Table of Contents
Hello everyone and welcome to Sleeper Decks of the Week! I’m Glazer of Snap Judgments: The Official Marvel Snap Zone Podcast, and in this article, I’m going to take you through all of my favorite Sleeper Decks this week. In addition to the podcast (this week’s episode features the Top 5 Cards in Each Cost Slot with Paper and FaThorNewman), I do my own daily videos where I scour the darkest corners of the net (ahem Twitter and the various Marvel Snap sites) to find the best decks in Marvel Snap before the meta notices.
I realize there are a LOT of high Series cards in this. Want Series 3 decks? I’ll go over my Top 5 of them in this article or watch the video breakdown here! If you’re Series 3 incomplete and want help, reach out in the comments!
Remember: Each deck title will take you to a video explanation of the deck, so don’t be shy – check them out! We also have a bunch of videos from some of our favorite creators playing the decks, so check them out as well!
Spider-Man is in the New Best Deck
Decks with Spider-Man
Spider-Man‘s recent redesign in the patch looked good, and it didn’t take long for the card to find its way into the game’s new top deck.
Lamby’s Confusion
PulseGlazer
Deck Thoughts: This deck feels absolutely broken to play. I’ve been winning at an absurd rate with it, and most games just don’t feel close. The deck’s creator, Lamby, seems to agree.
This deck is about pumping Angela with Kitty Pryde, Jeff the Baby Landshark, and Silk while also using the last two cards, Spider-Man, and Captain Marvel to pump Kraven. Hulkbuster in this list is basically cheaper, easier to play Shuri.
Miles is almost always a one-drop. Legion offers some free wins and good stats that stay under the ever-present Shang-Chi. This deck does a lot right and just wins games.
If you don’t have Legion can be Aero or Vision. Jeff can be Nightcrawler while Silk works as Cloak. All of these are hits to the deck, but it’s so strong it easily survives them. Silk is in a spotlight Cache with X-23 in two weeks.
Daken Is the Best Season Pass Card Since Zabu
Daken was released and immediately showed his versatility in nearly every deck type. It’s amazing, so let’s look at how many different places he fits.
Dera Daken Discard
PulseGlazer
Deck Thoughts: Dera’s flying high after his Conquerors win, and he has two of the best Daken decks in the game. Each is great into the strongest server in the meta, the beta-test server where a ton of competitive streamers hang out.
Discard, even with Daken, often doesn’t put quite enough points down. To compete against that, this deck is extra greedy. It has both the Collector and Morbius for two cost power spikes along with both Lockjaw and Daken. Lockjaw really powers up the Discard and Daken can be a power spike. This deck doesn’t even always want Apocalypse to be played. If you have Wong out, Turn 5 is often Daken and Colleen. If Swarm and
Daken is important here, but Mirage can be Cable or Sentinel, as needed.
Dera Daken Surfer
PulseGlazer
Deck Thoughts: There’s a whole Silver Surfer section below, but this is my favorite current Surfer list. This deck loves a curve of Brood or Daken on 3 into Absorbing Man on 4. If you can get out Sera on 5, a last turn of Wong, Silver Surfer, and Colleen Wing is an absolute ton of power. You can, of course, also play three 3-cost cards last turn after a Sera – Silver Surfer, Killmonger, and Gambit are still a huge power swing. Be wary of your own Cosmo – he’s rarely a drop on turn 3 since he can be a full game-winner by stopping a key play.
Cosmo and Okoye, though a nice power bump on curve, are the swing cards here and could be anything you want. You can consider Juggernaut, Wolfsbane, or Maximus for Cosmo, and Jeff, Forge, or Mirage for Okoye. Everything else is full-on synergy, and this deck is all Series 3 cards.
Watch our friend AZSnap (Subscribe here!) play the deck:
Devilish Daken Destroy
PulseGlazer
Deck Thoughts: Devilish is a great daily streamer who has been crushing it with this deck. It can be weak to Cosmo or Shang-Chi, but on ladder, those are manageable weaknesses thanks to this deck’s crazy upside.
The secret to why this deck is so good is the curve. You want to go Deadpool into Carnage into Forge and Deadpool where possible or Yondu into Forge into Daken. The first line leads to a 10-power Deadpool at the end of Turn 4 while the second leads to a 12-power Daken. At that point, you’re just eating and killing where possible to make your end-game plays work. Ideally, you can end the game with either a Death and Shang-Chi or a Knull. In either of those cases, the opponent is in a lot of trouble.
Remember, especially with Venom, it’s okay to kill your own stuff. The power is saved on both Venom and copied over to Knull, so it’s pure upside. Against a Cosmo and Armor, this will struggle, but there’s nothing for that. Against a deck running neither, you’re in the driver’s seat.
Knull is the only high Series card here, but he’s a necessity.
Less Infinite Daken Sera
PulseGlazer
Deck Thoughts: Less is one of the more influential players you’ve never heard of. He helped craft the original Thanos Lockjaw builds and was responsible for the best versions of early Toxic Sera. This may be my favorite deck of the week, and we still haven’t talked about the one I hit Infinite with, and I’m dominant with the first deck.
There was an old Sera deck back before I was in Series 3 that played Dracula on Turn 4, Sera on Turn 5, then emptied its hand the last turn of the game, using Colleen to get rid of everything except America Chavez, who Dracula got rid of. That was my dream deck, but by the time I could make it, it was gone from the meta.
This is the closest we’ve been to that deck since. The idea here is to play a bunch of good steps tempo cards. Carnage on Bucky and a Muramasa Shard on turn 4, for example, is 14 power. Even with that, though, Zabu is often the early priority. You still play a 3 on turn 3, usually, but the flexibility on the last turns is insane – Ghost Rider costing 2 to bring back The Infinaut or Magneto is insane stats, while you can then also play Colleen Wing, Dracula, and Carnage to really go to town. If Carnage got a Bucky and Colleen a Shard, that’s a potential 52-power play to end the game.
This deck is all Series 3 except Zabu. You’re going to need Zabu for it, and Zabu is 100% worth buying (pending unannounced Series drops), so if you can play this, I think you really should.
So Much Silver Surfer
Daken and Spider-Man both helped push Silver Surfer up a level. Welcome to the Surfer meta, have a billion (okay, six more) decks.
W My Job is Just… Beach
PulseGlazer
Deck Thoughts: This is the best deck name in the game. Surfer Patriot has been tough to get right, but this version is definitely one of the best we’ve seen.
Zabu and Sera allow for such flexible plays. The best playline is Zabu into Brood into Absorbing Man into Sera then Wong, Surfer, and Wolfsbane. You’ll note that play line doesn’t include Patriot. He’s not super important here and, honestly, not really to be prioritized. There are play lines that go Mister Sinister, Brood, Absorbing Man, Sera, and then Patriot adds enough extra power sometimes to be one of the final three plays.
Wong is crazy flexible here and often worth a play on 4 even beyond late Surfer and Wolfsbane plays. Debrii on Wong fills their board, but leaves you with a mini-Ultron. Iron Heart can be a mini-Surfer on Wong and is even better in some games where you play fewer 3-cost cards. And, of course, Absorbing Man copying a Wolfsbane, Surfer, or Ironheart on Wong can be backbreaking.
There are too many 4s to play without Zabu in this one, but you’d probably be okay without Iron Lad. Without Lad, Jubilee is the addition. If you have neither Zabu nor Iron Lad, the deck is fine (though obviously worse) with an extra Wasp and Cyclops.
Den’s Updated Surfer Control
den
Deck Thoughts: If you’re going to play Surfer, why not get the list from the man who put the card back in the meta?
This is your standard lane control Surfer list. It’s great into Darkhawk Good Stuff. Storm and Juggernaut or Spider-Man usually win a lane, and if they don’t see Zabu, Goose is a guarantee of another. Even without that Goose win, Rogue is great against Darkhawk while Surfer and Brood can still put you over the top.
The rest of the cards here offer power and control. Polaris can fill a spot and is great power. Nova with Killmonger is a mini-Surfer, and Killmonger destroys certain decks. That leaves us Shadow King. Shadow King is your mini-Shang-Chi. He wrecks a lot of the Dakens and Apocalypses in the meta while being really difficult to play around on ladder.
This deck is all Series 3!
Explodium Infinite Surfer
PulseGlazer
Deck Thoughts: This hit Infinite in like 4-hours, taking advantage of a bit of extra power offered by Daken to help win lanes.
Daken is a great play after Storm, in addition to the general Juggernaut one. Most of the rest of the plays are the same, but the early Mirage is awesome for tempo. The Muramasa Shard can be played to be killed with Killmonger or Discarded with Colleen Wing, another excellent stats for cost card. At the end of the day, that’s what this version of the deck does. By utilizing Maximus on top of everything else, this Silver Surfer goes over the top of opponents.
Mirage is the only high Series card in this version. Without her, go back to Goose.
KrakenNull Surfer Move
PulseGlazer
Deck Thoughts: KrakenNull is one of the best move players in the game. He hits Infinite with Move every season and uses many different flavors to do so. Everyone knows Molt, but KrakenNull is every bit the move master.
This one is all about Vulture. If you can lock up a location and win it with Storm on the right, Bouncing Vulture can easily win another location. Iron Fist into Vulture into Ghost-Spider on turn 5 will be 13 power. You can make that 15 with Silver Surfer, and 20 with Doctor Strange. Add in the often very cheap Miles Morales with the Control and power of Spider-Man and this deck has tools for every situation.
You’ll need Ghost-Spider for this deck, but hopefully, you got it as a Season Pass card. If not, unfortunately, this deck is out.
TheCounterGuy’s Move Kingpin
PulseGlazer
Deck Thoughts: Like KrakenNull is a Move main, so is TheCounterGuy a Surfer main. He’s a great streamer who consistently hits Infinite with the former Herald of Galactus.
There’s not much more to say about this Surfer than some of those previous, but the Kingpin addition is truly inspired. Spider-Man, Juggernaut, and Polaris can be used to win a Storm lane, or you can put Kingpin into that lane where there’s very likely to be space for Spider-Man or Juggernaut to chuck them later. Or you can win that Storm lane and then later use that Kingpin elsewhere to snipe something at the end of the game.
The rest of the deck is standard with the spice of Spider-Ham. He can give you important information for how and where to play cards and how much power they can put out. He’s the only Series 4 card in the deck and could be replaced by any of the cards in the two slot from the above lists just fine.
Paper’s Mental Dakedown
PulseGlazer
Deck Thoughts: Okay, this one is here for a silly reason. Well. not totally silly – the deck is really good. Test it and see. But it’s here because Paper was on the Snap Judgments Podcast, and went off on Silver Surfer. He hates the card. He not only doesn’t want to play it, he thinks it’s way overrated.
That’s how good Daken is. Paper is not only building, not only playing, but also sharing a Silver Surfer deck. The spice here, besides hell freezing over, is that there’s no Sera! This deck goes in on having Absorbing Man at the top end. Here, he’s great on turn 4 like other decks, but he’s also great on turn 7! Yes, Magik is our real Sera replacement here, and can lead to a last turn of Surfer and Absorbing Man. That extra turn just means more 3-cost cards to be buffed and more changes to draw Surfer.
Be a little bit wary with Daken here. You need to play the Killmonger on the Shards for Daken to have value here, and be wary to not do this where you may want to Shadow King. If you can play around all of that, this deck is very smart.
Thanos Never Dies
My Infinite Thanos (Thanks Bohe!)
PulseGlazer
Deck Thoughts: Bohe is a fabulous Marvel Snap Zone writer, but he’s an even better off-meta deck builder. Here, I took an old brew he shared with me for a spin – my oldest saved deck- and rolled off an 87% win rate on my way to Infinite.
This deck is all about drawing early so that you can get your move pieces. Spider-Man 2099 is the most underrated card in the game, as both he and Vulture amount to quite a lot of stats. Adding to the stats, Killmonger and Carnage make you a nice cheap death, often the turn 5 play. When it is, the last turn is deciding between Shang-Chi, Thanos, and Heimdall. Heimdall is amazing for unreachable locations, but often the right play is to just drop stats in a location if you’ve already got one out of reach. There’s so much variety here that this is tough to play, but it’s even tougher to play against.
Miles Morales could replace Spider-Man 2099, though the deck will lose a lot of its power. The same is true of Ghost-Spider, who can be Nightcrawler. Obviously, the Thanos deck needs Thanos.
FaThorNewman (Subscribe here!) tried the deck:
W Thanos Warm Update
PulseGlazer
Deck Thoughts: We’ve talked about W’s Thanos list in this space no less than three times. W is a phenomenal deck builder and player, and both he and others have won major tournaments with his deck. It was thought that this deck would just die with the Spider-Man rework. Apparently not.
There are two changes here. One is that Vision replaces Spider-Man. This is great with Professor X, as a ramped Vision all but guarantees you’ll win the Professor X lane, especially along with Klaw, Blue Marvel, and Jeff.
Angela is here for extra power. She synergizes with the Stones, Jeff, and Vision. The rest of the deck is the same. Lock a location with Professor X. Control the board with Cosmo. Kill their big stuff with Shang-Chi. Drop a huge Devil Dinosaur to close it out. You know the drill by now.
Iron Lad can be the newly buffed Captain Marvel or Super-Skrull. Without Jeff the Baby Landshark, Daredevil is a good fit.
Miscellaneous Sleepers
These decks just don’t fit anywhere else this week, but all three are worth talking about for different reasons.
DougPie’s Evolved Lockjaw
PulseGlazer
Deck Thoughts: Lockjaw High Evolutionary had a run as the best deck in the game, but nerfs to both Wasp and Hulk knocked it down a peg, a whole peg! Well, DougPie took a look at the deck, saw a great win rate, then took a look at Legion, saw that win rate, shrugged, and smashed them together.
This deck is another that’s been featured here before though, obviously, without Legion. Lockjaw is one of the better single-card centerpieces in the game, and this deck is built around throwing Wasp and Mjölnir into Lockjaw over and over again to turn 0 power into 5 and 6 power cards.
The real key to the deck is the Thors. Thor and Jane Foster Mighty Thor is 18 power worth of cards, and when combined with the right last-turn play and Dracula, that can be enough to win a game without even Lockjaw.
The Jaw is, of course, crazy strong, and a snap condition with basically anything else good in hand. I tend to prefer playing Thor first unless Lockjaw and Wasp are already in hand. Legion coming out of Lockjaw on a location gives you safe places for everything the last turn!
Overall, the Legion is great, but Vision is nearly and good. You will need Thanos and High Evolutionary, though.
Owlgod’s Discovery of Fire
PulseGlazer
Deck Thoughts: OwlGod, a Korean player, has stormed onto the scene with numerous awesome decks.
The basic idea is that if you can Killmonger on Shanna, your Knull will be huge. Of course, there are also
Playing this deck can certainly feel a bit wild, but the power is there for sure.
Wrap up
Thanks for reading! Check back all next week so much more great content from Marvel Snap Zone!
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