Table of Contents
It is the first week of the season, and nothing makes sense once again. Decks struggling a week ago are now cube earning gods, while typical top performers are now winning fewer games than the Rock synergy.
Week 1 in Marvel Snap is good to follow if you are looking for ideas, or enjoy playing synergistic gimmicks. Yet, bots are skewing the data way too much to give it much credit, while decks are built to play against a wall.
Otherwise, don’t sweat about the climb back to infinite too much. Some of us don’t have the time to do it in a couple of days, or simply need a bit to thinker and come up with a refined list.
Worse case, you can always play a strong synergistic decks to earn back the cubes you lost while deck building. There’s a ton to pick from.
Happy Tier List, everyone!
| Tier | Deck |
|---|---|
| Tier 1 | Rocks 1.5 Cube Average / 67.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Stryfe On Reveal 1 Cube Average / 62.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Sunny Ramp 0.65 Cube Average / 62.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | End of Turn 2099 0.9 Cube Average / 61% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Supergiant Move 0.6 Cube Average / 62% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Zombie Galacti 1.15 Cube Average / 60% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Galactus Ramp 0.7 Cube Average / 60% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | High Power Summons 0.7 Cube Average / 60% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Shou-Lao Activates 0.8 Cube Average / 59.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Supergiant Rocks 0.65 Cube Average / 57.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Wiccan On Reveal 0.5 Cube Average / 57% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | ThanAurora 0.45 Cube Average / 57% Win Rate |
Tier 1
Rocks
den
Performance: 1.5 Cube Average / 67.5% Win Rate
After Dormammu provided a solid list to build upon last week, the Destroy synergy is nowhere to be seen so far this season. This makes the Rock synergy much better than it would be if Killmonger was roaming.
Yet, even without this threat in the mix, it is tough to believe this is the best deck in Marvel Snap, with a good margin according to the numbers. There are a lot of solid cards, on top of some disruptive piece, so the deck isn’t bad by any mean. Yet, it is weird that it pops out in Week 1, after failing to do so in the previous season, within a very similar environment.
Potential Additions
Iron Patriot is just a solid card backed up by a 8-power Debrii. If you wanted a disruptive (Gorgon) or protective (Armor) card in the mix, that’s the available spot.
Blink is just more help to find Ozymandias, but Legion or CGR are also strong 5-cost cards to consider.
Stryfe On Reveal
den
Performance: 1 Cube Average / 62.5% Win Rate
This is one of the difficult decks to gauge, since it is built around the new season pass card: Stryfe.
Considering the success of the Ramp archetype overall, I believe this deck is most likely a good one, even if Cosmo remains a very popular cards. After all, Shang-Chi and Shadow King are very rare in the metagame, so Stryfe is safe when it copies Fin Fang Foom.
The points are there, and we have a bit of disruption with Sandman in the mix. A good Marvel Snap deck doesn’t have to be complex to do well, and Stryfe’s ability isn’t an intricate one either.
Expect On Reveal Ramp to have to adapt a little once the metagame features more of the strong decks, but also anticipate this should be part of that mix.
Potential Additions
Legion, CGR, Lady Deathstrike, Odin or Enchantress are strong On Reveal abilities to consider.
Sunny Ramp
den
Performance: 0.65 Cube Average / 62.5% Win Rate
On Reveal Ramp features the same win rate, but a much better cube average, which we’ll attribute to a deck being new, while the Master of the Sun is well known at this point.
Except for that new competitor featuring a similar play-style, there is no reason for that deck to disappear. Indeed, the new season brought a solid season pass card to add to the mix, while Cosmo hasn’t proved enough to stop this deck from posting strong numbers even since Star-Lord, Master of the Sun became a [5/8]
Potential Additions
Alioth and Juggernaut typically represent a good disruptive duo, while Legion or another 5-cost On Reveal also make sense to consider.
Zabu is in the mix considering the amount of 4-cost cards, but we might go back to Luna Snow and Wave in the future, if building around Stryfe doesn’t prove to be a better direction.
End of Turn 2099
den
Performance: 0.9 Cube Average / 61% Win Rate
Another top performer from last month, End of Turn 2099 did not gain anything with the new cards, didn’t need any help either. I can’t see why this would not still pack enough of a punch to be a solid performer at the moment.
Potential Additions
It is peculiar to run three 6-cost cards in this deck, but is fine as long as you draw something to play from turn two to five.
Drop one of the big cards if you wanted to improve your consistency to draw at a certain cost.
Tier 2
Supergiant Moves
den
Performance: 0.6 Cube Average / 62% Win Rate
This deck proved many times it could come back at any time, as the Move synergy remains a great mix of points and flexibility, while Supergiant, Cosmo and Negasonic Teenage Warhead are and excellent disruptive trio.
Expect the numbers to drop, like it will for every deck once we look at week 2 numbers. Yet, this archetype’s track record is too good to expect Supergiant Moves not to still be playable.
Potential Additions
Mercury and Cannonball could be another disruptive duo, if you had some specific match-ups to target.
Zombie Galacti
den
Performance: 1.15 Cube Average / 60% Win Rate
Zombie Galacti has enough power to win a lot of matches, but typically either runs into an issue, or is retreated against as you can’t hide anything with this deck. Really, to lose that many cubes against this deck, you would have to be oblivious to the green aura around your opponent’s cards.
Wait… That is exactly what a bot is.
Zombie Galacti is part of those synergies able to put on a show early on, but quickly falling out of the competitive discussion. This is a great start, let’s see if the archetype can confirm in the following weeks.
Potential Additions
Shuri, Wong and such cards able to power-up Zombie Galacti make sense in the deck, but make it even more predictable.
Galactus Ramp
den
Performance: 0.7 Cube Average / 60% Win Rate
If we consider there are two other Ramp decks ahead of this one in the rankings, it feels obvious Galactus is not the way to build around that synergy at the moment.
Yet, the metrics are more than enough to climb, so Galactus enjoyers shouldn’t refrain from picking this one if it makes their road back to infinite a bit more enjoyable.
Potential Additions
Red Hulk feels like the most replaceable card in the deck, depending how high the card typically climbs.
Hobgoblin or Galactus First Steps make sense.
High Power Summons
den
Performance: 0.7 Cube Average / 60% Win Rate
A solid performer in the second half of March, this is yet another deck focused on developing power without worrying too much about possible counter cards.
To be fair, this deck is likely worse than Ramp, as it can’t hide its potential as well as those gaining energy until the last turn, nor does it pack much disruption. However, because this one isn’t as common, it might be able to keep more opponents in the match when snapping.
Potential Additions
Red Guardian is the flexible slot, open to plenty of options depending if you want some reliability (a 3-cost), more top end power (Hulk), or just a strong standalone (a 5-cost).
Shou-Lao Activates
den
Performance: 0.8 Cube Average / 59.5% Win Rate
This deck proved its worth over and over since January, so it must be part of the archetype we expect to stick around in future reports.
There is a lot of CGR around, which is a problem for the activate synergy as we can’t have everyone in the back row. That plus Stryfe Fan Foom being able to overtake a buffed Scarlet Spider probably explain the lower win rate compared to other strong archetypes.
Potential Additions
Cosmo could help protect Jocasta and other activate cards on her location.
Tier 3
In this last tier, we have the more balanced decks, which should improve in the future, as they are more able to adapt their list. In week 1, Marvel Snap mostly rewards the ability to enforce your strategy, and push your advantage as much as possible before counter cards arrive.
These three typically run the counter cards, since their synergy isn’t as rigid as the other decks on this report. Unfortunately, it means a worse win rate until those match-up specific cards are figured out.
Supergiant Rocks
den
Performance: 0.65 Cube Average / 57.5% Win Rate
Wiccan On Reveal
den
Performance: 0.5 Cube Average / 57% Win Rate
ThanAurora
Performance: 0.45 Cube Average / 57% Win Rate
That’s it for this week! To reach out, find me on the Marvel Snap Zone community Discord, or shoot me a direct message (@den_ccg) for specific stuff or coaching.
Good Game Everyone.
Disclaimer and Tier Explanations
In order to be featured here, a deck needs to represent at least 1% of the current environment and have a positive Cube Average in the Ranked mode. Win Rate is also taken into consideration, and it can greatly impact the ranking of a deck, particularly when several archetypes (or different builds of the same deck) have a similar Cube Average but big Win Rate discrepancies. The Marvel Snap mechanics do, however, push players to maximize cubes gained rather than win every single game.
In order to create this chart, den is using data from our Marvel Snap Tracker, as well as other available data online and his own expertise and opinion of respected players. If a deck showed great performances with a very limited presence in the meta, you can find it in the Silent Performers section. That section highlights decks with an excellent Win Rate, 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 in our chart. See those builds as decks that are good to know about, as you should face them when playing Marvel Snap. However, unless the meta changes or a new variation of the build emerges, these decks are a notch below the dominant ones in Tier 1 and Tier 2.
Silent Performer: Decks with a very little presence in the meta that still showcase a Cube Average and Win Rate worthy of a Tier 2 deck (or better). Oftentimes, these can be archetypes with some nice game play that have been left unchecked in the current environment, or decks on the rise that found a few good match ups to abuse.
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 meta, 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 1 or Tier 2 decks. Usually, Tier 3 will be a mix of decks on the rise that don’t have much data, 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.
Budget: Decks that consist only of cards in Pool 1 and 2 that 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.
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