Table of Contents
I try to wait as long as possible before the first tier list of the season, in hope there will be enough games played in the Infinite Ranks to get a picture of the metagame without bots in the mix.
There wasn’t enough to look at the top half like I do in other weeks, but more than enough to have an idea of the infinite rank as a whole.
The On Reveal synergy, specifically Werewolf By Night and Shou-Lao the Undying, are putting on a clinic.
There are 14 decks on the report this week, more than most other times. Plus, every deck sports a cube average that leads to believe bots are also a thing in the Infinite Rank. It becomes even more obvious with the likes of Man-Spider, Discard Dracula or Kazootriot in the rankings, typical great early performers we rarely mention at the end of the season.
These decks are great to beat bots because they barely care about their opponent for most of their matches. They know their potential is great, and which hands they can bet on, or the ones they should not risk anything for. To be fair, Werewolf By Night and Shou-Lao the Undying also reward this type of deck.
When you play against cards able to develop a lot of points flexibly, there aren’t a lot of options. Either you have a window to stop it, such as a Cosmo with priority, a Mercury to stop Werewolf By Night from moving, Shadow King to reset their total… or you pack even more points. Except for these two routes, it is too complicated to picture what the opponent’s point spread will look like and form a coherent game plan based on that information.
This pretty much sums up the metagame of this first week : Plenty of flexible decks built around Werewolf By Night plus Shou-Lao the Undying, flanked by decks able to beat them on points, or counter the way they work.
Overall, this leads to a good mix of decks, but one common goal : Do something so good you can confidently ignore your opponent.
Happy Tier List, everyone!
| Tier | Deck |
|---|---|
| Tier 1 | Small Buffed Cards 0.8 Cube Average / 64% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Good Small On Reveal Cards 0.9 Cube Average / 60.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | High Evo Control 0.65 Cube Average / 62.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Man Spider Combo 0.6 Cube Average / 60.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Disruptive Small On Reveal 0.8 Cube Average / 58.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Bounce Small On Reveal 0.6 Cube Average / 59.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Good Cards Thanos 0.55 Cube Average / 59.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Kazootriot 0.60 Cube Average / 59% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Wiccan Created Cards 0.5 Cube Average / 58.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | End of Turn 0.7 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Discard Dracula 0.65 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Zombies & New Cards 0.6 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Nimrod Combo 0.6 Cube Average / 57.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Zombie Galacti 0.6 Cube Average / 55.5% Win Rate |
Tier 1
Small Buffed Cards
den
Performance: 0.8 Cube Average / 64% Win Rate
Grow Scarlet Spider to 20 power, create a clone and win two locations, it doesn’t get much simpler than this. Actually, it is so simple the deck has plenty of flexible slots to adapt to potential opponents.
At the moment, those slots are filled by Iceman, Deafening Chords or Copycat, useful cards against a large array of opponents. However, once the metagame will feature fewer archetypes, I’m sure this deck will run more precise counter cards.
Potential Additions
The deck needs to run low-cost cards in order to buff Shou-Lao the Undying as many times as possible. As long as you can accomplish that reliably, this deck can include plenty of different cards.
America Chavez and Forge make sense as additional buff cards.
Good Cards On Reveal
den
Performance: 0.9 Cube Average / 60.5% Win Rate
Last season’s best archetype doesn’t have the best win rate in the game early in January, but still racks up the most cubes.
Compared to the emerging decks built around Merlin, Werewolf By Night and Shou-Lao the Undying, this one is focused on disrupting its opponent. Looking at the cube average, this approach leads to more snap opportunities, or at least more control over the stakes of each games.
In a metagame featuring strong flexible ways to score points, information is key to figure out when to stay or leave a match.
Potential Additions
Copycat copying your opponent’s Shou-Lao the Undying is an automatic snap at the moment, which one could value more than Mobius M. Mobius.
Quake would be the other flexible card in the deck, a slot you can fill with any tool you deem necessary for a specific match-up.
High Evo Control
den
Performance: 0.65 Cube Average / 62.5% Win Rate
I didn’t expect to see High Evolutionary so high on the list, but the more I look at the metagame, and the more it makes sense. First, Shang-Chi, Enchantress and Red Guardian make sense currently, although Shadow King or Cosmo might be better disruptive cards. More importantly, afflicting your opponent’s cards counters the deck atop the rankings.
It probably isn’t enough to counter a beefed up Shou-Lao the Undying granting Scarlet Spider a bonus 12 power. Yet, when the season pass card doesn’t show up, or only adds up to a bonus six or nine power, while Maverick got afflicted multiple times, High Evo should dominate those matches.
The other crucial point is the ability to also develop points through Hulk or Abomination. This deck doesn’t need to perfectly counter the opponent. One location is enough when you have a 20 power Hulk or 0-cost Abomination available to win the other.
Potential Additions
Enchantress deals with Ongoing decks, but could become Shadow King to really make sure the buff oriented archetypes won’t be an issue.
Tier 2
Man-Spider Combo
den
Performance: 0.6 Cube Average / 60.5% Win Rate
When the draws align, this deck will very rarely lose on points. Then, except for Shadow King, Shang-Chi or such counter cards, Man-Spider is among those synergies able to ignore an opposing Werewolf By Night played on turn three while Merlin in on the board.
Typically, this archetype does well early in the season, but struggle to maintain a good performance several weeks in a row. The current environment makes it a solid pick for anyone not enjoying flexible synergies, and willing to make the occasional risky snap early when the hand is worth it.
The feature location (Taco Truck) probably helped a bit as well.
Potential Additions
There is a lot of Merlin at the moment, so Magik probably is a flight risk. She would be my flexible slot if I wanted to run any other card.
Disruptive On Reveal
den
Performance: 0.8 Cube Average / 58.5% Win Rate
Disruptive cards are the ones enabling most snaps, as derailing our opponent’s plan is much safer than entering a points shoot out in Marvel Snap. Just like the build with Annihilus and Sentry, this one sports a fantastic Cube Average, once again proving flexible decks require a good amount of disruption to control the odds of a game.
Most likely, we will see various ideas emerge, all using Werewolf By Night and Shou-Lao the Undying as the source of points. Eventually, one will emerge as the best one, or a core will be set while disruptive cards rotates depending on the other popular decks.
Potential Additions
This deck is a mix of multiple synergies we hope will click together. Professor X works well with Mercury, Prowler or Merlin, while Sam Wilson Captain America is another way to discount the Thief’s Tools. Those tools assist Dormammu in representing cheap On Reveal cards for Werewolf By Night or Shou-Lao the Undying.
Except for the 7-cost, removing a card would likely reduce the appeal of others. As such, consider this a more toolbox type of build, while the Good Cards On Reveal is more reliable, but also less flexible deck building wise.
Bounce On Reveal
den
Performance: 0.6 Cube Average / 59.5% Win Rate
The change to Iceman has been a big boost to the Bounce shell. However, it is undeniable the group of cards carrying this one are those we saw in a multiple of other builds already.
I have no doubt this is a solid build, but I wonder what is the point when very similar strategies feature better results. Except for the Bounce game play, this one doesn’t make much sense to play, as I doubt not drawing either Werewolf By Night or Shou-Lao the Undying will lead to many cubes.
Potential Additions
Grand Master, Falcon, Sage, Hit-Monkey, Elektra… A lot of the typical inclusions in a regular Bounce move can be considered.
Good Cards Thanos
Performance: 0.55 Cube Average / 59.5% Win Rate
The results are getting slightly worse but the decks keep building around the same core, strong of the addition of Shou-Lao the Undying to help in the points department.
Overall, Thanos improved and deserves to be mentioned as a competitive option. However, just like Bounce, one could wonder what is the point of playing this instead of a better deck with Shou-Lao the Undying, outside of enjoying Thanos’ play style.
Potential Additions
This deck should probably run Werewolf By Night. Otherwise, Cosmo is great for decks able to leverage priority early on.
Kazootriot
den
Performance: 0.60 Cube Average / 59% Win Rate
Cosmo is a fantastic disruptive card in this On Reveal heavy metagame, while there isn’t that much of Enchantress, meaning Ongoing strategies have a good shot at the moment. Plus, these decks shine when it comes to spreading points across all three locations, limiting the need to pinpoint the opposing point’s spread.
Man-Spider likely does it better when it comes to ignoring its opponent and developing a ton of points, Kazootriot has the Cosmo wildcard, and requires specifically Enchantress to be countered.
Potential Additions
Wave or another way to gain energy would allow more of the big cards to be played when they all show up early. H.E.R.B.I.E serves that purposes through possibly granting a bonus 2 energy, but a more reliable way to gain energy could make more sense.
Tier 3
It is interesting to see there are no decks built for disruption in this last tier, as all six decks will pursue their own agenda rather than mess with their opponent. Unfortunately for them, it looks like they might need a better plan in order to reach the higher tiers in the future. This would particularly help their cube average.
Indeed, flexible decks got better at scoring this season, getting a new card to develop a lot of points. This naturally reduced the gap with synergistic decks, usually much better when left unchecked.
In this group, the Zombie Horde synergy looks the weakest, mostly because it is yet another deck using the season pass card. With so many archetypes including Shou-Lao the Undying already, the only conclusion is to think the Zombie Horde benefits from it, but is far from its best landing spot.
As for the other five decks, the results are more than enough to consider them, but it is important to check for popular counter cards, and be willing to snap early with a strong hand. Otherwise, these will only play high stakes matches against opponents with a way to mess with their synergy.
It is actually suspicious to see so many decks with a high cube average while I gathered data from the Infinite rank only. Either a large part of the community stopped playing seriously after reaching that last step, or bots found their way in the infinite ranks.
Wiccan Created cards
den
Performance: 0.5 Cube Average / 58.5% Win Rate
End of Turn
den
Performance: 0.7 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate
Discard Dracula
den
Performance: 0.65 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate
Zombies & New Cards
den
Performance: 0.6 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate
Nimrod Combo
den
Performance: 0.6 Cube Average / 57.5% Win Rate
Zombie Galacti
den
Performance: 0.6 Cube Average / 55.5% 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.
Trending: 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.
Meta stats and analytics directly from our Marvel Snap Tracker can also be found here.
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