact the ranking of a deck, particularly when several archetypes (or different builds of the same deck) have a similar Cube Average but big Win Rate discrepancies. The Marvel Snap mechanics do, however, push players to maximize cubes gained rather than win every single game.

In order to create this chart, den is using data from our Marvel Snap Tracker, as well as other available data online and his own expertise and opinion of respected players. If a deck showed great performances with a very limited presence in the meta, you can find it in the Silent Performers section. That section highlights decks with an excellent Cube Average but too little of a sample size to be representative of their real strength.

Decks not good enough to be considered contenders but with a good representation will be ranked in Tier 3 in our chart. They won’t have their own dedicated write up here, but they may be transferred to the main Tier List section. See those builds as decks that are good to know about, as you should face them when playing Marvel Snap. However, unless the meta changes or a new variation of the build emerges, these decks are a notch below the dominant ones in Tiers 1 and 2.

For each deck, you will also get a write-up about their performance in the Conquest mode. In that section, we’ll discuss how the deck is doing and which differences, if any, exist when compared to the Ladder performance. In the chart above, you will also be notified of a strong archetype in Conquest with a Conquest flag next to their name.

Tier 1

Thanos Control

Thanos Control

Created by den

, updated 4 months ago

2

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Recruit Season

4.7

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
The only archetype with a cube rate over 0.5 and more than a thousand games to go alongside it, Thanos is a triple crown winner this week if we exclude the silent performers. Indeed, although we have some decks above 60% win rate in that category, Thanos‘ 57% is the best one amongst popular decks. I would argue it is more impressive to hold a 57% win rate while also being more than 10% of the whole metagame rather than a few percent higher but with only 80 games to show for it.

Then, even if Thanos isn’t putting up a dominant performance compared to a peak Loki or Elsa Bloodstone a few months back, it is clear this is the deck to beat right now. It might be more difficult than one thinks, as Thanos‘ strength doesn’t lie in the numbers it can put up, but in how reliably it manages to do it, and its ability to adapt to a lot of situations, as we already saw at least 20 different cards make it into the archetype since Skaar and Caiera brought it back in the spotlight. Then, even if this 0.5 cube average performance isn’t as impressive as a 0.7 other decks achieved in the past, it could be more solidly anchored at the top than many dominant decks were in the past.

Conquest Performance:
Without much of a surprise, Thanos was also the best archetype in Conquest, with various builds of Thanos Lockjaw posting the best win rate since the balance patch. Thanos Control didn’t appear in that mode, so it is hard to gauge how good the deck is in Conquest. The lists are all fairly similar, with only the 5-costs being adapted, or some lists running Wave while others were using Mobius M. Mobius.

Overall, it feels like you can’t really get it wrong with Thanos currently, either build to your own strengths as a pilot, or try to adapt to your popular opponents, which means the mirror match, alongside a bit of High Evolutionary and Destroy.

Potential Additions:
Thanos Lockjaw is just as good, and gives Thanos players agency to adapt to their popular opponents:

Thanos Lockjaw

Created by den

, updated 4 months ago

2

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

1x Recruit Season

4.6

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

5.5

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Guide

Tier 2

Lockdown

Lockdown

Created by den

, updated 4 months ago

1

1x Collection Level 1-14

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

3.6

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
One of the decks able to stand against Thanos before the patch, Lockdown took a bit of a blow with the Ms. Marvel nerf, which led to a loss of 0.1 in its cube average, now at 0.4. While the amount of points the deck can put out is more or less the same, the big difference for the deck is the ability to seize priority going into turn six, a role Ms. Marvel was particularly good in. Without priority, Alioth is completely worthless, cutting one of the deck’s important late game patterns. Now, unless Iron Lad copies Doctor Doom, which remains one of the strongest thing you can do in the game, the deck will often fall behind in the mid turns, as Ms. Marvel might boost one lane, but rarely two.

This slight difference is actually a big difference for Lockdown, and already a bigger blow than anticipated for the deck, which might need to consider another card than Alioth now. It is still early, and 0.4 cube average remains a very good performance for a deck recently nerfed. However, the win rate is only at 53%, quite low compared to what Lockdown got us accustomed to before the patch.

Conquest Performance:
Lockdown didn’t do so bad in Conquest, with a 58.5% win rate recorded on the same featured list we had on the ladder, except for Medusa instead of Quake. This places Lockdown in the top five archetypes in Conquest, a solid performance overall. However, it feels important to note this is the first week in a long time Lockdown didn’t pass the 60% win rate threshold. Then, it appears the deck is weaker because of the patch, as both modes seem to point in the same direction, a worse win rate compared to last week.

Potential Additions:
The way to build Lockdown before the patch remains fairly strong as well, although it is much less popular compared to the Zabu take on the deck. It might just be a case of Quake pushing this variant to be more popular, or Zabu making it easier to figure out your Snaps. In that Zabu build, Stegron is another card seeing play.

Lockdown Tempo

Created by den

, updated 4 months ago

0

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

5x 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+

Guide

Deadpool Destroy

Deadpool Destroy

Created by den

, updated 4 months ago

2

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
Destroy wasn’t looking so good before the patch, as we had quite a flurry of decks able to post a cube average at 0.3 or above, which led to Destroy slowly losing some momentum as time passed. Don’t let the top three ranking fool you, as Destroy is posting about the same performance as it did in the past at 0.3 cube average, but a better win rate of 56%.

What changed really is all the other deck crumbling down and posting bad performance, which is why Destroy is ranked so high this week. Let me remind you that I lowered the bar for Tier 2 though, hence why Destroy and the other decks behind it could make it into this tier.

As such, depending how the metagame evolves until our next report, Destroy might go back to tier three if it can’t keep up with the inevitable rise of other archetypes once they figured how to adapt to the recent changes.

Conquest Performance:
The same list using Taskmaster as the twelfth card managed to post a 60% win rate this week in conquest, while one with Hulkbuster in that slot held a 59% win rate. Both performances show a nice boost of momentum for Discard, which rarely was able to break through the 60% win rate threshold lately.

It is curious to the deck do so much better in Conquest compare to ranked play, with a 4% win rate difference from a mode to the other. It might be the fact there aren’t many disruptive cards for Destroy currently apart from Leech, and the deck can adapt against it once it possesses that information, particularly on the timing it should play Death and Knull.

Potential Additions:
Arnim Zola and Hulkbuster remain popular cards in the archetype, with Skaar sometimes making an appearance as well. All of those replace Taskmaster when included in the deck.

Hela Lockjaw

Hela Lockjaw

Created by den

, updated 4 months ago

0

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

4.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

7.5

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
I expected Hela Lockjaw to do much better this week, as it wasn’t much concerned by the changes, and a relatively simple deck to pick up, being mostly based on its own game plan. However, it seems that Thanos is doing much better in the Lockjaw competition, and isn’t as reliant on a perfect snap and retreat strategy.

Also, Hela remains fairly weak against Leech, which still is a popular disruptive card. Then, even if the archetype is capable of great winning streaks when the draws or locations align, it appear to be a middle of the pack kind of deck over large sample sizes.

There has been some testing with Skaar in the deck, which is having good results over very little games. Otherwise, the more traditional way to build Hela Lockjaw is posting a 0.3 cube average and 53% win rate.

Conquest Performance:
Hela Lockjaw posted a 58% win rate in Conquest, which is much higher than its performance in ranked, and places it alongside Lockdown, in that second group behind Thanos and Destroy. The deck featured the same list as we saw in the ranked mode, so the key might be to know what to expect from your opponent in order to adapt your strategy accordingly.

Also, Hela Lockjaw can be quite a scary deck to face, so there must be a lot of opportunities to bluff snap with that deck, and just get a cube from an opponent who passed its first two turns, and doesn’t want to play from behind if they expect us to play Lockjaw on turn three.

Potential Additions:
Skaar is played instead of Giganto in some lists and seems to do pretty well there. It provides some explosive late turns when Hela is fetched by Lockjaw and a few 10+ power card are in play as a result.

Guide

Good Cards Black Knight

Good Cards Black Knight

Created by den

, updated 4 months ago

1

2x 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)

4x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

6.2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
A deck many expected to rise with the patch, but unfortunately was much more dependant on Ms. Marvel than one could believe. Then, the deck has lost quite a bit of momentum since the update, with this new list around Caiera and Skaar doing best, at 0.25 cube average and 54% win rate. Other lists, with Jeff the Baby Land Shark and an extra 4-cost, typically Enchantress wouldn’t even rank on this report this week, as they couldn’t manage a win rate above the 50% threshold, and their cube average of only 0.2 is far from enough to make it worth considering.

Similarly to Hela then, Good Cards Black Knight might have more rebuilding to do than we anticipated, and with Thanos more popular it could just be a case of losing the power of who can develop the most power. The question then, is whether Black Knight can adapt, or does it have to wait until Thanos falls to come back as a strong proactive synergy.

Conquest Performance:
The best performance recorded by Black Knight in Conquest this week was at 55% win rate, with the same list we had in our previous report, using Enchantress and Jeff the Baby Land Shark instead of Caiera and Skaar. While the win rate isn’t so bad, 55% isn’t so good in Conquest overall, if you consider you have to win several matches in a row to punch your ticket for the next league.

This performance supports the claim made in the previous section about the ranked mode, Black Knight was hurt much more than anticipated by the patch, and Ms. Marvel was a key factor of success for the deck.

Potential Additions:
Jeff the Baby Land Shark often replaces Caiera, but the 3-cost seems to do better in the deck right now, allowing an early Ghost Rider without the 6-cost being vulnerable to Shang-Chi.

Enchantress, Rogue, and Mobius M. Mobius are three other cards you could consider in the deck, typically replacing Skaar for disruption instead of sheer power.

Guide

Tier 3

Considering Cerebro 3 is the same old deck with Quake added into the mix, I will use most of this paragraph to discuss the state of Loki, always a big talking point in the community. Right now, there are several Loki decks, which we’ll divide in between the Devil Dinosaur lists, base around standalone cards and more disruption, and the Werewolf by Night lists, with more synergies amongst the deck.

So far, social has been buzzing mostly about lists with Devil Dinosaur, which open more slots for counter cards, making Loki more of a flexible archetype looking to counter popular opponent rather than a deck trying to beat you on points like it could in the past. While this might be the right to go about Loki at the top of the ladder, where there isn’t as much diversity and a smaller group of players face each other more often, the Devil Dinosaur lists have been doing pretty poorly so far over large sample size. We are talking about 49% win rate kind of poorly.

There isn’t as much data on the Werewolf by Night build, but it is more reassuring nonetheless. The disruption is similar, but the Werewolf by Night deck doesn’t play as many standalones. For example, there is no Ms. Marvel in that deck, or Quake which has been gaining momentum under its new form. Then, one could say the Werewolf by Night build is doing more of its own thing, and not trying to use the same tricks as the other decks in Marvel Snap.

The more synergistic approach might make the deck easier to play, thanks to a clearer direction to follow as a pilot. Or it might make it stronger overall, giving Loki a clear identity in the game rather than another core with the same generic cards included. We will see how the archetype develops in the near future, but without The Collector in the mix, I doubt Loki can compared to a Good Cards Darkhawk for example, so it is probably better to find what Loki does well, rather than trying to make it another Good Cards kind of deck.

Loki Werewolf

Loki Werewolf

Created by den

, updated 4 months ago

2

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

2.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Guide

Cerebro 3

Cerebro 3

Created by den

, updated 4 months ago

2

8x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

2x Starter Card

2.7

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

1.9

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Closing Words

Honestly, there isn’t so much to say about the current metagame so far. Thanos is the best archetype, partly because it was already strong and didn’t suffer any nerfs in the last update, and also because most of its competition did. The patch simply lead to a situation where a strong archetype saw most of its rivals get nerfed, so it naturally rose to the top of the competitive mountain. The interesting narrative now is to see how long it will be able to hold that top spot, and how will it eventually lose it.

Will it be because we found a way to beat Thanos? Or do we have to wait for Second Dinner to nerf it so other decks have a shot at beating. For what my opinion is worth, I don’t think we need to wait for an OTA to see other decks post similar results to what Thanos is currently doing, but we might not see decks able to maintain those for a long time, as they would be easier to counter than Thanos. Then, I think we eventually will see a nerf to the Thanos Lockjaw deck, but we should be able to enjoy the game until that happens for sure.

There are plenty of decks which aren’t being played, and might be able to shine in this new environment. It probably means losing a few games at first, until we can find an archetype with some potential, and then losing some more to refine it. Yet, I can’t see the metagame staying put for an entire week, that is if the next OTA actually has something in store for Thanos.

Only time will tell if my prediction is correct, but I’ll do my best to share the promising decks through social media or in our next report, early next week.

Until then, I hope you’re having fun with the game. For any question or enquiry, 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.