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
Most of what the community expected happened following the OTA Balance Updates: Good Cards Blink is no more, and Bounce has been very popular, even if no list managed to become the consensus best one so far.
Overall, the meta is a battle between flexible play patterns, super explosive kind of decks such as Bounce, or Loki, and those trying to limit their development, Lockdown, Junk, through limiting the available space.
Serving as the referee of this encounter is the Ongoing synergy, which saw Cerebro 3 benefit a ton from Luke Cage now being a [3/3]. Alongside the Ongoing deck, these have a role to play as they dictate the cards you should keep in mind when building your deck, for example U.S. Agent or Cosmo.
The fun thing is, all those decks are pretty flexible in their deckbuilding, and have access to at least 15, if not 20 cards you could consider in your list, depending on the matchups you want to edge. This should make the metagame quite dynamic from a counter cards standpoint, even if the same archetypes might stay dominant for a while.
If you don’t enjoy head scratching games though, a few straight forward archetypes remain, although their win rate is clearly not on par with those we discussed above. Hela and Patriot lead the charge in this last category, both posting the worst win rates in this report, at 52 and 51% each. Clearly, these rely on flawless snaps and retreats to build their Cube average, and if they are simple to play, require some knowledge to dodge your opponent’s traps.
Last, we have to discuss the early winner of this patch: the Destroy synergy. On the back of leveraging Killmonger and Lady Deathstrike in a metagame with a ton of 1-Cost cards, or low Power cards, DeathJunk managed to grab the top spot in the rankings, while Destroy returned in Tier 2 for the first time this season.
Clearly, there is still a lot to be figured out after the Balance Updates, and most players sharing their success mostly did it with a comfort pick. The Destroy synergy is the most intriguing of the bunch, and could have an impact on which archetypes emerge on top once we all start to gravitate towards the best decks.
Happy Tier List, everyone!
Marvel Snap Meta Tier List
| Tier | Deck |
|---|---|
| Silent Performer | Loki Control |
| Silent Performer | Proactive Bounce |
| Silent Performer | Cerebro 3 |
| Silent Performer | On Reveal |
| Tier 1 | DeathJunk 🔼 |
| Tier 1 | Ravonna Lockdown 🆕 |
| Tier 1 | Junk 🔼 |
| Tier 1 | Ongoing |
| Tier 2 | Hela Corvus |
| Tier 2 | Destroy 🔼 |
| Tier 3 | Bounce Darkhawk 🆕 |
| Tier 3 | Patriot |
| 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 > 0.35
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 > 0.2
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 > 0.15
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
Loki Control
There were a lot of different Loki decklists to look at since the OTA, some placing the deck in tier 1, while others weren’t even worth including in the report. Yet, because none had enough games to back up their performance, I felt it was more fair to include the best performing one as a silent performer. Plus, it is a very intriguing one, as Loki has not been playing a heavy control package in a while, with Red Guardian, Shang-Chi, and Enchantress included.
No doubt, the change to Leech in the recent OTA opened more space for On Reveal cards to exist, especially the ones you might keep in hand waiting for the perfect opportunity. Then, this control trio makes sense with Cerebro gaining some momentum with Luke Cage now a [3/3] or the Ongoing still being a strong after the OTA.
Proactive Bounce
If Werewolf By Night was the card most people talked about after the OTA, the best Bounce list actually left the card out. Instead, we have plenty of low cost, but high potential cards to rely upon, with Angela, Bishop to anchor the early game, while
If you look at tier one decks in the report, you’ll see Professor X remains a threat currently, so this more proactive approach makes sense until the environment is a little friendlier for Werewolf By Night to move as it wishes.
Cerebro 3
den
The deck many expected to make a grand return with the OTA changing Luke Cage to a [3/3] took the title of best Cerebro deck from Cerebro 3 already. However, just like Loki, it also had a ton of various lists, as the pool of cards with three power is starting to be quite large. As such, it felt better to include the archetype as a silent performer, and discuss the cards part of the best performing list.
Scarlet Witch beats Quake for the location card, mostly due to countering decks using Magik. Cosmo feels needed for the many Ongoing counter cards around, while also preying on the Ongoing decks looking to profit from Leech being gone. Lastly, Red Guardian gives the deck a way to interact with opposing Ravonna Renslayer, Angela, and other cheap cards used to set up on turn two. The game has seen a lot of those with the OTA, as Werewolf By Night pushed those cheap, on reveal based synergy to be super popular, in addition to Professor X already being a force before the OTA.
Killmonger is a card I would want to fit in the deck, as there has been more 1-Cost cards around with the OTA. The call will probably battle with Red Guardian for the last spot in the deck, unless Mobius M. Mobius takes it. So many good cards with three Power…
On Reveal
den
Before the OTA, the deck struggled to keep anything done, as Leech was just too much of a pain to deal with. Now, you might face a lot of Cosmo in Cerebro 3, Loki, Ongoing or other similar, flexible kind of archetypes. Nonetheless, the situation improved for the On Reveal synergy, which managed to post a solid performance over a limited amount of games.
In this one, the goal is clearly to held Namora shine. Indeed, apart from swapping Nightcrawler instead of Nico Minoru, you can’t include many more cards to make sure the new 5-Cost card will be set as best as possible.
This is of course a gimmick deck, but if you don’t see too much On Reveal disruption, and don’t fear snapping early on your good draws, this is a consideration for sure.
Tier 1
DeathJunk
den
Werewolf By Night being changed has led to Bounce, or similar decks built around a significant amount of 1-Cost cards, to be extremely popular. Naturally, a deck with Killmonger had its work cut out for it, with Lady Deathstrike serving as the cherry on top.
I don’t think DeathJunk will keep the throne forever, as the environment has a lot to do with the deck’s performance. Then, the 59% win rate, the highest this week, propelled the deck to top of the rankings in this very contested metagame, where no one managed to post more than 0.35 Cubes per game on average. Yet, with Sasquatch joining on Tuesday, Killmonger and Lady Deathstrike should remain a great pair for at least another week.
Potential Additions
The list has been the same for weeks now, so it is difficult to recommend precise changes. Sentry and Annihilus could be replaced with something else with fewer synergies, but more potential, like a Moon Girl or counter cards.
Ravonna Lockdown
After bursting onto the scene in the Conquest mode, Ravonna Lockdown is now a terror in ranked as well, posting a 0.35 Cube average, alongside a 58% win rate.
The list was the exact same compared to the one we saw in Conquest before the OTA, showing the stability of the build. Otherwise, It is fairly simple to grasp why is the deck doing great right now, as it possess plenty of ways to disrupt the current cheap cards decks with Professor X, Green Goblin or White Widow.
Potential Additions
Cards you can get discounted by Ravonna Renslayer are good, such as Wolfsbane. Otherwise, you could include more cards able to move to support Professor X.
Junk
The OTA pushed many synergies looking to make the most of the space they have available on the board. Then, it only makes sense to see Junk, the archetype specialized in limiting its opponent space, do really well.
The formula is still the same, with Daredevil taking over Titania this week, probably to see opposing Professor X or where explosive decks will develop their points ahead of our Professor X.
Potential Additions
Titania and Daredevil typically battle for the last slot in the deck, with Magik also replaceable with Nocturne, Red Guardian or such solid 3-Cost cards.
Ongoing
den
Luke Cage and Spectrum both losing a power didn’t phase the Ongoing synergy, as the change to Captain America more than made up for it. If you think about it, Spectrum is rarely required to win her lane, and serves as a support to our other two, filled with Ongoing cards most of the time. Then, her change feels pretty insignificant, while Captain America being an eight power card is a big help to win Omega Red‘s lane.
The power resides in different cards now, but the Ongoing deck isn’t going anywhere it seems.
Potential Additions
Mobius M. Mobius is the next Ongoing ability one might want to include.
Tier 2
Hela Corvus
Cosmo has been spotted in many archetypes since the OTA, which limited how impactful Hela could be in Leech‘s absence. Still, the Goddess of Death is not going to disappear so easily, and if it wasn’t for a much lower win rate compared to the four decks, she might have joined them there.
Then, while the 0.3 Cube average was almost enough to be in the top tier, the 52% win rate shows that Hela is once again a deck reserved to those who aren’t afraid to snap when piloting it.
Potential Additions
Ghost Rider and Skaar have been a nice duo in the deck recently, playing a more on curve type of strategy and adding another target for Blink. Remove Black Cat and Red Hulk if you want to give them a shot.
Destroy
We said in the DeathJunk write up that this post OTA metagame was great for Killmonger and Lady Deathstrike, so this should come as no surprise to see Destroy do a little better too. The performance isn’t stellar, but bottom of tier 2, on the back of a 54% win rate and 0.25 Cube average is better than what the deck did recently. Then, if the metagame keeps developing the direction it is currently headed, this is definitely a deck to consider to climb the ranks.
Potential Additions
Lady Deathstrike feels too good right now to replace, which leaves Hulkbuster, maybe Deathlok as potential swaps if you had another card in mind.
Tier 3
Bounce Darkhawk
The Proactive Bounce list in the Silent Performers posted the best results overall, but was quite far from the Darkhawk variant in terms of popularity. So far, this one managed to post a reasonably good win rate at 53.5%, placing it below the tier 1 deck at 57 to 60% but in front of the snap oriented decks, such as Hela or Patriot, closer to 51%.
In the current metagame with Junk and Professor X being fairly popular, it seems like the fast, the better for Bounce, so maybe Darkhawk and Werewolf By Night are a little slow in the current form.
Patriot
Still rocking its Pixie list, Patriot looks like it stabilized where most expected it to land, amongst good, but not impressive archetypes. The deck is solid, as just being in the report means you have positive results. Yet, the hype around Ultron‘s buff is now long gone, and it is very difficult to catch anyone off guard if playing in the Infinite ranks.
Closing Words
Less of Leech logically led to more On reveal decks, but the metagame quickly adapted to the trend. Not only is Cosmo more popular than it was before the OTA, Professor X is also still around to punish obvious play-patterns. Then, if you don’t have to worry about your entire hand going blank, you still have to keep priority and card placement in mind when playing an On Reveal based deck.
The big change compared to before the OTA is the amount of playable decks, as nobody posted a particularly dominant performance this week, when Good Cards Blink dominated before the OTA. DeathJunk took the top spot with only a 0.35 Cube average, a very low score compared to the usual 0.5 threshold just to be in Tier 1.
Then, the hole that Good Cards Blink leaves behind is being filled by whatever the community feels like playing right now. I have no doubt dominant will emerge soon, but considering every strategy has a counter play in another deck, the best strategy is the one you can pilot flawlessly at this point.
To reach out, 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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