Table of Contents
Welcome to our Marvel Snap Meta Meta Tier List! Each week, we review the best decks in the ever-changing Marvel Snap ladder meta.
This report is dedicated to the Ranked mode and lists the current best decks heading into and once in the Infinite Rank. We also provide a Conquest report, available every weekend, that highlights the best archetypes for that mode. Looking to figure out the impact of the newly released card or the latest balance changes? This is the place to be!
If you are looking for more information about a deck in particular, check out our Archetypes pages, with detailed information about each of the household names in Marvel Snap.
Marvel Snap Meta Overview
With low impact cards on the horizon, the Marvel Snap meta looks pretty stable until the new season or a balance patch comes to shake things up. In this environment, Arishem Loki is the best overall deck. It consistently posts the highest Cube Average on the back of Snapping its great draws and paying a small tribute for the bad ones. There are also a few reliable archetypes, such as Silver Surfer, Midrange Sandman, and Stature Darkhawk, that can perform well enough in this environment. Good Cards is still looking for its refined list, but it’s in the discussion as well.
Past this group, there are plenty of playable archetypes. Some are routinely featured on this report, some com in and out, and there are the occasional newcomers including the weekly card or experiments gone right. In that category are KaZoo, Mister Negative, Destroy, Discard, Move, Junk, and Patriot. Plenty of them are able to climb to Infinite in the hands of a disciplined pilot, but they could also have a catastrophic run if they keep drawing poorly.
Overall, the most important trait you need to have is discipline, at least if climbing the ranks is your main concern. There aren’t many surprises, so the Snaps are almost always due to something positive happening for your opponent (or negative for you). This isn’t the most fun Marvel Snap we’ve seen, but this is how the game was designed to be played. Short games, a dynamic betting system, and decks looking to make the most of their highs while limiting the impact of their lows.
Arishem wins that game, but we already knew this looking at the past two months.
Happy Tier List, everyone!
Marvel Snap Meta Tier List
| Tier | Deck |
|---|---|
| Silent Performer | Discard Supergiant |
| Tier 1 | Arishem Loki |
| Tier 1 | Silver Surfer |
| Tier 1 | Sandman Midrange |
| Tier 2 | Good Cards Wiccan |
| Tier 2 | Stature Darkhawk |
| Tier 2 | Mister Negative |
| Tier 2 | KaZoo |
| Tier 3 | Ongoing |
| Tier 3 | Pure Evolutionary |
| Tier 3 | Bounce Move |
| Budget | Ongoing Kazoo |
| Budget | Devil Dinosaur Destroy |
| Budget | Swarm Discard Aggro |
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 Cube Average 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. They won’t have their own dedicated write up here, but they may be transferred to the main Tier List section. 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 Tiers 1 and 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.
Cube Average > 0.5
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.
Cube Average > 0.25 & above 55% Winrate
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.
Cube Average > 0.20 & under 55% win rate
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.
Silent Performers
den
Discard has been struggling for a while now, and it would have missed several Tier Lists if it wasn’t for Stature Darkhawk carrying the torch. At a 0.55 Cube Average—tied for first with Arishem Loki—I was excited to find this weird looking deck wandering in the data from our deck tracker. Plus, 250 games isn’t that low of an amount, so you can trust there is some merit to this deck. Don’t get carried away just yet, though; this Discard Dracula Combo deck also holds the worst Win Rate in the entire report with 48%.
Test at your own risk, I guess. A good Snap game will explain the fantastic Cube Average, and I can only assume bad decisions give the terrible Win Rate more weight. If you aren’t much of a gambler but you enjoy playing Discard, the classic builds have a better Win Rate and a Cube Average that is not that much worse.
Tier 1
Arishem Loki
den
Since the last OTA, Arishem has not once had the highest Win Rate in Marvel Snap (although it has consistently been pretty close). However, this deck has held the best Cube Average in the game every time I check.
It’s pretty simple to explain: Arishem is the embodiment of how we should play Marvel Snap. You want to raise the stakes on the great draws, and just let a cube get away on the bad ones. If you can consistently do this, even a 50% Win Rate can get you a decent amount of cubes. Arishem Loki is at 57% as well, so you’re getting much more than a decent amount.
It is annoying to consistently see the same deck atop the list, but Arishem Loki is simply an archetype that simply capitalizes on the way Marvel Snap works.
Potential Additions
Strong standalone cards are the way to go with Arishem.
Silver Surfer
den
If you are hesitant about what to play in the current meta, Silver Surfer is a great starting point. The deck has been around forever, it’s pretty simple to understand from a mechanical standpoint, and it looks to be proactive in most situations.
Currently at a 59% Win Rate thanks to the amazing pool of 3-Cost cards we have, Silver Surfer is a great default pick right now.
Potential Additions
The Toxic Surfer build also had a superb week. It posted a worse Win Rate than the traditional build but a similar Cube Average, which means it would also have ranked in Tier 1.
den
Sandman Midrange
den
Sandman Midrange managed to stay in the discussion of the great competitive builds this week thanks to holding the best Win Rate in the game at 59.5%. However, the deck struggles to keep opponents in the game, as a 0.4 Cube Average isn’t what you would expect for such a high Win Rate.
If you are looking to win most of your matches, even if the stakes will rarely be high (meaning you have to be disciplined with your Retreats), this should be your pick.
Potential Additions
Tier 2
Stature Darkhawk
den
Arishem is still pretty popular, so the Darkhawk synergy is continuing to keep its upsides from week to week with little change. At a 56% Win Rate and 0.4 Cube Average, this is the best disruptive archetype in the game currently. And, just like during the rest of the season, Stature Darkhawk appears to be a decent pick with an emphasis on disruption for whenever you are paired with anything other than an Arishem Loki opponent.
Potential Additions
Cassandra Nova and
Good Cards Wiccan
After a great first week where it pushed various decks to contend with the best, Wiccan has lost a bit of momentum, and its best archetype has too. At only a 0.4 Cube Average and 55% Win Rate, Good Cards Wiccan is doing fairly well, but it is clearly a notch below the top archetypes in both categories.
This version of Good Cards remains the best performing one in the archetype, so maybe we should be more worried about Thena, Angela, and Kitty Pryde than Wiccan.
Potential Additions
Ultron and Alioth are in this list as options after playing Wiccan, but many other 6-Costs could fit that mold.
Mister Negative
den
With its signature terrible Win Rate (50.5%) compared to the other decks on this report, Mister Negative feeds its Cube Average (0.3) through obvious Snaps… and Mobius M. Mobius not being a part of the current meta.
Ongoing, an archetype that could play Mobius, is part of this report after Speed pushed it to gain some momentum, but the new card doesn’t look impactful enough to make this a reality going forward.
Potential Additions
Shang-Chi or Rogue can bring some disruption.
KaZoo
den
KaZoo got plenty of help this season, but it has lost momentum as time passed since it’s unable to keep the ball rolling against more flexible decks. If only the archetype found a way to include some sort of disruption in its game plan, it probably wouldn’t be as vulnerable to counter cards—or as predictable when it Snaps.
The 0.25 Cube Average is the consequence of this lack of unpredictability, because the 56% Win Rate could be enough to be ranked higher than the bottom of Tier 2.
Potential Additions
Nico Minoru, Spider-Ham, and Hydra Bob are 1-Costs you could consider, while Copycat, Jeff the Baby Land Shark, and other such strong standalone cards also see play in the archetype.
Tier 3
Ongoing
den
The combination of the release of Speed and Man-Thing‘s buff brought a bit of the spotlight back onto the Ongoing synergy, without necessarily making it much better. Indeed, more points on one of your cards doesn’t solve the problems of a deck that needs to draw almost perfectly to compete in most games.
It is good to see it back, but it’s hard to believe it will stay in the competitive conversation for long.
Pure Evolutionary
den
A 0.25 Cube Average and 50% Win Rate allows High Evolutionary to make its usual occasional comeback in the Tier List. This time the build is focused on explosive power, with both Abomination and She-Hulk as cheap power to support Ajax, the main points provider.
Bounce Move
den
Last on today’s list, Bounce has once again found a different build than the previous time it appeared on the Tier List. I can already predict that another one will likely appear in the future, as a 0.25 Cube Average and 50% Win Rate won’t cut it in the long run.
Closing Words
I can’t wait for the new season to come out and the Activate keyword to shake things up because the current Marvel Snap feels pretty figured out at this point. We know the best archetype alongside four to five solid ones you can play if you don’t enjoy Arishem Loki.
We also figured out the best way to play the game, which is to Snap your great hands early on and just accept the one cube your opponent gives you or play for two or four cubes with your deck’s best cards. The hardest part is probably being disciplined with your Retreats, especially because leaving multiple games in a row can quickly get tiring.
I hope you’re finding your fun nonetheless. And I hope you found some help in this report if you were looking for some tips on the current meta! For any questions, find me on the Marvel Snap Zone community Discord, or follow my Twitter page where I share decks and biased opinions about the game.
Good Game Everyone.
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