Table of Contents
The Marvel Snap metagame is in a bit of a weird spot at the moment. The great part is that we keep seeing decks able to challenge to top synergies. Sure, most revolve around the Star-Lord, Master of the Sun, Shou-Lao the Undying, the Move synergy or countering one of those.
Yet, that is enough for the carousel to keep spinning week after week in terms of who are the best decks. This time, we have the disruptive archetypes sitting on top, led by Supergiant Move and a disruption-first Aurora list.
The more annoying part is how far the other decks feel whenever they try to make a push. Indeed, every deck featured in the Trending section, or getting hot for a week rarely manages to repeat in the following report. For example, after a strong showing last week, Mister Negative and his destroy archetype is sitting in Tier 2, far behind the usual top performers.
In the hot new archetype spot, we have Doctor Doom 2099 looking great after a few weeks in Tier 2. The main change is the addition of disruptive pieces, with Sandman or Ghost Rider”] now in the mix.
This deep in the season, this is the only path to gaining some momentum except for a balance update, as the raw power of each archetype is well established at this point. We’ll see if that extra layer of disruption allows Doctor Doom 2099 to finally come back as a metagame great, or will it follow the same route as those who tried to shake this metagame before.
Happy Tier List, everyone!
| Tier | Deck |
|---|---|
| Trending | Galactus Ramp 0.55 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate / 120 Games |
| Trending | Energized Destroy On Reveal 0.35 Cube Average / 57% Win Rate / 110 Games |
| Tier 1 | Supergiant Moves 0.65 Cube Average / 64% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Disruptive Aurora Soup 0.5 Cube Average / 63% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Star Lord Ramp 0.55 Cube Average / 62.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Good Cards 2099 0.7 Cube Average / 61% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Shou-Lao Moves 0.65 Cube Average / 60.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Negative Destroy 0.35 Cube Average / 54.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Thanos Aurora Soup 0.35 Cube Average / 54% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Arishem 0.2 Cube Average / 53.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Cerebro 3 0.3 Cube Average / 50% Win Rate |
Are you still chasing that elusive Infinite Rank? Here are the Top 5 performers in the ranks 80 to 99!
| Energized High Evo | 0.65 Cube Average / 64 % Win Rate |
| Ongoing Miracle | 0.8 Cube Average / 62% Win Rate |
| Kazootriot | 0.7 Cube Average / 62% Win Rate |
| Bounce | 0.65 Cube Average / 63% Win Rate |
| Galactus Ramp | 0.45 Cube Average / 61.5% Win Rate |
Here is my usual annoying advice because I’m a coach and I like to think this helps people: Focus on controlling the stakes of each game and building trust in both your deck and your decision making abilities. Once you feel confident, feel free to take more risks. Reaching Infinite is all about understanding the process of grinding cubes. Also, constantly changing your deck limits your ability to learn the game fundamentals, as you are always focused on learning how to pilot the new deck.
Trending
Galactus Ramp
den
Performance: 0.55 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate / 120 Games
The archetype got a nice push in terms of popularity as Kraglin only good landing spot. However, there are a lot of lists going around at the moment, so it’s real power is still to be determined.
If we have a look at the best performer, we can see the way to go isn’t to focus solely on Galactus. Indeed, except for Alioth and Cannonball, there is little to support the Eater of World, and these two could be considered generic solid inclusions in ramp.
Earlier in the season, Galactus already emerged as a good way to disrupt Star-Lord, Master of the Sun, using a very similar list to do so. Maybe all Kraglin did was give the community a reason to explore that avenue again.
Energized On Reveal
den
Performance: 0.35 Cube Average / 57% Win Rate / 110 Games
This archetype was more popular earlier in the season, although it never made it to the top tier. It is logical smaller sample size would fit Energized On Reveal better considering the amount of Cosmo around and the rigid play patterns this strategy is built around.
However, for those looking to catch their opponent off-guard while using Star-Lord, Master of the Sun, this is a solid pick, as it will surely not be as respected as the Ramp deck.
Tier 1
Supergiant Moves
den
Performance: 0.65 Cube Average / 64% Win Rate
Supergiant quickly emerged as a good way to stop Star-Lord, Master of the Sun, preventing the card, or ways to repeat its ability, to reveal.
However, most Supergiant decks lacked in terms of points whenever the 4-cost didn’t show up, or really any part of the deck wasn’t drawn on time. In that context, rather than build for Supergiant, it feels more appropriate to find a strong archetype able to welcome it.
Move seems to be that archetype, which makes sense considering it was playing for priority already to set up for Cosmo. Add Negasonic Teenage Warhead for another reward card post Supergiant and the deck is ready to go.
Potential Additions
Negasonic Teenage Warhead could be another disruptive card designed to reward priority, although Alioth is a bit expensive for that deck.
Disruptive Aurora
den
Performance: 0.5 Cube Average / 63% Win Rate
It’s been clear for a few weeks Aurora cannot compete on points with the dominant archetypes. However, Aurora is a good payoff as long as have a bit of everything in your deck. With that in mind, instead of trying to score as much as possible, this deck will look to reduce the opponent’s potential as much as possible, and beat that with the 6-cost card.
Potential Additions
Mercury plus Cannonball, Danger, Mobius M. Mobius, Legion… look for cards able to derail an entire archetype, or allow you to snap in the right context.
Star Lord Ramp
den
Performance: 0.55 Cube Average / 62.5% Win Rate
Alongside Move, Star-Lord, Master of the Sun is the other synergy most of the other decks will have in mind when picking disruptive cards. As such, this deck’s ceiling is likely than the numbers reflect. Yet, due to Star-Lord, Master of the Sun main weakness being its rigidity, the current season pass card isn’t that difficult to contain.
As time passes, Ramp has started to include more disruption itself, such as Echo, Alioth or Mercury plus Cannonball. These cards will help with opening more snap oportunities, considering the ones we get from Star-Lord, Master of the Sun either lead to a quick retreat, or have been planned against.
Potential Additions
Sunspot and Bruce Banner see play as proactive early cards. One of the 6-cost cards could be Absorbing Man, while Mercury and Cannonball are techs against move, but represent flexible slots if you don’t face much of it.
Good Cards 2099
den
Performance: 0.7 Cube Average / 61% Win Rate
Since being buffed prior to Moondragon’s release, Doctor Doom 2099 has been a solid card to build around, without ever becoming a problem. Up until this week, the 4-cost was pairing with Aurora, but the disruptive build slowly took over as the best way to play that card.
This week, the deck decide to go tall instead of going wide with Galactus First Steps. Yet, I feel like Sandman really is the key card here, greatly helping against Shou-Lao the Undying decks, while Mercury takes care of Move.
The problem for this deck likely is Star-Lord, Master of the Sun, but I guess cubes will be split based on who finds their 4-cost and who doesn’t.
Potential Additions
Aurora and Ghost Rider”] can be played instead of Sandman and Galactus First Steps depending on which disruption and points spread you like most.
Shou-Lao Moves
den
Performance: 0.65 Cube Average / 60.5% Win Rate
Shou-Lao the Undying exclusive decks, such as Bounce or Activates were nowhere to be seen this week. Instead, the Dragon took Scarlet Spider with him and joined Move, the best foundation to compete while feeling original at the moment.
The deck is posting an excellent performance, but trails the Supergiant build by a few percent in the win rate department. It is far from enough to recommend picking one or the other, but once again, Disruption looks to be on top at the moment.
Potential Additions
Hawkeye Kate Bishop could be Prowler or Merlin depending which created cards you value the most. Otherwise, Nightcrawler could be a disruptive 1-cost such as Spider-Ham or Iceman if you care about disruption more than synergy.
Tier 2
Negative Destroy
den
Performance: 0.35 Cube Average / 54.5% Win Rate
One of the hot prospects last week gain enough popularity to join the big league, and unfortunately failed to keep up the fantastic results it had while in the Trending section.
Mobius M. Mobius didn’t get any more popular, so the reason isn’t a change in the metagame to adapt against this. Instead, this is likely due to Mister Negative being a bit unreliable, while the current power level of the top archetype typically requires Jane Foster to follow the signature card to really make sure the opponent doesn’t stand a chance.
Indeed, there is a good amount of Cosmo and Alioth around, so Mister Negative only might not be enough if we don’t get the right draws, or one is getting countered.
Potential Additions
Star-Lord, Master of the Sun and Iron Lad don’t synergize with Mister Negative, but offer another way to cheat a ton of energy when the signature card doesn’t show up on time. Iron Man and Esme Cuckoo would be in those slot for a deck centred around Mister Negative exclusively.
Thanos Aurora Soup
den
Performance: 0.35 Cube Average / 54% Win Rate
This is both a fine and a terrible deck, but at least gives something to play for those enjoying Thanos.
Indeed, we already saw a way better performer built around Aurora, while Doctor Doom 2099 is another one to consider. As such, Thanos feels more like a flexible foundation trying to be relevant through using Aurora, rather than a real archetype able to do something different.
Potential Additions
Most cards from the Disruptive Aurora deck in Tier 1 make sense to consider in this one. This is more of an Aurora deck rather than a Thanos build.
Tier 3
At this point, it is safe to say Tier 3 decks are synergies with a good enough ceiling to compete, and able to run some of the top disruptive cards of this metagame. Yet, those suffer from failing to win whenever they don’t draw perfectly.
Arishem will always be a possible contender, since drawing perfectly with this deck makes it a potential powerhouse. Someone willing to retreat a lot until a streak of good draws happens should be able to mount positive metrics for sure.
The same goes for Cerebro 3, which packs enough points to compete, and has a reliable snap when Bastion copies Cerebro plus Makkari. On top of that, the deck is able to play Cosmo, easily a top 10 card in the current environment.
However, both decks also lose to themselves a lot in this metagame, and it is often safer to just take the 1 cube loss when a dominant archetype snaps, rather than give a shot to a likely 4-cube defeat.
Arishem
den
Performance: 0.2 Cube Average / 53.5% Win Rate
Cerebro 3
den
Performance: 0.3 Cube Average / 53% 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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