Marvel Snap Metagame Tier List, November 22nd, 2022: Flexibility is Key!

After a crazy first week of ladder and a lot of new decks, the metagame felt much quieter this week. Unfortunately, we don’t have much novelty to feature. Instead, we mourn some archetypes that have fallen down the popularity charts. You can still find such decks, like Zero or Mister Negative in our Tier 4, which ranks decks that are either underperforming or not seeing enough play to trust the data we have on them.

Even if the decks remain the same, the power rankings of the top dogs have changed a lot, and flexibility seems to be the name of the game for this week. Indeed, with Cosmo becoming a staple in many decks alongside Armor, the On Reveal and Discard decks are suffering from not being able to play as freely as they wished.

Also, we can see that some archetypes under the radar are starting to adapt to the popular tech cards. For example, Patriot has migrated towards a more combo build with Sera, as a way to disguise its key cards from a timely Enchantress ruining the game.

Overall, this week felt like the community was looking to refine and adapt to the big changes that happened at the start of the Warriors of Wakanda season. So the creativity might be a down a notch, but there are still some important information to collect from all this. And we are to share them all with you!

Marvel Snap Meta Tier List

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Tier 1

BAEro

Baero

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

82

Pool 3Meta

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: For another week, Baero remains as the top of our list, although it is once again by a very thin margin. The reason is that a large part of the metagame is hating on the deck (Armor, Cosmo), yet, it still finds a way to perform and rack up cubes.

Compared to Deathpool for example, another deck suffering a lot from the current popular tech cards, Baero feels much more versatile and able to adapt. Lastly, Aero and Magneto on turn five and six still are amongst some of the best duos to features in order to annoy the opponent. Joined by Death, it allows for the two strongest options in the late game, disruption and the ability to put a ton of points on the board.

How To Play: The deck can be split into two parts: Setting up the late game and reaping the rewards.

Your early game is built around doing two things: getting ahead in as many lanes as possible, and getting two kills so that you can discount Death by two, allowing you to play her and another card after you play Wave. You have several efficient ways of doing this. Carnage + Bucky Barnes is an incredibly efficient threat, Mysterio creates tokens that can be killed off by Carnage and Deathlok while being five hidden power, and The Hood and Nova die to Carnage, Killmonger and Deathlok while also leaving some power behind.

Once we’ve achieved this, we can slam Wave onto the board on turn five, setting our Death plus another card combo and preventing the opponent from doing too much on their side. Then, while Death represents our points to lock up the lane we play her into, we can use Magneto or Aero in order to pull opposing cards away from the other location we were ahead on. And because Wave limits how many cards the opponent can play, Aero and Magneto rarely have the problem of being played into a lane that could be filled by the opponent during turn six only.

A full guide to the deck can be found here, courtesy of our very own KMBest:

Ongoing Destroyer

Ongoing Destroyer

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

126

Pool 3DestroyMeta

2x Collection Level 1-14

5x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Recruit Season

3.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: When it comes to pure points potential, I would have a hard time ranking this deck in Tier 1. The fact that it can naturally run two of the strongest cards in the current metagame in Armor and Cosmo allows it to fight any other deck in Tier 1 and lower their potential enough to best them.

Compared to other disruptive decks, Ongoing Destroyer has a much higher points output, which separates it from more traditional control archetypes as well. I suspect it hits the right balance between trying to be reactive and developing a high enough score for the win.

How To Play: The deck aims to fill the board with ongoing cards while trying to limit what the opponent can do. As such, the deck could be split in two separate part, the proactive ongoing effects, and the reactive ones.

In the proactive category, we find Ant-Man, Colossus, Lizard, Mojo, Captain America, Mister Fantastic and Warpath. These cards should be our main source of points during the first part of the game. Keep in mind, because we are running Warpath, we don’t want to expand on all three locations.

As for the reactive ones, Armor, Cosmo and Professor X fill this role. These three allow to set up a good Destroyer and protect Lizard while annoying Destroy or On reveal based decks in the process. Also, because Spectrum can buff them on turn six, they contribute to the overall score quite nicely.

A detailed origin story about the deck, written by Owen Collier-Ridge himself.

Sera Miracle

Sera Miracle Flood

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

47

Pool 3Meta

6x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: This archetype never seems to stop generating new lists, showcasing its ability to adapt to its environment. While I would rank Discard or Wong Reveal higher if Cosmo wasn’t a popular card, Sera Miracle gets the nod as the much harder deck to counter.

As a result, although a deck with a higher ceiling finally emerged in the last few weeks, Sera Miracle still manages to be a top contender because it mixes flexibility and a high scoring total.

How To Play: As you might have guessed from the name, this deck is looking to capitalize on Sera‘s ability to create a spectacular turn six.

While there are cards that can be played before Sera, the deck is trying to be extremely flexible on turn six. This way, it can spread its points as efficiently as possible, either on two or all three locations. This allows you to surprise the opponent, and gather a lot of information on their strategy as well.

Currently, the deck shines because you should have information of where you can and cannot play your destroy or on reveal effects. Also, if you let your opponent have priority on turn six, you are safe from Shang-Chi or Enchantress ruining the party.

A very detailed guide is available here, covering everything you need to know about the deck:

Wong Reveal

Wonkanda Reveal

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

69

Pool 3On RevealMeta

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: Probably the highest point scorer in the game currently, at least amongst competitive builds, Wong Reveal has two big problems in the current metagame : Reliability and Cosmo.

Indeed, even the godly hand of Wong, Black Panther and Arnim Zola doesn’t guarantee you a win anymore because Cosmo exists in a lot of decks, and he can be played on Wong’s location as an answer. As a result, you are pressed to play more conservatively, and not Snap as soon as we know we have the good stuff in our hand, which leads to fewer cubes when we win and huge punishes when we lose.

How To Play: Mostly looking to abuse Wong and Odin in the On Reveal synergy, this deck really separates the first three and the last three turns of the game. Once Wong is in play, we enter a completely different realm of potential power.

The basic sequence for the deck is Wong on four, play a five behind it, play a six behind it. Most of the time, Black Panther wants to be paired with Arnim Zola while White Tiger goes with Odin. Doctor Doom is a bit of the “fit everywhere” kind of card and just contributes no matter what. Ironheart plus Wolfsbane can also represent a nice turn six when played together.

As for the first three turns, the deck is quite flexible:

• Ebony Maw is mostly played to gain priority, which at least gives us a turn to abuse Wong in the event of Cosmo or Enchantress.
• Iceman is just annoying to the opponent.
• Psylocke allows us to directly skip to Wong on turn three. She can also open a 3-cost plus Ebony Maw or allows playing two 5 or 6-costs in a raw, if we wouldn’t find Wong for example.
• Storm is just a location lock, which we can easily access later on.

Jawcula

Jawcula

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

48

Pool 3DiscardMeta

1x Collection Level 1-14

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: I still am a huge fan of the Discard deck, and I am not ranking it in Tier 1 just because I like it. Alongside Wong Reveal, Discard is the deck with the capacity to develop the biggest amount of points. Yet, both decks also share the same weaknesses, and Discard inability to adapt to the locations, or disrupt the opponent’s game plan, makes it easy to counter if expected.

As a result, the more popular Jawcula becomes, the worse it theoretically gets. It looks like the perfect niche deck, rising to punish decks that didn’t include enough disruption and thought they would win a point focused battle against big Morbius and Dracula. But also one that cannot be played in any environment, or with any featured location.

How To Play: The deck looks to use Lockjaw in order to maximize Discard effects. When we start going off, our hand should melt quickly. This means that it’s important to find either Swarm or Apocalypse before doing so, hence the inclusion of America Chavez in the deck. If we do, Swarm gives us some potential explosive play when played behind Lockjaw later on, and Apocalypse grows to stupid amounts of power, making Dracula able to win a lane on its own.

With Morbius, Lockjaw and Dracula in the deck, it is entirely possible to start discarding on turn five, once the cards we don’t want to lose are on the board. This isn’t much of a problem thanks to Swarm being able to fill Lockjaw’s location quickly and getting additional discards from our decks thanks to it.

Currently, the perfect build is open to discussion, the featured list is my personal favorite, but you could also run:

• Magik for an extra turn and draw
• Sera for potential shenanigans and an explosive turn six
• Thor, as he is a nice card with Lockjaw in the deck

Tier 2

Control

Control

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

38

Pool 3ControlMeta

5x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

4x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: As every archetype becomes more refined, the ways to disrupt their nice little routine also seems easier to figure out. This week, the control build seemingly performing the best was just a pile of super annoying cards.

As soon as one of them lands a huge blow to your opponent, snap if you want to force a retreat from the opponent. Or be a little more daring and snap the turn before you anticipate to crush your opponent’s dreams.

How To Play: With less reactive cards than usual, although Cosmo or Doctor Octopus could make the cut as well, the deck wants to develop some points before switching to its reactive game plan. Being able to get ahead at least on one location makes it much easier to play our reactive cards later on.

Through Angela and the destroy mechanic, we are able to contest at least one location quite easily. To win the second one, we can either rely on our flexible cards, like Captain Marvel and Doctor Doom, or wait for the opponent to commit and punish them with Enchantress or Shang-Chi.

DeathPool

Deathpool

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

76

Pool 3DestroyMeta

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: DeathPool is still a great deck, but suffers too much from the popular inclusion of Armor and Cosmo, which limit the major synergy of the deck. It simply seems like this isn’t a great time for the deck, although it finds a way to stay relevant despite the counter cards.

With Death's Domain as the hot location on Sunday, DeathPool saw a surge in play rate, but didn’t become a juggernaut like one would expect when your best location is in half your games.

How To Play: The deck is based around trying to destroy Deadpool as many times as possible to grow its power, reducing Death’s cost in the process. Then, you can copy Deadpool‘s power with Taskmaster, alongside playing Death thanks to Wave’s ability. The deck has the nice upside of naturally playing around most board disruptions like Goblins or Rocks.

Outside these four key cards, the rest of the deck is solely cards that either help Deadpool grow (Carnage, Venom, Hulkbuster) or benefit from being destroyed themselves (Bucky Barnes, Nova, The Hood).

Venom is the flexible card in the deck, either being used as another destroy tool or as a big target for Taskmaster as a back-up to Deadpool or Death not being available.

Kazoo

Kazoo disrupt

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

46

Pool 3AggroMeta

2x Collection Level 1-14

5x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

1x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Recruit Season

1x Starter Card

2.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: I ranked Kazoo as a great deck last week, praising it for its ability to rank up quite fast and offer steady play patterns from a game to another. This week is a bit different, with Discard or Wong Reveal being more popular, and both decks beating Kazoo in a points scoring contest.

Still, the deck feels quite good, and benefits from the prevalence of Armor and Cosmo as the popular tech cards, as neither of them annoy Kazoo.

How To Play: This is the textbook proactive deck, looking to develop points and making smart use of each energy we are given. If the first three turns are rather flexible, turn four will usually be dedicated to Ka-Zar and turn five to either Blue Marvel or Iron Man. Turn six can be flexible as well, either pushing a location with America Chavez or spreading points if we have enough cards to do so.

Compared to previous iteration of the archetype, the current build includes Armor and Cosmo to protect its very important 1-cost units from Killmonger, and also annoy Destroy and On Reveal.

Ideally, we want to play Armor on a location where we will also play Ant-Man and another 1-cost, usually Iceman or where Nightcrawler will be moved. Cosmo is more flexible to play, either on our big Ongoing cards location, to protect from Enchantress. Or as a disruptive tool against On reveal or Destroy, where we anticipate our opponent to play its key effects.

Patriot

Patriot

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

13

Pool 3OngoingNo AbilityMeta

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Recruit Season

2x Starter Card

2.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Patriot in its older form was difficult to use because of Enchantress being quite popular. As a result, aficionados of the deck have decided to take another direction and use Sera to hold our key cards a little more.

Now, Patriot acts more as a combo deck, looking to disguise its most important cards as long as possible, so they aren’t vulnerable to opposing counters. While the change didn’t make Patriot soar to the top of our tier list, it definitely feels more suiting to the current metagame.

How To Play: The deck revolves around making the most out of our payoff cards, which buff our whole board.

Ka-Zar and Blue Marvel can serve as decent Patriot replacements, but Patriot himself should be the go-to option if available. Supporting these Ongoing abilities are Onslaught and Mystique for duplication, and in some versions, cards like Magik and Adam Warlock for an extra draw if needed.

The rest of the deck is composed of cheap recipients for the buffs, and should be used to fill two locations before we focus on our combo in the last few turns, we need the third one for our payoffs. Ultron offers a different path to victory, as the card can fill two locations, making the deck extremely passive in the early game.

Tier 3

Movement

move

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

22

Pool 3MoveMeta

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: It is looking brighter for the move archetype, but it still feels a little early to push Move to Tier 2 and call the comeback complete. That said, it is undeniable that the cards that move your opponent’s cards have been very helpful in the deck. In addition to making it easier to grow Kraven and Dagger, it also helps the deck with being more unpredictable and having a different play-pattern in the later turns.

How To Play: The move archetype is based on several key cards, supported by the rest of the deck.

In this iteration, Human Torch, Dagger, Vulture and Kraven seem to be cards we want to grow:

• Human Torch and Vulture just want to move as much as possible, as to grow to ridiculous amount of points. Iron Fist, Cloak, Doctor Strange or Heimdall should always be valuable cards as long as they are paired with one of these two.
• Dagger and Kraven require a bit more finesse, and seem to be more situational. Yet, thanks to the newly introduced package of Polaris, Aero and Magneto, we are able to set them up much more efficiently.

Lastly – and this feels like the biggest improvement compared to other Move builds – we have more way of developing some raw amount of points. Miles Morales, Aero and Magneto all contribute nicely in this way.

Lockation

Lockation

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

10

Pool 3ControlMeta

2x Collection Level 1-14

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

4x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Recruit Season

3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: The other archetype looking to disrupt the opponent (other than pure control) is also posting solid results. The key to Lockation is that it isn’t running the big swing cards like Enchantress or Shang-Chi. Instead, this build focuses more on cards which make sense together and looks to be a cohesive game plan rather than a big swing turn.

Currently, it would seem that the more swingy approach produces more cubes, but with the top decks being heavily targeted, Lockation might resist a metagame shift much better than Control would.

How To Play: The goal of this is to limit the playing field for the opponent and make it easy for us to guess their next play. With Storm, Spider-Man, Hobgoblin and Professor X, we are able to reduce the game to one or two locations, which makes Armor and Cosmo much more annoying for the opponent. This week, Gamora took over Professor X, as she is quite easy to trigger and represents a strong presence on the location in order to contest it.

Also, this gives our own high points cards like Ebony Maw, Lizard or Jessica Jones a much higher chance of winning a location almost on their own. We can also use Nightcrawler and Doctor to support them, as they give us the ability to impact other unplayable locations.

Hela Discard

Hela

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

26

Pool 3DiscardMeta

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Starter Card

4.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

8.2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Hela is first on a long list of decks that almost instantly lose to Cosmo being played somewhere specific. Still, the surprise factor the deck can wield is quite nice, and makes it much more unpredictable than other archetypes.

Also, Hela is a deck able to play patiently compared to other decks. It could appear to an opponent as a Dracula deck for the first few turns, baiting your opponent into thinking they figured you out.

How To Play: The deck revolves around using Invisible Woman to safely play our discard effects and Hela onto her location. At the end of the game, all the effects will trigger in their order of play and summon everything we have discarded.

If we wouldn’t draw into Invisible Woman, we can either just play for points on turn three, four, five, and six, as the deck has many high score cards. Or risk it and hope we won’t discard Hela before turn six.

Jubilee could be a consideration in the build in that regard, providing another turn four to the deck. Red Skull can be included too, providing a second 5-cost if Captain isn’t enough in your opinion.

Lockjaw On Reveal

Lockjaw On reveal

Created by den

, updated 1 year ago

20

Pool 3On RevealMeta

2x Collection Level 1-14

4x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: It’s been another very quiet week for the Lockjaw archetype. Unlike Zero or Negative Seratonin, the deck still sees a decent amount of play on ladder, although Cosmo tends to shut it down pretty hard.

The archetype seems to have lost both reasons to be played currently, as the Wong deck seems superior in the On reveal category and discard looks to abuse Lockjaw the best.

How To Play: Plan A is a very straightforward game plan of abusing Lockjaw with cheap cards in order to get the bigger ones. Plan B is to abuse the On Reveal synergy to try to compete even without Lockjaw.

Through Thor, Jubilee; White Tiger and Odin, it is still possible to develop a decent amount of points while playing on curve. Giving us a fighting chance instead of retreating whenever we aren’t drawing into Lockjaw. The deck will be weaker, but can still find some play patterns to compete.

Closing Words

Compared to the start of the season, this week felt a bit empty, as I didn’t have anything crazy to showcase. These kind of times are also very important to a metagame, as they represent a stabilization period, and can set up the next big moves to take advantage of the new staples.

Apparently, Wong Reveal and Discard aren’t so difficult to keep in check, although they have a huge potential points output. Baero and Ongoing Destroyer seem more flexible, and therefore harder to counter, even if they rarely put up 60 or 70 points total at the end of the game.

I expect this coming week to follow a similar path, as players looking to rack up some cubes should follow the established trend to rank up the ladder. Once we get closer to season’s end, we might see a few more innovative concepts as players prepare for the road back to Infinite at the start of December.

We will keep an eye on how all these things develop, and of course keep you posted in this series and through our other pieces. Until then, I hope you have a great time on Marvel Snap!
If you’d like to comment or discuss this article with the team, feel free to join our community Discord. You can also find me directly on Twitter.

Good Game Everyone.

Sources

As always, thanks to all the sources of information I use to create this Tier List:

• https://marvelsnap.pro/
• https://snap.fan/
• Snap.fan Community Server on Discord
• https://twitter.com/SnapDecks
• https://marvelsnap.io/
• All the players offering their insight and time to chat