Marvel Snap Metagame Tier List, November 8th, 2022: It’s Wakanda Season!

Last week, I stated that it’s quite rare to see a lot of innovative decks towards the end of the season. This is because players are usually looking for the established and reliable decks to finish their climb. However, I was omitting those who climbed the ladder to crazy high ranks and constantly keep trying to find the next gem. And actually sometimes do, like it has been the case during this past week.

KMBest, one of the best Marvel Snap players currently, has shared a unique view on the otherwise long untouched DeathWave archetype, adding Aero and Magneto into the mix. The deck has been praised by most players that got their hands on it, and seems like we have a new dominant deck on our hands. In other news, the Discard synergy might also be on the rise, as the Dracula – Lockjaw pairing that was in the works last week seems like a real thing, and a better deck than the other discard builds.

As for the decks we already knew about, Negative Seratonin keeps on progressing in our tierlist, with a below average win rate but a great cube rate. On the downswing are Patriot and Destroyer, two decks that still look solid, but see their numbers impacted by changes in other decks. Kazoo also looks significantly worse considering how dominant the destroy synergy currently is, and Killmonger being in every deck built around it. As a result, the deck is forced to play Armor, which means that our budget Pool 2 list feels like the best option out there for Kazoo.

There is a lot to cover this week, as the start of the new season has arrived, and everyone gets ready to climb back to Infinite rank. Although we received no balance changes to spice things up, there are several decks worth following, and this will be the perfect time to assess their cube acquisition abilities.

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

Marvel Snap Meta Tier List

💡 You can always go to our Tier List section and view the latest updates, and more! Check out our new collection tracker, add your cards, and see what decks you can build or find a deck in our database!

Tier 1

Sera Miracle

Sera Miracle 7.9

Created by den

, updated 5 months ago

22

Pool 3Meta

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Recruit Season

2.9

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Although Enchantress being a popular tech card can hurt Sera, it feels like over a large sample size, Sera Miracle consistently delivers. The deck seems like the definition of what Marvel Snap pushes for, as it possess three of the strongest traits for a Marvel Snap deck:

• Strong explosive potential in the late game
• Unpredictability on turn six
• The ability to Snap based on its hand early in the game

Counters do exist, but aren’t played nearly enough to punish the deck, allowing it to keep the top spot for one more week.

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, such as Bishop, the deck is trying to be extremely flexible on turn six. This way, it can spread its points as efficiently as possible. This allows you to surprise the opponent, and gather a lot of information on their strategy as well.

Rogue can be played on turn four, as a way to try to snipe an opposing Wong. Against Patriot, you can wait for turn six and simply steal Patriot‘s ability to ruin your opponent’s day.

BAEro

Baero

Created by den

, updated 5 months ago

81

Pool 3Meta

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.2

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: A new arrival on our Tier List, BAEro is a creation from KMBest (formerly KanyeBest) based on the DeathWave archetype, He credits FuzzyCB and Lootmuncher0 for pushing Aero in the deck, largely inspiring this build.
Although it is difficult to gauge the deck based solely on KMBest’s opinion and rank, the feedback from the other players trying out the build was stellar as well. As such, even if there is extremely little data for now, I believe that BaEro totally deserves to enter our Tier List as one of the best decks in the game.

How To Play: The deck could be split into two parts: Setting up the late game and ripping 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.

Everything about the deck here:

DeathPool

Deathpool

Created by den

, updated 5 months ago

74

Pool 3DestroyMeta

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.6

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Cosmo and Armor are great tech cards to counter destroy effects. Right now, it seems like the current popular tech card is Enchantress, which does nothing against it.

Also, Deathpool is incredibly happy to see Killmonger being a very popular card, as there isn’t a single 1-Cost card in the deck that it isn’t happy to destroy. The only thing casting a shadow on this deck is BAEro being a similar archetype and considered stronger, while also being more attractive as it is a recent brew.

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.

Tier 2

Negative Seratonin

Negative Seratonin

Created by den

, updated 5 months ago

37

Pool 3ControlMeta

2x Collection Level 1-14

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Recruit Season

1x Starter Card

3.6

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

1.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: While Snap.fan still hasn’t shown an above 50% win rate for the deck, its cube average has been rising week after week, now competing with the decks in Tier 1. Similar to Sera Miracle but less consistent, Negative Seratonin seems like the definition of a Snap-and-Retreat kind of deck. It’s ok with accepting a lot of small losses, as long as it gets the big 8-cube wins from time to time.

How To Play: The deck focuses a lot on being played over large sample sizes and maximizing its great hands while folding the bad ones. As such, you should snap based on your hand more often than not.

A hand worth snapping for will usually include Mister Negative or Sera, your big enablers. There is one thing to consider regarding Mister Negative: the amount of low power cards you already have in hand by turn four.

If Iron Man, Mystique, Rogue, Wolfsbane and such cards are already in your hand, playing Mister Negative won’t benefit your deck much. If this scenario happens, you can either become a Sera deck, or simply retreat and move on to the next game.

Becoming a Sera only deck will lower your points’ ceiling, but with Angela, Bishop, Mojo and other potential high scorers, you can still compete.

Patriot

Patriot

Created by den

, updated 5 months ago

44

Pool 3No AbilityMeta

1x Collection Level 1-14

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Recruit Season

2x Starter Card

3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.9

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: This is the first week in a long time that Patriot wasn’t ranked amongst the best decks in the game, but Enchantress on the signature card of this deck is often too much to overcome for Patriot. Killmonger is also a problem for the 1-Cost tokens we tend to fill our board with, and the card is extremely popular currently with Death making a solid comeback.

The deck is still playable, but we need to be much more careful with our snaps, as there are more tech cards running around.

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.

Zero

Zero Destroy

Created by den

, updated 6 months ago

4

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Enchantress is starting to become a premium card in the current metagame, as almost every deck is playing a useful Ongoing card of some sort. As a result, Zero didn’t have to change anything to become a bad match-up for a lot of those decks. In my view, this explains its rise during the week.

Another nice upside for the deck is the fact that destroy builds tend to play a small amount of cards per lane, making Red Skull quite strong without needing to be cancelled.

How To Play: Built around negating the ability of Typhoid Mary and Red Skull, the deck mixes several synergies. The big ones are the ability to destroy cards (Carnage, Venom) and the ability to remove the negative impact of Typhoid Mary and Red Skull (Zero, Enchantress). The last card included in order to get the points without the downside from Red Skull is Taskmaster, which can be Arnim Zola in some lists.

As a result, the deck plays similarly to a destroy archetype until turn four, looking to set up cards to eat later on like Nova, Bucky Barnes, Sabretooth or Mysterio clones. Once in the late game, we should plan around the big point-scorers, and look for play patterns that can maximize our points while minimizing the downsides of our big point-scorers.
While Zero needs to be played before Typhoid Mary or Red Skull, Enchantress, Venom and Taskmaster will come afterwards. This means we will usually plan to use those on turn six, as a surprise to our opponent.

Dracula LockJaw

Lockjacula

Created by den

, updated 5 months ago

10

Pool 3DiscardMeta

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+

4.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Just like Baero, this is another deck that gained some momentum recently, and even if there isn’t enough data so far, the surrounding feedback seems good enough for a Tier 2 placement.
It might be the surprise element having a big impact, or the deck being legitimately good, but it looks like an improvement over the other discard decks out there.

If Cosmo becomes more popular than it currently is, it could become a problem for the deck.

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

Hela is a bit of the surprise card, and unlocks another way to gain a ton of points from all the discards we made during the game. She isn’t as strong here as in here pseudonymous deck, but she can trigger a ton of discard effects, which can grow Apocalypse for Dracula and pump up Morbius while summoning units.

For now, the discard cards picked are the ones granting the most points, but feel free to experiment with Gambit or Moon Knight if you feel like it. America Chavez is another card that can be replaced, and is for now included for overall consistency.

Destroyer

Destroyer

Created by den

, updated 5 months ago

4

Pool 3DestroyMeta

6x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2.9

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: The destroy synergy is clearly the best one currently in Marvel Snap, but it looks like Death is reaping most of the benefits from it. With both Deadpool and BAEro feeling fresher and able to develop more points, Destroyer was a bit left aside this week. In addition to this, the amount of decks running the destroy core of Nova – Bucky Barnes – The Hood – Killmonger forced a lot of good match ups for Destroyer to stop being popular.

With Armor and Cosmo in the deck, there are ways to combat Death based decks with this build. However, Destroyer isn’t as flexible with those cards as other decks, as the deck needs to use them for its own game plan too. Also, the Goblins are almost worthless if not protected by Cosmo (played afterwards) or Armor, so the opponent cannot destroy them.

How To Play: With Warpath in the list, Destroyer is one of the few decks out there that will focus mostly on two locations. It can contest the third one through playing cards for its opponent with Green Goblin and in some lists, even Hobgoblin, although it does not have to.
With Destroyer‘s effect, we can play cards onto the third location, we just shouldn’t expect them to contribute to the points total as they will be destroyed. This can be a useful juke with Warpath on the board.

For the locations we look to compete on, we will usually try to play Armor and any card we don’t want to see destroyed on one. Warpath and the Demon are often our highest point scorers we are looking to protect.

On the other location, we should be playing Bucky Barnes, Nova, or the Goblins, as a way to have cards other than Destroyer contributing to the point total.

If we can’t find any of the cards we want to destroy, we can also use Cosmo as a way to deny Destroyer’s effect and just have him as a 16-point card.

Tier 3

Lockjaw On Reveal

Lockjaw On reveal

Created by den

, updated 5 months ago

20

Pool 3On RevealMeta

2x Collection Level 1-14

4x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.7

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.6

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Lockjaw suffered a bit from the recent changes, both from the patch and the metagame.
The recent change to Jubilee in the patch removed one potential high roll. As for the metagame, the deck had to stop running Green Goblin and Scorpion, as both cards tend to do quite badly against Destroy decks. Instead, we can see Storm and Okoye taking their spot for the same mana cost. Wave also seems like a risky move against the popular Death decks.
One thing worth nothing in the deck is the recent inclusion of Leader, a great card to counter Death decks and their very strong turn six. Even if the card gets pulled by Lockjaw early on, you can use Odin to trigger it once more later on.

The on-reveal synergy is strong enough to bounce back, but this week was definitely a tough one for the Lockjaw archetype.

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.

Wong Reveal

Wong Reveal

Created by den

, updated 5 months ago

2

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+

3.9

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Thanks to Leader, On Reveal decks are capable of matching the power of Death or Sera decks on turn six, making them viable currently. Yet, Lockjaw is ranked higher as Wong gets cancelled by Enchantress or Cosmo.

Otherwise, the deck feels decent in the current environment, and Wong still is an incredible card when left unanswered. It’s just a shame that it actually is answered much more often than one would wish when playing the deck, making it worse than other high profile cards in Marvel Snap.

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.

In the last three turns, we will usually look to do something along the line of:

• Wong → White Tiger → Odin or Doctor Doom or Leader
• Wong → Rescue → White Tiger or Doctor Doom or Leader
• Wong → Wave (other location) plus Psylocke (Wong’s location → Two cards, as we have eight energies and everything costs four.

The first three turns will be dedicated to disrupting the opponent and creating a good environment where our late game sequences should win us the game. Cards like Storm, Iceman or Sandman are included to annoy the opponent while they don’t affect our strategy. Ebony Maw is included to get reveal priority and get at least a good turn from Wong before it gets cancelled.

Control

Skience

Created by den

, updated 5 months ago

4

Pool 3ControlMeta

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Given the popularity of destroy decks, trying to annoy opponents with Rocks or playing several 1-cost cards felt sub-optimal at best. As such, the Lane Control deck that usually was featured as the control archetype seems gone for now.

Instead, the other way to build control, with more reactive cards, has appeared, in the form of the Skience archetype. Obviously, I’ve talked about the value of Enchantress before, but this deck is filled with cards that can derail the opponent like Shang-Chi, Doctor Octopus and Killmonger.
Ironically, it also uses the destroy core of Nova, the Hood, and Carnage, which is featured in so many decks it is trying to counter.

How To Play: While the first two or three turns can be considered proactive, with cards like Angela, Mysterio or Nova played onto the board. The second part of the game only sees Captain Marvel and Sera as potential proactive plays.

The rest of the deck will aim at trying to disrupt the opposing strategy through three different ways:

• Manipulate energy: Magik makes the game longer, allowing us to gather more information on our opponent if need be, while having two more energies (skip turn five, get turn seven) to play our counter cards. Sera makes our cards cheaper, allowing us to more reactive and do several things in a turn.
• Enchantress, Shang-Chi and Killmonger are our answers to what is on the board.
• Doctor Octopus is a way to force the opponent to dump most of their hand into one location, making it much harder for them to compete on the other two in the last turn.

Wongoing

Wongoing

Created by den

, updated 5 months ago

5

Pool 3OngoingMeta

2x Collection Level 1-14

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Recruit Season

2.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.9

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank Justification: Wongoing has the same issues as Wong On Reveal. The deck still has a potential surprise aspect to it, especially as Armor and Cosmo can be seen as methods to counter a destroy deck, not necessarily as Wong Ongoing.

Thanks to these two cards, though, the deck seems to be able to reasonably annoy Deathpool and BAEro, which is important in the current metagame. This can potentially represent a way for Wongoing to gain back some momentum in the future.

How To Play: The deck aims to play Wong on turn four, Mystique to copy its ability on turn five, and Spectrum to buff our entire side of the board on turn six.

Apart from those key cards, the rest of the deck is filled with cheap Ongoing cards, ready to receive Spectrum’s blessing when she hits the board. The key with the deck once we know the combo is on its way is to spread our Ongoing cards in order to contest two locations.

If this happens, and the opponent doesn’t recognize their incoming demise with a retreat, you should be almost guaranteed to get some cubes.

Closing Words

The metagame has been stale for quite some time for those who were playing in the Closed Beta. It’s only logical that the team at Second Dinner focused on the new players and did their best to welcome them. Still, having two new decks to feature felt like a breath of fresh air, and shows that we aren’t done experimenting, even without a major balance patch.

With the new season here, I expect a lot of changes for next week, as we should have a more competitive environment, where more people are looking to climb. Currently, one could argue that an deck succeeding is merely facing careless opponents, just enjoying their time in the Infinite rank. It will also be great to see how the newcomers that are BAEro and Lockjacula evolve with a bit more time to develop.

Overall, I’m excited to see what happens, and although Black Panther doesn’t seem so impressive, the On Reveal synergy needs a bit of help currently. Hopefully, the card can become a good anchor to a location for a deck with Lockjaw or Wong.

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.