Hi, it’s been a minute! 👋 I ended up sick enough last week to miss an installment of Snapalytics. It’s good to be back!

This week, a look at the most played archetypes and the off-archetype cards that help them out the most.

Looking to add a little spice to a classic deck you can’t get enough of? Read on to discover which card you could swap in. Maybe you prefer to play off-meta to employ the element of surprise? Maybe the twist that’ll inspire your next deck is waiting for you below.

The Dataset

The following analysis covers the last week of ranked matches recorded by our Marvel Snap Tracker.

I included matches from players at Rank 60+ and Collection Level 994+. The data was divided into two groups by rank, 60–99 and 100+. For context, CL 994 is when you open your first Collector’s Reserve, at which point you’re roughly one-third of the way through completing your Series 3 collection.

Due to the nature of this analysis, only decks with a detected archetype were included. Ooh, let me explain archetype detection!

Archetypes are defined and named automatically. It’s a super cool system developed by our lead developer, Razviar (who does tons behind the scenes, including developing our tracker). On a weekly basis, the existing archetype definitions are thrown out and created anew. Without getting too complicated, every single deck recently observed by our tracker gets analyzed against the rest to identify trends. With this information, archetypes are defined by cards that frequently appear together.

Within the dataset being analyzed in this article, roughly 60% of matches were played with a deck that was sorted into an archetype. It would be a huge undertaking to determine if that 60% is a good number, but rest assured it shouldn’t be anywhere near 100% — there are plenty of people playing hybrid or unique decks that have usages too low to qualify as an archetype.

Odd Ducks

What follows are this week’s archetypes sorted by usage, highest to lowest. With each, the cards that are rarely played with that archetype but help it most.

Variants

Jessica Jones

On Reveal: If you don’t play a card here next turn, +4 Power.

Collection Level 1-14

view card details Start a deck Decks with Jessica Jones

Variants

Star-Lord

On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +3 Power.

Starter Card

view card details Start a deck Decks with Star-Lord

Variants

Lizard

Ongoing: -4 Power if your opponent has 4 cards here.

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Lizard

To qualify as “rarely played”, a card must be in deck for less than 30% of a given archetype’s matches. A card must also have been in deck for at least 1% or 20 of the archetype’s matches (whichever is higher) in order to mitigate the luck factor.

In order to determine which cards help an archetype most, I calculated win rate delta. This describes how much higher an archetype’s win rate is when a card is included in the deck versus when it is not. Cube rate delta represents the same difference for cube rate.

Only cards with a positive impact were included.

After taking all these qualifications into account, some archetypes did not have enough qualifying cards to fill (or even start) a top 10 list.

I’ll be covering the top 22 archetypes for rank 60–99, but only the top 11 for rank 100+. We’re early in the season, so even with the error in rank drops this season, the volume of matches recorded at Infinite rank is fairly low.

1. Lockdown High

“Lockdown High” Sample

Created by LaurenWhatevs

, updated 4 months ago

0

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

4x Starter Card

3.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

4.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank 60–99

Matches: 42,070

Jessica Jones usage in the archetype is low (1.11%). That’s still a respectable 468 matches thanks to the popularity of the archetype. ’s usage is quite a bit higher, at 6.34%.

Their numbers are nothing to scoff at! Increasing your cube rate by 0.1 is huge — granting you an extra rank for every 10 matches you play.

Rank 100+

Matches: 10,349

In Infinite, Jeff represents a massive boost to the Lockdown High archetype. Switching to Infinite means we’re looking at a quarter as many games, but Jeff’s numbers are actually extremely respectable — with 19.59% usage representing over 2,000 matches.

2. Sera Control

“Sera Control” Sample

Created by LaurenWhatevs

, updated 4 months ago

0

5x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Starter Card

2.7

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.4

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank 60–99

Matches: 16,533

You see how much of a popularity gap there is between the two most popular archetypes over this past week? Here’s an opportunity to advise taking all this data with an additional grain of salt than usual. ’s technically-qualifying usage in Sera Control sits at 1.06% (175 matches) versus ’s 11.98% (1981 matches).

I could raise the minimum requirements, but the primary goal of this article is deck inspiration. To help you find a new twist for your favorite deck. Or maybe you see something like “Star-Lord in Sera Control” and that concept alone is enough to inspire an entire deck for you. Similarly, I could include the in-archetype usage in the tables, but I think it would add a lot of complication for little value.

Hazmat and Typhoid Mary are the most popular Sera Control inclusions in the table above. That’d be surprising, except Luke Cage has been included in Sera Control at a very high rate (31.26%) in response to the popularity of High Evolutionary’s affliction package.

Psst! If you’re thinking about throwing Star-Lord in your Sera Control deck, you should also consider the newly-buffed Medusa.

Rank 100+

Matches: 3,541

Aero’s numbers are certainly inflated by the small sample size. What should you do with the data then? Her numbers above are ridiculously good. I’d read it as likely Aero is a beneficial addition to Sera Control in Infinite… but I’d also expect a much smaller bump than half a cube per game!

Say you’re picking between Typhoid Mary and Aero. In this specific case, Mary’s usage is almost six times that of Aero’s. To me, that makes Mary’s win rate more impressive than Aero’s, even though it’s slightly lower. Despite Aero’s inflated numbers, the apparent difference in win rate is small — 2.35%! Player skill could easily cover that gap. They’re really different cards and you shouldn’t ignore personal factors when deciding. Maybe Aero just clicks with you. Maybe you have more experience with Typhoid Mary. Maybe you have an awesome Aero variant. Maybe you really like Luke Cage and Hazmat, a little package that partners great with Typhoid Mary!

By the way, the cube rate list above is our first that just doesn’t have enough qualifying cards to fill the list. The gaps will be represented with dashes.

3. Knull Galactus

“Knull Galactus” Sample

Created by LaurenWhatevs

, updated 4 months ago

0

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

4.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

5.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank 60–99

Matches: 17,176

Is Iron Lad worth 6,000 tokens? He is if you’re a Galactus fan! Although, maybe you should wait and see if Galactus survives the impending patch expected on June 13th. 😅

Apparently, same with Howard — which is great. What can I say? I love the duck! 🤷‍♀️ Can’t say I expected him to show up so high on any of these lists, though! Howard’s 1.69% usage in Knull Galactus represents 291 games, which is enough that I’d consider his stats reliable enough to be meaningful!

Rank 100+

Matches: 2,560

I find the differences between the rank 60–99 list and rank 100+ list for the same archetype fascinating, if not especially valuable (because Infinite is so much less competitive). Wasp (probably Evolved Wasp) Hobgoblin, Nebula, Iron Lad, and Howard match between the lists. Otherwise, they’re so different!

This’ll be the last archetype with my commentary. Enjoy the rest! I’ll catch you at the #Conclusion. ☺️

4. High Lockjaw

“High Lockjaw” Sample

Created by LaurenWhatevs

, updated 4 months ago

0

1x Collection Level 1-14

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Starter Card

4.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

6.2

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank 60–99

Matches: 13,133

Rank 100+

Matches: 3,899

5. MODOK Discard

“MODOK Discard” Sample

Created by LaurenWhatevs

, updated 4 months ago

0

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

4x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

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

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.5

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank 60–99

Matches: 12,585

Rank 100+

Matches: 3,336

6. Kitty Bounce

“Kitty Bounce” Sample

Created by LaurenWhatevs

, updated 4 months ago

0

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

1.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank 60–99

Matches: 9,814

Rank 100+

Matches: 3,107

7. Sera Surfer

“Sera Surfer” Sample

Created by LaurenWhatevs

, updated 4 months ago

0

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

8x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2.9

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Rank 60–99

Matches: 8,404

Rank 100+

Matches: 1,425

8. Knull Death

“Knull Death” Sample

Created by LaurenWhatevs

, updated 4 months ago

0

5x 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)

2.9

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3

Power