Table of Contents
Typically, the first week of the season isn’t the most interesting to look at because bots make every deck look good. Early in the Arachnid Anarchy season, that situation seems to repeat itself, except there is one big difference :
The best decks aren’t the typical proactive, combo heavy builds we typically see at the start of a season.
Indeed, while those decks exist, with Pure Move, Man-Spider Combo or even End of Turn ranked in this Tier List, they all sit towards the end of the rankings. Instead, the deck with the best track record are those packing a solid disruptive arsenal :
- Arishem and a flurry of 5-cost counter cards
- Scream Move, the nightmare of Pure Move.
- War Machine Ramp and its lockdown package.
Below these three are a flurry of various synergies, some we could argue are there thanks to some bots helping on the way. Still, compared to the first week of most season, this one looks more advanced than most.
Happy Tier List, everyone!
| Tier | Deck |
|---|---|
| Trending | Black Knight Discard 0.55 Cube Average / 59% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Arishem 0.55 Cube Average / 62.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | Scream Move 0.5 Cube Average / 60% Win Rate |
| Tier 1 | War Machine Ramp 0.5 Cube Average / 59.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Supergiant Sauron 0.45 Cube Average / 58.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Hela Discard 0.55 Cube Average / 56.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Clogtriot 0.5 Cube Average / 56% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Supergiant Rocks 0.4 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Toxic 0.4 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Wiccan Disrupt 0.4 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | End of Turn 0.45 Cube Average / 57.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Iron Hand 0.5 Cube Average / 56.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 2 | Flexible Zombies 0.4 Cube Average / 57% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Pure Move 0.3 Cube Average / 56.5% Win Rate |
| Tier 3 | Man-Spider Combo 0.35 Cube Average / 56% Win Rate |
The first week of the season covers decks from rank 80 up to those already in Infinite. Decks with the best results in the ranks 80 to 99 will return next week !
Instead, here are the top four decks from the Golden Gauntlet World Finals :
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Trending
Black Knight Discard
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Performance: 0.55 Cube Average / 59% Win Rate
A build we haven’t seen in quite some time. Yet, the balanced metagame and some bots on the way allow for the occasional comeback. Plus, Black knight Discard doesn’t care about the current disruptive cards (Mercury, Shadow King except for the Ebony Blade) while it can run several itself (Spider-Ham, Enchantress, Lady Deathstrike).
I expect the points to be much lower than a Move, or even an ideal draw of various decks on this list. Plus, I’m not sure why Red Shift isn’t in the build. Still, this packs a good mix of points, and solid disruptive cards in the current metagame.
Tier 1
Arishem
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Performance: 0.55 Cube Average / 62.5% Win Rate
A similar deck reached the Golden Gauntlet Finals top 4 with Thanos in the mix, but ranked play seems to favour Sera instead.
Otherwise, the key for Arishem to thrive are the disruptive cards (Enchantress, Cosmic ghost Rider, Lady Deathstrike) which come down one turn early thanks to the extra energy.
In a balance metagame, one extra energy over four turns makes a huge difference, even if it will cost us a few 1 cube retreats on the way.
Potential Additions
Thanos and Mockingbirn can replace Sera and Blob.
Mercury and Shadow King are metagame specific inclusions, and could be strong standalones if you don’t need them for your popular opponents.
Scream Move
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Performance: 0.5 Cube Average / 60% Win Rate
As usual after a balance update without a clear best deck, Move tends to be very popular. The last time, Scream Move didn’t make much of a comeback. Yet, with Spider-Punk to add to the deck, and many disruptive tools nerfed recently, Scream Move represents both a way to demolish Move, and a generic solid deck at the moment.
Potential Additions
Cannonball could replace Aero and Kingpin sees play in a few builds. Otherwise, you could run some specific counter cards, such as Mobius M. Mobius if you face synergies you are unable to act against.
War Machine Ramp
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Performance: 0.5 Cube Average / 59.5% Win Rate
After receiving small buffs in each of the previous OTAs, although Vision isn’t part of the best performing build this week, War Machine Ramp has solidified its status as a strong metagame contender.
Plus, the deck is quite simple to pilot, and has one of the safest snaps in the game when Storm, War Machine and Legion are played one after another.
Potential Additions
Vision replaces Doctor Doom in some lists. Merlin could be Jennifer Kale or a 2-cost for a specific match-up.
Tier 2
Supergiant Sauron
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Performance: 0.45 Cube Average / 58.5% Win Rate
Nerfed not so long ago, Supergiant Sauron managed to remain a solid metagame contender. Even as a [4/6], Supergiant remains a strong disruptive piece against synergistic decks. Indeed, blocking one turn from the likes of Move, who typically look to explode in the second half of the match, and need to play their cards in a specific order.
Potential Additions
Sauron 10 Power isn’t as good, but still posts very solid results at the moment.
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Hela Discard
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Performance: 0.55 Cube Average / 56.5% Win Rate
Hela is a fantastic bot farmer, just like most Discard oriented decks. However, with Alioth nerfed recently, and the metagame being fairly balanced, Hela is amongst the top scorers while it doesn’t care about Mercury and Shadow King.
Then, Hela is a great synergy to rank up to Infinite, but also likely a fine synergy to pick in this metagame.
Potential Additions
Ghost Rider likely is the flexible card if you wanted to run another 5-cost card in the build. Otherwise, the only other flexible slot would be Gambit, but we need to run a minimum amount of Discard abilities, so Blade would be the sole replacement.
Clogtriot
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Performance: 0.5 Cube Average / 56% Win Rate
Clogtriot has been making strides in the early day of several seasons, but typically quickly disappears after that bot filled period.
Then, while there is a lot to like about this deck, with Shadow King being a fantastic card currently, while the Clog synergy is pretty good against Move. I’ll wait until this deck makes it into a week 2 Tier List to call it a solid pick.
Potential Additions
Ant-Man and Dazzler are the flexible picks if you’d rather include disruptive cards (Spider-Ham) rather than play for points.
Supergiant Rocks
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Performance: 0.4 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate
A lot of synergistic decks tend to start slow, which allows for Terrax the Tamer to shuffle multiple rocks in their deck on most occasions.
However, if the disruption doesn’t stop the opponent from developing said synergies, this deck typically lacks in the points department at the end of the game.
Potential Additions
Alioth could be Galactus First Steps while Quake is the flexible card if you wanted another form of disruption.
Toxic
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Performance: 0.4 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate
Toxic is part of those synergies with enough to contend, but short of becoming a real problem for other decks. Indeed, Toxic is well known so should not catch anyone by surprise. Invisible Woman is an attempt to do so, able to protect Ajax from Enchantress or Rogue, while allowing Shadow King or Hazmat to be played early.
Potential Additions
Invisible Woman and Scorpion could be Quicksilver and Domino, or Domino plus another card you value. Some decks feature Sage, Merlin, Rogue or Speed.
Wiccan Disrupt
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Performance: 0.4 Cube Average / 58% Win Rate
This archetype disappeared after Fenris Wolf was nerfed to a 3-cost, but with Cannonball and Mercury being part of the top disruptive cards currently, the synergy is attempting a comeback.
Arguably, being in the middle of the pack while bots are helping isn’t that impressive, but still represents an improvement for a synergy we had not seen for a while.
Potential Additions
The 2-cost cards could be Domino, opening two flexible slots in the deck for disruptive or strong standalone cards. Galactus First Steps or Vision atop the curve could help with points, while Enchantress or such cards are always an option.
End of Turn
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Performance: 0.45 Cube Average / 57.5% Win Rate
This synergy has been struggling even for the majority of last season, as Red Guardian and Cosmic ghost Rider are a huge problem for this deck.
Then, considering both cards are still very popular even with the 5-cost losing a point in the previous OTA, I will wait for week 2 to consider End of Turn a real pick in this metagame.
Potential Additions
Adam Warlock replaces Bruce Banner in certain lists.
Iron Hand
Performance: 0.5 Cube Average / 56.5% Win Rate
Always mentioned as a strong archetype, Iron Hand is both flexible and able to post a decent amount of points. Unfortunately, Victoria Hand is also fragile to Red Guardian and Ongoing counter cards.
Then, while I have no doubt the potential is there, especially with the right counter cards, Victoria Hand needs to post consistent results to earn its contender status back.
Potential Additions
A less disruptive, more focused on created cards build also exists. The win rate is slightly better, but it racks up fewer cubes per game.
Flexible Zombies
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Performance: 0.4 Cube Average / 57% Win Rate
Last season’s featured archetype isn’t off to a great start in November. Indeed, the Zombie Horde had to default to Mercury and Cannonball as a disruptive duo, showing the points are lacking to compete with the current top archetypes.
Plus, Mercury being very popular is quite a problem, as Werewolf By Night has been the second way to score points in this deck. The first one isn’t doing that much better, as Shadow King sets the Zombie Hord back to Zero power.
Potential Additions
Nico Minoru, Werewolf By Night and a 5-cost disruptive card typically replace Spider-Ham, Mercury and Cannonball, but these three are needed to shut down the popular archetype.
Luna Snow can replace a missing Superior Spider-Man, but then makes Cosmic ghost Rider even better.
Tier 3
Pure Move
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Performance: 0.3 Cube Average / 56.5% Win Rate
Arguably, Pure Move is one of the best archetypes in the game. Yet, the entire field is dedicated to bullying it with Mercury included in a varied of decks, while Scream Move is also very popular.
Then, those results shouldn’t be regarded as worse than every one else. Rather, they show the floor of Pure Move in a punishing metagame.
Maybe Rogue instead of Cosmo could help with the Mercury problem.
Man-Spider Combo
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Performance: 0.35 Cube Average / 56% Win Rate
Shadow King can be in any deck, while Mercury plus Cannonball are also able to remove Man-Spider or Black Panther before this deck is able to use Arnim Zola or Taskmaster. Then, while the new 5-cost proved it can grow to stupid amounts, the metagame is not great to leverage that sort of synergy at the moment.
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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