Table of Contents
Sitting at the top of the rankings after this OTA is one of the few archetypes who dodged the nerf bullet, Disruptive Aurora. I was surprised not to see End of Turn 2099 among the popular archetypes as well, but it seems that one is mostly in the ranks leading up to Infinite.
This is only fair, as even if we only have 12 cards in our deck, it still takes a bit to refine a Marvel Snap deck. Plus, a lot of archetypes rely on their disruptive cards to reach the next gear, meaning we have to wait for dominant decks to emerge before we can pick those.
Looking at the solid synergies shortly after the OTA, Silver Surfer and Discard are ones to keep an eye on. The 3-cost heavy archetype is making the most of the new Storm Horseman of Famine, and can still rely on plenty of disruptive tools to adapt against certain matchups.
On the other hand, Discard is enjoying a metagame with fewer synergies able to beat it on sheer amount of points. With Shou-Lao the Undying and Fin Fang Foom out of the picture for now, Daken and Morbius have a strong shot at winning their location.
Overall, the OTA opened a ton of room in the metagame, and no deck has become oppressive after a couple of days. The likes of Man-Spider might come back as another way to develop plenty of points. Yet, with a new season just around the corner, we might also just goof around with synergies we have not seen over the past two months. This is a great opportunity to finish the season with a strategy we enjoy, and start building fresh with the May season.
Happy Tier List, everyone!
| Tier | Deck |
|---|---|
| Trending | Supergiant Afflicts 0.3 Cube Average / 57% Win Rate / 100 Games |
| Tier 1 | Disruptive Aurora 0.5 Cube Average / 62% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Sunny Buff Surfer 0.5 Cube Average / 59% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Iron Hand 0.45 Cube Average / 60% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Discard Combo 0.5 Cube Average / 56% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Buffs Soup 0.45 Cube Average / 57% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Double Ongoing 0.4 Cube Average / 57.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Lockdown Move 0.35 Cube Average / 56% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Supergiant Rocks 0.3 Cube Average / 55% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Mother Bullseye 0.3 Cube Average / 56% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Virused Soup 0.15 Cube Average / 54.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Fantomex Activates 0.25 Cube Average / 52% Win Rate |
Are you still chasing that elusive Infinite Rank? Here are the Top 5 performers in the ranks 80 to 99!
| High Power Summons | 0.7 Cube Average / 63% Win Rate |
| Supergiant Rocks | 0.6 Cube Average / 61.5% Win Rate |
| Lockdown Move | 0.6 Cube Average / 61.5% Win Rate |
| End of Turn 2099 | 0.55 Cube Average / 58.5% Win Rate |
| Disruptive Aurora | 0.3 Cube Average / 60.5% 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
Supergiant Afflicts
den
Performance: 0.3 Cube Average / 57% Win Rate / 100 Games
A new build around Polaris Horseman of Pestilence is gaining popularity. Unfortunately, it is still quite obvious in terms of play style, meaning your opponent should figure out the afflict part of your deck early on. However, Supergiant brings that surprise factor, alongside a protected Ajax in case your opponent would use a way to disable it.
Tier 1
Disruptive Aurora
den
Performance: 0.5 Cube Average / 62% Win Rate
An archetype with solid results all season long, representing a natural safe bet after an OTA designed to hurt most of the top synergies in the metagame. Disruptive Aurora doesn’t fare well when it misses a turn early on, but otherwise is a menace when able to play with priority,
Potential Additions
Luke Cage, Anti-Venom and Man-Thing are a great trio to consider. Otherwise, strong standalone cards you can boost with Aurora will always be fine replacements.
Sunny Buff Surfer
den
Performance: 0.5 Cube Average / 59% Win Rate
The deck didn’t fare that well before the OTA, but the multiple nerfs have opened the way for this sort of archetype to end the season on a bang. Shadow King is making a timid comeback in some archetypes, while it is also quite simple to know when you should retreat against this deck. In that context, I expect Buff Surfer to lose momentum going forward, but still remain a competitive pick.
Potential Additions
Rogue, Mobius M. Mobius, Copycat and such 3-cost cards able to weight on a match are fine in this deck.
Killmonger and Red Guardian are in those spots at the moment.
Iron Hand
den
Performance: 0.45 Cube Average / 60% Win Rate
The archetype came back in the mix with Gambit Horseman of Death, although it still felt fragile at the time. However, with the best archetypes getting nerfed, Iron Hand slowly climbed its way back to being a solid archetype in Marvel Snap once again. Finding the right disruptive cards is key for this deck to perform, as the amount of points developed isn’t enough to win through sheer power.
Potential Additions
Scarlet Witch looks crucial based on the best performing lists. Shadow King however, could be another disruptive card if you feel like a Rogue or Ghost would rack up more cubes.
Tier 2
Discard Combo
den
Performance: 0.5 Cube Average / 56% Win Rate
Most of the top points synergies have been nerfed, meaning there is a lot of open field for those able to develop a ton of power across the board. The Discard synergy has always been one of the bests at doing so, and this combo oriented decks should be one of the highest scorers around when the draws align. Its main downside is to be quite predictable, as you can’t hide your points until the last turn. Also, Cosmo remains a very popular card.
Potential Additions
This is an emerging build so it is tough to recommend changes. Blink is a support card to find M.O.D.O.K, while Moon Girl could be another card able to duplicate.
Swarm should be able to replace a missing Proxima Midnight.
Buff Soup
den
Performance: 0.45 Cube Average / 57% Win Rate
With Surfer in the upper tier, it is difficult to recommend this deck, as both are extremely similar.
The Buff Soup main upside is to be much more resilient to disruption, especially Cosmo. Otherwise, it looks like a fine archetype with a better alternative around.
Potential Additions
Agony still makes sense to consider. Captain Carter can replace another 3-cost.
Double Ongoing
den
Performance: 0.4 Cube Average / 57.5% Win Rate
Just like Discard, Ongoing is another synergy with the potential to score enough points to dominate now that the top dogs have been nerfed. Obviously, this will be weak to Enchantress and such counter cards, although this one is capable of keeping cards in hand and be explosive thanks to Quinjet.
Potential Additions
Lin Lie Iron Fist is only good if we can duplicate it, as the deck has no ways to move cards around. This probably is the flexible slot if you wanted a disruptive card in the mix.
Lockdown Move
den
Performance: 0.35 Cube Average / 56% Win Rate
I checked where the more traditional Move decks were at, to see if it was just a matter of popularity. Yet, it looks like this is the best way to play move at the moment. It is a bit difficult to believe. Indeed, Move was one of the few synergies able to contest the likes of Shou-Lao the Undying or Fin Fang Foom before the OTA, and it didn’t suffer any changes in the update.
If the numbers are right, it means Move is better off disrupting, rather than trying to develop points at the moment.
Potential Additions
Hellion, Madame Web, Araña and Spider-Punk can replace Nightcrawler, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Professor X and Galactus First Steps to play a more straight-forward move deck.
You can also consider Juggernaut or Stardust among disruptive cards.
Tier 3
After an OTA, there is always a good amount of emerging decks, and they can’t all be good. Supergiant Rocks was around before the update, and seem to suffer from the rise of Silver Surfer decks, as those run Killmonger.
The other three are mostly gimmick decks, unfortunately simple to recognize, meaning they need a great win rate to rack up a lot cubes. At least, Virused Soup and Fantomex Activate are unique synergies if you fancy those. As for Mother Bullseye, it will inevitably be compared to the Discard Combo deck in Tier 2.
Supergiant Rocks
den
Performance: 0.3 Cube Average / 55% Win Rate
Mother Bullseye
den
Performance: 0.3 Cube Average / 56% Win Rate
Virused Soup
den
Performance: 0.15 Cube Average / 54.5% Win Rate
Fantomex Activates
den
Performance: 0.25 Cube Average / 52% 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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