Breaking Down the Tournament Meta
Hey everyone, it’s Torikun. You might know me for being a frequent face at Marvel Snap tournaments, with some decent results, most notably Runner Up at the first Snap.fan Open held last March. This time, I’m excited to begin a new series on Snap.fan covering the affiliated tournaments leading up to the Snap.fan World Championship early next year, beginning with the Season 12 Battle Arena, held last weekend on May 6.
As the first of the tournaments in the month of May to offer a coveted spot at the Snap.fan World Championships, it was set up to be one of the most competitive events since the beginning of the Guardian’s Greatest Hits season, where we could see how Nebula’s release and Second Dinner’s new weekly OTA changes have affected the competitive Battle Mode metagame. Now, it’s time we break the meta formed from the 115 competitors in this open decklist tournament.
Top 10 Most Frequent Decks
Stature Decks Output the Strongest Stats
What has emerged as the strongest deck on the ladder has emerged as the deck to beat in this tournament as well, boasting the highest appearance rate and win rate among deck archetypes with a reasonable frequency. In the Top 8, Stature makes an appearance in 3 out of the 8 decks.
The above list is widely regarded as the strongest deck on ladder and for good reason, because it plays cards with good Energy-to-Power ratios, while retaining flexibility and the ability to slot in tech cards. The full Turn 6 combo of 4-Drop+Stature+Miles will overcome the output of a lot of decks, while also giving the deck protection against Turn 5 Wave. This deck was brought by DevilMat, who finished in the semis, while a list that ran Nightcrawler over Jeff was piloted by ami21, who was the tournament Runner Up.
In a post Shuri nerf world, the Stature+Blackbolt package has replaced Red Skull as the means of generating huge Taskmasters. Despite the overall decrease in output compared to the old Red Skull Shuri lists, many decks in the meta are still unequipped to compete with a deck that aims to go very tall in 2 locations. Lazar was the player who was the most successful with this variant of Stature Pointslam, carrying it to a respectable Top 8 finish.
The Return of Deathwave Dominance?
The Deathwave deck has experienced many ups and downs throughout the history of Marvel Snap, because it is heavily affected by the presence of tech card counters. With a decrease in the presence of Armor, Cosmo, Aero, and Sandman in this meta however, Deathwave is probably the strongest it has ever been, hence why it is the 2nd most successful deck in the tournament by winrate, with three Deathwave decks making it to the Top 8.
This version of Deathwave was the most successful list in the tournament in terms of top placements - DannySNAP played this deck and won the whole tournament, also defeating the only undefeated player in the Swiss, rusinho, along the way in the Quarterfinals in an exact mirror match. This deck runs Doctor Doom as an efficient 15 Power card as well as a good matchup into the many Storm decks in the tournament, as well as swapping out the usual Shang-Chi for Enchantress. In a meta where Doctor Doom, Stature, and Darkhawk are more common, Enchantress is not only a better fit, but provides more stats than Shang-Chi.
JoinTheResistance also managed to top cut with Deathwave, finishing in the Top 8, running The Hood over Squirrel Girl, a tech choice that provides slightly more stats at the cost of decreasing the frequency of getting 4 kills for a 0-Cost Death by Turn 5.
Galactus Achieves a Tournament Breakthrough
For a while now, Galactus has been considered as just purely a ladder deck, with a relatively poor win rate but a high cube rate, which is considered to be an undesirable trait to have in the High Stakes Rounds of Battle Mode where win rate is more desirable than cube rate. Revis’s Top 4 finish in this tournament with Galactus, is thus the best result Galactus has had in a major open decklist tournament since Battle Mode was introduced into the game. Galactus has appreciated the nerfs towards Aero, and the fact that people are moving away from including techs like Debrii or Cosmo in their lists, but has Revis provided the blueprint for a Galactus deck to find success in Battle Mode? Let’s break it down.
The main draw of this particular kind of Galactus list compared to others is that this deck is not solely reliant on pulling off the Galactus gameplan in order to win. This deck has several different gameplans beyond the usual Wave into Galactus or Electro into Doctor Octopus into Galactus, such as playing Shuri into Nimrod into Turn 6 Galactus, or Shuri into Destroyer into Taskmaster. Jeff the Baby Landshark is probably the real innovation in a list like this - providing the deck with a soft answer to Polaris, while also enabling a 5-Drop+Jeff play after Electro on Turn 6. Daredevil is the 12th card in this list, and Revis himself later admitted that the card has cost him plenty of games being a Polaris target. Suitable replacements include Yondu, Kang the Conqueror, Spiderman, or America Chavez.
Although Revis ended up bowing out in the semi finals to the tournament winner DannySNAP, his success with this deck proves that Galactus may have to become a serious consideration in Battle Mode going forward, with the meta shifts so far being very kind to the deck and the usual counters becoming less popular.
Thanos Lockjaw Holds Steady
The meta has shifted, and yet Thanos Lockjaw still remains a strong pick for a tournament. Even with all of the changes in the meta and new cards being released, the Infinity Stones remain a strong basic toolbox giving Thanos players options to win every matchup. Among the Top 10 most common decks seen in the tournament, Thanos Lockjaw managed to hold a win rate above 50%, proving its quality.
This particular Thanos Lockjaw deck was piloted by OKJK to a Top 8 finish. Like many Thanos Lockjaw decks it is built around combos such as Killmonger+Death and Doctor Doom+Odin, with more unique techs such as Iceman and Carnage targeting greedy high curve decks and Junk decks respectively. While this deck was the most successful of the 11 Thanos Lockjaw decks in the tournament, there’s plenty of variation possible in the deck as seen in the tournament, from running cards like Wasp for the Lockjaw fuel, to running different Lockjaw high rolls such as Leech, Aero, or Magneto.
Other meta trends
Wave: The Lynchpin of the Meta?
I don’t think it’s very far-fetched to say that the most important card in this tournament’s meta was Wave. Seen in almost a third of the decks, her overwhelming presence was felt in the way decks were constructed, whether she was actually present in the deck or not. If your deck is unable to play around the On Reveal of this card, a turn 5 Wave played against you is basically a death sentence. Looking at the decklists in the Top 8 discussed earlier, you will notice that all of them have cost-reduction cards that take advantage of Wave being played such as Zabu, Death, Stature, Miles Morales, and even Galactus. A common trait among the successful decks in the tournament is the ability to survive a Turn 5 Wave and being able to play multiple cards on Turn 6.
Control Decks Face Struggles
If you look through the commonly brought decks that struggled in this tournament, you will see deck archetypes such as Doomwave, Sera Miracle, and Lockation that commonly employ tech cards such as Shang-Chi and Enchantress, and location lock cards such as Goose, Storm, or Professor X.
Compared to the success of straight pointslam decks such as Stature, the difference in win rates are striking. This suggests that tech cards have become less reliable at closing games out and securing lanes overall, with meta shifts and card releases that have made playing Control less desirable. A Turn 3 Storm must worry about securing the location against multiple Zabu-discounted 4 drops, or opposing Doctor Dooms. Professor X must worry about how common Jeff is. Goose struggles against discounted cards like Stature or Death. Shang-Chi has less targets in a meta where Stature+Blackbolt is very common. If Control decks cannot find opportunities for their tech cards to shine, then games come down to power output more often, which often is a situation not in the Control deck’s favor.
Ongoing decks held down by OTA changes
The Enchantress buff has probably been the single most impactful change brought about by the weekly over-the-air balance patches. Going from a 4/4 to an on-rate 4/6 has enabled many decks that wouldn’t normally play Enchantress to play her as an on-curve drop that incidentally counters Ongoing strategies.
Enchantress was the most common card in this tournament - being played in 52 out of the 115 decks. Across the board, the number of Ongoing cards brought in this tournament is down as well, indicating a lack of confidence in Ongoing strategies. The last iteration of the Battle Arena tournament was dominated by Patriot and Super Skrull, and yet this time there were zero instances of Patriot and only two instances of Super Skrull.
Final Words
First of all, I would like to once again congratulate the tournament winner DannySNAP for their outstanding performance in this tournament - for winning the tournament they now join the 17 other qualifiers so far in the Snap.fan World Championship. The tournament scene continues to evolve and be shaken up by the constant releases and balance patches managed by Second Dinner, and the next tournament in the Snap.fan World Championship cycle - the Snap.fan May Open, promises be yet another tough meta to crack, with the release of Iron Lad and another week of OTA changes incoming.
The Snap.fan May Open will be held this coming Saturday, May 13, with 4 slots in the Snap.fan World Championship up for grabs. Tune in next week as I provide the breakdown for that tournament, but for now, this is Torikun signing off.
Sign Up Link: https://communitygaming.io/tournament/snapfan-may-open