Marvel Snap Balance Patch Update Analysis and Decks to Play: Discard is On Its Way Back!

It’s been a while since the Discard synergy was anywhere near a Tier 1 archetype. Discard Dracula came close a few times, especially during the MODOK era when Dracula and Morbius could each challenge a lane almost on their own. But the release of Spider-Ham put a dagger into Apocalypse‘s heart, countering the card way too hard for a deck based on it to work.

Hela also had her shining moment, either with Lockjaw or the Ongoing synergy in the Hela Tribunal deck. However, even though that deck is able to post great results, its inability to adapt more than including Echo to prevent a disastrous Cosmo is very limiting. As such, August wasn’t such an easy month, as Move kept annoying the deck, Legion removed Limbo, and Hela Tribunal was too popular to surprise anyone anymore.

In this new patch that comes along with the season’s start, Discard’s fortune might very well change. Indeed, two of the card changes are great for Discard decks, in addition to two small nerfs to other archetypes. Expect Discard Dracula – and maybe even Hela – to be much stronger in the near future. Also, we have to talk about the new Snowguard!

The metagame is an ever-evolving entity. Whenever one card is changed, it impacts an archetype, its immediate match ups, the match ups of those archetypes… It creates a never ending loop that usually only stops when a deck becomes too strong to be countered.

Today, one of the strongest decks in the current metagame, Iron Patriot, takes a hit with Absorbing Man losing one point of power from the two it gained last month. Thanos is also losing a draw on the Soul Stone, which can be massive for a card that powers the tempo of its archetypes whether it’s Control, Zoo, or Destroy. Last, Spider-Ham was part of many decks; it was considered a solid standalone inclusion. Sure, Armor has taken most of the spotlight in the 2-Cost slot lately, but Spider-Ham has remained a threat for several decks. Players forced to recognize the possibility of facing it when queuing a match in either game mode.

If we take all these changes into account, we can immediately see that decks based on points – especially those that rely on a late game bomb to seal the deal – have a lot to gain from this patch. Patriot, and Silver Surfer as well, has lost points, Thanos has lost some tempo, and Spider-Ham has lost some of its appeal. Now, let’s add Blade to the mix. It’s now safer to run in your deck because you can control what card it will discard, and you can quickly see which deck you should try when the patch goes live.

But, as one deck rises, it naturally attracts other decks that are eager to benefit from this new situation. So, let’s take a look at all the decks which could benefit from these changes!

Discard Dracula, Obviously

Discard Dracula

Created by den

, updated 20 days ago

0

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

1x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

You might be curious as to why I did not include Blade in this deck with Iceman in its spot instead. Also, why Sword Master instead of the usual Gambit? An why is Absorbing Man still in the deck!?

Iceman is for the tempo oriented decks that I expect to rise; in the early days after a change, most players tend to go for proactive decks. Also, you might have noticed Shuri Sauron did not get touched at all in this patch. It could also benefit from the Spider-Ham nerf to get Taskmaster online more often. Well, Iceman should help disrupt this kind of opponent, and it gives us a little edge in the points battles to come. Plus, Iceman can be played anytime we draw it, while Nebula is very mid after Turn 1 in this deck.

As for Sword Master, the reason is because Armor and Destroy were also not mentioned anywhere in this patch, so I don’t expect either of them to lose any popularity – which makes Gambit much less appealing. As for Absorbing Man, the card was not necessarily played for its power, but rather for the many synergies it can duplicate.

No matter which list you try first for Discard Dracula, there is no doubt that the nerf to Spider-Ham is a huge improvement for the deck.

Hela Discard Gets Safer

Hela

Created by den

, updated 20 days ago

0

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

4.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

6.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

The biggest problem with Hela has never been its potential. When everything goes according to plan, Hela can go against pretty much against any other deck in the game. Hela routinely brings the most points in a single card when she summons all of your discards. Unfortunately, that deck rarely goes according to plan, and leveraging your Snaps and Retreats is absolutely crucial to making the deck work. Well, that was the case until Discard started getting more targeted abilities with Silver Samurai and, now, Blade.

This new ability for Blade has two big upsides (and one small downside), which is more than enough to see how much the card can contribute to the deck now:

• We know in advance what we will discard, which is easily the biggest improvement.
• Blade as a 1-Cost makes it a nice companion for Lockjaw.
• Colleen Wing might discard Blade now, but, unless Hela is the rightmost card in your hand (meaning you don’t intend to play Blade anyway), you can safely play Blade before using Colleen Wing.

Overall, Hela Discard might become a solid proactive deck that is able to develop a lot of points. If we can manage to fit a tech card slot to adapt to another popular deck when needed, we might have a very solid archetype on our hands.

Good Cards Discard

Good Dis Cards

Created by den

, updated 20 days ago

1

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

2x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

1x Starter Card

3.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

After the last OTA and the change to Rockslide, I have tried fairly hard to keep Zabu alive. I’ve been including Silver Samurai and Ghost Rider in the Good Cards build; with Darkhawk and Iron Lad, it’s been more than enough to leverage Zabu‘s ability.

However, the deck was lacking a second Discard ability, and Ghost Rider would never work without Silver Samurai. Sure, the synergy would lead to summoning back Darkhawk or Iron Man – which is incredible – but it wasn’t happening often enough for my taste. Blade solves this problem beautifully, as I can now control the discard with its new ability. Plus, as pointed out by SafetyBlade when discussing the patch, we know we will always get America Chavez on the right of our hand on Turn 6. As such, we could play Blade, Ghost Rider, and Stature on the last turn of play for a total of 21 points that we can spread across all three locations if we wished to.

This deck was already doing pretty well before the patch with a tech card in Blade‘s spot (usually Spider-Ham or Armor). We might need to reconsider not running any counter cards in the future depending on how the metagame progresses, but I like this first draft a ton. It might give DoomWave a run for its money for which Good Cards build is the best.

Can Lady Deathstrike Counter the Rise of Dracula?

DeathWave

Created by den

, updated 25 days ago

0

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

DeadStrike

Created by den

, updated 25 days ago

0

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

2x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Dracula is among the strongest 4-Cost cards in Marvel Snap, which isn’t a small feat when Darkhawk, Iron Lad, and High Evolutionary are in the same category. Still, the recognition is fully deserved by the strongest card of the Discard synergy. Plus, Dracula has the huge upside of being extremely difficult to counter or disrupt, except through tampering with the opponent’s hand. Shang-Chi, Enchantress, Cosmo… You can name a lot of the best tech cards in Marvel Snap, and none of them can stop Dracula from discarding and gaining power on game’s end.

Except, there is one card that was added to the game in August. It recently received a little buff that came right in time to get in Discard’s way if the deck proves to be very strong: Lady Deathstrike.

After its buff in the previous OTA, it doesn’t seem like the card gained much momentum. But there also wasn’t much reason to slot the card into your deck up until this point, except for Brood (when Forge wasn’t in the mix). The addition of Dracula, and maybe Lockjaw if you want to talk about the Hela deck, could make Lady Deathstrike worth another look.

I already shared these decks in the last OTA, so call me lazy if you’d like, but finally finding a worthy target for the card might be an even bigger buff than the one it received last week.

Shuri Sauron Leads the Decks Not Included in the Patch

Shuri Sauron

Created by den

, updated 22 days ago

2

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

5.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

After Good Cards Stature and Move Legion were hit last week in the OTA, it was time for the Forge, Brood, Absorbing Man trio to take a nerf, lowering Iron Patriot‘s points ceiling. With these changes, the only decks part of the elite group we had two weeks ago that were not nerfed are Shuri Sauron and InSheNaut.

One could argue that InSheNaut got the better end of that deal, as Legion’s nerf also slightly buffed decks looking to use Magik in their game plan. However, Shuri Sauron has always posted better results, at least when looking at the grand scheme of things. Sure, InSheNaut might be posting better tournament results, and players with a lot of experience with it might leverage its intricacies enough to make it better than Shuri Sauron. But if someone was to pick up a deck to grind the Ladder or start farming Conquest tickets for the new season, and they had no experience with either build, I’m sure Shuri Sauron would be the more interesting prospect.

In addition to Discard Dracula, Shuri Sauron seems to push this idea of proactive decks looking quite good to start the season even more. If you do not enjoy this kind of game play and would rather remain on the side of those who look to counter their opponent’s game plan, you might have some thinking to do in order to find the right build. Otherwise, you could consider high ceiling decks that are able to develop more points than Shuri Sauron when they hit the right draws. Archetypes like Mister Negative, Phoenix Force, and maybe Hela Tribunal could make sense early after the patch while points are the only thing most players care about.

Closing Words

You might be wondering why I didn’t talk about Snowguard in this article; the card’s rework should have a significant impact on its play rate, although it might take a bit until we see it. Considering Snowguard will be in Spotlight Caches alongside Alioth, we might only be a week away from seeing a lot more Snowguard soon. So why didn’t I mention it? SafetyBlade has you covered with a dedicated article on the card that details the various ideas he feels are worthy to explore around it. Safety has been one of the few Snowguard believers since the card released, so there was no better person to give you a first look at this new iteration of the card.

If you want my personal opinion, though, I think that a card that creates two new ones in your hand is pretty cool to explore in the new deck with Loki and The Collector. Also, it’s a total of three cards now, so maybe Blue Marvel is a fine card to pair Snowguard with.

As for the rest, it feels like Snowguard (just like the rest of the metagame after this patch) will force us to test various archetypes to really know what is or isn’t good. I wish you tons of fun during your experiments, and may you find your perfect deck to reach your goals this month.

To share your ideas and creations, join us 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.