Marvel Snap Metagame Tier List, February 21st, 2023: Lockjaw Has a Lock on Week 2 of Into the Quantum Realm! Should Thanos be Nerfed?

Hi everyone! Welcome to our latest Marvel Snap Meta Tier List, where I take a look at the current state of the game and rank the most popular decks by breaking down their strengths in the current metagame.

Week two of the Into the Quantum Realm Season has been mostly about two decks – Thanos Lockjaw and Shuri Zero – and how other decks have adapted and tried to counter them. For now, it seems like Shang-Chi is able to keep Shuri Zero to a respectable win rate, but the lack of a clear answer to Lockjaw’s build has made it the best deck this week. Zabu Darkhawk drops in as the third-most dominating deck in the metagame when it comes to racking up cubes, but it is far from the others in terms of popularity.

In the lower tiers, several decks have had their popularity eaten by the established best performers and, as a result, have disappeared. Zabu Control, for example, has joined the Silent Performers category because the deck did not meet the requirements to be considered in the overall rankings. Patriot also seems to have disappeared, but another Ongoing archetype has replaced it: with Thanos at the helm, Ongoing Zoo is finally popular enough to have a good sample of games to look at. The rest of the metagame is very similar to last week; DeathWave and Discard eat most of the popularity below the Infinite rank and across players still collecting cards in Pool 3. Once in the Infinite ladder, or amongst players with numerous series 4 or 5 cards, there is more diversity, but Sunspot and She-Hulk appear in a ton of archetypes by serving as a safety net for energy waste.

Overall, week two has followed the logical path of a developing metagame. The bests decks are rising to the top and taking most of the spotlight. The big question now is whether we will be able to find a reliable counter for the top decks in order to keep the metagame fresh, with the alternative being the beginning of the stale part of the Quantum Realm season as the dominant decks stay put.

In order to be featured here, a deck needs to represent at least 1% of the current environment and have a positive cube average using data from our Marvel Snap Tracker. If a deck showed great performances with a very limited presence in the metagame, you can find it in the new “Silent Performers” section. There, I will highlight decks with an excellent cube per game ratio 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 4 in our chart and won’t have their own dedicated writeup here but may be transferred to the main Tier List section. See Tier 4 as decks that are good to know about, as you should face those when playing Marvel Snap. However, unless the metagame changes or a new variation of the build emerges, these decks aren’t noteworthy picks at the moment.

Marvel Snap Meta Tier List

Silent Performers of the Week

Disruption still exists and appears to be pretty strong when looking only at results. The problem with archetypes based on reaction or that look to deny their opponent’s game plan is their popularity. My assumption is that these decks are more complex to play, and then it’s fairly demoralizing when opponents start learning the play patterns because it takes a bit of time to play them comfortably. The need to recognize what your opponent is up to and anticipate the coming turns to create the perfect set up is, unfortunately, not as simple as playing a proactive deck.

Considering there are juggernauts like Lockjaw and Shuri around, it’s hard to fault someone for not playing a more complicated deck; however, I would highly recommend investing some time into them if you are done with your competitive goals because it looks like that may be where the metagame is heading.

Electro ramp is definitely easier than the other two, but it racks up cubes by playing an early Leech against every deck that isn’t Lockjaw Thanos and Shuri.

These three decks still seem worth investing some time into, though, as the results for Zabu Control are worthy of Tier 1 status while the other two would fall some somewhere near the bottom of Tier 2.

Tier Explanation

Tier 1

Lockjaw Thanos 🆕

Lockjaw Thanos

Created by den

, updated 1 month ago

8

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x 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

4.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

5.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Quantum Tunnel probably has a lot to do with Lockjaw Thanos taking the top spot in our ranking this week, even if the deck’s strength is undeniable. Compared to last week’s Shuri Zero, which dominated based on the sheer amount of points it could develop, Lockjaw Thanos feels much more flexible.

Don’t be fooled: Lockjaw Thanos is still able to develop a ton of points. It’s also able to mix various abilities in its game plan like Magneto, Leech, and Aero. Also, the way the deck develops its points is much sneakier since they can come from cheap units being played behind Lockjaw or from an explosive turn six, courtesy of She-Hulk plus Devil Dinosaur or Aero.

We will see how the deck performs when it doesn’t have 48 hours of being the absolute best due to a featured location, but it’s looking very solid right now.

How to play: The go-to game plan involves trying to summon big cards without actually paying for them or getting Leech very early in the game to disable the opponent’s hand.

The key factor in pulling this off lies in an awareness of what is left in your deck in order to maximize the chances of summoning a big card rather than an Infinity Stone. With that goal in mind, here is each Stone’s role in the deck:

• The Mind Stone removes some stones from your deck and leaves more big cards to hit.
• The Space Stone allows you to move a card from behind Lockjaw and abusing the cycling ability some more.
• The Time Stone allows you to gain an energy and skip a turn where you typically have no play (like turn four).
• The Reality Stone and the Soul Stone are utility cards, and their abilities depend on whether you need them in the matches where they appear.
• The Power Stone should be played behind Lockjaw if you don’t plan on using Thanos; otherwise, it’s best kept on board.

Potential additions: Part of what makes this the best deck of the week is its flexibility, so feel free to be creative with the flexible cards like Shang-Chi and Aero. Both are played for Shuri Zero, the other deck to beat currently. Adapt your deck if you are facing other decks more often.

Zabu Darkhawk

Zabu Darkhawk

Created by den

, updated 1 month ago

11

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Starter Card

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.9

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Most of the attention centered around Lockjaw Thanos and Shuri Zero this week, but Darkhawk is still amongst the strongest cards when looking at the cost to power ratio. Alongside Devil Dinosaur, the deck still fears Shang-Chi, but it can play with their power to try to avoid it. And, more importantly, Enchantress is nowhere to be seen.

I’m curious if Darkhawk has a chance at taking over the meta once he drops to Series 4 soon.

How To Play: The goal here is to be very efficient with our energy while also keeping our options open for the last few turns. We have three main win conditions: Darkhawk, Devil Dinosaur, and Shang-Chi, and Mystique could represent a fourth win condition if she copies either of our two huge Ongoing cards. When we find Zabu on turn two, we are able to keep Darkhawk and Mystique together for a turn six play, creating a solid one-two punch with Devil Dinosaur on turn five. Shang-Chi plus Darkhawk is another very strong turn six.

Without Zabu, we are a bit less explosive and usually rely on Mystique copying Devil Dinosaur with Agent Coulson to buff them both. We could also use Quinjet to cheat some energies on cards copied with Moon Girl. Lastly, you can adapt the deck to include a standalone win condition such as Doctor Doom, Aero, Magneto, or something similar.

The early game should serve as the foundation to these strong final turns. We can either:

• Develop our energy-cheating cards (Quinjet into Zabu into Moon Girl is downright stupid) for explosive turns later on.
• Work on taking initiative for Aero to be at her best if you include her in the deck, either by keeping a large hand (Sentinel, Agent Coulson, White Queen) for Devil Dinosaur or disrupting the opponent’s deck (Korg, Rockslide) for Darkhawk.

Overall, this deck revolves around playing every turn with the idea of advancing one or several of our win conditions. As such, the earlier you decide the direction you want to follow, the easier it will be to make informed decisions.

Potential additions: Through mixing both Darkhawk and Devil Dinosaur together, the deck doesn’t have that much room to work with. Shang-Chi is the flexible card, sharing the spotlight with Aero most of the time. Other late game bombs or tech cards could make sense in their place.

Shuri Zero

Shuri Zero (Sauron)

Created by den

, updated 2 months ago

19

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

8x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

3.6

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

5.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: If it was just a competition of which deck can develop the most points, Shuri Zero would probably have retained the top spot in the rankings. With Shang-Chi as the default tech card, though, there are too many matches where the deck can only dominate one lane, and it gets punished for coveting another one.

If the Armor + Cosmo list becomes more popular, that trend might change, and then Shuri Zero would likely go back to being the top dog in Marvel Snap.

How to play: The whole point of the deck is to overwhelm the opponent with impossible-to-match numbers, most of the time during the second part of the game. Ideally, one will play Shuri on turn four, Red Skull on turn five, and Taskmaster or Arnim Zola on turn six, leading to two 30-point monsters to contest two lanes and win the game. Because of this relative rigidity in the last three turns, Shuri Zero often needs to play its other cards before this point and can’t really hold too many resources in hand for a surprise later on.

While Red Skull is usually the go-to card on turn five, there are other, more flexible options to consider – even if they are worth a little less points. Aero, Doctor Octopus, and Vision represent cards that can mess with the opponent’s plan as well as being strong recipients to Shuri’s buff.

Lastly, because the deck is looking to abuse 5-cost cards most of the time, She-Hulk makes it worth to consider passing your turn on five and then slamming your 5-cost and She-Hulk together on six. This strategy is especially effective when you want to lose priority against an expected Shang-Chi or wait and see where your opponent plays their Galactus.

Potential additions: The archetype is quite flexible, although very centered around its theme. Here are directions you might want to explore, most of them coming in the first half of the match, to keep the Shuri into Red Skull into Taskmaster play pattern intact:

• Protective cards such as Cosmo and Armor to deny counter cards like Shang-Chi.
• Good early cards like Scorpion, Sunspot, or Iceman
• Other high power cards such as Attuma (Armor needed then).
• Counter cards which would still make sense in the deck, like Enchantress.

Tier 2

Thanos Ongoing Zoo 🆕

Thanos Ongoing

Created by den

, updated 1 month ago

2

2x Collection Level 1-14

5x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

2x Recruit Season

3.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Part of the Silent Performers last week, Thanos Zoo seems to have picked up in interest this week and collected enough data to give it some deserved recognition. Also, this clearly puts Thanos in the conversation for the best card in the current metagame as it finally has its second archetype represented by more than a mere fraction of the meta.

How to play: Compared to the previous Ongoing deck with Destroyer, this one clearly retains a very similar theme. However, Thanos makes it a little more complicated to navigate, especially because the Infinity Stone can quickly fill our side of the board and block some lanes for us. As such, be careful when playing the non-Ongoing stones, and consider holding them in hand if you have no precise reason to use up that space.

When it comes to winning lanes, the deck has three main angles of attack:

• Going big with Devil Dinosaur (and Cosmo for protection) alongside cheap support.
• Professor X on a lane that doesn’t seem to be contested by the opponent. Time Stone can help get Professor X out a turn early.
• Ant-Man, Mojo, and other cheap cards that are supported by Ka-Zar, Blue Marvel, and Spectrum.

Potential additions: Any card with Ongoing written on it could make sense in the deck. Turns five and six are definitely the most difficult to work around, as you will often want to play Spectrum if you have her in hand, and you are already packing several strong five-cost cards. Look for flexibility in the first few turns, such as Goose, Captain America, and others.

You can probably take a page from either the Valkyrie Control deck or Lockjaw Thanos as both decks run Thanos, so you should find cards that synergize with it.

Lockjaw Thor 🔽

Lockjaw On Reveal

Created by den

, updated 2 months ago

47

1x Collection Level 1-14

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

5.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Lockjaw Thanos really seemed to dominate this week, but Lockjaw Thor is very good if you don’t own the Series 5 card yet. The deck has a little less high roll potential since you can’t dump stones behind Lockjaw and use their abilities, but it still packs plenty of potential to win some games.

It could also be the Quantum Tunnel effect where the Stones felt completely cracked.

How to play: Based on its signature card, the deck aims to use cheap, weak cards behind Lockjaw in order to summon much stronger ones without paying the required energy. In that sense, Lockjaw’s lane is often very strong, and it is important to keep in mind how to win another one and not get caught up in abusing Lockjaw.

The first three turns of the game can be very quiet for a Lockjaw deck as we aren’t looking to do much. If you have Lockjaw in hand, you could even consider not playing Sunspot in order to cycle it for a bigger card later on. Ideally, the player would go all in on Lockjaw on turn five and dedicate turn three to Thor so there’s time to find Mjölnir. This opens turn four to play Dracula or Jubilee, both good cards to anchor a location. We’ll usually throw the cheap cards behind Lockjaw in the last two turns, so Dracula isn’t so difficult to abuse in the deck.

Once in the final two turns of the match, the goal is to think about our best outcomes and how we can high roll enough to win the game. If ahead, a simple Magneto play could be enough to secure the win. If behind, it is important to know the chances of winning Lockjaw’s lane based on what is left in our deck while counting how big we can get Thor and Dracula to challenge the second lane.

Potential additions: It feels hard to really change anything in the deck, apart from replacing a card for another one with a similar role. The most flexible slots are probably the big cards you are looking to cheat out, or Nightcrawler if you want to include a cheap On Reveal effect instead (like Iceman‘s).

Galactus

Galactus

Created by den

, updated 1 month ago

3

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

4.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: It feels like most players enjoying Galactus are trying to mix things up to disguise their true potential lately, which makes the Galactus archetype a bit of a mess to understand completely. There are even lists that aim to play Galactus on turn six and create a huge Wolverine before that point to contest the remaining lane. Nonetheless, it seems to work out quite well, and Galactus remains a strong contender in the current metagame.

The big problem to solve is Aero; the card often completely negates Galactus when played with priority. Cosmo showing up in some decks to protect from Shang-Chi is another problem Galactus needs to solve in order to contend for Tier 1.

How to play: In this iteration of Galactus, there are two main play patterns to get to the promise land:

• The traditional early Galactus thanks to Wave and Electro, and then winning over the sole lane.
• Zabu → Wong → Shuri → Wolverine or Hobgoblin → Galactus on six with the support of the super buffed card.

Potential Additions:

There are a lot of Galactus lists around these days, so it’s hard to give precise replacements for the archetype. It really depends on how you envision the path towards playing Galactus for maximum efficiency. I would recommend typing “Marvel Snap Galactus” on Twitter and looking at the various ideas players have come up with.

DeathWave

DeathWave

Created by den

, updated 2 months ago

31

5x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: DeathWave keeps its place among the most popular decks in the game, especially in the 80 – 100 rank range. In that specific part of the ladder, the deck seems to do quite well, and with Thanos‘s rise in popularity, Killmonger has gained a ton of value (including reducing Death to zero very easily). Once you start going a little higher on the ladder, though, you should be met with the Sunspot + Armor duo once again, and the deck sees its cube average plummet.

Varied results dependent on which part of the ladder you look at seems to indicate that DeathWave is a good “middle of the pack” deck.

How To Play: The whole point of the deck is to get two destroy effects while having reveal priority going on 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 signature cards like Bucky Barnes, Deathlok, and Carnage.

Turn five should be a Wave play and nothing else. If we have She-Hulk in hand, the card will be a 2-Cost on the next turn and can be paired with Aero or America Chavez. If we manage 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 is usually the way we get our four destructions in time.

Outside this basic play pattern, the deck is quite flexible and is able to develop points even without drawing into Wave. The destroy synergy shines especially well when it comes to cleaning up annoying cards that appear on our side of the board.

Potential additions: The deck usually rotates through four different 1-Cost cards: Nova, Yondu, The Hood, and Squirrel Girl, and each has its own merits. Moon Girl is a notable inclusion, as duplicating She-Hulk or Death often opens some crazy strong turns.

Tier 3

Discard Dracula

Discard Dracula

Created by den

, updated 1 month ago

13

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

3.6

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: It doesn’t seem like the Discard synergy can push past Tier 3 for now, as the inflexibility towards the various locations holds the archetype back too much. Also, Leech in the Lockjaw Thanos deck seems to be an instant retreat for discard, while Shang-Chi taking out a big Morbius isn’t the best feeling either.

There is definitely a need for Discard to find a way to be more unpredictable, or at least more flexible, for one of the most popular decks below the Infinite rank to get higher in the rankings.

How To Play: The deck relies on a simple spread of its points:

• Dracula takes care of a lane as long as you have Apocalypse in hand.
• Morbius takes care of another lane as long as you have MODOK activate.
• The third lane serves for Lockjaw cycling through your Discard effects.

Lockjaw can be played on turn five, especially if you can discard Swarm with Colleen Wing on turn two and get Lockjaw online right away. Otherwise, turn two and four are locked for Morbius and Dracula, and turn five is often M.O.D.O.K.’s turn if you have him. As such, you really only have turn six to be flexible in what you want to play, and you will usually devote that to playing Chavez and free Swarms if you used MODOK the previous turn.

This big lack of flexible plays can feel bad, but it does help with quickly visualizing your chances in the upcoming game. See it as a chance to snap early in the game with solid information, before you start revealing your threats to your opponent.

Potential additions: The iteration above is mostly focused on discarding as much as possible and growing both Morbius and Dracula. You can take out a few discards to include some tech cards if you wish, although the deck really seems to be about high rolling its key cards often.

Negative Zabu 🔽

Negative Surfer

Created by den

, updated 1 month ago

0

2x Collection Level 1-14

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Recruit Season

1x Starter Card

3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

1

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: It seems the Surfer List has prevailed over the other builds centered around Mister Negative, even if the results aren’t particularly stellar. For now, the ability to snap hands with a turn three Mister Negative seems enough to keep the deck above water in the cube average department. The win rate for the deck, though, is by far the worst this week at only 42% in our data.

How To Play: If you can, your first three turns will always include Bast on turn one and Mister Negative on turn three. With this start, you open a world full of possibilities in the second portion of the game. You will also want to snap with such an opening and focus on how the opponent could counter what is coming when you use your negatived cards.

If you don’t get the cost reduction, you can play a 3-cost card and still play Mister Negative on turn four, then continue with your basic game plan. There aren’t many proactive plays in this particular build, but with Discard taking over 20% of the metagame right now, Rogue on an opposing Morbius is pretty sweet. Feel free to include Bishop or Mister Fantastic in the list otherwise to help with that problem.

If you don’t draw into Mister Negative, there are very few play patterns that deserve staying in the game; taking the one-cube loss and moving on is often safer. If you feel like gambling, here are a few ideas:

• Zabu on two -> Wong on three -> Mystique on four -> Psylocke on five alongside a three cost. You should have 10 energy for the last turn, enough to play Brood, Silver Surfer, and another 3-cost card.
• Use Psylocke on turn four to get six energy on both turn five and six. This allows playing a total of five 3-cost cards in the game, and if one is Brood that may be enough to challenge two lanes.
• Brood on three → Wong on four → Iron Man behind Wong on five → Mystique and Silver Surfer with Wong and Iron Man on six. You get 32 on that lane and 18 simply from Brood being buffed twice.

Potential additions: Magik and Blue Marvel are the two cards worth mentioning, outside of playing around with the 3-cost cards. In that category, proactive cards are the most necessary, such as Bishop and Mister Fantastic. Rogue was included last week, but doesn’t seem as good right now, and the deck can’t only be about cards to play late in the game.

Closing Words

Even if it seems like the best decks are difficult to dethrone without specifically targeted tech cards, the metagame mostly feels like build-around card packages rather than rigid twelve card deck lists. As such, there are a lot of ways to bring your touch to an archetype instead of being forced to play the most popular deck the same way everyone else plays it. This particular point in the current Marvel Snap metagame feels very satisfying and can lead to rewarding deckbuilding choices, even when playing one of the most popular decks in the game.

Another interesting topic is the role of disruptive archetypes in the current environment. Shang-Chi has already established himself as a premium tech card against Shuri Zero, and Zabu Control performs extremely well despite its lower popularity. With Lockjaw and Thanos taking on a larger role this week, I am very curious if the “Junk” archetype (featuring decks built around Debrii, Viper, and Green Goblin) could gain some traction by polluting lanes enough to be a reliable counter. I guess we will have to wait for next week to find out.

As usual, you can find the whole Marvel Snap Zone crew on Discord if you need anything. You can also contact me directly on Twitter for questions or inquiries.

Good Game Everyone.