Marvel Snap Metagame Tier List, June 19th, 2023: SO. MANY. GOOD. DECKS.

Next week will mark a year since I started writing this weekly column. Over that year, I’ve covered many metagames, from the one-sided domination of Shuri Zero to the discovery era during the beta days. Even still, I don’t remember a time when we had so many good decks to play.

What started as the scary prospect of Evolved Lockjaw dominating like Thanos Lockjaw did earlier this year has slowly turned into an all-out brawl. Indeed, with Conquest now pushing players to adapt and find ways to counter the most popular archetype, Lockjaw brought back some decks able to rival its points such as Bounce and Iron Patriot. With these two in the mix, it gave a reason for reactive decks to see more play as well, as Killmonger and Enchantress now had more upside to them. Sera Control seems to be the best deck to include these two, alongside Shang-Chi, which is the Lockjaw counter card currently.

With this mix of super high potential decks fighting each other (and a few Control builds looking to detail their plans), Marvel Snap’s metagame looks to be wide open this week. There are five archetypes featured in Tier 1, which might be an all-time high if I remember correctly.

Let’s dive into each of these decks, and also take a look at Galactus since the Big Bad has been the center of attention as many try to figure out its real strength after being changed in the latest balance patch.

Happy Tier List, everyone!

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 3 or 4 in our chart and won’t have their own dedicated write up here but may be transferred to the main Tier List section. See those builds 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 are a notch below the dominant ones in Tier 1 and 2.

Marvel Snap Meta Tier List

With a difficult time against Evolved Lockjaw, and with most of the combo decks being rather discreet lately, Good Cards Wave lost a lot of its upside. As such, the deck’s play rate has fallen enough to pass below the required 1% threshold to appear in the rankings.

This doesn’t mean the deck has become a bad one, as it would be competing for a high placement in Tier 2 if we looked at cube rate only. Also, with Bounce and Sera picking up in play rate lately, Wave might have a reason to come back in the near future.

Tier Explanation

Tier 1

Evolved Lockjaw

Evolved Lockjaw

Created by den

, updated 3 months ago

1

1x Collection Level 1-14

1x 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)

1x Starter Card

4.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

5.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
Still the best deck in the game this week, and with a growing popularity as well. Evolved Lockjaw is starting to be challenged by Bounce and Iron Patriot in the points department. In order to help in those match ups, Killmonger has been slotted as the tech card instead of Dracula.

Spider-Ham could have an interesting impact on the deck. The card could possibly synergize with Lockjaw or push the deck to reuse The Infinaut since it basically cancels The Infinaut‘s condition.

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.

Without Lockjaw, Jubilee and Dracula will serve a similar purpose and try to cheat points for less than the usual amount of energy. 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. Make sure to play Jubilee before doing so if you have both cards available.

The first two turns of the game can be very quiet for a Lockjaw deck, as we aren’t looking to do much (which now feeds Evolved Hulk). On Turn 3, we will either look to have Lockjaw paired with Wasp, or Thor to shuffle Mjölnir into the deck. Turn 4 will typically be Jubilee or Dracula; Jubilee will be stronger behind Lockjaw while Dracula is good to set up on the board with Evolved Hulk or The Infinaut in hand already.

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 Doctor Doom or Evolved Hulk 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:
Dracula and The Infinaut are still played in lists that focus on developing as many points as possible, which could be an option against Bounce instead of Killmonger.

Sera Control

Sera Control

Created by den

, updated 3 months ago

0

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

2.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
A little behind last week as Galactus and Lockdown were extremely popular, Sera Control regained some momentum with more points focused decks showing up.

With Lockjaw weak to Shang-Chi, Bounce weak to Killmonger, and Patriot weak to Enchantress and Rogue, Sera has all the tools needed to counter the current metagame. This makes the deck able to keep its usual formula, playing safe until we get our match up card and racking up cubes along the way.

Invisible Woman is starting to gain a lot of momentum in the deck because it allows you to play your tech cards on curve, unlocking energy for Turn 6 to focus on Hit Monkey. Killmonger in particular does wonders when hidden behind The Fantastic Four superhero.

How to play:
This archetype relies on giving up priority going into the last turn, so it can punish the opponent with reactive cards like Shang-Chi and Killmonger. Ever since Hit Monkey joined the deck, it also unlocked a proactive pattern on Turn 6 with the monkey assassin able to challenge a lane with points rather than looking to counter what the opponent did.

Sera is at the core of this strategy as she allows reducing the cost of cards in your hand, strengthening your Turn 6 potential and making it worth to purposefully give the lead to your opponent. Note that losing priority doesn’t mean losing the game – we can be in the lead on a location and close on the other two. Since Sera only has four power, your opponent will typically have a stronger Turn 5 than you do and take back priority. This way, we don’t need to have an incredible Turn 6 or perfectly guess our opponent’s plays to win every game. Most of this deck’s strength relies on its ability to be able to stay as close as possible while not having priority, so our reactive cards are at their best.

Against an opponent you expect to play Wave, it is completely fine to skip Sera and go off on Turn 5. Kitty Pryde, Mysterio, and Hit Monkey will provide enough points, and then we can simply play Iron Lad or Shang-Chi on the following turn.

Invisible Woman is gaining traction in the deck, allowing you to play reactive cards on curve and opening more energy for Turn 6. The deck can hide Killmonger, Shang-Chi, and/or Hit Monkey behind her for their ability to trigger on Turn 6. Also, it can serve as a way to not get Kitty Pryde back in hand on Turn 5.

Potential Additions:
The more traditional way to build the deck still exists, with Zabu, Enchantress, Lizard, Silk, Sentinel, and other cards able to be slotted to match your way to play the deck or personal environment.

Bounce 🔼

Bounce

Created by den

, updated 3 months ago

0

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

2.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.5

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
The comeback kid of the week, Bounce took advantage of Lockjaw dominating the fray and heavily limiting Wave‘s impact in the metagame. As such, without any party poopers, Bounce was able to go back to its antics and develop a ton of points in a very flexible way. Also, Beast‘s change doesn’t seem to have impacted the deck’s overall potential so far, at least compared to the other high scoring decks in the metagame.

The return of this archetype could start a domino effect, with Good Cards Wave or Galactus taking advantage of the situation in the coming days.

How to play:
Bounce relies on replaying cheap cards several times through the use of Beast, Kitty Pryde, and Falcon, leading to several benefits:

• Their abilities can be great, such as Iceman. 
• They serve to buff cards like Angela or Bishop as they grow when you play more cards.
• It gives you an easy way to plan ahead of time because you don’t necessarily depend on your draw to use your energy. You can reuse cards already in play.
• You are much more flexible with your available space because you can remove cards and play others instead.
• Bounced cards are usually quite cheap, leading to very flexible turns down the line.

With Hit Monkey in the deck, Bounce also looks to keep those cheap cards in hand to have an explosive Turn 6 play. Through the Bounce mechanic, we are able to both play cards to buff Angela and Bishop during the game and also have them available to play alongside Hit Monkey.

Strategy wise, the deck wants to be as flexible as possible and only commit to lanes on Turns 5 and 6 in order to withhold as much information as possible from the opponent. Until this last turn, the deck will use Beast and Falcon to manage its hand and locations. The idea should be to abuse the abilities of our cards to disrupt the opponent while building the best hand possible going into the final turns.

Against an opponent you expect to play Wave, it is completely fine to go off on Turn 5. Kitty Pryde, Mysterio, and Hit Monkey will provide enough points on Turn 5, and we can simply play America Chavez on Turn 6.

Potential Additions:
Bounce is difficult to maneuver outside the more expensive cards. Here is another take on the archetype from LambySeries. Valkyrie was also experimented with in the list using Iron Man.

Bounce Bis

Created by den

, updated 3 months ago

0

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Starter Card

2.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Iron Patriot 🔼

Iron Patriot

Created by den

, updated 3 months ago

1

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Recruit Season

1x Starter Card

3.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
This was the other deck that took full advantage of Lockjaw being the deck to beat. In this version, Patriot included Dazzler as the finishing touch to allow the deck to take on anyone when it comes to sheer amounts of points.

Compared to the other high scoring archetypes, Patriot needs a bit of high roll to get there, either though Iron Lad or a location enabling you to play Onslaught early (so Ultron remains available). Still, Iron Man and Onslaught will always win the lane they are played on together, which is big since it means denying the opponent their biggest lane in the process. Also, the ability to get points on any kind of location through Debrii, Brood, Ultron… gives Patriot a little edge against the less flexible Bounce in that regard.

How to play:
Without a 1-Cost, this Patriot build is more passive than the traditional one. The idea is that the late game will be crazy enough to not need to invest early on, especially if we intend to use Ultron. With Invisible Woman joining the deck, we now have a way to protect Patriot as well as hide our deck a little, since one could simply play on one lane and let Ultron fill the other two on game’s end.

The biggest choice you have to make with this deck is which route you are looking to take: the proactive one, or the disruptive one. If you think you can beat your opponent in a points contest, and they can’t punish you for it, it is completely reasonable to reason based solely on how many points you can develop. Then, you will be looking to build around Patriot, Iron Lad, Iron Man, Onslaught, and other such high potential cards. This is particularly effective now that Invisible Woman can help hide some of our key cards.

Because of the many high rolls this deck can pull, it is important to be fearless about your Snaps and Retreats, even with Enchantress representing a scary prospect.

Potential Additions:
With Bounce back in action, Wave might be a consideration in the deck, or maybe even Killmonger.

Evolved Lockdown

Evolved Control

Created by den

, updated 3 months ago

0

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

3x Starter Card

3.2

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
While it remains a very strong deck in the current environment, Lockdown has been a bit of an after thought since Lockjaw took over. Currently, the deck is still able to annoy the returning Bounce and Sera, limiting their ability to use space as they wish. However, Lockjaw is still too popular to consider Lockdown a great deck.

Galactus lost a notable chunk of popularity, which also impacted the deck in some way. However, the Big Bad is starting to regain some strength in the metagame, so keep Lockdown in mind in the coming days.

How to play:
The whole point of the deck is to get a lane under control before Turn 6; then, Evolved Hulk can come in and take the necessary second lane. In that regard, Storm, Spider-Man, and Professor X work the same way they did in the previous Lockdown builds by reducing the space our opponent has available to play.

The new High Evolutionary package does push the deck towards a different play pattern, though, as several cards need some unspent energy. Indeed, in order to grow Evolved Hulk and Sunspot, as well as abuse Evolved Cyclops, the deck is looking to delay certain cards to end up with one energy left at the end of each turn.

Depending on your hand, whether you lean towards the more traditional Lockdown plan, or if you try to abuse Evolved Cyclops and Evolved Hulk, your play patterns should adapt.

Potential Additions:
Jeff the Baby Land Shark still competes with Daredevil for the 2-Cost slot in the deck, while Misty Knight is occasionally slotted as an extra 1-Cost instead of The Thing or Professor X.

Tier 2

High Evolutionary

High Evolutionary

Created by den

, updated 3 months ago

0

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

5x Starter Card

3.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
Posting one of its best weeks since Lockdown and Lockjaw clearly took over as the dominant archetypes around the card, High Evolutionary seems to like the current environment. Similar to Sera Control, its flexible slots are used to play counter cards, such as Enchantress, Wave, or Luke Cage. Apparently, this nets nice dividends in the current metagame.

However, considering Lockdown had a bit of a down week but still ranks higher, it begs the question as to why this archetype remains so popular. My guess is that having three open slots to work with is extremely valuable to a large part of the player base.

How to play:
High Evolutionary seems to push a proactive play style and tries to play cards while keeping unspent energy in the process. Ideally, the deck will be able to build a very strong lane in the first few turns on the back of Sunspot and Evolved Misty Knight, building our points total early on. Then, Wave can shut down any potential comeback when played on Turn 5 while Evolved Hulk dominates any lane on Turn 6.

Due to of its off-curve play style that typically looks to keep one unspent energy to trigger Evolved Misty Knight, Evolved Cyclops, and Evolved Hulk, the deck can be a bit awkward at first. Keep in mind that each point of unspent energy can be worth up to six total points if all your cards trigger their abilities. Here is a normal play pattern with the deck:

• Pass on Turn 1.
• Sunspot on Turn 2.
• Evolved Misty Knight or Luke Cage on Turn 3.
• Evolved Cyclops or Evolved The Thing on Turn 4. If you get a shot at discounting Evolved Abomination enough with Evolved Wasp, you should take it.
• Wave plus Evolved Abomination (or Evolved Misty Knight if still in hand). Play Wasp now if still in hand, otherwise Wave will make it unplayable.
• Evolved Hulk on Turn 6.

Although this looks suboptimal for many decks, the various synergies in the deck will make such out of sync play patterns worth it in the end.

Note that this kind of pattern is only worth going for if you have several cards that gain something from unspent energy. Otherwise, you should not purposefully waste resources for cards you are not guaranteed to get a return from.

Potential Additions:
Hazmat and Scorpion are popular inclusions in the build, and so is Nebula if you are not afraid of Killmonger. Tech card wise, I don’t see why you couldn’t change Enchantress for Shang-Chi, especially if you see Lockjaw a lot.

Sera Surfer

Sera Surfer

Created by den

, updated 3 months ago

0

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

8x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
For yet another week, Sera Surfer posts a solid performance while adapting its 3-Cost counter cards. Cosmo was the most popular inclusion this week; however, many other 3-Costs could be considered, especially with Bounce making a comeback as the archetype is notoriously weak to Shadow King.

How to play:
The deck follows a pretty simple play pattern that culminates into an explosive Turn 6 and hopefully catches the opponent off guard.

On Turns 2, 3, and 4, you will usually just play a card and focus on spending your energy efficiently and advancing your game plan. Apart from the Storm–Juggernaut duo on Turns 3 and 4, there aren’t many synergies going on. Look to play cards you won’t be able to fit in on Turns 5 and 6 but still need to have in play. Usually, Nova is better to be played on Turn 4 with more information available rather than on Turn 1. It also disguises our archetype from the opponent better.

Turn 5 will usually be a Sera play, if you can. If you don’t have Sera, it can be a 3-Cost plus a 2-Cost (Goose can lock a location from a big card being played by our opponent while barely impacting us). On the last turn of play, the deck has many play patterns. The general game plan is dumping two 3-Cost cards followed by Silver Surfer in order to surprise the opponent with power.

Potential Additions:
The choice of the right tech card seems to be the key to find success with Silver Surfer. One could either try to run several tech cards going in different directions, or invest several cards in the same direction and Snap aggressively in those match ups.

While you can cover various match ups with the basic Cosmo, Shadow King, and Rogue, Lockjaw forces you to play Shang-Chi to have a shot, so you might want to consider the 4-Cost package with Zabu, Wong, Absorbing Man, and Shang-Chi.

Discard Dracula 🔼

Discard Dracula

Created by den

, updated 3 months ago

1

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

4x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.5

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
In metagame focused around creating as many points as possible, Discard Dracula immediately feels more comfortable compared to when counter cards are around. Compared to Bounce and Lockjaw, the archetype is probably is little less flexible and also weaker to unplayable locations. Particularly, less of Wave means MODOK is safer to play, as we are less likely to be stuck with a bunch of Swarms in hand.

A typical discard comeback, as it is hard to count Dracula and Morbius out when it comes to dominating a location purely based on points.

How to play:
The Discard archetype relies on growing Morbius and Dracula out of proportion through the discard synergy. Most of the time, either of these two cards are able to challenge the lane they are played into on their own. Morbius can fall to Enchantress, which pushes you to support the card much more or not consider that lane a surefire win. On the other end, Dracula isn’t weak to any card in the metagame – its ability isn’t Ongoing, and protects itself from Shang-Chi as well. As such, whenever you have Apocalypse in hand and start discarding it, you can almost guarantee Dracula will be able to take over its location.

Last, we have two turns to discard as much as possible and develop points the old-fashioned way. Most discard oriented cards have solid power for their cost, so you can build a decent total through playing several of them in the same lane.

Discard’s biggest strength is also its most common weakness: It is pretty simple to understand. The hand manipulation part, and maximizing our odds of hitting the right card, are not such easy feats when you pick up the deck. However, the deck’s strongest points contributors are well known at this point. As such, it can often be difficult to get more than a cube out of a Morbius plus Dracula start if we did not Snap early. Similarly, your opponent should know to be careful if we start discarding Apocalypse, while they can feel better if Lady Sif discards MODOK instead.

Because the Discard deck gives the opponent a lot of information through showing the discarded cards, it is important to have an aggressive mindset, or we will regularly be forced to play by our opponent’s rules.

Potential Additions:
This week, the deck had both 1-Cost cards included, and Iceman was also featured in a few lists. Those could be extra discard abilities like Sword Master or Hellcow as well.

Galactus

Galactus

Created by den

, updated 3 months ago

0

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

4.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

5

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification:
After its change, Galactus took a few days break before coming back in various forms. Shuri first, then slotted as a tech card in archetypes we never saw it in before. Galactus eventually went back to its first love: a basic list aimed at playing the Big Bad safe and early. Professor X is the new inclusion in the deck as the card locks the location on Turn 5, benefiting a lot from the extra five power Galactus received.

For now, Galactus is performing worse than it did in the past. Nothing alarming, though, as it always takes a bit of time to adapt to a change, and many players are still experimenting around the card.

How to play:
At its core, a Galactus deck starts every game with the same goal: play Galactus as safely as possible. Once this critical step is completed, your deck should be built to crush a one lane battle using Death, Knull, Shuri, and other such cards to punish any opponent crazy enough to stay in the game.

In order to so, we have to look at three important components:

• We need an empty lane, maybe even two, if we want to keep the opponent guessing where Galactus could be played. The opponent’s side can have cards on it, that is not a problem.
• We need six energy, and we would like this to happen before Turn 6 so we can play points the turn after Galactus.
• We need Galactus to reveal and resolve.

The first two conditions are not so hard to fulfill as they mostly depend on us. Electro and Wave should take care of allowing Galactus to be played before Turn 6. As for the empty lane, it is important to pick the location we intend to play Galactus on as early as possible. Most of the time, the choice should happen on Turn 3 at the latest. Also, if you see a great location reveal first or second, feel free to play onto unrevealed locations. Even if they are punishing, you intend to destroy them anyway.

The last one is the deciding factor, and the difference between a win and loss. Indeed, Galactus is starting to be a well known card in Marvel Snap, and there are many ways for the opponent to disrupt our perfect setup on the turn we play