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
This is what I love to see at the end of the season! There are over a dozen decks worth discussing, and they’re all able to get you to the Infinite rank (or climb while in it).
As always, not all of the decks are performing the same—especially if you look at the stacked Tier 2 this week. I would split those decks into two groups. In the upper Tier 2, Lockdown, Arishem Loki, and Pure Move are able to make a run for Tier 1 at any moment. In the lower part, Mister Negative, Good Cards Thena, Destroy, and Hela are all solid, but they might be a little too shaky to become meta juggernauts.
There aren’t many surprises in the other tiers. Tier 3 is mostly decks that struggle to keep their opponents in the match when they get a hot start, which means their Cube Averages are impacted by their “simple to assess” Snaps. The Silent Performers section, on the other hand, is probably the most interesting part of this report. The three decks there might key us into how the current meta is shaping up, especially for players with a limited collection.
Shuri Sauron has not been a competitive archetype for a while now, but it still packs a solid points potential. As such, whenever you see it post good results, it means that the meta doesn’t have too many decks that are able to beat two lanes at 25 or 30 points. I still wouldn’t recommend it compared to the other decks, but I’m sure a disciplined player can take it to Infinite.
Patriot is just Shuri Sauron on three lanes instead of two (at the cost of fewer points on the biggest lanes). The deck is running Invisible Woman for Absorbing Man synergies, Enchantress protection, or just to hide your strategy a bit. Just like Shuri Sauron, Patriot lets me know that a solid points potential can rack up some cubes.
Cerebro 3 tells me that disruption is doing great right now, and both Junk and Stature Darkhawk in Tier 1 confirm that statement. Cerebro 3 has even welcomed Negasonic Teenage Warhead to craft a list that is very annoying list to play against since the OTA.
Overall, this meta will reward the better players, not necessarily the better decks, considering how close the performance of most archetypes is. Junk and Stature Darkhawk have a little lead on the competition, so these two are probably the best way to go if you have a late season goal in sight. Be careful, though; both archetypes want you to Snap early in a match, which means you have to expose yourself to the occasional loss of at least four cubes.
Happy Tier List, everyone!
Marvel Snap Meta Tier List
| Tier | Deck |
|---|---|
| Silent Performer | Shuri Sauron |
| Silent Performer | Cerebro 3 |
| Silent Performer | Patriot |
| Tier 1 | Junk |
| Tier 1 | Stature Darkhawk |
| Tier 2 | Lockdown |
| Tier 2 | Arishem Loki |
| Tier 2 | Pure Move |
| Tier 2 | Mister Negative |
| Tier 2 | Good Cards Thena |
| Tier 2 | Destroy |
| Tier 2 | Hela |
| Tier 3 | Bounce |
| Tier 3 | Phoenix Force |
| Tier 3 | KaZoo |
| 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 or 60% Win Rate
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 > 0.25
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
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Tier 1
Junk
Junk has proven time and time again that it is the perfect synergy if you have no idea what you are going to face—as long as it isn’t Destroy. Once again, the clog machine shows its ability to limit most game plans, especially those built around Galactus, Symbiote Spider-Man, and Arnim Zola (especially with Black Panther), all of which got buffed in the latest OTA. By the way, those decks aren’t featured on the report, and Junk probably played a big role in that.
A 0.5 Cube Average and 59% Win Rate is second in both categories, which was enough to take the top spot to close out The Amazing Spider-Season.
Potential Additions
Magik + Red Hulk or Hazmat + Ajax are two duos you could replace with other cards. However, these proactive builds are doing much better than the reactive ones with Shang-Chi, Enchantress, and Shadow King.
Stature Darkhawk
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Stature Darkhawk hasn’t featured a different list in a long time. It isn’t the biggest change, but Klaw replacing Spider-Ham and Swarm replacing Proxima Midnight shows that the deck wants to control where the points are going.
A disruptive deck doesn’t have that many points to spread around the field, as its cards typically have a relatively weak power-to-cost ratio. By adding more control on where the points go, the deck can improve its chances of winning the games that come down to a contested Turn 6.
It seems to be working pretty well, as Stature Darkhawk posted the highest Cube Average in the game this week at 0.6. The Win Rate of 58% was great as well, but there are many decks on this report at more than 59% so Stature Darkhawk only ranks fifth in that category.
Potential Additions
Symbiote Spider-Man was in a list with decent results instead of Copycat. Other strong 3-Costs can also be considered, such as Red Guardian or Cassandra Nova.
Tier 2
Lockdown
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Lockdown has tested multiple lists over the season, and the latest experiment includes Spider-Man 2099 to synergize with Madame Web. This is an idea that I like quite a lot, especially because it gives another great target for Blink in the deck’s Plan B.
In that pattern, the deck will look to play Scarlet Spider behind Storm if you want Blink to bring back Legion, or behind Madame Web to grab Spider-Man 2099. The Infinaut is a good pull in either case.
Potential Additions
LockMove still exists, and it’s posting decent results if you like it better.
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Arishem Loki
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A full season after multiple nerfs, Arishem Loki is still a very competitive archetype. The Cube Average has lowered normal levels, but the right build will get you a very solid Win Rate. This week, the featured list posted a 59% Win Rate, which makes Arishem one of the winningest decks in Marvel Snap alongside Junk.
Potential Additions
Shadow King, Cosmo, and Klaw see play in the deck as well. It’s about finding the right balance for you, really.
Pure Move
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After becoming the best deck in the game with Araña‘s release and an OTA that gave it even more gas with a buff to Hercules and Kraven, I didn’t expect Pure Move to go down in the rankings.
The deck still wins just as much; the 58% Win Rate is part of the top five decks for that metric. However, the 0.25 Cube Average shows that Pure Move might have a few more difficult match ups around, or that it needs to get it together when it comes to Snapping recklessly.
Potential Additions
Hercules is the last card added to the deck, but it looks like a good fit if you aren’t seeing too many other move decks. Heimdall and The Living Tribunal compete for the last spot, but Heimdall has been the preferred card almost every week.
Mister Negative
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After popping of as a Silent Performer in the Conquest report, Mister Negative also posted a solid performance in Ranked. In particular, the 55.5% Win Rate is great for a deck that typically relies on perfect Snaps and Retreats to climb.
In Conquest, the lists with Black Panther did quite poorly as a result of losing a lot of their power once the opponent knows about it. In Ranked, however, the addition of Symbiote Spider-Man and Black Panther gives the deck another play pattern outside of drawing Mister Negative.
Potential Additions
Wong can replace Symbiote Spider-Man.
Good Cards Thena
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Almost every card that came out this season looked like a potential fit in the Good Cards archetype (including Araña, Symbiote Spider-Man, and Scarlet Spider), but none of them made the deck perform much better than it did before.
Maybe just being a staple Tier 2 archetype is good enough for Thena and company. They’ve been one of the most regular performers of the past three months. Plus, Agent Venom looks pretty good with a lot of the cards in this list, so it shouldn’t go anywhere in October.
Potential Additions
Cosmo, Red Guardian, Shang-Chi, Legion, and Alioth could all be considered flexible cards. Good Cards is an archetype for those who enjoy deckbuilding with a solid foundation in place. Juggernaut, Nightcrawler, Killmonger, Vision… Plenty of cards are playable.
Destroy
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With Junk atop the rankings, Destroy can at least feed its Cube Average with that match up while doing its best to outscore the other archetypes that are looking to develop first and foremost.
There is a lot of Cosmo and Alioth around alongside some Shang-Chi and Shadow King, so Destroy has a lot of cards to dodge. Even with all those threats around, the 54% Win Rate alongside a 0.25 Cube Average places it among the current good decks of the meta.
Potential Additions
Attuma and Nimrod can bring some flexibility, but that doesn’t seem like the way to go right now.
Hela
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Down but not out, Hela is still a very popular archetype in Marvel Snap, and the performance is honestly solid if you think about the skill level required to play Hela.
I’m not saying this is a deck for noobies, especially in a meta with Cosmo and Alioth in a multitude of archetypes. However, this is probably the easiest deck to pick up and quickly get results if you put your mind to it.
I think the OTA locked Hela outside of Tier 1 for the foreseeable future, but the 55.5% Win Rate and 0.25 Cube Average make it a very good Tier 2 archetype.
Potential Additions
With the OTA, Luke Cage is now mandatory, which leaves only the 6-Cost cards to be flexible. Giganto can replace a missing Red Hulk.
Tier 3
Bounce
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The 52% Win Rate for Bounce was too far from the average of 55% among the decks in Tier 2 for it to join that tier. The 0.25 Cube Average is decent, though, so it could be a good pick if you believe you can get the Win Rate up.
Phoenix Force
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Phoenix Force rarely loses when it Snaps, as the 0.3 Cube Average attests. However, the deck simply isn’t reliable enough to Snap often (as the 50% Win Rate attests), which is why Phoenix Force is only a Tier 3 deck this week.
KaZoo
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A stud in Conquest, KaZoo is just too simple to Retreat against in Ranked for a great Win Rate to translate into a great Cube Average. Over a small sample size, the deck can post amazing results, but once you look at hundreds of games the Cube Average plummets.
Closing Words
There are two disruptive decks posting results slightly above the rest (at least in terms of Cube Averages). If you care about Win Rate more, then the meta is wide open with nine decks above 55% over a large amount of games, plus three over small sample sizes.
In this context, I can only recommend picking a deck that allows you to shine as a player and make decisions when they matter. If you’re unsure about your abilities, going for one of the current top tier decks is completely reasonable, but I’m sure someone with a good understanding of most Tier 2 decks can pilot them to the same results of Junk and Stature Darkhawk.
Want to discuss this report or some coaching? 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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