Marvel SNAP is a fast-paced game co-founded by Ben Brode who used to be the lead director of Hearthstone. It's gained a significant amount of attention and popularity lately and I've decided to create this guide to help the incoming player base with navigating the ever changing game. But before we get into specifics, there are a number of things that every player should always keep in mind while playing the game.

"The rules of Marvel SNAP are endearingly simple, especially compared with the complexity typical of card games. Each player turns up with two decks of 12 cards bearing Marvel superheroes – no duplicates – and over six rounds, plays those cards to one of three locations on the board. At the end of the sixth round, the player with the most power at a location wins it, and the player who controls the most locations wins the match." – Ben Brode


This game introduces a number of RNG elements that players will often be forced to play around on certain matchups. You have to adjust your playstyle to take the least number of chances as possible. Come across Danger Room[snap.fan]? Assume that any card you play there will be destroyed. The seemingly low 25% chance is always bait. Plan to play a 1-cost card or a card that has 9+ power? Try to work those cards in with [Armor] or Wakanda[snap.fan] in case your opponent is running [Killmonger] or [Shang-Chi] techs. If your opponent could have a tech that would counter your board -- assume that he does! Hopium doesn't win games.

If you're wondering if the opponent has their trump card; they do. I've learned time and time again that if there's a meta deck with a card that would cause me to lose it's not worth the risk of finding out. More often than not they have it. If you can't win against a common tell – [Taskmaster] after a 30 power [Red Skull] for example – just retreat.


I see a lot of players do this at lower ranks and it's a bad habit. If your opponent wants to snap on Turn 1 don't take that as a challenge to your manhood and snap him back right away. As I've already mentioned, this is a game made up of components that (for the most part) are out of your control. You may think that a great starting hand will guarantee you the win but two turns later X-Mansion[snap.fan] crashes the party uninvited; hands you a 1-drop and your opponent a 6-drop and when that happens the only thing you're entitled to receive is the Ms. Marvel *thumbs up* emote from your opponent.























The ability to retreat for a single cube when things don't go your way is an absolute privilege that you should take full advantage of. That's not to say that you shouldn't snap -- snapping too late is also a poor habit. You can't expect to get away with snapping your opponent on Turn 5 when there is absolutely no way for them to recover the board, they will simply pay off the one cube to tell you and Mr. Lahey to frigg off. There is a time and a place to snap your opponent and that sweet spot is usually right before you make a sizable play. Chances are, if your opponent has already let you snap him up to two cubes he's now less likely to retreat -- given the higher stakes.

SNAP is a game of cubes. You don't need to win every game. You just need to give up one cube when you aren't going to. It's not the most fun but its just a fact. You should be extremely confident in your hand/board if you plan to go into the last round. Unless you're rationing cubes you will never be able to climb rank.


I know what you're thinking; Yes, there are certain locations that could benefit from playing into them before they reveal. The issue is there are more locations that will hurt your chances of winning if you play into them blind and sometimes even outright cost you the game – Space Throne[snap.fan] for example. This rule generally applies more specifically for players who've made it to Pool 3 (CL 486+), partially because that's around when people completely stop playing location prediction/snipe cards like [Star Lord] or [Rocket Racoon] (with the exception of [Mantis] which can come up in Bounce or S.H.I.E.L.D/Dino decks all the way up to rank 90+).


On Turn 1 priority is assigned at random to either you or your opponent which will affect which player's cards reveal first. This is indicated by a glowing outline around the prioritized player's username at the top of the screen. For every following turn priority is determined by whoever is currently "winning" the most locations or has the most power when neither player has control of two or more locations. This may seem like common sense but you'd be surprised how many people I've come across who have made a sizeable misplay that ultimately cost them the game because they weren't aware who's cards would reveal first.

<this section of the guide is out of date>

The meta in this game is actually quite interesting. You have the meta decks that are notoriously overplayed with the highest overall win consistency that exist at the very center of the meta. These decks however aren't necessarily the strongest decks in the game. Opponents who are aware of your win condition can be quick to retreat when they realize their chances to win are slim.

After all if your opponent knows exactly what cards you have in your deck and which cards you plan to play -- all of a sudden your deck becomes easier to play against.

My point is that the decks that are widely considered as the best or strongest are really just the most popular and overplayed. You'll have to ask yourself what type of player you want to be, and I don't mean that in a philosophical sense -- you need to recognize that SNAP at its very core is a game of deceit; meaning most players aren't going to let you get away with snapping them on Turn 5 if they know that the trump card you plan to play on Turn 6 will beat whatever board they've been setting up.

Thankfully for you, I intend to provide lesser known cube robbing decks that will leave your opponent confused and glaring at their phone screens wondering just what the hell it is you've done long after you've already begun your next game.











Thanos Lockjaw received a few changes with the latest patch but despite this still remains one of the strongest decks in the current meta at the cost of having to fork over 6000 Collector Tokens to afford [Thanos] himself. There are actually a couple variations for this deck but as far as I'm aware no particular variation outperforms the others by enough to make a difference. Very overplayed at higher ranks and difficult to counter.

Flex spots:

• Quinjet[snap.fan] (latest nerf pretty much killed this card)
  
• Blue Marvel[snap.fan]
  
• Aero [snap.fan]

Replaceable cards:

• Wave[snap.fan]
  
• Infinaut[snap.fan]
  
• Wasp[snap.fan]
  
• Dr Doom[snap.fan]

With the addition of [Nimrod] in March, Galactus decks have become incredibly strong but again very expensive to build especially if you want [Knull] in there too. The deck fairs reasonably well without [Galactus] himself if you're trying to build a budget deck, as long as you still have [Shuri], [Nimrod] and [Destroyer]. There are again several variations for this deck.

Flex spots:

• Wasp[snap.fan]
  
• Black Widow[snap.fan]
  
• Nova[snap.fan]
  
• Green Goblin[snap.fan]
  
• Nakia[snap.fan]
  
• Cosmo[snap.fan]

Replaceable cards:

• Daredevil[snap.fan]
  
• Wave[snap.fan]
  
• Electro[snap.fan]
  
• Knull[snap.fan]
  
• Death[snap.fan]
  
• America Chavez[snap.fan]

These decks are fundamentally good, reliable and consistent BUT they are extremely easy to read and counter. Your opponent will know what deck you're running by the first two cards you play. At lower ranks they will do fairly well and can win you quite a few games but I definitely do not recommend trying to force these decks past Rank 70+

• Patriot/Ultron — [Enchantress] or [Rogue] = Retreat. [Ultron] also often falls victim to [Cosmo] predict on T6 as it's usually very obvious where a Patriot player intends to play their trump card on the final turn.
  
• Cerebro 3 — [Scorpion] or [Hazmat] = Retreat, also there are tons of locations that can throw your game For example: 1[snap.fan] 2[snap.fan] 3[snap.fan] 4[snap.fan] etc.
  
• Move — Full on move decks tend to underperform at higher ranks because the cards often work against themselves by filling the board with junk (If you're still in Pool 1 & 2 this doesn't apply to you). But you can still run some Move cards particularly [Human Torch], [Cloak] & [Iron Fist] within other archetypes such as Bounce and that works a lot better.

> The author is working on adding more to this section. Check back again soon! <











Why settle for one archetype when you could have two? Negative/On-Reveal is easily one of the most slept on decklists out there. Not only does this deck consistently perform in the current meta -- as a combo heavy deck built around shifting the board in your favor during the final turns of the game. You're going to be walking out of most games having emptied your opponent's pockets of every cube they have.

Every card serves a role here. [Jane Foster] ultimately completes this deck despite becoming unplayable on a negative swap. This is because she would allow you to draw each of your four 0-power cards after a negative swap. [Zabu] & [Psylocke] allow you to get [Mr. Negative] out on Turn 3. The rest are pretty self explanatory with the only real flex card being [Shang-Chi] who provides an important tech while simultaneously benefiting from [Zabu]'s ability. Altogether, there is a lot to unpack here but you can't really go wrong with this hybrid archetype.

Flex Spots:

• Shang-Chi[snap.fan]

Replaceable Cards:

• Bast[snap.fan] — doesn't provide enough utility to justify a spot and takes up board space
  
• Gambit[snap.fan] — benefits from both core archetypes in this build but you don't want to discard your cards
  
• Bishop[snap.fan] — fulfills the void of cards to play during early game but overall too slow
  
• Rogue[snap.fan] — her tech ability doesn't see enough action to justify a spot
  
• Shuri[snap.fan] — benefits from both core archetypes as well as [Zabu] but felt clunky due to low avg power cost of this build
  
• Jubilee[snap.fan] — often pulls cards you don't want her to pull which works against you
  
• Valkyrie[snap.fan] — fits quite well but had to cut her because too many 5-drops
  
• Leader[snap.fan] — viable since the rework but occasionally fills your board with junk
  
• Absorbing Man[snap.fan] — viable but slow

Easy to Play & Easy to Master -- the DoomWave archetype is the whole package. Reportedly, this deck got a lot of players to Infinite their very first time.

Flex Spots

• Nightcrawler[snap.fan]
  
• Iceman[snap.fan]
  
• Lizard[snap.fan]

Replaceable Cards

• Psylocke[snap.fan]
  
• Sera[snap.fan]
  
• Killmonger[snap.fan]

This is your typical Bounce/Dino archetype with only four cards from Pool 3 (CL 486+). With the recent addition of [Kitty Pryde] as well as the [Collector] buff -- Bounce is doing quite well.

Flex Spots:

• Iceman[snap.fan] — I would cut him for [Quinjet] or [Hood] if you can. He's only here as a budget option.
  
• Maria Hill[snap.fan] — only recommended to cut if you don't have her already
  
• Agent Coulson[snap.fan] — interchangeable with Fury depending on your playstyle.

Replaceable Cards:

• Mantis[snap.fan]
  
• Hood[snap.fan]
  
• Quinjet[snap.fan] — strong in this deck despite the nerf
  
• Nick Fury[snap.fan] — can be a little slow for a Bounce deck but still fits

I recently put together this deck that has been pretty consistent in tricking opponents to hand over their cubes. Let me explain how it works!

Essentially there is one single game winning play that you’re trying to set up for Turn 7 — To play [M.O.D.O.K] into [Hela] on the same turn. To set this up you will need to play the following five cards on turns 5, 6 & 7:

Turn 5: Magik[snap.fan]

Turn 6: Psylocke[snap.fan]& Wave[snap.fan]

Turn 7: M.O.D.O.K[snap.fan]& Hela[snap.fan]

This will dump your entire hand onto the board on turn 7. It won’t happen every game and occasionally you will need to retreat for a loss of 1 cube but nobody is expecting this play, which almost always means that when you do pull all the right cards on their respective turns you will leave having gained 8 cubes from your opponent.

Obviously with only five absolute necessary cards for this deck it leaves some room for card flexibility. I have played around with various different combinations and have found this deck list to be the most consistent.

For example even if you don’t pull the five game winning cards, you can still skip T6 to play both She-Hulk[snap.fan]& Infinaut[snap.fan] on T7. Often times also still benefiting from Sunspot[snap.fan] for having skipped T6.

In games where you managed to play [Psylocke] & [Wave] on T6 but didn’t draw both [Hela] & [M.O.D.O.K] you can still play two of your own 6 drops while your opponent only has the option of playing one card.

Flex spots:

• Black Cat[snap.fan]
  
• Adam Warlock[snap.fan]
  
• Giganto[snap.fan]
  
• Magneto[snap.fan]

Replaceable cards:

• Ebony Maw[snap.fan] — guaranteed card draws from [Adam Warlock] early
  
• Armor[snap.fan] — protection for [Sunspot]
  
• Storm[snap.fan] — [Hela]'s discard summons ignore location denials such as [Storm]'s ability
  
• Dr Doom[snap.fan] — alternative 6-drop

I intend to continue adding to this guide as I find the time to do so~