Thanos Scam Deck Guide: Scamming Your Way to Victory – The Most Fun You Can Have With Thanos!

At the beginning of the March 2023 season, Thanos was unstoppable. It felt like there was nothing you couldn’t accomplish with him. However, after back-to-back nerfs to Space Stone, Quinjet, Leech, and Lockjaw, Thanos is in a bit of a precarious spot. After all, his fellow big bad Galactus was quite literally trending on Twitter the past week…

Even though the days of steamrolling your opponent with a greedy Thanos Lockjaw deck are over, you can get a jumpstart on the ladder in the May 2023 season with an up-and-coming archetype for Thanos that is competitive and incredibly satisfying to play: Scams Thanos.

Scams? What Are You Talking About? Are You Trying to Get Me Banned?

Don’t worry reader, I’m not talking about running a script or doing something against the TOS. “Scams” is a type of control archetype greatly enabled by Thanos.

Before we dive in, I want to give proper credit to GilesDavis who coined the term Scams Thanos and started the incredible Discord thread of the same name back in March that spawned a hotbed of iteration from like-minded individuals like myself. Truly we wouldn’t be scamming without mister GilesDavis and other prominent members of the crew like Loki Laufeyson, Lashley93, Trexler, Yuto, LambySeries, KMBest, and our very own Den.

So what do we mean by “scams”? This comes from the idea that you’re not beating the opponent with raw power, but “scamming” them out of being able to play in a location or swinging a location in what feels like a scam. Basically, it is the opposite of the classic Shuri game plan: we’re not point slamming our opponents we’re stopping them from being able to put points down in the first place OR making them think they’ve overpowered us only to swing a location on the final turn in what feels like a manifestation of the Ms. Marvel emote.

While the meta is still settling after the big April patch and recent OTA changes a dedicated control list like this can really bring the pain. Scams has an excellent match into Galactus decks and popular ongoing lists like Darkhawk + Devil Dinosaur. Additionally, we can shut down many of the rising Hit Monkey and point slam decks that love to go wide by denying them the space to play out cards.

So what goes into a Scams deck that’s equipped to take on the May season ranked ladder? Let’s take a look.

The Core Scams Cards

No deck can really be a Scams Thanos deck without these five cards, each one of them plays a unique role in scamming our opponent out of their cubes!

Variants

Thanos

Starts in your opening hand and shuffles the six Infinity Stones into your deck.

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

view card details Start a deck Decks with Thanos

Thanos: The man himself, like most Thanos decks we’re not actually playing him all that often. However, the Infinity Stones let us dig through our deck for our key cards and let us have a heavier-than-usual top end of cards. The time stone and soul stone in particular give us the flexibility to make some excellent plays.

Variants

Professor X

Ongoing: Lock down this location. (Cards can’t be added, removed, etc.)

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Professor X

Professor X: It’s a lockdown baby! Professor X lets us guarantee a won location and can be especially lethal when played on turn four thanks to the ramp offered by the time stone. Since we aren’t point-slamming our opponents, knowing you only have one other location to win helps us stay focused on where we need to seal the deal.

Variants

Spider-Man

On Reveal: Move to another location and pull an enemy card from here to there.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Spider-Man

Spider-Man: Spidey goes hand in hand with Professor X lockdown style. While not as “final” as X, if you throw down Spider-Man on turn five in the right place (especially after ramping into X on 4) it is an almost guaranteed win, so make sure to snap before you lock this in!

Variants

Daredevil

On turn 5, you get to see your opponent’s plays before you make your own.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Daredevil

Daredevil: I seeee youuu. Daredevil really helps tie things together in these kinds of lists and can help guide you to victory by showing you where to drop your cards on five if you didn’t ramp into your ideal play lines earlier on.

Variants

Devil Dinosaur

Ongoing: +2 Power for each card in your hand.

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Devil Dinosaur

Devil Dinosaur: High-powered cards that also have incredible control abilities are (thankfully) not a thing in Marvel Snap. Like any Thanos deck, our hand will often be quite full by the end of the game, so Devil Dinosaur can give us a nice surge of points without needing to build around the card at all.

Luxury and Optional Scams Cards

There are a lot of different ways to go with the Scams Thanos shell and while none of these cards are absolutely required to make things work, they are always a welcome addition to the list.

Variants

Jeff the Baby Land Shark

You can move this once. Nothing can stop you from moving or playing this to any location.

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

view card details Start a deck Decks with Jeff the Baby Land Shark

Jeff the Baby Land Shark: His card text literally says he can break the rules! Jeff feels like he’s tailor-made for this style of play. You can lull your opponent into thinking you’ve lost your X location and surprise steal it on six for the win with Jeff. You could replace him with Nightcrawler in the lists I cover below, but this little guy has very much felt worth the 6K tokens.

Variants

Super-Skrull

Ongoing: Has the Ongoing effects of all enemy cards.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Super-Skrull

Super-Skrull: Dang there are a lot of ongoing cards running around right now huh? Darkhawk and Devil Dinosaur players well up with glee when they see you’re a Thanos deck, but Super-Skrull flips that dynamic. Their Darkhawk will always be bigger than Skrull but if they play Dino as well you’re definitely swinging one location with Skrull on his own.

Variants

Valkyrie

On Reveal: Set ALL cards here to 3 Power.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Valkyrie

Valkyrie: If we weren’t in such an ongoing heavy meta right now I’d say Valkyrie is 100% a required card. I love running her in all of my Scams decks because if you don’t have priority on six and have a full location with Valkyrie and Soul Stone you’ll win any location that’s not bolstered by ongoing effects. Valkyrie rules!

Variants

Lockjaw

After you play a card here, swap it with a card in your deck. (once per turn)

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Lockjaw

Lockjaw: The original scammer. Lockjaw, even after the nerfs to space stone and Lockjaw himself, can still make some casino magic happen. You’re leaving a lot of stuff to chance with him since Professor X or Valkyrie popping out of Lockjaw can mean bad news for you but he’s certainly an inclusion to consider here.

The Ideal Scams Gameplan

With the major cards in mind, let’s break down what an ideal game plan looks like for the Scams Thanos archetype.

Turn 1

Play out any stones that we can which draw cards, mind stone is the obvious preference. We’re always trying to dig for time stone by turn three and Professor X by turn four. The only stone you shouldn’t be playing out on turn one is the time stone.

Turn 2

Keep getting your stones down, try not to stack too heavily in one location unless you have Professor X ready to go. I prefer to have soul stone in a location where I don’t plan on playing X in case I want to go for a Valkyrie endgame on turn six.

If you don’t have lots of stones to play getting down Daredevil on curve is great, if you’re running Jeff and have nothing else to play you can tempo him out, but he’s a great surprise for later in the game if your curve allows it.

Turn 3

Assuming we have Professor X in hand, this is when we want to get the time stone down and any other low-cost cards to set up for a turn-four lockdown. If you don’t have X in hand but have time stone and a few other stones that draw you cards you could also try and high roll and play them out in hopes of getting X on one of your draws. Even if you don’t have X ready to go this is still the perfect time to play time stone for the extra chance at playing a five-energy card.

At this stage in the game, you should have a good idea of how well things could go in the match. Do you have lockdown cards and things to play out the next few turns? Do you have any early board presence? Just make sure you don’t stay in after an opponent’s snap if you’re not feeling good about your play lines!

Turn 4

Get down Professor X if you can! Locking down a location before turn five puts you at such a strong advantage that you should almost always Snap before you end your turn four play.

If you aren’t able to play X on turn four but did play time stone on three then this is a great time to get one of your other five energy cards in the mix like Devil Dinosaur, Iron Man, or Blue Marvel.

Turn 5

If you have Daredevil down on the board things become a lot easier. Regardless, we want to try and lock out a location with Spider-Man or Professor X so we can just focus on one location on the final turn and put pressure on our opponent to win both of the remaining locations.

If your opponent isn’t playing an ongoing heavy list and you have Valkyrie in hand you should try to throw priority and set up a location to surprise win on six. Just make sure you’re able to have more cards than your opponent in that location and have something like Blue Marvel, Soul Stone, or any other buffing card down to break the symmetry Valkyrie creates with her ability.

Turn 6

If we truly high-rolled there may not even be a turn six to play out, but as all players know there just isn’t a deck that reliably high rolls in this game. At this point, there are many different routes for us to go, and your skill with this archetype will ultimately be determined by how you successfully navigate turn six.

If you don’t have priority or your opponent already has a full lane with no ongoing support, Valkyrie and a stone can surprise swing a location. If your opponent is swimming in powerful ongoing abilities then a turn six Super-Skrull and Jeff can also be a wonderful closer. Sometimes just playing a powerful five-cost card alongside a stone is enough to win a location, and in the rare-ish occasion that you’ve played all six stones and have the power stone on the board then a 20-power Thanos is an intimidating threat on his own.

Scammy Thanos Decks to Try

With the ideal game plan for a Scams deck out of the way, here are some great decks to get you started scamming on the ladder. All three of these can have the ideal game plan we just described applied to them, so I’ll focus on what makes them different from other Scams decks.

Deck #1: Scamos

Scamos

Created by kickerofelves

, updated 12 months ago

3

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Recruit Season

1x Starter Card

3.9

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Often regarded as the “default list” in the Scams community, Scamos has all of the main tricks in the book with added flexibility offered by Lockjaw.

Lockjaw gives you a great turn three play if you don’t draw into the Professor X lockdown package and with the recent nerf you can reliably drop a stone and a five-cost card that will stick into the Lockjaw location on turn six.

Personally, I don’t love the Lockjaw inclusion (or maybe I’m just bad with him) because I want full control over when I’m dropping my key scam cards. However, the casino route is always one that can win big.

Deck # 2: Bounce Scams

Bounce Scams

Created by kickerofelves

, updated 12 months ago

4

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Starter Card

3.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

This deck freaking rules. It took me to rank 140 in the April season and made me fall in love with the archetype as a whole.

The Hood simultaneously helps us throw priority and gives us the powerful Demon to break symmetry during a turn-six Valkyrie play. Bast has a range of great targets for its effect since Thanos is the only card we’ll ever hard that doesn’t want its power set to three.

Bishop gives us another ideal turn-three play if we’re not ramping the way we’d like. Beast can be tricky, but ultimately you’ll learn to recognize when it’s ok to deny yourself a draw because of the sheer value Beast gives you by adding 0-cost stones or a demon into your hand.

Deck #3: Never Stop Scamming

Never Stop Scamming

Created by kickerofelves

, updated 12 months ago

4

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

5x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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

1x Recruit Season

1x Starter Card

3.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.8

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Hey isn’t this just deck #1 with Mystique instead of Lockjaw? Well, yes but it really isn’t that simple. In fact, this iteration shows just how significant swapping out one card can be in a list like this. 

This list took me from 140 to 150 and came together after I realized the bounce components of bounce scams weren’t winning me most of my games. Instead, this doubles down on location lockdown and a Valkyrie endgame. 

Mystique opens things up in a pretty crazy way. Admittedly it doesn’t give us a strong alternative turn-three play, which makes the deck a bit more high-rolly but dang does she open things up. 

Scams decks naturally run a lot of ongoing cards that come down on five and suddenly having a second Iron Man, Blue Marvel, Devil Dinosaur, or Super-Skrull on the last turn can be incredibly potent. 

The best thing Mystique can do, and it is a high roll is become a second Professor X: if you have a daredevil on the board, play time stone on turn three, drop X on four, and win that location, then Mystique on turn five is just plain insane. If you’re extra sneaky you can make it look like you’re going to lose one of the locked-down lanes and steal with Jeff or Blue Marvel on turn six to boost your cube equity.

Wrap Up

So that’s the Scam! Take all these tips together and get out there on the ladder this season and hit your target rank! If you want to talk more about any of this go ahead and leave a comment or reach out to me on Twitter at @itsthedmc. Until next time!