Marvel Snap Metagame Tier List, December 26th, 2022: The Power Cosmic Week 3

Ever since we started doing early releases for the weekly Meta Tier List, only sharing the raw listing of decks and not the full explanation at first, a lot of questions arose on certain rankings. It is only fair that not everyone has the same Marvel Snap experience, and some decks might be better at certain stages of the ladder compared to others. As such, and just for clarification, I am writing this tier list with the Ranks 80 to 100 in mind first and foremost. Where the competition is the fiercest and people usually are looking to maximize their climb and reach the Infinite climb. I do believe most of what is said here is applicable to the other ranks, but it is important to keep in mind that the core of the game is us, the player base. Our understanding of a deck, choices during a match and slight changes made to a 12-Card list can have a big impact on a deck’s performances.

Also, in order to rank the decks, I value their Cube average more than I value their raw win rate, as the core of the game is based around racking up Cubes, and not racking up wins. Of course, winning more should lead to more Cubes in a way or another, but some decks make it easier to keep their opponent in the after a sSap, while some will collect a lot of 1 Cube wins, making each Snap back from their opponent a huge deal. This is especially important as it will naturally make newer, more innovative decks look stronger than the more famous, expected ones, even if the latter have a better overall win rate. Climbing the ladder isn’t about winning a certain amount of games, it is about collecting a certain amount of cubes, and this is what we are ranking in the Tier List.

Moving on to this week’s meta, would be an environment I would call “tag team Marvel Snap” looking at the many duos that exist in this metagame and are starting to define the current game. Cosmo and Armor, Leader and Leech or Aero, Bast and Silver Surfer, Wave and Death or Black Panther plus Arnim Zola. You’ll notice that most decks in the current metagame rely on a certain duo of cards making the deck particularly dangerous, or annoying for other decks. As a result, the current metagame feels a lot about finding the right core for your deck and how to maximize its efficiency to rack up Cubes. It isn’t a particularly bad way to play Marvel Snap, but it seems that the rules of the current environment are set, and it is difficult to not obey them in order to be successful currently.

On another note, Series 5 cards are slowly starting to take over the game in terms of raw power level. Bast, Shuri, Galactus or Thanos all seem to have found a home and a solid archetype to be used with, or created some to maximize their potential. This week, I mostly want to emphasize on Valkyrie amongst Series 5 releases, which I think is an insane card in the current metagame. Shang-Chi is becoming more popular in the points driven metagame, and you will see the card listed in more decklists, although he is usually more of an addition to a deck than part of the base 12. Valkyrie could be considered a better Shang-Chi in my book, neutralizing opponent cards, but also making our cheap ones valuable. She is stealing a ton of games currently, and particularly benefits from being stronger when you do not have priority, something easily achieved as most decks are fighting for it anyway.

Marvel Snap Meta Tier List

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Tier 1

Bast Serative Surfer

Serative Surfer

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

28

MetaPool 5

2x Collection Level 1-14

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

8x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Starter Card

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

1.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: It could be Sera Surfer or Negative Surfer alone, but I decided to merge all those archetypes into one entry, as they represent the best way to climb the ladder currently, it seems. Just like the old Negative Sera that existed before Mister Negative was heavily nerfed, the deck combines everything you want in a good Marvel Snap deck:

• It is hard to gauge exactly where and how many points will be developed.
• You can use your card flexibly, either being proactive or saving for an explosive turn six.
• You work with a lot of information from your hand, meaning your opponent can’t read too much into your Snaps, and is left guessing whether you are bluffing or have a godly hand.

Bast is slowly starting to disappear from many archetypes in the metagame, but is definitely at home in this deck. This alone is enough to make it one of the top Series 5 cards released so far, as it is slowly becoming a card as important as Mister Negative or Sera for Silver Surfer builds.

The deck has its weaknesses, such as Cosmo or Leech for example, and can feel helpless at times. But, overall, this deck should almost always lose only 1 or 2 Cubes while winning 2 to 4 most of the time.

How To Play: The obvious gameplan would be to play Mister Negative on turn four, a three and a two on turn five, and unleash everything we can on turn six, profiting from our Negative’d cards.

However, even without Mister Negative showing up, we can still find several play patterns making the deck very dangerous. First, there are Bast and Sera serving as secondary win conditions and allowing the deck to function efficiently. Then, cards like Rogue or Brood can be very surprising for the opponent and offer huge points swing in the right setup, surprising an opponent who thought they were safe as Mister Negative was nowhere to be seen.

Lastly, Psylocke seems to be the go-to second 2-Cost in the deck, after fighting with Angela or Mojo in that slot. In addition to offering a shot at playing Sera or Mister Negative a turn earlier, she also simply enables two turns with six energy when played on turn four, which can be enough to win a game at times.

Potential additions: The deck can be played with solely Mister Negative or Sera, adding another 3-Cost instead, or Wong if you want to increase your point ceiling. I would personally favor the Mister Negative-only build, as Sera is often difficult to play in this deck. She still has her merits, especially at creating turns that are difficult to read for the opponent.\

The usual suspects in that regard are Ironheart (played on the lane you don’t intend to contest) or Storm, which creates a lane you will buff later on with Silver Surfer while the opponent can’t play on it. Killmonger also is a nice card if you can benefit from its ability, and Juggernaut works well if you are including Storm already. Bishop is the usual replacement for Rogue, and allows another play on three without much afterthought.

Sera-only lists are able to play cards that would be bad if Negative’d, such as Maximus or Polaris.

The common replacement for Bast is Angela in the Negative build. It can be Nova in a deck with Killmonger, although it isn’t so reliable as we only have one destroy for it.

Tier 2

Shuri Zero (Black Panther Edition) 🆕

Shuri Zero

Created by den

, updated 8 months ago

14

MetaPool 5

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

8x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

3.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: The more the game shifts towards being able to develop as many points as possible, the more Shuri becomes a very good card. Alternatively, the more Leader becomes the go-to card to play on turn six, and the more Taskmaster and Arnim Zola become very good to play on the last turn of the game.
So what did some Marvel Snap genius deck builders do ? They combined both ideas, leading to the Shuri Zero deck now including Wong, Black Panther and Arnim Zola as a secondary gameplan to the deck.

While this second line is quite weak to Aero if you don’t have priority, Ebony Maw, Lizard and Maximus should take care of that for you.

How To Play: This deck is the definition of how to split your gameplan in two parts when building your deck:

• Part one: Seize priority, develop points and play around the revealing locations.
• Part two: Play Shuri or Wong, into Red Skull or Black Panther, into Arnim Zola or Taskmaster.
• Part two sometimes: Play Shuri, pass turn five and She-Hulk plus Taskmaster becomes available.
• Part three simply is looking at the humongous amount of points you have on the table, and maybe thinking about when to Snap during the game.

Potential additions: The deck takes its inspiration from the Wong On Reveal build and the Zero archetype, which you can try to pick ideas from both these decks. However, apart from Armor and She-Hulk, all the other cards are part of a package of multiple cards, making them difficult to change alone.

Typical standalone additions include:

• Okoye instead of Armor, maximizing your points at the cost of Shang-Chi ruining your combo.
• Sandman for Wong, which helps for Silver Surfer decks.
• Aero instead of She-Hulk, giving you more ways to annoy the opponent, but reducing your combo potential.

Galactus and Friends 🆕

Galactus Electro

Created by den

, updated 8 months ago

18

MetaPool 5

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

4.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Although Knull seemed to make a ton of sense in the deck, the best lists with Galactus this week looked much closer to good overall builds. My two cents about it is that it makes it much harder for the opponent to recognize we are playing a Galactus deck, and helps to land its effect more often.

Indeed, before reaching five energy, the opponent should have no way of saying what archetype we really are playing. Sunspot, Scorpion, Lizard, and Maximus could be in any deck, and Electro or Wave are a clue, but could simply mean a ramp deck of some sort. It only is once we managed to play Doctor Octopus that the opponent might realize our plan, and it is often too late to do something about it.

As a huge fan of psychology in card games, I have to admit I’m impressed at how ingenious this kind of build can be. Taking advantage of the current metagame to disguise a different win condition goes a long into winning more Cubes than the deck could if the opponent knew what was going on.

How To Play: The deck really has two key turns, four and five, or four and six depending on our hand, leaving the rest of the game to be flexible.

If we played Electro on turn three, our turn four should ideally be Leech or Doctor Octopus. Both cards serve the similar purpose of disabling the opponent’s hand, and unable to compete when we play Galactus on turn five. Snap timing is absolutely key in this gameplan, as most opponent will retreat once they understand what is going on.

The other way of getting Galactus out is through Wave on turn three. We then have a flexible turn five and likely will look to go Shang-Chi plus Death on turn six without priority in order to beat an opposing Leader. In that sequence, turn five is flexible, and can be dedicated to pushing for points with Maximus. Or trying to cancel the opponent’s six with Leech or Doctor Octopus if we have a read on the opponent playing a very synergistic deck.

Potential additions: Galactus builds seem to change a lot from a week to another, so a lot of potential additions are on the menu:

• Ebony Maw: Great for priority on Galactus, especially as Electro is a weak turn three for power.
• Wolverine, Sabretooth, Green Goblin, Hobgoblin: All these card have a nice synergy with Galactus but are a big tell of what we are currently playing.
• Aero: Before Galactus, she can help make sure the opponent doesn’t have too many points on the lane we want to keep active.
• Psylocke: Another way to gain energy in addition to Electro and Wave.
• Daredevil: We will usually play Galactus on five with Electro, so it’s valuable information.
• Destroyer: Can be an alternate plan if we don’t draw Galactus, destroying Electro and opening for a Maximus plus Shang-Chi on turn six.
• Knull: Obvious replacement for Captain Marvel in the deck, but consistency seems very important currently.

Electro Ramp

Electro Ramp

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

18

Pool 3Meta

1x Collection Level 1-14

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

4x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

4.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Taking inspiration from the “Good Cards” deck and including Leech in its base list, Electro Ramp is just a deck looking to do what the current priority decks are doing – a turn earlier. As such, the deck feels the simplest deck in the metagame to play, leading to a quick and effective build in terms of climbing, even for someone without much experience on such archetype.

Currently, Electro really feels like a great card, able to unbalance the usual schemes of when to play Aero, Leader, and other highly impactful cards in Marvel Snap. With support from Sandman and Leech to counter the synergistic decks, and Ebony Maw for early priority, it feels like the Electro Ramp archetype found a nice balance.

How To Play: The deck relies on very simple play patterns and combination of cards:

• Turn one and two are ideally Sunspot plus Armor to protect it from Killmonger. Ebony Maw is great at taking priority, especially if you have Electro or Leech and want to avoid an opposing Cosmo.
• Turn three is the key turn, where you should play Electro if possible, but could also decide to go on a Wave → 6-Cost scheme, which allows playing Leech on turn five still.
• Once at five energy, we need to pick either going for disruption (Leech) or points (Klaw) before slamming our big 6-Cost. It should be your bigger cards that help you chose the better 5-Cost to play.
• Sandman doesn’t really fit any play pattern, and is played to counter certain opponents rather than develop our strategy.

Potential additions: Although I would tend to keep the On Reveal theme strong for the 5 and 6-Cost cards, a lot of addition can make the list:

• Aero: Leech seems to be preferred currently in the deck, but she in the 5-Cost cards rotation.
• Captain Marvel or Vision are nice, flexible cards, and completely ignore an opposing Aero moving them around.
• Lizard or Scorpion are also solid 2-Cost cards, depending on what you are trying to accomplish or counter.
• Black Panther and Arnim Zola are a duo to consider and see more play in other archetypes. They work well to support Ebony Maw.

Good Cards (Leech / Leader)

Good Cards

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

17

Pool 3Meta

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

4x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.6

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.6

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Already very much on the rise last week, the archetype gained even more popularity, especially in the 80 – 100 ranks, where the competition is the fiercest. While it might be among the best performing decks in terms of pure win rate, this deck has the unpleasant downside of leading to many opponents retreating whenever something goes wrong, fully aware of what is coming next.

As a result, while you might win a lot, your Cube Average might not be so stellar, and more innovative decks could be a better option overall.

How To Play: Get priority early on with Lizard and Maximus, keep it while gathering information with White Queen, and then just dictate the last two turns with Aero and Leader.

If this plan would fail, or the draws don’t align, you still have a couple of other patterns thanks to alternate plays on every mana cost.

Potential additions: Anything that can score a ton of points could fit this list, and there are a lot of variations of the build.

• Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur can work very well instead of Shang-Chi and Magneto. It also opens double Maximus on six, not so bad.
• Enchantress, Cosmo and other counter cards can replace Shang-Chi in the flexible slot.
• Polaris or other high scoring cards for their cost make sense, as long as their ability is of some utility.
• Doctor Doom is another good six, allowing for flexible spread of points compared to Magneto.

Shuri Pile

Shuri Pile

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

6

MetaPool 5

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: I guess this deck chould disappear over time, as the other deck around Shuri made a huge debut and seems to attract most people able to craft it. However, this different take on the “Priority is key” kind of deck can be surprising to your opponent, who thought they recognized the “Good Cards” deck from your early turns.

Also, Okoye seems to perfectly fit the deck, and considering a lot of players are playing the same deck, allows to emerge victorious when both players are playing very similar turns through the whole game.

How To Play: This deck can have the exact same play pattern of Lizard – Maximus – White Queen – Aero – Leader as most of the current very popular decks, and get away with it more often than not.

Otherwise, the innovation here is mostly around Shuri enabling a second line of play on turns four, five, and six, which focuses on points rather than disruption. Once you played Shuri on turn four, Maximus, Vision or Aero should become big enough to contest a lane almost on their own, and pave the way for Taskmaster to contest another one when he comes down the next turn.

Potential additions: This builds stems from KMBest sharing his list where he had Scorpion, Thor, and Magneto over Okoye, Taskmaster and Cosmo. Otherwise, this deck is able to adapt, yet doesn’t want to play low points cards in the second part of the game, as it would deny a lot of Shuri‘s power in the deck.

Wong On Reveal 🔼

WongKanda Reveal

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

30

On RevealMetaPool 5

3x Collection Level 1-14

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Recruit Season

3.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: I was very surprised to see this deck be on the rise when looking at the data on our MarvelSnap.pro app or Snap.fan. I guess Cosmo not being played in Silver Surfer decks is a good enough reason to consider this deck one of its best counters.
Indeed, if we are playing Marvel Snap solely to figure out who can develop the most points, Wong, Black Panther and Arnim Zola certainly have their say in the contest.

Even against Priority decks, which are usually very annoying because of Aero pulling stuff away from Wong, and sometimes Magneto pulling Wong himself, the deck can contest Leader on turn six with Arnim Zola. Thanks to Psylocke, it can also have a different play pattern than relying on Wong all the time, going for a Doctor Doom into Odin for example.

How To Play: You usually have two play patterns with this deck: All in with Wong or more flexible with Psylocke into double six.

• All in on Wong : Either play Black Panthen into Arnim Zola, or White Tiger into Odin. Doctor Doom is the flexible 6-cost, able to be played in both scenarios.
• Use Psylocke on turn four to unlock two turn with six energies : You can now play Ironhear plus Wolsbane, or just Doctor Doom on turn five. And activate these again with Odin on six

In the deck, the quiet stars are Ebony Maw and Storm. The first one will give you priority for your On Reveal cards later on, and doesn’t punish you much on the lane he is played. Storm simply limits opposing play pattern without punishing you, and usually allows playing Wong somewhere else while the opponent plays before the Flooded resolves.

She-Hulk Baero 🔽

Baero

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

5

DestroyMetaPool 4

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.7

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Armor, Cosmo, and Leader are starting to be too much to handle for Death and the Destroy synergy. Until now, the deck could always find some good patterns, and Bucky Barnes into Deathlok was solid enough to contest a Lizard into Maximus kind of curve.

However, with Sunspot and Armor being much more popular lately as a duo, getting denied those very important destroys early on is brutal. Furthermore, the Leader situation doesn’t seem to be improving, leading to be forced to destroy early to be able to go Wave on turn four, and play Death or She-Hulk on turn five. So we can play our own Leader on six.

This is the reason Squirrel Girl feels so important in the deck currently, as it sets up potential destroys on every lane and offers a much better priority chance than The Hood against a turn two Armor play on the other side.

How To Play: The whole point of the deck is to be able to get two destroy effects while having reveal priority going into turn six. This should be achieved with a simple on-curve play during the first four turns, as the destroy synergy is able to generate solid power through its staple cards like Bucky Barnes, Deathlok, or Carnage.

Turn five should be a Wave play, and nothing else if we have She-Hulk in hand, so the card can be a 2-Cost next turn and be paired with Aero or Leader. If we managed to get to four destroy effects, Death becomes free and both her and She-Hulk can be played in addition to another card. Squirrel Girl being destroyed by Killmonger usually is the way to go to get our four destructions in time.

Outside this basic play pattern, looking to maximize energy usage, the deck still is quite flexible, and is able to develop points even without drawing into Wave. The destroy synergy especially shines when it comes to cleaning annoying cards that would appear on our side of the board, be it from locations or the opponent.

Potential additions: The Hood and Nova are probably making the deck stronger overall, but weaker to the current environment.

Thanos Zookyrie 🆕

Thanos Zoo

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

2

ComboMetaPool 5

1x Collection Level 1-14

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Recruit Season

3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Every week, it feels like this deck gets a bit better, approaching its perfect build, and more people learning how to play it. I am probably a bit biased on this one, but I really think its potential is incredible, especially as Destroy decks are reducing, and Killmonger seeing less play as a result.

Still, we are still far from the Thanos Zoo being able to compete consistently with decks atop of the tier list if we were looking at win rate alone. What makes this deck not be relegated at the bottom of our list is the surprise element, especially Valkyrie, letting people believe they have a safe lane and turning it around on turn six. As a result, I could see Thanos Zoo keep rising or falling to tier four depending on how famous it becomes, and whether more people adapt to it, with Killmonger for example.

How To Play: The simple formula is being able to contest two lanes using Angela, Bishop, and Valkyrie potentially stealing one on the last turn. We can then support them with our cheap, buffed units, which usually contribute for six to ten additional points. Beast and Carnage help in freeing space or getting our cards back, so we can play more of them, and keep the ball going. Blue Marvel, Ka-zar provide a way to grow our points while a lane is already full

The reality is, you better be focused when playing this deck, as you’ll need to manage your hand, On Reveal orders and space on the board to play this deck to its full potential. Most of the time, the ideal scenario is to have Angela on our bouncing lane, as to grow her through replaying cards behind her. Bishop on the lane, we anticipate to play cards we do not intend to bounce or destroy, such as Blue Marvel or Quinjet. Lastly, have a lane to dump our cards that will be eaten by Carnage when we need space or Valkyrie for a steal on turn six.

Spider-Man is a real star in this deck, as we can play on all lanes at once. He should routinely find a lane to lock on turn five, and make it very easy to win while we can focus on the other one we need for complete victory.

Thanos can occasionally contribute as an 18 power card, but I wouldn’t play for it to happen, see it more as an opportunistic event.

Potential additions: Most of the time, Iceman would be the flexible card to remove. Spider-Man and Ka-Zar are great in the deck, but also not vital for the game plan.

• Devil Dinosaur: Another potential win condition on a lane, and a reward for not playing cards if our board is full.
• Mystique: With all locations and our hand likely full, we often get a +10 from her if we copy either Blue marvel or Devil Dinosaur.
• Okoye: She probably is unplayable past turn two or three, but offers sweet high rolls and an extra Beast target early on.
• Ant Man, Mojo: Nice Valkyrie and overall synergy, but feel a bit like overkill.
• Armor: Killmonger’s greatest foe.

Tier 3

Lockjaw On Reveal (Thanos Edition)

Lockjaw OnReveal (Thanos Edition)

Created by den

, updated 9 months ago

5