Table of Contents
The current metagame could be viewed as a rock-paper-scissor kind of situation after the OTA patch on Thursday, April 27th. Indeed, with Enchantress buffed and Sandman nerfed, Electro Sandman and Patriot, two of the previously dominant decks, have suffered a huge blow. Here is what the situation looks like right now:
- Sera and Wave based decks are running Enchantress in order to limit Sandman and completely shatter Patriot.
- Electro Sandman feels much weaker, but with so many combo oriented decks it remains a valid option in the metagame.
- Patriot took a huge blow, but continues to be viable thanks to Electro Sandman still being in the discussion.
For now, it seems like the Sera and Wave decks are making the most of the situation; both have the best play rate and the best cube rate of the archetypes here. In addition, those decks can adapt against Electro Sandman with the inclusion of Iceman and Jeff the Baby Land Shark. In comparison, Electro Sandman has a much harder time adapting to Patriot, and if it wasn’t for the Enchantress buff the deck might have completely disappeared by now.
As for Patriot, the deck is now running Cosmo instead of Super-Skrull to fight against Enchantress, but it definitely has a steep road ahead to climb back to a contender’s status. If Electro Sandman cannot fight its way back into being a top tier deck, Patriot shouldn’t have many reasons to be considered one either in the near future.
With this rather easy to read situation taking place, my personal interest this week was towards the emerging decks. The same way Dino Darkhawk surprised everyone last week, Lockjaw Thor found its way to post an incredible cube rate since the OTA patch. I would attribute this success to Lockjaw Thor being a solid proactive deck without any weakness to Enchantress, alongside the ability to play big cards when Sandman is in play.
The other synergy making a bit of a comeback is Discard as the Apocalypse build climbed to Tier 2, and Hela managed to be popular enough to be considered a metagame deck. If the success of the Apocalypse build is just the result of being an archetype easy to figure out after a balance patch, Hela owns a large part of its success to not caring much about Sandman.
Overall, this small balance change mostly helped the proactive archetypes as they are the easiest ones to figure out. With the new season starting soon, and with how good several of the cards released in May are looking to be, Marvel Snap is looking to shape into an extremely difficult game to figure out from a counter perspective. As such, I believe archetypes with their own game plan that naturally include some form of disruption such as Wave, Galactus, or Enchantress will be the ones to beat for the upcoming months. The challenge will be to find how to do so fast enough, as everything could change from one week to the next.
I personally have a ton of fun when things aren’t so easy to figure out. I believe it gives a chance for unexpected decks to rise, and forces us to think outside the box to gain an edge over the competition. Hopefully this report can help you do so, or at least give you a better perspective on how to attack the current environment and make the best of it.
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 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 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
| Tier | Deck | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | Sera Control | Guide |
| Tier 1 | Lockjaw Thor 🔼 | |
| Tier 2 | DeathWave | Guide |
| Tier 2 | DoomWave | Guide |
| Tier 2 | Sera Surfer 🔽 | |
| Tier 2 | Dino Darkhawk 🔽 | |
| Tier 2 | Galactus | Guide |
| Tier 2 | Discard 🔼 | |
| Tier 2 | Electro Ramp 🔽 | Guide |
| Tier 3 | Thanos Lockjaw 🔽 | Guide |
| Tier 3 | Thanos Control Junk 🆕 | Guide |
| Tier 3 | Bounce | Guide |
| Tier 3 | Patriot 🔽 | Guide |
| Budget | Handsize Destroy | |
| Budget | Ongoing | |
| Budget | Sandman Kazoo | Guide |
| Budget | Control |
Silent Performers of the Week
Similar to what is happening with the most popular decks, the silent performers are a pair of explosive and combo-oriented decks.
The Toxic Sera build could be considered just a variant of the popular Sera control archetype, which easily explains why it is performing well enough to be considered a performer. Nevertheless, I had to show respect to the ingenuity at display here as this build as found a way to focus on one lane instead of two on Turn 6. It might not seem like a big deal, but one of Sera‘s biggest weakness is the fact that you often give up priority going into the final turn. Even if the deck is built to function this way, it still opens the way for your opponent to play counter cards like Cosmo, Armor, or Aero with priority. When one of those counter cards lands and ruins the plan you had on a lane, it can cost you the game.
With Omega Red in the mix (and Enchantress to remove the negative ongoing abilities of Typhoid Mary and Lizard), the deck is now able to focus on winning a sole lane rather than two on Turn 6 – just don’t Enchantress your Omega Red. For the other lanes, use the Hazmat plus Luke Cage duo in order to reduce the opponent’s points.
When Zabu and Sera are both in play, you can dump Enchantress, Omega Red, Hazmat, and Luke Cage all together on Turn 6.
The other deck featured this week is going to be my new favorite gimmick deck from the look of it. As usual with Mister Negative, the win rate is quite disappointing, around the 45% mark. However, the cube rate would have placed the deck in Tier 2, right behind both Wave decks. You probably get the idea simply looking at the deck. The goal is to use Mister Negative to unlock one of the deck’s combos, either Knull plus Arnim Zola, a Turn 5 Galactus (also doable with Psylocke), or the Wong, Black Panther, and Arnim Zola synergy.
I have a hard time believing the deck is balanced enough to be a real threat in the metagame. Still, as long as it remains niche, it seems like a great way to catch an opponent completely off guard and have a lot of fun doing so.
Tier Explanation
Tier 1: Tier 1 represents decks with all the upsides we would be looking for to rack up Cubes. They have good match ups in the current metagame, offer different play patterns during a match, and often have the ability for explosive or surprising turns. These should be decks worth investing into in order to climb for the coming week.
Tier 2: Tier 2 are very good decks but with a weakness holding them back – either not being as reliable in its draws as Tier 1 decks, countered by another popular deck, or still being a work in progress as you read this. A good pilot could probably take these and have the same results as with a Tier 1 deck, but their play patterns are more difficult to enact compared to the Tier above.
Tier 3: This tier is made of decks that have a pervasive issue compared to Tier One or Two decks. Usually, Tier 3 will be a mix of decks on the rise which don’t have much data about themselves, old archetypes on the decline, decks that require substantial experience and/or knowledge to pilot properly, powerful decks that aren’t well positioned, or niche decks.
Tier 4: Off-meta decks that have fallen off in recent times.
Budget: Decks that consist only cards in Pool 1 and 2 but are still capable of competing with an experienced pilot in a similar Collection Level, Rank, and MMR range. See our matchmaking guide for more details.
Meta stats and analytics directly from our Marvel Snap Tracker can also be found here. Version 3 now out!
Tier 1
Sera Control
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Rank Justification: Unarguably, the biggest winner of this week’s OTA balance patch. Sera control received two nice boosts with Enchantress and Sandman being changed. Almost immediately after the patch went live, the popularity of the deck began soaring, quickly approaching what it was before the Sandman buff. As I’m writing this, Sera Control is one of the most popular decks in Marvel Snap, and it seems to represent a great pick to start the new season. Especially as Killmonger is already included in the build and it can deal with Nebula, the next Season Pass card.
Electro Ramp and Wave based decks still exist, and they represent the best ways to mitigate Sera‘s game plan. Nevertheless, Electro Ramp lost more than 5% popularity already, and Wave based decks aren’t as limiting as Sandman can be. It isn’t the perfect environment for Sera to shine, but it is still a much better landscape than it was before Thursday.
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, Enchantress, 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.
Potential Additions: The Hit Monkey, Mysterio, Angela, and Bishop package is the flexible part in the deck. Scarlet Witch, Maximus, Polaris, and other such standalone, strong early cards should fit perfectly as replacements.
Lockjaw Thor 🔼
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Rank Justification: Very discreet in the last few weeks, Lockjaw Thor was largely eclipsed by Thanos Lockjaw archetypes for the majority of the season. Especially after Lockjaw‘s nerf, the archetype had disappeared and only started making a comeback this week. First, it was Jeff the Baby Land Shark joining the deck that felt like a good improvement. Jeff joins Nightcrawler as a cheap, flexible tool to use in the deck. Then, the balance patch also helped the deck as Lockjaw doesn’t care much about Enchantress, and it has been facing many decks that removed Shang-Chi in order to include the newly buffed card instead.
As usual with these types of comebacks, take the results with a grain of salt. The deck becoming popular could entice more people to adapt to it as well. Until the metagame adapts, though, feel free to abuse the mighty power of cards like Dracula, Lockjaw, and Jubilee, and get some massive amounts of points on the board.
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 Nightcrawler in order to cycle it for a bigger card later on. Ideally, the player would go all in on Lockjaw on Turn 5 and dedicate Turn 3 to Thor so there’s time to find Mjölnir. This opens Turn 4 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:
Jeff is very likely the card one would miss in order to build this deck. Not to worry, it can easily be replaced with Sunspot, Iceman, or Vision. Similar to the big cards atop the curve, you can play around with other cards and include Doctor Doom and Odin, for example, instead of Magneto and Giganto. You might want to reconsider Dracula if you lower the power of your biggest cards.
Tier 2
DeathWave
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Rank Justification: As Armor keeps on refusing to come back as a staple 2-cost card, DeathWave keeps climbing the rankings. With less of Sandman to cancel the deck’s very explosive Turn 6 and more Sera decks to annoy with Wave, the archetype has become one of the best ladder deck to run.
Cosmo is making a bit of a comeback in the Ongoing archetypes, which can be a problem at times. Focus on gaining priority in the first two turns (which Squirrel Girl does very well), and you shouldn’t have too many bad surprises.
How to play:
The whole point of the deck is to get at least two destroy effects while having reveal priority going into Turn 6. 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 Bucky Barnes, Deathlok, and Carnage.
Turn 5 should be a Wave play and nothing else if we have She-Hulk in hand. The card will become a 2-cost on the next turn and can be paired with anything else. Without She-Hulk, you can play other cards as well. 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: Shang-Chi probably is the first card you would want to include in this deck, or maybe Enchantress if you are still facing a lot of Patriot decks. America Chavez can also be a consideration for consistency purposes.
Right now, Doctor Doom feels great in the deck as the last spot to add some flexibility, and Aero is needed to beat Galactus, so it is difficult to know what to remove if you want to include another card.
DoomWave
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Rank Justification: Without Armor to disrupt the Destroy synergy, Wave was mostly hanging out with Death this week. However, the more flexible build remains a great option to climb the ladder. The archetype is more flexible than DeathWave, allowing you to easily slot in tech cards like Enchantress and adapt to the various match ups.
A key to succeed with this deck is to be smart with your tech card choices. Right now, Enchantress took most of the spotlight with her recent buff. Still, as the amount of Ongoing decks on ladder is reducing, Shang-Chi might be more appealing as time passes. One could also try to run both in the deck, removing either Lizard or Jeff the Baby Land Shark to get the extra space.
How to play:
The deck’s bread and butter is the Turn 5 and 6 play pattern using Wave followed by She-Hulk plus another big card. Enchantress is a consideration when the card is able to turn a lane around as well.
In order to make sure this late game sequence locks the game for good, we need to be ahead on Turn 5. Then playing only Wave won’t represent such a sacrifice since we need to keep two energy saved for She-Hulk to be a 2-cost card on Turn 6. Once every card costs four, we should be in the driver’s seat to lock the game, either going big on a location or spreading our points.
In order to take the lead in the first four turns, we have the usual good cards suspects at every energy cost. The way you want to spread your points early in the game should depend on whether you anticipate going for America Chavez, Darkhawk, or Doctor Doom late in the match. The former options would push for building two solid locations, which we can add power to with She-Hulk plus the other card. Doctor Doom, on the other hand, allows us to win close and contested lanes on the last turn and is fine with seeing you spread your points around.
Potential additions: Jeff the Baby Land Shark has proven to be great in the deck, but can be replaced with Armor, Iceman, Cosmo, or Polaris to name a few. Consider this slot as the flexible one to include an extra tech card, or a solid early game play.
Sera Surfer 🔽
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Rank Justification: Just like DeathWave and DoomWave had a great time after the OTA balance patch, Sera‘s second popular archetype performed really well overall. More than anything, the deck managed to remove Rogue as the Ongoing decks were reducing after the patch, which opened a slot to play more points. This gave the deck a better fighting chance against the more flexible decks since it is hard to simply try to pack a counter card.
Out of the top four decks this week, Sera Surfer might be the one to be worried about the most. Indeed, Cosmo is slowly returning in several archetypes to mitigate Enchantress‘s popularity, and this will hurt Silver Surfer‘s ability to develop its game plan reliably.
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.
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: A lot of 3-cost cards can enter the deck and make sense. Feel free to play around with the abilities you think are valuable to the deck’s success. If we want to go for another route, Zabu can allow us to play some 4-costs along with our Silver Surfer game plan. Zabu plus Sera even allows us to play them for two energy on Turn 6 with our other 3-cost cards.
Dino Darkhawk 🔽
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Rank Justification: The first archetype on our list to suffer from the Enchantress buff, Dino Darkhawk quickly limited its losses as it is a much more flexible archetype compared to Patriot. Some versions of the build are already running Cosmo, which now seems to be a staple in the deck.
With more counters running around, Dino Darkhawk was forced to cut the more flexible inclusions such as Doctor Doom and Aero, instead focusing on protecting the core of its game plan. It makes sure the points ceiling is protected, but it can also lead to the deck struggling to abuse the locations in the game as a downside.
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, while Mystique could represent a fourth win condition if she copies either of our two huge Ongoing cards.
When we find Zabu on Turn 2, we are able to keep Darkhawk and Mystique together for a Turn 6 play, creating a solid one-two punch with Devil Dinosaur on Turn 5. Shang-Chi plus Darkhawk is another very strong Turn 6.
Without Zabu, we can rely on Moon Girl to create a second Devil Dinosaur for example, or and still have a strong pattern with White Queen → Devil Dinosaur → Mystique plus Cosmo.
Potential additions: While the deck is currently forced to play Cosmo as the tech card, Dino Darkhawk is usually quite the adaptable archetype. Cards like Doctor Doom, Aero, Agent Coulson, or Iceman to name a few, can easily be slotted in the deck.
Galactus
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Rank Justification: Galactus had a good week overall as less of Patriot meant that at least Debrii was out of the picture. Also, with proactive decks apparently the most common pick across the board in a new environment, Galactus should see less of the common problems like Storm and Professor X as well.
Among the current popular decks, Goose and Polaris in Sera Surfer, alongside Aero in DeathWave, are probably the cards to look out for, in addition to Cosmo making a comeback because of Enchantress being everywhere. Speaking of Enchantress, the card could be a problem for Knull if the opponent does not have priority, but this seems relatively easy to play around and not impact the deck overall.
How To Play:
At its core, a Galactus starts every game with the same goal every time: 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, Shang-Chi and 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 Galactus. Here are some cards to keep in mind:
- Polaris, Debrii, Green Goblin, Titania, or Viper can get a card to the Galactus lane before it reveals.
- Juggernaut and Aero can move Galactus to a lane that would not be empty.
- Cosmo and Goose can deny the ability to play Galactus on a lane, or most of our cards afterward.
- Professor X locks the lane and wins the one on one against Galactus.
Usually, one of the ways to play around those cards would be to seize priority going into the Galactus turn. In this build, we will use Daredevil and Kang in order to gain information on where to place Galactus.
Potential additions: High power cards early in the match can help with the priority problem. Ebony Maw, Lizard, or Cloak are good inclusions in that regard.
As for cards in order to synergize with Galactus even more, Wolverine and Hobgoblin are two popular inclusions.
Discard 🔼
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Rank Justification: Although the loss of Lockjaw seemed like a difficult one to overcome, Discard gained quite a bit of momentum after Thursday’s patch. First, less of Sandman means the deck can finally play with Swarm again, and it isn’t forced to play the card whenever the opponent has five energy. Then, the chaotic environment following the changes also seemed to be great for a deck that has been around forever and wasn’t involved at all in the patch. As such, Discard represented a nice comfort pick for a lot of players. It managed to rise in both play rate and cube average this week.
The battle between Enchantress and Cosmo could lead to the deck suffering a bit as Morbius is an Ongoing ability while the rest of the deck is On Reveal.
How to play:
There are three ways to win over a lane with this deck, the goal being to use two during the course of the match:
- Sunspot or Morbius into Storm on Turn 3. We lock the lane early on and can manipulate our points to make sure it’s ours.
- Dracula remains our biggest points contributor and should be able to challenge a lane almost on its own with Apocalypse in hand.
- Cards like Colleen Wing, Sword Master, and MODOK can quickly add up to a nice total when played on the same location.
We still retain Swarm‘s explosive ability, alongside Wolverine being an extra summon when discarded. With Wave being a popular card currently, don’t be too greedy with your Swarm; holding it going into Turn 6 could be a disaster.
Potential additions: Here is another way to build the deck with Sunspot and Storm included:
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Electro Ramp 🔽
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Rank Justification: As expected when a core card is impacted in a balance patch, Electro Ramp took quite a hit with Sandman losing two power. The deck still remains a deck to consider in the current metagame since its ability to limit the explosive potential of many of the top archetypes this week is second to none.
Even if losing two power might seem like a minor setback, the need to develop points early on and be on point with Snaps and Retreats has intensified. Especially against decks like Sera Control, you know the opponent will not stay in the game once you play Sandman, so it is important to Snap early to make those wins count. On the other end, against decks able to develop a lot of points, we can’t really enter a shootout unless we have close to a perfect hand.
How to play:
Electro Ramp relies on very simple concepts, and it’s usually a deck that is great for players struggling with flexible play-patterns.
At its core, the deck is trying to play Electro on Turn 3 and then go on a 5-6-6-cost pattern for the three remaining turns. For example, the Sandman → Doctor Doom → Odin pattern has been the deck’s bread and butter for a while.
If you are against an opponent which can challenge you playing only one card a turn, then you want to go for a more proactive approach. Devil Dinosaur, Magneto, and other such cards will be more powerful, instead of trying to win with Sandman locking the game.
Potential additions: Sunspot, Lizard, or Armor are still valuable early cost cards in the deck.
If you don’t have Jeff the Baby Land Shark, Jubilee probably needs to go as well. Then you can either add another early game card to help with points or try another impactful card such as Vision, Aero, or Leader.
Tier 3
Thanos Lockjaw 🔽
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Rank Justification: Although it remains a popular and strong deck in the tournament metagame (where a more risky play style seems to pay off), Thanos Lockjaw is still struggling to be its old self on the ladder and seems plagued to be an unreliable deck.
This weakness can be mitigated by a good pilot who knows the deck well enough to Snap the good situations and be careful during the bad ones. Still, for most players on the ladder who are looking to find a deck they could quickly build comfort with and start ranking up immediately, Thanos Lockjaw doesn’t seem to be the deck to pick.
This week, the non-Thanos deck had much better results for a similar play rate. My guess is that the Thor variant is easier to navigate as it holds less information overall. In the end, both decks have a similar points ceiling, and Thanos Lockjaw could even be considered much more flexible as a deck.
How to play:
With Lockjaw‘s nerf, the way to approach the deck has changed a bit:
- We can’t just have a turn where we dump cards behind Lockjaw and then focus on the other locations. We have to work incrementally, turn by turn, behind Lockjaw unless we want cards to stay behind Lockjaw.
- We need to spend one energy per turn to play behind Lockjaw if we wish to use its ability. There are turns where spending that energy can completely shut down our other options, especially in a deck built with so many high cost cards.
- Leech has left the deck, meaning we won’t have the free games it provided with its ability. It’s important to be competitive on two locations now and not just rely on Lockjaw pulling a free win.
With those changes, the bad draws with the deck feel particularly bad, as one can feel like the deck is worthless. Once you work out how to spend your energy to develop your other locations while feeding Lockjaw, the high rolls still happen often enough.
Potential Additions: Leech and Vision are among the cards I have seen the most in the build after Aero and Devil Dinosaur. One could also look for an extra cheap card, usually Iceman, which would replace She-Hulk most of the time.
Thanos Control Junk 🆕
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Rank Justification: For the past few weeks, the Control archetype had a very difficult time on the ladder, as both Patriot and Electro Sandman were difficult match ups. After the patch, the metagame has opened a bit, and the disruptive game plan found more opponents likely to be annoyed by the Junk play style.
In particular, the buff to Enchantress helped this deck a lot as Valkyrie typically gets countered by Ongoing abilities. Also, not representing six power, Enchantress is a strong consideration in the deck because it can contribute in the points department as well as cancel important abilities for the opponent.
How to play: The goal with this deck is to find a way to lock a lane by Turn 5 so we can dedicate our full attention to the other lane we covet on Turn 6. In order to lock that first lane, we can either fill our opponent’s side with “junk” such as The Hood, Green Goblin, pulling cheap cards with Polaris… Or use the Time Stone to play Professor X on Turn 4. Blue Marvel can support that lane later on with its ability if you have locked a lane you are a few points behind on.
Once that first lane is under control, you can try to lock the second one with Spider-Man or compete for points. Devil Dinosaur and Thanos can add up to a lot of points on the same lane. Otherwise, Valkyrie and Titania (or the Demon from The Hood) can usually turn over a lane without Ongoing effects on it.
Potential additions: A lot of cards can fit the bill in a reactive archetype, as these are a lot about adapting to the environment:
- Debrii, Storm, Stegron, and Spider-Woman are other cards you can use to limit your opponent.
- Enchantress, Shang-Chi, and Cosmo can serve to counter specific synergies.
- Jeff the Baby Land Shark and Carnage are flexible cards to consider in the deck.
Bounce
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Rank Justification: Bounce is delighted to see less of Sandman in the metagame, but it still has to deal with Wave and Killmonger a lot, unfortunately. As a result, the deck improved a bit after the balance changes, but not as much as other decks in the higher tiers.
Overall, it feels like Bounce has reached the peak of its gimmick for now while other decks do the same thing more flexibly. For example, Sera Control manages to abuse Hit Monkey, while DoomWave uses Darkhawk really well. As such, Bounce feels worthy of being considered if you like that specific play style – and are willing to spend time mastering the archetype. Otherwise, it feels like most of the tools representing the core of the Bounce archetype have found other ways to be abused in the competitive environment.
How to play:
Bounce relies on replaying cheap cards several times through Beast and Falcon, leading to several benefits:
- Their abilities can be great, such as Iceman and The Hood. Korg, for example, feeds Darkhawk and disrupts the opponent’s deck each time you replay it.
- 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 as you can remove cards to play others instead.
- Bounced cards are usually quite cheap, leading to very flexible turns down the line.
With Hit Monkey joining the archetype, Bounce now also looks to keep those cheap cards in hand for an explosive Turn 6 play. Through the bounce mechanic, we are able to both play those cards to buff Angela and Bishop during the game and have them available to play alongside Hit Monkey.
Potential additions: The most flexible parts of the deck are Black Widow, Korg, and Darkhawk, which can be changed for more standalone cards. Valkyrie, Scorpion, Shang-Chi, Carnage, Ka-Zar, Iron Man, and Viper could all be considered depending on how you prefer playing the deck.
Patriot 🔽
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Rank Justification: Completely dismantled by the Enchantress buff, Patriot quickly started to include Cosmo in order to stay afloat. While it seems to have kept to a decent play rate, the cube rate has plummeted back to what Patriot was before the Sandman buff gave the archetype a match up to abuse.
With the balance patch, Patriot was punished twice. First, when Electro Sandman was nerfed, since that was Patriot‘s bread and butter when it came to building a strong case for being a contender in the metagame. Then, with Enchantress being brought back into everyone’s mind – and buffed – there was no excuse not to include it in most decks.
How to play:
At its core, Patriot is a points-based deck looking to develop as many as possible across the three locations. Most of the time, because Patriot and his best friend Mystique are worth very few points, the deck will abandon the location where these cards are played. In exchange, the other locations should be very strong, as all the cards there receive a solid +4 power buff.
Depending on the opponent, you might also want to balance your points and have Patriot and Mystique on different lanes. This can be done to avoid a disastrous Enchantress, or simply because you believe you have a higher ceiling than your opponent and want to force them into investing into each lane to win it.
Strategy wise, most of the thinking will be done based on what is in your hand since the deck isn’t exactly flexible. You will, of course, have different ways to build your turns, but the end result should be the same, meaning the emphasis is on how to get there. In that regard, there are a few questions one needs to ask when playing Patriot:
- How much information do you want to give your opponent before going all in? For example, Squirrel Girl, Cosmo, or even Ka-Zar aren’t a tell of exactly what you are playing, while Misty Knight and Shocker are obvious clues.
- Which locations will you go for, and which one will serve to host your low scoring cards?
- Are you relying on Ultron to fill the whole board at once on the last turn, or are you building the board incrementally?
Because Patriot doesn’t have many game plans, it can’t really try to be flexible regarding how to win. Through asking these key questions, you can at least manipulate and control how you will get to the final point, how you will keep your opponent on their toes, or, at least, how you will hide the location and the amount of points you will develop.
Potential additions: Cosmo looks to be mandatory in the deck currently, eating up the tech card slot, while Super Skull doesn’t make any more sense with the Enchantress buff limiting the Ongoing synergy. Right now, only The Thing and Onslaught could be considered to open a spot for another card. Doctor Doom, Brood, Squirrel Girl, and Abomination are the other cards often included in the Patriot archetype.
Closing Words
With changes every Thursday and a new season starting this week, the metagame should keep moving by the time I write the next report. Currently, it seems like the most flexible and explosive decks are dominating the fray. Their ability to adapt and hold information until Turn 6 gives them an edge over archetypes who have to show their hand in order to advance their game plan.
I expect Nebula to be able to punish decks for holding their cards as it would mean letting Nebula grow her power in exchange; however, with Killmonger being a staple in both Sera Control and DeathWave, I don’t know how much we can rely on the new Season Pass card if we don’t include Armor in our deck as well.
For the foreseeable future (or at least until the next OTA balance patch with potentially a nerf to Sera or Wave or maybe a buff to a card able to change the current dynamic of the game), I expect disruptive cards to play a big role in the metagame. Iceman, Enchantress, Sandman, Killmonger, and Cosmo are already among the popular picks, but we have seen how much damage a nicely timed tech card can do with Super-Skrull last week.
Among the current dominant decks, several have cards that could greatly derail their plan. It is only a matter of enough players starting to run said card in order to limit the deck’s potential. Still, it is easier said than done in the current set of things. Marvel Snap is set to be extremely dynamic in May with some changes every week, in addition to the usual card releases plus the featured and hot locations.
All of this should lead to a fascinating time to cover what is happening on the game, and I can’t wait to see how everything unfolds. I will, of course, keep you posted through the various articles written here on Marvel Snap Zone. You can also find me on our community Discord if you have any questions, or follow me on Twitter for daily decks and Marvel Snap related content.
Good Game Everyone.
