Marvel Snap is one of my favourite games to play at present. It doesn't require a thirty minute commitment of time like Vampire Survivors for every session and you can spend as much or as little on the game to purchase various upgrades and trinkets. I admire how it could have taken the very easy cash in option in terms of how it was designed and I admire the amount of work that must have gone into its development. Its one of those game that I'll admit that I've spent so much time on, that throwing the designers some money on occasion has felt warranted. It does a lot of things right in terms of balancing and deck building and there's not one killer deck out there that seems to dominate for too long before it is fairly reigned in. Yes, there are some cards I think are pretty tricky to acquire without a bit of luck, but I'm having so much fun playing it. What is great to see is that while there are several key strategies coming out over time, there is still enough variation to allow experimentation and even in losing, there is still a lot of fun to be had.
Here are my current favourite decks to play with, including why I use them and what my favourite order of play is. Please note that I'm basing this from my acquired deck list and so while I know some cards would be better in some of the decks below, I've not got access to them, which is why they aren't there.
Discard Deck.
This deck centres around the use of Dracula for the last round scoring, using M.O.D.O.K to clear the hand on deck five, leaving Apocalypse to build up their power when they are then discarded at the end of the game. You don't need to play Apocalypse at all, as Dracula will use him on the last turn to leech their power. The discarding also helps to boost up Morbius which can sit quite nicely in the background powering up and has brought in some close wins.
I have recently swapped out Swarm for Wolverine, who benefits from both discard and destruction and powers up accordingly. The Helicarrier will add to Morbius' power but also provide additional card options every time M.O.D.O.K wipes it out. Only thing to watch out for is Hela being removed early, which is why Ghost Rider is handy to have on hand.
Ideal Play Order
Blade > Morbius > Moon Knight > Dracula > MODOK > Hela
Destroy With Death
This dual purpose deck centres around using Patriot to boost Debrii and Squirrel Girl and Thing, with Nova boosting their power when he is destroyed. Death is there so if you take the route of using Bucky, Carnage and then Venom, you can boost up Death to then play them early to allow cloning with Arnim Zola. Rogue is there to dampen out any Wong opponent players on the other side. Ideally you want to boost Venom to a good level and then have Arnim copy them on the last round to eat up the power on the other two columns. If you have the Sinister Town location, I've seen Venom end up with power over 1000 at the end of the game.
Ideal Play Order
Nova > Bucky > Carnage > Venom > Death > Arnim Zola
Collector This deck works around the Collector, but requires you to field them as quickly as possible. so you can start getting the benefit of adding your hand as you play. It can act as a dual discard and hand deck, concentrating on Moon Girl, Nick Fury to bring cards in at the end and if you're lucky Maria Hill and Sentinel boosting at the beginning. Rogue, as always is present to take care of anyone rocking the Wong / White Tiger / Thor / Mystique / Odin combo. With a combo of Hela, Heli Carrier and Fury, you can end up with a powerful lucky dip of additional cards to play from.
Ideal Play Order
Hand Add
Agent 13 > The Collector > Maria Hill > Moon Girl > Fury > HeliCarrier
Discard
Agent 13 > The Collector > Maria Hill > Moon Knight >Hell Cow > Hela
Devil Dinosaur
All about growing the hand and powering up the deck and columns as you play. Early Okoye to boost the deck, Captain America to boost up the column. Rogue again to mitigate Wong on the other side. Moon Girl Boosts the hand and if you're lucky Devil Dinosaur will be cloned during that move. Arnim is there to spread the joy if you get a high powered Devil Dinosaur. Jubilee to give you an early advantage as they sometimes will bring in Nick Fury or Iron Man into play. Cerebro there to boost Dinosaur if you need it.
Ideal Play Order
Mantis > Okoye > Captain America > Moon Girl > Devil Dinosaur > Arnim Zola
Move Deck This deck centres around using Kraven as a centre piece for boosting the numbers and has a cheeky Kingpin combination with Magneto for the last round. Iron Fist and Nightcrawler are they to move and provide early movement to the deck. The combination of Vulture and Doctor Strange means you'll be boosting their power early. Polaris is used in combination with Kraven to move opponents cards to boost them and and of this movement effects Miles Morales so that their cost is dropped down to one.
If you place Kingpin on the right column then you can use Heimdall in the last round as normal but if you want to be cheeky, you use Magneto in the same column as Kingpin to pull in all the opponents heavy hitters to wipe them out in the last round.
Ideal Play Order
NightCrawler > Kraven > Vulture > Doctor Strange/ Spiderman > Kingpin > Magneto
OR
Iron Fist > Multiple Man > Vulture > Dagger/ Kraven > Doc Strange/ Spiderman > Heimdall
I hope you get a chance to try them for yourselves, I'm constantly intrigued by the various meta decks that are being created over time as new cards are released and so far it's been a real blast to both win and lose while playing. Let us know in the comments below what you are playing at the moment.
If you would like to support more written pieces on the blog then please consider backing us on Patreon. www.patreon.com/werenotwizards
