Beginner Deck Upgrades

With over 450 cards in the game, players of Marvel Snap have never before had so many deck building options! Between all the unique abilities, stats, and archetypes, choosing a deck to build can leave you with more questions than answers. My goal is to provide a guideline for you to follow, in order to navigate through some of the different options.

At the beginning of your Marvel Snap career you are given four beginner decks to encourage you into different deck building archetypes. Today’s article will focus on upgrading each of those. Whether you are a brand new player to Marvel Snap or you have been playing for a while, starting off at the same baseline will help you understand key deck building principles.

To make it simple we will be making 5 upgrades to each of the four beginner decks. Two of the cards will be from the early series of cards that the game gives you for free. For the remaining three we will be selecting one from each other series: Series 3, Series 4, and Series 5.

Why restrict ourselves this way? Card acquisition is an entire subject until itself, especially if your goal is to play this game “Free to Play”. The four beginner decks are given to you as part of a 28 day Log In Bonus. By the end of those 28 days you can accrue enough in game currency to buy at least one Series 4 and 5 card. You can also pick one Series 3 card in the shop for free each season. By limiting ourselves to just these upgrades I am ensuring that anyone can pursue these upgrades within their first month, no matter what their level spend may be.

Ultron Swarm

https://snap.fan/decks/351634/

https://snap.fan/decks/351640/

Remove

• Hawkeye
• Angela
• Wolfsbane
• Jessica Jones
• Iron Man

Add

• Dazzler
• Blue Marvel
• Patriot (Series 3)
• Sandstorm (Series 4)
• Mockingbird (Series 5)

Our first deck today, Ultron Swarm is about using and filling up every location on the board. With twelve board spaces for your cards and only six turns to play with, you can find yourself not utilizing every space. The key card of this deck is Ultron, which when played will fill every empty spot with his Ultron Drones. The upgrades I’ve made will be in service to this ability.

Dazzler grows in Power for each location you have filled up. This allows her to be one of the strongest Power options for only 2 Cost that you can get. Blue Marvel and Patriot join Ka-Zar as cards that give a boost to cards across your entire board. The more cards you have in play, the more useful they become. If you manage to get all three of these into play then each Ultron Drone will have 6 Power!

The next two cards are more synergistic with the rest of the deck as opposed to just Ultron. Sandstorm creates supercharged Rocks to help give you more cheap Cost cards to play in the event you don’t draw Ultron. Mockingbird is a high Power card that can reduce her own cost based on your created cards. These would be the Squirrels generated by Squirrel Girl or any extra Sentinels you have in play. You want to get her as cheap as possible so that you can weave her seamlessly into any turn.

Powerful Panther

https://snap.fan/decks/351632/

https://snap.fan/decks/351639/

Remove

• Elektra
• Scarlet Witch
• Wolfsbane
• Nakia
• Drax

Add

• Mystique
• Storm
• Wong (Series 3)
• Iron Lad (Series 4)
• Alioth (Series 5)

Our next deck, Powerful Panther, is all about leveraging powerful On Reveal abilities. These are card effects that happen when you play your card. Black Panther’s ability is to double his Power. If we can manage to do this a few times, then he can boast a typically unbeatable output. The inclusions we will be swapping in will be in service to doing just that.

We can’t have a deck built this way without including Wong. He allows you to double every On Reveal card played in his location. It’s also why a deck like this includes Mystique. Instead of having multiple Ongoing targets for her, we only want her to copy Wong. This will give you four triggers per On Reveal. Just imagine doubling Black Panther four times and you’ll suddenly realize why we are bending over backwards to make it happen. Iron Lad gives you extra chances at this combo by either being a copy of Wong/Mystique or even Black Panther himself.

Alright so we have one location taken care of but what about the second? You can’t expect to win a game of Marvel Snap with just only location! Storm puts pressure on your opponent by effectively closing off one location early. While your opponent may not have ways to get cards in, you do. White Tiger is a great way to add Power where you otherwise couldn’t, similarly Ironheart will increase Power across the board. These cards work great especially if you are getting multiple triggers on them. For games without Black Panther, Alioth can help you seal the deal. This card removes any text on cards your opponent plays here, so it works especially well if you can guarantee where you both are trying to fight for.

Mystique Mirror

https://snap.fan/decks/351626/

https://snap.fan/decks/351628/

Remove

• America Chavez
• Armor
• Colossus
• Lizard
• Omega Red

Add

• Dazzler
• Cosmo
• Goose (Series 3)
• Ravonna Renslayer (Series 4)
• Moonstone (Series 5)

As we’ve seen so far, when a deck has a card name in its title, it’s probably very important to the deck. Mystique allows you to get a second copy of your cards, which in a game like Marvel Snap where you only get a single copy in your deck, is very powerful. Ongoing abilities are effects that are continuously applied for as long as they are in play. An Ongoing archetype is one that stacks up many different Ongoing abilities together in order to magnify their effectiveness.

With that in mind, I focused the deck around this interaction, starting with adding another synergistic way to copy your cards, Moonstone. Moonstone will gain the Ongoing abilities of any of your 3-Cost or less cards in her location. This allows you to scale much higher than you otherwise would be able to by doubling up on things like Ant-Man and Captain America. With all your little guys covered, Mystique can focus on the big ones. Ravonna Renslayer was chosen to help you reduce the cost of your key cards. Since you only have a limited amount of energy to play them, you want to be sure that you are using it as effectively as possible.

Something easy to forget about is including ways to interact with your opponent. After you are sure your gameplan is solid, you need to start thinking about how to destabilize your opponent’s plan. Cards like Goose and Cosmo can heavily restrict what your opponent is able to do to you. They can be used defensively to protect your cards, or proactively to keep your opponent at bay. Cosmo especially since it protects you from one of your major weaknesses, On Reveal abilities that remove your card’s effects.

Inevitable Thanos

https://snap.fan/decks/351635/

https://snap.fan/decks/351637/

Remove

• Okoye
• Nakia
• Wolfsbane
• Omega Red
• Blue Marvel

Add

• Shang Chi
• Enchantress
• Juggernaut (Series 3)
• Legion (Series 4)
• Arishem (Series 5)

If you’re even slightly familiar with Marvel Snap then you know about its unique twelve card decks. Thanos flips this on its head by increasing your deck size by an additional six cards. Most Thanos decks are about trying to find and play as many Infinity Stones as you can, however we will be taking this into a different direction. To go along with one of the most iconic villains we are adding one of Marvel Snap’s most controversial cards, Arishem. Arishem adds another twelve extra cards to your deck but increases the amount of maximum energy you have each turn after the third turn by 1. In for a penny, in for a pound.

This is the deck for players looking for a “control” style. We’re including multiple tech cards, which are cards that explicitly are used to fight against your opponent’s cards. Shang-Chi will destroy something with over 10 Power, often swinging control of a location into your favour. Enchantress is here to combat the strategies based around Ongoing abilities. If you feel like that’s not necessary and you are having more trouble against On Reveal effects, then you can go right ahead and swap her out for Cosmo instead.

Legion combined with the Reality Stone that Thanos adds to your deck, allows you to have more control over the random element of locations than your opponent does. You will often find yourself in games where either you have a location that heavily favours yourself, or a location negatively impacts your opponent. Due to this, Legion is often able to secure your win as soon as he is played. Juggernaut is another example of a card that can shut your opponent out of a game. All you have to do is make sure you have at least one location with more power than your opponent going into the final turn. If you can manage that then Juggernaut is going to effectively guarantee that win. With the extra energy granted to you from Arishem, you’ll be able to combine Juggernaut with more options than you otherwise would be able to.

There are countless number of deck archetypes that you can build towards. We barely scratched the surface today. If you asked another Marvel Snap player they would not upgrade these four beginner decks the same way I have. There’s something for everyone no matter what your preferred playstyle. Whether it’s playing casually or competitively, it all starts with how you begin to build your deck.

Take what we talked about today and expand upon it. These examples aren’t the “be all and end all” for these archetypes. The deeper you look into the over 450 Marvel Snap cards, the better idea you will have for the depth each simple card can offer.