Table of Contents
Agamotto and Eson had a good showing early on in the new Prehistoric Avengers Season of Marvel Snap, but the dominant archetypes at the end of last season still prevail. Hela in particular looks to be the juggernaut of the current meta, and it should force some counter cards in the near future.
| Tier | Deck |
|---|---|
| Trending | Anti-Arishem Ronan Darkhawk 1.1 Cube Rate / 67% Win Rate / 160 Games |
| Trending | On Reveal Iron Hand (Agamotto) 0.9 Cube Rate / 63% Win Rate / 110 Games |
| Tier 1 | Hela Discard 0.8 Cube Rate / 63% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Ongoing Combo 0.85 Cube Rate / 62% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Arishem 0.65 Cube Rate / 67.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | KaZoo 0.7 Cube Rate / 59% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Bullseye Discard 0.7 Cube Rate / 59% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Mister Negative 0.9 Cube Rate / 57% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Good Cards Control (Agamotto) 0.6 Cube Rate / 57% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Scream Move (Agamotto) 0.45 Cube Rate / 56.5% Win Rate |
We are in the first week of the season, so the 90s ranks are included in the rankings above. The decks featured in the main chart are the same ones you should use if you’re struggling to get going early in the season. Our Pre-Infinite decks will be back next week!
Marvel Snap Meta Overview
Agamotto has been super popular, but it still lacks that signature deck that truly makes it a menace. As for Eson, the card mostly made Arishem a terror once again (or at least reminded everyone it was a great archetype). However, Arishem was quickly adapted against with Cassandra Nova, Darkhawk, and now Gorgon cropping up in the Trending decks. Hela has yet to be met with its counter cards, though, which has lead to the Goddess of Death to be the true top contender so far in this new season.
In typical Marvel Snap fashion, proactive decks are leading the way, with those meeting their counter being limited while the others run free and bully both bots and humans alike. Looking at the early rankings, the first disruptive deck appeared in Tier 3, although the anti-Arishem deck has posted incredible results over a small sample size. Unfortunately, that one is tied to the popularity of its prey, so it can only remain competitive as long as Arishem does.
This makes for a bit of dual meta to open this Prehistoric Avengers season. Either pick a proactive build you enjoy, or try to counter one of the dominant ones (Arishem, Hela, and Ongoing Doom are likely the only ones worth targeting). The first approach will have you focus on your Win Rate, while the other will have you focus on stealing as many cubes as possible from your target.
Happy Tier List, everyone!
Trending
den
Performance: 1.1 Cube Rate / 67% Win Rate / 160 Games
Eson looked like a natural fit in Arishem, and Agamotto is being tested everywhere at the moment. These two factors made Darkhawk the perfect predator for this early meta. As for Ronan the Accuser, the card has great synergy with Gorgon—another annoyance for Arishem—and nicely rounds out this target strategy.
Obviously, this deck’s performance is closely connected to the meta, so the combination might not make much sense if Arishem reduces in popularity. Until then, this deck has the most obvious Snap in the game.
Potential Additions
Spider-Ham and Nico Minoru are the flexible cards in the deck. This build can likely play with just two 1-Costs if you want to include something else. Misery could make sense.
den
Performance: 0.9 Cube Rate / 63% Win Rate / 110 Games
I like a lot of ideas from this deck, such as the Ancient Arcana synergizing with Werewolf By Night and Anti-Venom. However, after testing this build, I felt like it still revolved around the same concepts as the one during the previous season: Zabu on Turn 1, win Iron Patriot‘s lane, blah blah. When those things happen, you have a lot of flexible ways to dominate the match, and the Ancient Arcana make you even more flexible. However, this feels like a win more situation because Agamotto‘s arsenal is never enough to come back from a bad start.
Potential Additions
Enchantress and strong standalone cards make sense in this deck.
Tier 1
Hela Discard
den
Performance: 0.8 Cube Rate / 63% Win Rate
Hela is great for farming bots, and also apparently for farming other players at the moment. Honestly, apart from Cosmo or Alioth countering your final play, most people will take the one cube Retreat rather than test their luck for four cubes. It is just too scary when The Infinaut and either Skaar or Death have been discarded by Turn 4.
Potential Additions
Thaddeus Ross sometimes replaces Adam Warlock, and Iron Man is a flexible 5-Cost. Blink, Cannonball, Aero, and other strong 5-Cost cards can replace it.
Ongoing Combo
den
Performance: 0.85 Cube Rate / 62% Win Rate
The Doctor Doom 2099 build is much more popular, which might be the reason this Ongoing Combo list has a higher Win Rate. However, it feels like picking where to position your points is very important at the moment. Indeed, Hela will often beat you in a battle of throwing points at random, and you will rarely beat Eson unless you commit really hard to that location.
Potential Additions
The build around Doctor Doom 2099 is also posting very good results, but the more surprising combo deck seems to be racking up more cubes at the moment.
Arishem
den
Performance: 0.65 Cube Rate / 67.5% Win Rate
This is an incredible Win Rate for Arishem, but it’s not matched by the Cube Rate due to counters already on the rise. In the Trending decks, there is a Darkhawk Ronan deck specifically designed to bully Arishem, and Gorgon has been seeing play in a variety of Ongoing decks.
Potential Additions
The Doctor Doom duo can be replaced with card generation or strong standalone cards like Nick Fury, Enchantress, White Queen…
Tier 2
KaZoo
den
Performance: 0.7 Cube Rate / 59% Win Rate
Shang-Chi is a bit of an odd inclusion in the KaZoo archetype, but this list was by far the best performing one for the archetype. That tells me that Shang-Chi is a great card at the moment (which is totally logical considering both new cards have ten power). It also tells me the points potential of KaZoo might not be enough in this meta, hence why counter cards need to be added to the mix.
Potential Additions
Shang-Chi is obviously the flexible card here, with Cosmo and other disruptive cards filling the same role depending on which deck you are looking to beat.
Bullseye
den
Performance: 0.7 Cube Rate / 59% Win Rate
Although the meta is constantly evolving, Bullseye seems completely unfazed by the surrounding decks. I have no doubt Bullseye can easily fool bots and climb to the Infinite rank; however, it is hard to picture this deck improving much in the future considering the list has been about the same for almost two months now. On the other hand, plenty of archetypes on this list can still progress, so Bullseye should lose momentum as time passes.
Potential Additions
Gambit is the flexible card in the deck. The more Sam Wilson Captain America you see, the less effective Gambit should be. Grand Master is the usual replacement.
Mister Negative
den
Performance: 0.9 Cube Rate / 57% Win Rate
The Ancient Arcana from Agamotto are not affected by Mister Negative, so there is no reason to see this archetype change in the slightest. Once again, Mister Negative‘s performance is mostly based on the amount of counter cards around. There is currently very little of Cosmo and Mobius M. Mobius, hence the absurdly high Cube Rate here. Also, bots are clueless against Mister Negative.
Potential Additions
Ironheart could replace a missing Cassandra Nova or Sage, while Knull, Shang-Chi, Arnim Zola, and Black Panther represent another way to play the deck with only Series 3 cards.
Tier 3
Good Cards Control
den
Performance: 0.6 Cube Rate / 57% Win Rate
Similar to the On Reveal deck in the Trending section, Good Cards Control used Agamotto for higher highs… but also lower lows. If you consider each game is played with a Snap or a Retreat, this is probably a fine way to build the deck. However, if you are looking for stability, Agamotto still has to prove its worth in this deck.
Potential Additions
Shang-Chi or another strong standalone card makes sense to consider in this deck.
Scream Move
den
Performance: 0.45 Cube Rate / 56.5% Win Rate
Scream Move ending up at the bottom of the report shows just how much the meta has changed since the OTA. In particular, Hela is a pickle Scream cannot solve without adapting its deck with counter cards.
Agamotto makes sense from a synergy standpoint, but the card might not help the archetype after all. The early performance, which is closer to what you would expect when bots are not around, indicates that Agamotto hasn’t had much of an impact so far.
Potential Additions
Aero and Stegron were in the deck instead of Agamotto and Magneto last season.
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.
Win Rate > 60%
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.
Win Rate > 58% Or Incredible Cube Rate
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.
Win Rate > 56%
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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