Snap Judgments Presents: PulseGlazer’s Top 10 Decks for the Strange Supreme Captain Carter Meta

Good morning all! It’s Friday, so let’s do something special! I’m going to spend this article covering the Top 10 decks right now in Marvel Snap. On this site, you get the legendary den’s weekly Tier Lists, which are entirely data-driven. This will not be that. Let’s discuss what that is, but if you’d like a video on this list with full turn-by-turn guides and card replacements… this is the video for you!

Before we go any further, I have a pretty big announcement – on 4/26, we’re doing all all day 20,000 Subscriber Streamabration! If you want to come hang out and celebrate, play against me, and win stuff, join me at Twitch.tv/PulseGlazer around 1:00pm EST. Here’s a flier of all the prizes:

This Tier List is my opinion based on top meta gameplay. Some readers will ask, “if these are not top performing meta decks by the data, why should I care about them?” The answer is simple: the majority of decks proliferate downward from the top meta players. Most of the best deck builders are top meta players, and decks at that level are built to counter each other so the meta ends up spiraling downward through the Ladder.

These 10 decks are all Top Tier and presented in no particular order.

Finally, I’m not doing turn-by-turn breakdowns or card replacements for this article. If you’re interested in that (and two bonus decks), be sure to check out the video above!

The Top 10

1. Fudge Scream

The Fudge version of Scream is ideally suited to answering a Strange Supreme and Thanos-heavy meta, but people aren’t going to play it much immediately because Scream was nerfed to a 2-1 and Sam Wilson Captain America to a 2-2.

Losing 2-Power in a deck isn’t nothing, but if any card can handle one less power, it’s Scream. Most cards in Marvel Snap scale two power at a time. Almost anything that scales three has been nerfed down to two, notably Silver Surfer and Elsa Bloodstone, and quite a few two scalers that were deemed too easy to use have gone down to +1 – Angela and Kitty Pryde. The only +4 scaler, Havok, cannot be played early because it has basically the worst downside possible early.

Well, Havok is almost the only +4 scaler, because that’s also exactly what Scream is. So long as an opponent’s card moves at least once a turn, she’s +4 power. If played on two with a move each turn after, even with her nerf, she’s a 2-17. And her condition for scaling is beneficial, the core to her whole deck, but easy enough to hit that you can run other tech or even other card packages.

Scream’s play rate may go down for a bit – it feels bad to play nerfed cards – but she’s going to find her way and still be in an S-Tier deck.

2. PulseGlazer Surfer

I allow myself one theory-craft for the post-OTA versions of this list, and this is it, a brew from me. This deck is wholly unproven, largely because it didn’t exist before yesterday.

The Captain Carter buff gives Silver Surfer extra legs. After last week in S-Tier, it was set to fall all the way to B, but Captain Carter being crazy strong and must answer pushes one of the best control decks back to the top of Marvel Snap.

And make no mistake, Silver Surfer is a control deck. It puts up good power thanks to cards like Brood and Galacta, but what it really does is have access to a ton of 3-Cost tech cards. For whatever the meta is, Surfer mixes and matches those cards to give itself the best chance for its Galacta and Silver Surfer buffs to win the game.

3. Derek Thanos Ongoing

Derek’s Ongoing Thanos has become one of the best meta decks, a known quantity that nevertheless wins a ton of games.

The deck had moved from Super Skrull to Kahhori since in this list, your hand is almost always full, but Super Skrull might be better again with Captain Carter Ongoing back on the menu. Outside of this, the deck really cares about points – it uses low cost cards like Goliath and Ant Man that get bigger by just playing more cards, and then uses them and buffers like Blue Marvel and Spectrum to go over the top. The trick here is that unlike most decks, this one puts power into all lanes, truly threatening the entire board.

There’s a chance that this deck will end up running Captain Carter and Moonstone. Those two are such a powerful pairing that any deck that makes sense has to consider them.

4. Dera Thanos Control

Dera, one of the biggest Marvel Snap streamers, took one look at the new card Strange Supreme and slotted it into the popular meta Thanos control. He cooked.

With Strange Supreme (and Cosmo), Thanos now has access to a 2-cost scaler, the most powerful thing to do in Marvel Snap. That card along with getting Mockingbird to around a 3-9 then uses a ton of control cards to ensure the win, from Shang Chi and Shadow King to Alioth. It also runs Wiccan as a high roll for extra energy.

The strategy is almost entirely different than the Ongoing list, which wins by putting up points in three lanes. This deck wins by putting up points in one lane, then removing the opponent’s points or ability to generate points in another.

There’s a fifth tier one deck, but we’ll save that for when we do Weekend Mission decks.

5. Xunzzz Small Good Cards

16-Year-Old Marvel Snap phenom Xunzzz is back atop the Infinite Leaderboard at #2.

This is an old list but one that remains exceedingly strong. The deck has answers for most threats, being able to Red Guardian or Juggernaut away threats, while scaling to game-winning power with Thena, Havok, and Sage. That this power is so unpredictable, as it develops through late plays and scalers means that the opponent can struggle to know what lanes to compete in. That means that this has been a top deck for months at this point, a situation I don’t expect to change soon.

But it is down a bit from last week. The deck is quite solid into Strange Supreme, but Strange has put more Cosmo and Shadow King into the meta. An early Cosmo usually isn’t much of a problem, but a late one can be, and Shadow King in a deck with this many scalers is worrisome.

The tech cards may change, but this is still a really strong choice, if not quite in the top tier.

6. Roram Affliction

Roram’s update to Coougarrr’s list has been a top deck for weeks, but it needs to change. A thing I struggle with for this article and video is how much to look back vs. how much to look forward.

This deck probably needs a couple of changes. We’ve talked several times about how much Cosmo is in the meta thanks to Strange Supreme and Captain Carter (Ongoing and Surfer). Cosmo makes Grandmaster a much more dangerous play in this deck. Grandmaster’s best target was also Laufey, but in this list Laufey is a turn 4 or 5 play. That leaves him and his lane a huge, scary Shadow King target. That play not only ruins Laufey, but also Ajax’s power output. No, thank you. Far safer is Man-Thing, who has similar power to Laufey, but without the risk, and extra upside against Captain Carter. Scorpion therefore replaces Grandmaster too, as a set it and get value card.

Either way though, this list is strong, still a force since Luke Cage is so rare.

7. D3nish Hela

Denish, the game’s pre-eminent Hela lover does it again!

This is about as hard as Hela has been to play, but it’s still very strong. The deck has a truly absurd amount of combos, but most of them are set around one key card. No, not Hela. Corvus Glaive.

Extra energy from Corvus Glaive allows things like early Hela into Odin. Extra energy from Corvus Glaive allows Blink to be played next turn to get a power play, or end game Grandmaster into Blink plays. Extra energy gives access to a last-turn Jubilee or Ghost Rider combined with Gambit.

And, of course, extra energy gives the deck a turn 4 Infinity Ultron. There are two Stones that really benefit Hela decks and two that really benefit Infinity Ultron himself, giving Infinity Ultron 4 good draws here instead of the usual two. Ultron still loves having his power doubled or getting a now 8-Power Drone, but Hela loves a cheap way to double on Reveals or pull a big expensive card from hand for 3. Space and Soul Stone are still bad, but 4/6 is much better odds than 2/6.

And thus, Hela returns.

8. Sizer Move Bounce

Sizer is #1 on the Infinite Leaderboard again with move bounce again.

This list is still all about the same things. It uses cheap cards to move around its three big movers – Vulture, Human Torch, and Dagger. It either sees two of them and makes them big, or copies one with Frigga. It then bounces the big cards to lose priority and avoid interaction, thus winning the game.

The deck now runs Sage as an extra big card option. Sage as an early 3-6 or 8 is fine, but really sings when copied by Frigga, giving you now another lane-winningly powerful card. Even without the Frigga or early play, sometimes the last turn is, thanks to Beast, really cheap, and just having an extra Sage to grab power can be game-winning.

NOTE: If you need Arana and Madame Web, they are in Spotlight Caches this coming week. However, the patch that kills Spotlight Caches for Snap Packs comes out a few hours before these Spotlights. If you want Arana and Madame Web, DO NOT UPDATE YOUR GAME TO THE PATCH. Second Dinner is giving you two days before forcing the update so that you can grab these cards if you want! Take advantage of it.

9. UnfitParrot: The Cook

Unhelpful Yoda sent me this really strong Cook-style list that’s perfect for weekend missions specifically and winning games in general.

“The Cook” decks are those that run Mysterio on turn 5 (ideally after a Gwenpool) so that turn 6 can be a massively cheap Mockingbird and Sasquatch. These decks do a great job when they see their pieces of winning and getting extra cubes thanks to their explosiveness.

Strange Supreme has added another power card to this deck, and moreover, has allowed the deck to run extra cards to scale in power and be eaten by Strange Supreme, cards that also make Mockingbird cheaper. Those cards are Squirrel Girl and Shanna, cards that used to be unplayable with Mysterio due to board space. Strange Supreme cleans up that board space mess while adding Marvel Boy gives enough power to go over the top!

It’s early to tier this deck, but it feels very, very strong, probably A-Tier.

10. Ika Ongoing

Ika cooked before he knew he cooked. This was his deck before Captain Carter was buffed, which is based on his Ongoing list before Captain Carter existed. The list is now one of the best in the game.

Carter is really strong now, and when paired with Moonstone feels almost impossible to beat without tech. Add in the combos of Iron Man, scaling of Goliath, and board-wide buffs of Blue Marvel and Spectrum… without tech, this might be the game’s best deck.

Don’t forget to check out our Streamabration tomorrow on Twitch!