Marvel Snap Balance OTA Analysis and Decks to Play: CereBRRRo

When they announced the OTA schedule back in late April, I was worried that an entire month without a balance update would lead to a very stale meta with the same synergies played ad nauseam. Honestly, it wasn’t as bad as I thought, even if in the last weeks the only innovations we saw were the same decks swapping a few cards.

I’m sure I was not alone in eagerly awaiting this OTA, so let’s not waste time with a long intro:

• Cool Pictures from Kirallas: ✅

• Den being annoyingly scared about Silver Surfer and Move decks not being touched when they were also top tier decks so the meta might not change that much: ✅

Well, I think that about covers it. Oh, you want more information? Alright then! Let’s dive into one of the biggest OTAs we’ve had in 2025!

Thanos Suffers a Momentary Setback

The three nerfs to Thanos—Strange Supreme, Sam Wilson captain America, and Time Stone—should feel quite impactful right after the OTA. However, with Merlin right around the corner as the upcoming Season Pass card, the Mad Titan should quickly regain everything he lost with a new ally.

It will likely be a weird feeling at first, especially if Merlin replaces Sam Wilson captain America. That would mean Mockingbird costs one more on average, and Strange Supreme gets one fewer target. Still, Thanos feels like a great landing spot for Merlin, so I don’t expect the best foundation in Marvel Snap to stop being competitive in the near future.

It might require more tweaking than just a few card-for-card replacements, but I think this will be a good place to start:

I would have offered a Devil Dinosaur + Kahhori type of Thanos deck as well, but the nerf to Time Stone makes that one a little weaker (even before we get to test it).

Hazmat

Changing the cost of a card is often much more impactful than changing its power. As such, I foresee the Hazmat change to be one of the most impactful in this OTA. Fortunately for Toxic, that archetype is quite flexible in how it can be built. Although the High Evolutionary list might suffer a bit, the build that has posted great results in recent weeks should feel mostly unchanged.

Also, one of the best Series 3 friendly decks in the game is Toxic Surfer. While I would rather have a cheap Hazmat, having it become a 3-Cost naturally drove my attention to that archetype.

For those with a larger collection, you could build towards a more traditional Surfer build with less emphasis on the combos.

Sauron and Makkari Should Feel Relatively the Same

Losing a power always hurts, but Makkari‘s biggest strengths are largely unbothered by a loss of one power. Indeed, Makkari will remain a good addition to decks that are aimed at grabbing priority, and it will still reduce the amount of targets for Gwenpool. I expect this nerf will mostly be a psychological one; Makkari should remain a good addition to Silver Surfer decks if you still want to do those two things.

As for Sauron, the now 1-Cost should follow a similar logic… except Ebony Maw is now a problem. Indeed, you can still use Enchantress to remove negative Ongoing abilities from cards you had in hand (which are now ignored by Sauron).

Sure, this might lead to a few annoying scenarios with three Ongoing cards not being affected and Enchantress not being enough to take care of them all. In that specific scenario, the most problematic card is Ebony Maw since you are not even allowed to play Enchantress behind it.

Zero can help fix that issue, but it still forces you to play Ebony Maw within the first three turns. I think Sauron will feel exactly as the developers described in their blog post: “pushing players to navigate the downsides more often”.

Both of these cards remain playable, just a little weaker overall.

Cerebro

I wanted to make one big section with plenty of decks to test based on these buffs, but Cerebro deserves its own section. Indeed, granting one more power to your highest-Power cards is quite a big change; that could potentially be worth anywhere from 5 to 10 points!

At the moment, Cerebro is nowhere near competitive. If you look at the card’s results in the Infinite rank, there are hardly any decks that cross the 40% Win Rate mark. And when you factor in Red Guardian and Enchantress still being popular cards, Cerebro is going to have an uphill battle to become anything serious.

Still, the card represents an archetype on its own, so let’s give it a try.

Storm reunites with a deck that she helped a ton in the past: Cerebro 2!

This could almost make the Hazmat change look like a buff! I didn’t have room to fit Makkari, but she could also be worth considering in this deck.

This one already exists, and it’s actually losing Makkari due to its nerf. Still, if the current terrible performance (40% Win Rate, Negative Cube Rate) improves, it will be proof that Cerebro indeed got a meaningful buff in this OTA.

Toxie Doxie and Storm Are the Only Other Big Buffs

• Annihilus as a [5/8] still doesn’t make sense to run in my opinion. The problem with the card is how rigid its synergies are, meaning the opponent can easily figure out what is coming and adapt to it. With Merlin bringing its Polymorph incantation to Marvel Snap next week and Thanos nerfed in this OTA, Clog doesn’t feel like it’s going to be a good place. One more power to Annihilus won’t change that.

• Electro as a [3/4] is still at its best when swapped with Blink or destroyed. The only time this buff matters is when War Machine cancels the Ongoing ability, or in the rare cases where that one point gives you priority for Galactus.

Here’s a deck if you are a believer.

Killmonger, Ultron, and Alioth are swapped for Carnage, Magik, and Nimrod in certain builds.

• Hercules should become an asset in Move decks to gain an edge in the mirror match now that it does not affect opposing cards. Still, when that synergy works, the opponent will be quick to Retreat considering the amount of points they’ll see in front of them. Overall, this change does not help Move rack up more cubes, it only improves its flexibility in a Move-based meta.

With those out of the way, let’s talk about the changes that actually have a chance at impacting the future meta: Storm and Toxie Doxie.

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Toxie Doxie is a pretty straight-forward buff and an acknowledgement the card was nowhere near good enough to see play among the great 2-Cost cards we have at our disposal. With a bonus 2 power, Toxie Doxie is becoming a curiosity at the very least. Indeed, the limitation of not being able to play the cards that were hit is still annoying, but you get a [2/7] rather than a [2/5], which makes the trade much more appealing.

The timing makes the cynic in me me believe that this is sort of an attempt guide us towards getting the Seasonal Series 4 Snap Pack before the card rotates to the cheaper Collector’s Snap Pack, but a playable card is a playable card.

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Lately, Storm has never been played without Zabu, meaning we were already using the card as a 3-Cost (or at least intending to). The pair has been spotted in Doctor Doom 2099 decks, War Machine Lockdown, and even some Good Cards Move type builds.

In those specific decks, the change to a [3/2] might feel like a nerf of -3 power. However, when you want to build without Zabu in the mix, Storm should feel like a much more flexible card overall.

I’ve already covered Cerebro 2 in its own dedicated section, so let’s check out some other archetypes that might be interested in running a 3-Cost Storm.

I’ve never really liked Rocket and Groot in Scream, so Storm gives me a great opportunity to test another 3-Cost instead. Not only should you have full liberty to reach the Flooded location if you desire (which cuts down the locations your opponent could play on by one), you could also end up playing some Clog style games with Scream by stacking all your opponent’s cards in the same place.

The change to Legion in this OTA means if you play the 5-Cost onto the Flooding location, the newly created Flooded will remain as such for the upcoming turn. Basically, the turn you copy them does not count as them being Flooding—they need to be in that state for a full turn.

However, playing Storm, War Machine, and then Legion onto Flooded will create three Flooded locations, thus preventing your opponent from playing cards unless they have a War Machine of their own.

Up until now, this trio needed Zabu to function properly since Storm and War Machine had the same cost. Now, even though you still require all three in a specific order, you could consider them a flexible trio to include in a variety of decks.

Except for War Machine, which is really only valuable for this combo or when unplayable locations show up, Storm and Legion might be a good pair on their own. I wouldn’t be surprised to see these three pop up in a few archetypes in the future.

I’ve already mentioned how I think Clog will lose more momentum than the change to Annihilus can help, so why not experiment with a hyper space limiting type of deck instead?

Closing Words

I really only ask myself one question when reading through an OTA: Does this make me want to experiment with new things in Marvel Snap?

To be fair, if it wasn’t for the Cerebro change, I would probably have answered no; the cards coming with the new season would have looked much more exciting than this balance update. Indeed, Toxie Doxie is a better card, but there isn’t a lot of deckbuilding to be done there. Same for Storm, as we’ve played with a [3/2] Storm in the past and already know its value in both Cerebro 2 and the War Machine, Legion trio.

However, when all the changes are combined, I have a ton of questions I want to see answered after reading through this OTA:

• Does Merlin keep Thanos in contention for best deck in the game?
• Is Toxic as an archetype really worse with a [3/3] Hazmat, or do we just have to play different decks?
• Is Storm really better as a [3/2] when you consider that playing Zabu is rarely a detriment?

I like when changes make me wonder where is the game headed and provide new avenues to explore.

I know some players don’t like when things change because they have to learn a new deck. If you are one of them, Move, Good Cards, and Silver Surfer decks are basically unchanged, and gimmicks such as Mister Negative should face less of Mobius M. Mobius with a weakened Thanos.

Everyone wins!

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!