Last week, Move was slowly releasing its grasp on the metagame as Scream started to pick up momentum. A week later, the Marvel Snap metagame features a lot less of both decks among the top performers. Instead, the synergistic builds gained even more ground as their direct counters are still nowhere to be seen.
Overall, this leads to a situation with one deck above the pack : Virused 10 Power, alone above the 60% win rate threshold, while also the top cube earner, tied with Zombie Galacti this week. Behind these two are a flurry of solid competitors, but lagging a bit in one or the other metric.
The reliable archetypes, routinely included in those reports will flex their win rate. Flexible Lockdown at 59.5%, Disruptive Aurora at 59% or End of Turn 2099 at 58.5%. However, their cube average, although good, can’t be considered excellent compared to the top 2 performers. For these archetypes everyone knows the ins and outs of, the key is to find how to rack up more cubes per game. Earlier snaps, or finding that surprising card to punish opposing snaps are typically the way to go.
Joining these in a lengthy tier 2 are those winning more cubes per match despite a significantly worse win rate. Small Buffed Cards, Ongoing Affliction or Nimrolact are 2 to 4% behind in the win rate department, but still climb just as fast. Obviously, these are making the most of a metagame barely acknowledging their existence, but Marvel Snap is a game built around throwing off the information available to both players in order to control the stakes of a match.
The metagame is headed somewhere, but it is impossible to say where precisely. Maybe the rest of the season will a loop of Move coming back and then being countered again. Maybe the new deck to beat is Virused 10 Power, so let’s add Shang-Chi or Mobius M. Mobius back in our decks.
Lastly, it is possible the current environment will reward those best able to control the information, and the stakes of a match, no matter which of the strong archetypes they pick.
Happy Tier List, everyone!
| Tier | Deck |
|---|---|
| Tier 1 | Virused 10 Power 0.6 Cube Average / 62% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Zombie Galacti 0.6 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Flexible Lockdown 0.4 Cube Average / 59.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | End of Turn 2099 0.45 Cube Average / 58.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Small Buffed Cards 0.45 Cube Average / 57% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Disruptive Aurora 0.35 Cube Average / 59% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Ongoing Affliction 0.45 Cube Average / 56% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Nimrolactus 0.55 Cube Average / 55% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Flexible Move 0.35 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Supergiant Rocks 0.35 Cube Average / 57.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | High Evo Control 0.25 Cube Average / 55.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Discard Dracula 0.25 Cube Average / 55.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | 4-Costs Afflict 0.25 Cube Average / 54% Win Rate |
Tier 1
Virused 10 Power
den
Performance: 0.6 Cube Average / 62% Win Rate
This entry is the reason I don’t like balancing a metagame with mostly light nerfs, designed to impair an archetype without killing it completely. Eventually, when the new cards fail to raise their archetype to a competitive status, or the now dominant decks are either targeted or nerfed, the old ones comes back. My problem isn’t about keeping an archetype in the metagame rather than nuking it to the ground. It is the lack of meaningful buffs to consolidate new contenders.
Virused 10 Power is a prime example of this situation. The deck got nerfed last season to make sure upcoming Move cards would be competitive enough. Now that Move has a target on its back, the 10 Power synergy is back on top, turning the last 3 OTA into meaningless updates.
As for the deck, it is the definition of simple of effective. Perfect in a metagame undergoing an identity crisis due to Move being altenately a great synergy or one to avoid.
Potential Additions
Cosmo, Mercury or Mobius M. Mobius can replace Shadow King depending which synergies you wish to target.
Martyr, Ares or Iron Patriot are played in other lists, typically instead of Sasquatch or Scarlet Witch.
Zombie Galacti
den
Performance: 0.6 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate
Whenever I see Zombie Galacti higher than the bottom of Tier 2, I immediately think a lot of people thought they could beat it and got punished for 4 cubes. The equation is very simple when playing against this deck. Just count how big Zombie Galacti can be, and how many infected cards are on the board. If you can’t beat that, the only reason to stay is Cosmo with priority, unless your opponent not snapping tells you they might not have the 7-cost in hand.
Playing against Zombie Galacti isn’t complex at all, but requires a bit of focus. Otherwise, the deck will post this type of performance and make every other archetype look like a fool.
Potential Additions
If Magik is too often met by Legion or Scarlet Witch, consider Hope Summers or Crystal.
Tier 2
Flexible Lockdown
den
Performance: 0.4 Cube Average / 59.5% Win Rate
The best way to play Move this week is to use it as a support synergy to the Lockdown concept. Together, they create a flexible deck able to reposition its points when needed, but not vulnerable enough to Mercury or Scream that these do equal a forced retreat. This week, the big addition is The Thing First Steps, offering both some interaction with the opponent, and an alternative to Professor x when locking a location isn’t an option.
Move remains one of Marvel Snap’s top tier synergies, but just like every archetype in the game, you can’t do much when the metagame is built to beat you.
Potential Additions
Spider-Ham or Echo are disruptive options instead of Iceman. Luke Cage synergizes well with Mysterio while edges against Affliction decks.
End of Turn 2099
den
Performance: 0.45 Cube Average / 58.5% Win Rate
Stardust is nowhere to be seen at the moment, meaning Doctor Doom 2099 can summon in peace. Just like Disruptive Aurora, don’t expect to catch anyone off guard, except when you play Sam Wilson Captain America on turn two and look like a move deck. However, this one probably has a much safer early Snap than Disruptive Aurora, explaining the better cube average.
Potential Additions
Mobius M. Mobius and Mercury are solid 3-cost cards in the current metagame. Legion is another solid 5-cost to consider if Sandman or CGR didn’t find enough good matchups.
Small Buffed Cards
den
Performance: 0.45 Cube Average / 57% Win Rate
This one disappeared for a minute, but looks pretty good in both metrics. I guess less of Shadow King, and barely any of Killmonger makes a huge difference for Small Buffed Cards.
The gameplay has not changed, designed around building points through buffs, meaning the problem was the metagame not allowing that particular synergy to develop in the past.
Except for Nightcrawler taking Sub-Mariner’s spot to add a bit of flexibility, those who enjoyed this deck last season should still feel right at home.
Potential Additions
Cosmo is required to stop Shadow King from wrecking one of our locations. Shang-Chi is more flexible, although great if you see 10 Power a lot. Merlin is a way to get plenty of cheap cards to play for Angela or Bishop.
Disruptive Aurora
den
Performance: 0.35 Cube Average / 59% Win Rate
This is arguably one of the better decks if we looked at Marvel Snap like we do for most other card games. However, this one does not reward us for winning most games, but for racking up the most cubes.
After several season constantly in the first two competitive tiers, Disruptive Aurora is unable to surprise anyone, while most players will easily math out this deck’s points total on turn six. This leads to a disappointing cube average for a deck routinely ranked in the top 3 or 5 win rates in the game.
Potential Additions
Luke Cage, Mobius M. Mobius and Mercury are three Ongoing abilities to consider at the moment.
Ongoing Affliction
den
Performance: 0.45 Cube Average / 56% Win Rate
Blink has been the important ingredient to make Scorpion Brand New Day work this week, guaranteeing the new signature card of the affliction archetype would hit the board every game.
So far, all the best performers are too busy countering Move to consider using Enchantress or Rogue. Luke Cage is around a bit, but not popular, or good enough to hurt this deck a ton.
Potential Additions
Rogue or Red Guardian can disable an opposing Luke Cage while Prodigy contributes to even more combos.
Nimrolactus
den
Performance: 0.55 Cube Average / 55% Win Rate
With Move a dominant force, Galactus was kicked out of the deck, resetting this build to just a synergistic deck forced to snap before revealing Nimrod or Black Panther. Now that the environment is finally going towards another direction, Galactus can come back, and bring that second win condition to the deck. The win rate hasn’t changed much, but the cube average immensely benefited.
Potential Additions
Carnage can replace a missing 2-cost, while other ways to buff can replace Shuri if you wanted more flexibility, or a card able to buff Galactus.
Flexible Move
den
Performance: 0.35 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate
The win rate remains excellent at 58%, showing the Move synergy remains very strong overall. However, this deck will more often be snapped against than able to snap due to Mercury or Shadow King being a possibility in a ton of different decks.
When you can’t snap Batroc the Leaper into your signature 2-cost, this deck immediately loses a lot of appeal.
The presence of Luke Cage, Cosmo and Mercury in the deck is a sign Move is looking for ways to snap outside of its core synergy.
Potential Additions
Luke Cage is specifically in the deck because of the new release Scorpion Brand New Day. Feel free to swap that out for Nightcrawler, Mary Jane or another synergistic card if you aren’t facing many affliction decks.
If you were looking for a disruptive card, Legion synergizes very well with Move decks while beating Magik, and something being snap worthy.
Supergiant Rocks
den
Performance: 0.35 Cube Average / 57.5% Win Rate
The repeated power nerfs over the past two seasons have hurt the deck to the point we will not see it as a top tier contender anytime soon. However, Supergiant Rocks remains a solid archetype, more than capable of competing when the early draws align.
Indeed, the nerfs to Debrii and Supergiant limited this deck’s ability to grab priority early on, but a strong start with Iron Patriot winning its location should be still be worth considering a snap.
Potential Additions
Negasonic Teenage Warhead lost a ton of appeal since we can’t create two 3-cost copies with Mother Askani. If you wanted to run another 4 or 5-cost card in the deck, such as Shang-Chi or Valkyrie to beat the 10 power deck for example, this is likely the cut.
Tier 3
This last tier is a great represent of the current metagame in my opinion. We have a low collection level friendly deck in High Evolutionary, the deck only requiring the Series 5 to be played as Laufey can be turned into something else. We also have Discard Dracula, an evergreen synergy not bothered with using counter cards, or featuring intricate play patterns.
Last, we have a build specifically designed on around the new card, designed to afflict as much as possible before bringing Scorpion Brand New Day to the board from our hand or deck.
These three are a step behind the rest, but to see they can achieve a decent performance without being tailored for the metagame shows a lot of different strategies can climb the ladder a the moment.
High Evo Control
den
Performance: 0.25 Cube Average / 55.5% Win Rate
Discard Dracula
den
Performance: 0.25 Cube Average / 55.5% Win Rate
4-Costs Afflict
den
Performance: 0.25 Cube Average / 54% 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.
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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