Sleeper Decks of the Week – Thanos Returns, New Takes on Sera, and Off-Meta to Infinite!

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 analysis of the new Season with Drewberry and Nerherder!), I do my own daily videos where I scour the darkest corners of the net (ahem Twitter and the various sites) to find the best decks in Marvel Snap before the meta notices.

Remember: Each deck title will take you to a video explanation of the deck, so don’t be shy – check them out! This week we’re also trying out Videos from some of our favorite creators playing the decks – check those out, too, and let us know what you think!

Thanos Returns!

Thanos is back in the meta in a big way this week! We have two top-tier decks here but don’t forget, we covered two more great ones last week in this space. Next week, we have at least two more – my favorite of them that just needed more testing before this week’s article! I’ll post a video on both Monday, so be sure to Subscribe!

Lamby Thanos Bounce

Lamby’s New Thanos Bounce

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 3 months ago

5

5x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Recruit Season

1x Starter Card

3.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Deck Thoughts: This one has a lot of details from when it was Deck of the Day.

The first thing to know about this deck is that Carnage should be Hit Monkey. It was a change suggested by our own SafetyBlade to Lamby (the creator and best player in the game). After testing, Lamby found this to be correct. That also simplifies the change if you don’t have Jeff the Baby Landshark – just run Carnage. I had previously suggested Shang-Chi, Spider-Ham, and Spider-Man for that spot too, and all are still options.

I already did a turn-by-turn guide (linked above), so instead, I’ll explain the two lines through which this deck attacks the opponent. The easiest to see of these is Professor X. He locks a lane early with Time Stone or can be played with a 0-cost card thanks to Beast to steal a lane on turn 5. Ideally, this is one of your lane wins.

Another lane can come from the combo of Kitty Pryde, Bishop, Angela, and Hit Monkey. These, with a bunch of Stones late, offer an unpredictable burst of power that can leave the opponent behind. These cards are all improved by Blue Marvel, Bast, and Iron Man, giving an absolute ton of options to get around the opponent.

Final matchup thoughts: against Lockdown, you really want Reality Stone to stop their flooded location, or Bishop to grow in it. Against Lockjaw, prioritize Iron Man to go bigger in one of their big lanes, and steal another with your go-wide cards. An early Professor X often wins this for you. Bounce is, as always, the toughest match-up. Professor X is again key here, as they need space to play.

You can watch our friend FaThorNewman (subscribe here!) play the deck here:

Quinee Thanos Phoenix

75% Win Rate Quinee Cosmic Threats

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 3 months ago

5

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

3.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Deck Thoughts: Quinee Equinox is a stellar tournament player and deck builder who has a 75% win rate with this one!

This deck leverages three different axes. Again, we have the combination of Angela and Kitty Pryde. The combination of these two cards is just so strong it can go in nearly everything, again featuring Beast to make it more effective.

This time, though, the deck is complemented by a destroy package. Carnage and Killmonger (and to a lesser extent Yondu) offer good power to the board while enabling Death and The Phoenix Force. The value of a cheap death is self-explanatory, but why The Phoenix Force? Vision is a good card. A Vision that draws a card is great. That draw not only gives an extra chance for a power card like Devil Dinosaur but is also an extra chance to draw the aforementioned cheap Death.

The last two cards in the deck are Shang Chi and Polaris. Shang-Chi is self-explanatory, but Polaris is here because Quinee was running into a lot of Hela with Invisible Woman and Polaris single-handedly beats that deck by moving Invisible Woman on 5.

If you want to play the deck without The Phoenix Force, I’ll have a Knull version for you next week!

Watch Peaceful Sea (subscribe here!) play this version of the deck:

New Takes on Sera

Sera was my first Infinite, so I’m extremely happy to see new takes near the top of the metagame! Let’s take a look at two different ways to compete with the card.

W Los Sera Stats

W Sera Stats?

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 3 months ago

3

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

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

2x Starter Card

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.6

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Deck Thoughts: Last week, W innovated a great version of this deck and grabbed an Infinity Ticket with it. It was featured in this very article! While that version was fine-tuned for Conquest, this version is more effective on Ladder, as it replaces Black Bolt and Stature with Medusa and Sera. Sera leads to amazingly explosive last turns when combined with Zabu. This deck is great.

Here’s the relevant part of what I wrote last week:

The shell is the standard Darkhawk Stature list that’s been covered to death throughout the meta, including here prior. The history is also covered in this Deck of the Day article. So, let’s talk about innovations. The big one is Invisible Woman. She is an amazing Kitty Pryde counter, as a Killmonger behind her is all but guaranteed to ruin a last-turn Kitty. This is, similarly, an excellent way to Shang Chi at the end of the game, as Angela and Bishop often hit 9-10 power or more. Further, that’s absolutely amazing in a Lockjaw lane for that match-up.

The other big innovation here, and one I think I like more than Invisible Woman if possible, is going with Iron Man as the Iron Lad target instead of Doctor Doom. First of all, the meta is tall, not wide, limiting Doom’s upside, but further, Iron Man played out on turn 5 creates room for a turn 6 that could include two 4s because of Zabu or a 4 and Killmonger or any other number of combos that Doom, only playable on 6, does not allow.

Medusa adds early power, which seemingly contradicts the use of Killmonger and Shang-Chi, but the Invisible Woman play makes that priority into a joke. With Zabu and Sera out, Invisible Woman, Shang-Chi, and Killmonger all together on the last turn cost 5 energy, leaving one over for Korg or Jeff the Baby Land Shark.

This deck is built for and around Iron Lad. It’s not worth playing without him. Jeff, however, could be changed for any good 2-cost card – think Lizard or even Black Widow if you’re feeling cheeky.

Watch Combat (Subscribe here!) play the deck here:

Peaceful Sea Sera Hawk

Sera Hawk 2

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 3 months ago

4

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

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

2.7

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Deck Thoughts: This one was a Deck of the Day! If you’re going to check one of those out this week, I suggest that one, as the deck history of Sera and what it looked like in Beta is really cool. Peaceful Sea has dominated with his own version of Sera Control. Everyone has been playing Hit-Monkey versions, which die to Wave, so Sea has zagged where others zigged (I added Magik to mine!), and went back to the extremely powerful Darkhawk package.

I went through the turn-by-turn on this in the deck of the day article, and a lot of the play patterns here are similar to the previous section wherein Invisible Woman enables the control pieces, but now with Enchantress to help answer opposing Ongoing effects.

Here are some other notes on the deck: Kitty Pryde and Angela are, again, so strong that they make it here, even without Bishop or Beast to help support them. Remember, if you want to Killmonger under Invisible Woman, Kitty needs to be played there, as well. Killmonger has anti-synergy with Korg, as it’s -2 power to your board, but that is mitigated at least somewhat due to the presence of Nova who adds far more power than Korg takes away, especially considering the likely loss of power on the opponents side if you’re playing these cards anyway.

The central tension of the deck is Kitty vs. Darkhawk-related cards. I tend to prioritize Darkhawk stuff first, as Kitty even as a 1-4 or 1-6 is absolutely great value. Naturally, that is context-dependent, but a decent rule of thumb to start. Rockslide on turn 3 is one of the most powerful things you can be doing in the game.

Since it’s Sea’s deck (subscribe already!), let’s watch him play it:

Off-Meta Infinite Contenders

Sometimes, you just want to compete with totally out-of-the-norm decks. Here we have a proven successful Mister Negative and The Living Tribunal deck for you to try out!

Top 4 Negative by Cimz

S13 Battle Arena #2 – 3~4th cimz – Negative

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 3 months ago

1

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

1x Starter Card

3.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

1.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Deck Thoughts: If you have any interest in Marvel Snap Tournaments, you need to join the Snap Battle Arena Discord. There, Alphos runs tournaments constantly including two big ones every month. These are great for competitive play, and I help cast them.

Even if you aren’t playing though, paying attention to these tournaments can pay dividends. In this case, Cimz reached the top 4 with a Mister Negative list! While the list looks fairly standard, it does some interesting things.

The main playline of Negative decks is usually similar. The decks run Bast, Zabu, Negative then zero power cards to be inverted – Iron Man, Mystique, Knull, Arnim Zola – and some ways to see more than two of them, in this case Magik and Jane Foster Thor.

The rest of the deck is up for grabs and Cimz decided to amp up the power of that Knull/Zola or Knull/Mystique combo. He did this by adding in Shang Chi – a decent enough Mister Negative target in his own right, and Yondu. This a lot of turn passing and the final spot went to Sunspot to gain power for when the deck did nothing, waiting to explode.

With Mister Negative, there’s often a lot of turn passing and retreating as you wait, but the top draws can beat anything and claim an awful lot of cubes.

Knull is entirely needed for this version of the deck. However, Zabu could pretty easily be Psylocke and little changes.

Watch Nerfherder (subscribe here!) play the deck:

Infinite Tribunal

MasonEClark Living Tribunal Infinite

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 3 months ago

1

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

1x Starter Card

3.7

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Deck Thoughts: This was another Deck of the Day! You can also find the original creator on Twitter. They climbed from 20 all the way to Infinite with this deck!

The Living Tribunal was entirely overshadowed by High Evolutionary. Everyone kind of decided it was bad, but few people had the card and little testing was done. Well, this list shows that with good snapping and retreating, the card can be competitive on the ladder.

This deck uses a ramp package of Electro and Wave to get out its three key cards: Living Tribunal, Iron Man, and Onslaught. These three alone in one lane are equivalent to 17 power in all three locations, enough to win many games of Snap.

Of course, every game won’t be a perfect draw, so this deck uses Iron Lad and Jubilee to increase the consistency of the deck. When a key piece is missing, these cards are often enough to go find what’s needed. Devil Dinosaur acts as a backup power card to be spread around, as does Nebula who has the added benefit of getting the opponent to play cards away from your combo. Cosmo offers some protection for decks that run obvious counters and can be played after Iron Lad or Jubilee on the last turn of the game, assuming Zabu is out. Zabu and Jubilee also allow you to start searching for combo pieces on turn 3 if there’s no ramp card in hand.

Everything in this deck is complementary to making the three-card win combo go off smoothly.

The only card high-series card you can really replace here is Nebula. Sunspot is likely the best replacement. Everything else is needed for consistency.

Watch Bootman (subscribe here!) play the deck:

The Phoenix Force Arrives

The Phoenix Force is brand new. What can we do with it? Here are three ideas (four if you count the Thanos version in the top section)!

Day 1 Infinite Phoenix

Deck Thoughts: The very first Infinite I found with The Phoenix Force is this one – it’s also the fastest Infinite from its creator!

This is a Move deck with a Destroy package. It basically wants to eat The Human Torch, Dagger, or, ideally, Multiple Man early. At that point, the idea is to Shuri and then play The Phoenix Force for a doubled version of those cards. The last turn, Move Phoenix, and then play Arnim Zola to double your newly gigantic card. If that’s Human Torch, that’s two 32-power cards. This is the best power but is vulnerable to Killmonger. Dagger is more likely to be two 22-power or so cards, which is still great.

Multiple Man offers an entirely different play pattern. An 18-power Multiple Man can be moved to be duplicated, then moved again with Ghost-Spider and AGAIN with Doctor Strange. That’s… a lot of power all over the board.

The alternative playline is to just Shuri into Nimrod into Arnim Zola or Venom and Carnage for two incredibly powerful lanes that don’t care about most location restrictions. There’s just a lot to like here, with this insanely strong deck.

You’re going to need Nimrod and The Phoenix Force to play this one. Ghost-Spider can’t be replaced with the Multiple Man playline, but Deathlok is a fine alternative to get a bit more Destroy into the deck.

Phoenix Shuri

Zombie’s Go Phoenix Torch

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 3 months ago

1

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.9

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Deck Thoughts: This deck is from the great ZombiesGoNomNom.

This deck, in concept, is not too dissimilar to the Infinite one. The main change, in fact, is to the non-Phoenix plan. Instead of Nimrod and Arnim Zola, this deck uses Red Skull and Taskmaster. The other cards are fundamentally similar to the point there’s no real reason to belabor the issue. I think I’d move the cards around to be more similar to the Infinite deck – Doctor Strange, in particular, is probably better than Vulture, and Killmonger is very important, but if you like Shuri Red Skull decks, go for this one!

This deck is all Series 3 besides The Phoenix Force!

Watch Wovernsnap (Subscribe here!) play the deck:

Phoenix Surfer

Glazer’s Rebirth

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 3 months ago

2

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

4x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

2.6

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.9

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Deck Thoughts: Fair warning, this is going to be brief. There’s a Deck of the Day on this! Unfortunately, the deck doesn’t work. Friend and fellow Marvel Snap Zone writer Bohe tried a version, too – that also doesn’t quite work, but here it is. There’s something here. If anyone can figure it out, let me know.

My Infinity Winning Bounce

Safety’s Mosh Pit

Created by PulseGlazer

, updated 3 months ago

1

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

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

1x Recruit Season

3.2

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.9

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Deck Thoughts: This is our final deck of the week, and it was Deck of the Day! I hit Infinite with this deck last Season in two days. I hit Infinity in Conquest with this deck. I’ve maintained a 75-80% win rate with this deck. This is my most successful deck in the history of Marvel Snap, and I hit Infinite every season.

The Lamby version discussed last week gets all the publicity, but the numbers this puts out are unmatched. The Collector joining Angela and Bishop in taking advantage of Kitty Pryde is crazy. The Collector also means I play Falcon with Beast for more power. Having both of these cards gives me access to the Hood, which means the Demon adds more last-turn insane power to the deck. Iron Man and Bast amplifying everything feels almost unfair.

Bast’s single best target is Mysterio, who becomes a 2-9 after hit. In addition, Mysterio‘s triggering of Bishop and Hit-Monkey is just insane, making it a potentially 18-power play.

Spider-Ham vs. Iceman is the debate for the last spot. I like the Ham for letting me know what to play around, but Iceman is better into the tough matchups like Lockjaw and Lockdown. I hit Infinite with Iceman and got Infinity with Ham.

Do whichever you want – Iceman makes this a mostly Series 3 Deck. Hit-Monkey is needed for the best versions of this, but Medusa does a reasonable impression when Beasted.

Thanks for reading! Check back all next week for Deck of the Day articles and so much more from Marvel Snap Zone!