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
I typically like to wait longer after an OTA to write these reports because the early data is often misleading or incomplete at best. Indeed, shortly after a balance patch, a lot of players might be influenced by social media when picking their deck, and certain proactive synergies can run free as nobody has adapted against them yet.
I decided to make an exception for this one due to another balance patch coming due on Tuesday the 17th, so I will revisit these rankings soon. As such, take this report with a grain of salt; considering it like a starting point rather than a definite snapshot of the post-OTA meta. Over the weekend I’ll also get a chance to look at Conquest archetypes, and crossing-referencing both reports should tell me which decks are reliable and which simply overperformed for a day or two.
Overall, even if they aren’t featured due to a lack of popularity post OTA, I would side with the archetypes we knew before the OTA if I had to enter any competitive endeavor. Silver Surfer, Junk, KaZoo, any of last week’s decks (apart from Midrange Sandman since it got chopped) remain solid even though the OTA put the spotlight on War Machine and Black Knight.
I believe you are still able to play it safe and pick one of the solid archetypes from before the OTA, just make possible adjustments to new decks when it comes to the flexible cards. Or you could be creative and give a new brew a try. Lockdown is making a huge comeback, while the discard synergy around Black Knight also looks quite promising so far. Move is still looking to breakthrough with a great performance over hundreds of games, but so far only a few lists are posting good results over small sample sizes.
Now that disclaimers and what to play is out of the way, we’ve got to talk about something. WHY IS AGATHA IN HERE?!
Boy, did that OTA have more impact than anybody would have guessed.
Happy Tier List, everyone!
Marvel Snap Meta Tier List
| Tier | Deck |
|---|---|
| Silent Performer | Phoenix Nimrod |
| Silent Performer | Move Tribunal |
| Silent Performer | Ongoing |
| Silent Performer | Fast Junk Bounce |
| Tier 1 | Lockdown |
| Tier 2 | Stature Darkhawk |
| Tier 2 | KaZoo |
| Tier 2 | Destroy |
| Tier 3 | Agatha Discard |
| 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 > 0.5
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.
Silent Performers
Phoenix Force has always been looking for more flexibility. The deck wants to be more than an easy Snap on great hands and an equally easy Retreat otherwise. With the changes to Attuma and Destroyer, the deck has been able to lean onto Nimrod more, which gives Phoenix Force two distinct game plans.
Plenty of cards have been spotted in the deck, such as Nico Minoru and Symbiote Spider-Man instead of Magik. Still, the deck remains a bit of a gimmick since it only wants to accomplish one of its two possible game plans. As such, Magik seems to be a decent last card to give the deck more time to find and/or leverage its key cards. The amount of games is extremely low, so it would be interesting to see how the deck fares over hundreds of games.
den
I still have to find a Move list that has great results over a significant amount of games (which I believe will happen next week with Araña joining Marvel Snap). Until then, we’ll have to settle with builds that leverage the surprise factor and stay in the dark, such as this one with The Living Tribunal.
Make huge cards, dodge your opponent’s Shang-Chi and Shadow King, and then drop The Living Tribunal to spread your points while your opponent expected a Heimdall.
If you can’t find much value from Dagger, Nico Minoru is also a solid card to consider.
den
I kind of feel silly for not thinking about the Ongoing synergy when thinking about War Machine becoming an Ongoing card. This change makes the deck click on so many more levels than I imagined, as now you have both Madame Web and War Machine to work around Ebony Maw. This finally gives the deck it’s long awaited second 1-Cost alongside Ant Man! Sorry Howard the Duck.
The rest of the build is fairly standard compared to the previous lists, with Goose gaining some upside over Mojo due to Madame Web and War Machine easily playing around the limitation.
Junk gained a lot of popularity at the start of the season thanks to being the best counter to Symbiote Spider-Man. If you looked at Win Rate alone, the deck would have topped the list, beating Lockdown by a very small margin. However, posting a 61% Win Rate over almost 200 games is much more impressive than a 61.5% Win Rate over just 50. This is why Junk is a Silent Performer while Lockdown is alone in Tier 1.
Don’t be fooled, though. This is an early look at the meta, so Junk definitely feels like it will be in the highest tier pretty soon.
Tier 1
Lockdown
den
I’ve seen a lot of players discuss a potential return for Lockdown thanks to Madame Web, but that experiment has failed so far. The new 2-Cost appears to make the deck significantly worse. That isn’t Madame Web‘s fault really, but the return of War Machine is simply a better option to get your cards onto whatever locations you desire. Plus, the 4-Cost also opens the deck to many more points with Ebony Maw and The Infinaut in the mix.
In particular, the Storm -> War Machine -> Legion onto Flooded play pattern means you can play and your opponent can’t. It’s close to unbeatable right now.
Although it was only over 150 games, the 61% Win Rate and 0.55 Cube Average led the game in both categories over the first 24 hours since the OTA.
Potential Additions
Jubilee and Crossbones appear to be the flexible cards so far. Jessica Jones, Iron Lad, and other strong cards to player after Storm (like Juggernaut, for example) are good alternatives to consider.
You could also test this different build that is focused on developing points more than the featured list:
den
Tier 2
Stature Darkhawk
den
While everyone was trying to pull off creative new combos, the best disruptive deck as of late naturally did pretty well. That is about the entire story behind this deck’s 58% Win Rate this week, especially because the deck is also solid against the Agatha Discard deck running Moon Knight.
This is a solid deck, it fits the new meta well, and it has a popular match up that it can consistently beat. That’s the perfect recipe for a reliable climb.
Potential Additions
Silver Sable and Beast could replace Spider-Ham and Cassandra Nova. Swarm can replace Proxima Midnight.
KaZoo
den
Among decks with more than a hundred matches recorded since the OTA, KaZoo posted the best Win Rate with 59.5%. That is fairly logical, as the OTA pushed new synergies to be explored, which might have reduced the amount of Silver Surfer, Destroy, and Good Cards (three decks that routinely use Killmonger in their lists) that KaZoo had to face.
However, KaZoo also posted a rather weak cube average—0.2 to be exact—alongside the stellar Win Rate. This is likely due to the deck’s tendency to be very predictable, and a lot of players testing new brews probably didn’t even try to beat it unless their deck clicked perfectly.
Solid decks are good to climb after a balance update, but a bit of surprise is also a great attribute.
Potential Additions
Alioth can bring some form of disruption.
Destroy
den
As the focus of the previous OTA, Destroy naturally didn’t receive anything this time around and lost a significant chunk of popularity. But, even if it isn’t the shiny new toy anymore, the archetype appears to have found its balance. It’s back to having 11 cards figured out, and it’s been posting consistent results since Attuma‘s change.
Shang-Chi took the last spot here in order to counteract the Black Knight decks, but Nimrod and Arnim Zola are also solid options for proactive patterns.
Potential Additions
Arnim Zola and Nimrod can raise the deck’s points potential at the cost of less interaction with your opponent.
Tier 3
Agatha Discard
den
I had to write this report a little earlier than usual, so I checked the available data every hour for four to five hours this morning to see which decks were trending up or down. Agatha Discard kept its solid Cube Average (0.2 to 0.3) through that entire time, but its Win Rate has been going down dramatically. Indeed, the archetype started at around 56% and is now around 50% to 52% (depending on the list).
The creativity to come up with this deck and cheat out a 14 power card is nice, but I’m pretty sure a regular Black Knight deck with War Machine and The Infinaut will probably do better at this point. Enjoy it while it is still a winning deck I guess?
Potential Additions
Silver Sable is the card you can easily swap for something else if you’re missing it. Also, Klaw, Vision, and Legion are included due to being strong 5-Cost cards, but others can also fit the bill.
Closing Words
Writing the report this early led to more Silent Performers than I usually include. These are obviously the most interesting decks to look at; some might fall off the map while others will make it into Tier 1 or Tier 2 in the next report, contributing to shaping the future meta. However, I don’t think any of these lists are as impactful as Lockdown’s return to being a great archetype following the OTA. Finding a way to contain that deck is probably item #1 on the list of things to figure out in this new environment.
Over time, the deck will naturally lose a bit of its Cube Average as people learn when to Retreat against it. The important question is about the deck’s Win Rate, and whether we can do something about the Storm, War Machine, Legion trio (which might become one of the safest Snaps in the game).
I’m off to try a couple of ideas I have on the matter, but feel free to share yours in the comment section!
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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