Table of Contents
Without any balance update nor an impactful release to shake things up, the Marvel Snap metagame still is built around the power of the Move synergy.
Scream, Mercury and Shadow King are keeping it honest, but it is quite clear Pure Move would be sitting at the top of the list if it wasn’t for those counters being so simple to include in a variety of decks.
In that context, the archetypes in Tier 1 are those with a solid synergy and enjoying an environment with most opponents looking the other way when it comes to disruptive cards. This week, Iron Hand and Toxic made the most of the situation, both sporting great numbers without being neither very popular nor changing much to their typical built we have grown accustomed to.
Until a deck manages to be dominant for multiple weeks in a row, forcing the rest of the metagame to take notice and change their disruptive cards, which likely will result in Move skyrocketing to the top, I expect the top ranked decks to change regularly.
At least, this makes for a diverse environment, with various synergies able to exist and climb the ladder. Plus, this emphasize on good snaps and retreat, positioning or the ability to leverage locations.
Historically, this have not been the most fun metagames to play in, as these often result in many short lived, 1 cube matches. Yet, they also tend to reward the best players, or at least those able to find the synergy with the most upsides and the least counters at the moment.
Happy Tier List, everyone!
| Tier | Deck |
|---|---|
| Trending | Sauron 10 Power 0.45 Cube Average / 59% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Iron Hand 0.6 Cube Average / 60.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Toxic Wiccan 0.5 Cube Average / 61% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Disruptive Move 0.3 Cube Average / 59.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | War Machine Ramp 0.35 Cube Average / 57.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Scream Move 0.25 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Pure Move 0.45 Cube Average / 55.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Pixie High Power 0.45 Cube Average / 55% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Arishem Thanos 0.25 Cube Average / 55.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Hela Discard 0.25 Cube Average / 55.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Cerebro 3 0.4 Cube Average / 51% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Deadpool Destroy 0.3 Cube Average / 52.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Flexible Zombies 0.15 Cube Average / 55.5% Win Rate |
Are you still chasing that elusive Infinite Rank? Here are the Top 5 performers in the ranks 80 to 99!
| War Machine Ramp | 0.45 Cube Average / 62.5% Win Rate |
| Scream Move | 0.5 Cube Average / 60.5% Win Rate |
| Toxic Wiccan | 0.75 Cube Average / 60.5% Win Rate |
| Deadpool Destroy | 0.7 Cube Average / 60% Win Rate |
| Arishem Thanos | 0.65 Cube Average / 59% 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
Sauron 10 Power
den
Performance: 0.45 Cube Average / 59% Win Rate
A deck with a lot of upsides since Shang-Chi has been nerfed, Sauron 10 Power unfortunately has been derailed by the rise of Move. The ability to develop as many points, but change their position until the very end makes Move a very difficult match-up for Sauron 10 Power.
However, with Scream, Mercury, and Shadow King all popular at the moment to keep Move in check, plus Ezekiel Sims emerging as a solid new addition, Sauron 10 Power has been gaining popularity, and so far backs it up with solid metrics.
Potential Additions
Surge or Lizard are typically in Ezekiel Sims’ spot.
Tier 1
Iron Hand
Performance: 0.6 Cube Average / 60.5% Win Rate
Always discussed as a solid pick for anyone looking for a flexible archetype, Iron Hand has not been at the top of the rankings for quite a while.
The list is about the same, or at least one of the various popular builds for the archetype, compared to those from previous seasons. Then, the reason for Iron Hand’s current performance must be the environment.
Shadow King does nothing to this deck, while Victoria Hand is cheap enough to be kept in hand in order to prevent Red Guardian from cancelling it. This is in part why Moon Girl is preferred to Bastion as the moment.
Then, Iron Hand might have one of the safest snaps in the game on turn five, when it can pair Victoria Hand with Frigga while being on par with its opponent’s development.
Maybe more opponents should consider leaving in that situation.
Potential Additions
Quake can be Armor, Red Guardian, Rogue, Mobius M. Mobius or another 2 or 3-cost card you fancy.
Bastion replaces Moon Girl in some lists, but requires playing Victoria Hand early, exposing it to Red Guardian or Enchantress.
Toxic Wiccan
den
Performance: 0.5 Cube Average / 61% Win Rate
A very simple synergy we have seen resurface in this balanced environment, Toxic keeps posting solid performances, with this one being its best so far.
Shadow King does not synergize well with Hazmat but serves as a back-up plan for Anti-Venom when Luke Cage does not show up. Plus, the card is fantastic in the current metagame.
A solid synergy alongside the right disruption is all it takes at the moment.
Potential Additions
Speed is the flexible card, replaceable with anything you believe will produce more than 8 or 9 points.
Laufey is also a strong card, in case you were missing one of the 4-costs.
Tier 2
Disruptive Move
den
Performance: 0.3 Cube Average / 59.5% Win Rate
The best Move deck at the moment, especially from a Win Rate standpoint, Disruptive Move is just an answer to the current trend of countering move decks.
Then, instead of relying on points only, this one is able to also break opposing play-pattern, making the game about more than praying the opponent doesn’t have Shadow King to ruin one of our locations.
Potential Additions
Cosmic ghost Rider is the flexible card, in case you wanted another disruptive tool (Enchantress, Juggernaut…) or a generic solid card atop the curve (Legion)
War Machine Ramp
den
Performance: 0.35 Cube Average / 57.5% Win Rate
The cube average is a bit lower compared to previous weeks, probably due to War Machine Ramp earning the respect of its peers over time. Otherwise, the deck has proved it is no fluke in the current metagame, routinely ranking in the top 5 in recent reports.
Potential Additions
Vision or Galactus First Steps can replace Doctor Doom or Alioth depending how you want to approach the later turns.
Scream Move
den
Performance: 0.25 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate
There is a bit less of Move after it has been the target of every other deck for almost two weeks. Then, Scream Move might struggle to rack up cubes as it will see its prey fewer times. Still, the deck is still able to win 58% of its games, showing Scream remains a solid pick at the moment, although one might want to be more careful with their snaps now.
Potential Additions
Aero can replace a missing Cannonball, while Ezekiel Sims has been spotted in a few lists.
Pure Move
den
Performance: 0.45 Cube Average / 55.5% Win Rate
Pure Move needs to be very disciplined at the moment, as Mercury can hide behind any corner. Otherwise, the excellent cube average tells use Move deserves to have that target on its back. Indeed, a deck typically does not rack up that many cubes with a win rate considered average amongst competitive builds, especially a well-known and respected one.
Then, if we consider opponents are retreating against Move’s perfect draw, giving it two cubes at Beast, Move must be able to snap quite often in order to build that cube average.
Potential Additions
Juggernaut is the flexible card in the build, in case you wanted to include a Rogue or Mobius M. Mobius for a specific opponent.
Pixie High Power
den
Performance: 0.45 Cube Average / 55% Win Rate
The surprise performer of the week, this deck makes the most of Mobius M. Mobius being nowhere to be seen in this metagame. Indeed, the 3-cost would disable almost every synergy this deck is based upon. However, with that threat absent, this deck is able to leverage its many energy cheats, and positions its points flexibly at the end of the game.
The current meta doesn’t feature many high scoring decks so this seems to be well-suited to the current environment. Well, at least until it becomes a thing and stops surprising its opponents.
Potential Additions
Nico Minoru and Surge look like the flexible cards. Spider-Ham would bring some disruption, while America Chavez could synergize with Shuri.
Mobius M. Mobius is typically used to get only the benefit of Pixie’s ability.
Arishem Thanos
den
Performance: 0.25 Cube Average / 55.5% Win Rate
Arishem was sitting at the top last week without Thanos in the mix. This time, the Mad Titan is back, but the deck is looking average amongst competitive picks. What is weird is the absence of that other way to build Arishem without Thanos. I looked for it and the numbers had nothing special.
Then, it is possible Arishem is nothing but a high roll based archetype at the moment, and both its performance and best list will vary over time.
Potential Additions
Alioth can be another 6-cost (Eson, Magneto, Blob) depending what you want to accomplish. Mercury would be the other flexible card in the build.
Hela Discard
den
Performance: 0.25 Cube Average / 55.5% Win Rate
Hela wants to dodge Move for Cosmo and points reasons, alongside War Machine Ramp for Alioth reasons. Otherwise, the Goddess of Death doesn’t care much about Shadow King, Red Guardian or Mercury so it will often win those games as long as Hela herself shows up.
However, to help with the Move match-up, the archetype has started to pack some disruption, with Supergiant joining the mix, and Alioth following the 4-cost for synergistic purposes.
Potential Additions
Odin would be the flexible card here, althought it synergize well with Jubilee.
Tier 3
The decks in this last tier are pretty close to the others on this report. Indeed, Cerebro 3 features an excellent cube average but is held back by the worse win rate on this report, while the Undead Horde synergy has the opposite issue, with a fine win rate but unable to turn it into cubes.
Then, these decks should be regarded as less balanced rather than worse than other inclusions in this report. Someone great at snaps and retreats will likely find success with Cerebro 3, while the Flexible Zombies deck wins just as many games as half the archetypes on this report.
Only Destroy could be considered slightly behind the pack, not particularly good in any metric, but also not so far that we can’t consider it.
Cerebro 3
den
Performance: 0.4 Cube Average / 51% Win Rate
Deadpool Destroy
den
Performance: 0.3 Cube Average / 52.5% Win Rate
Flexible Zombies
den
Performance: 0.15 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.
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 > 0.5
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 > 0.35
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 > 0.20
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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