This deck is going to seem suspect because of the lack of match data - I stupidly forgot to turn on the tracker on my phone before climbing to infinite. I was at 88 or 89 when I made this list and got to infinite - I laddered to 93 yesterday and finished the climb today. I won a lot of 8 and 4 cube games because people weren't prepared for the lines in this deck. I promise you it's worth considering if you can build it (it's even Pool 3 friendly!).
The goal of this deck is to build as much board presence as possible turns 1-4, and win with one of several game sealing plays to secure the win. The idea is that if you are as ahead as possible by turn 4, you should have both the priority and the knowledge to pick the route that wins you the game the hardest. This deck is strong against Shuri, Deathwave, Discard, Sera Miracle, Sandman, AND Galactus, which are everywhere this season. Thanos is a bit tougher, but I’ve stolen plenty of cubes from Thanos players as well. The best part is that this list isn’t even that hard to pilot – I got like 40 cubes while massively sleep deprived and hungry.
Just like with my last infinite decklist (Beatdown Lane Control (Infinite 1/22/23) by Lachino - Marvel Snap Decks if you’re curious), I will split the cards into groups to help you understand their roles better.
“Power Wave” - Wave, Doctor Doom, She-Hulk:
I call this the Power Wave (bonus points to you if you know the reference). This is the idea that the deck is built upon. If you change these cards you are playing a different deck. If you have better board presence by turn 5, and you play Wave on 5, you have essentially made it impossible for almost any deck to win. On turn 6, you get to play Doctor Doom and She-Hulk while almost every other deck must play simply one card. That’s a staggering 15 power in one lane and 5 power on 2 other lanes. This beats random turn 6 Aeros, Modok’d hands (a lot harder to get that Drac discard when you can’t play your Swarms), and Sera Miracle (they can’t keep up with the sheer power you have access to). For the decks that this doesn’t auto-win against, see the next section.
Meta Answers – Cosmo, Shang-Chi, Aero:
Aero is the only card in this deck besides the Power Wave that is essential, and that’s because of the way that she deals with a few key matchups. She beats Deathwave, but she also beats a lot of other stuff. Her and Cosmo together are your best friends versus Galactus and Shuri. The Shuri one needs some explaining – basically, as long as you are winning 2 lanes by turn 5, you should be able to beat most turn 6 Shuri lines if you Wave. Aero beats She-Hulk + Taskmaster, Cosmo beats Arnim Zola, and just to make the matchup easier I also included Shang-Chi. Shuri is easily the most common deck in high ladder right now, so it doesn’t hurt to be careful.
Securing Priority – Sunspot, Iceman, Lizard, Mister Fantastic:
These cards are pretty simple to explain. Their job is simply to make getting priority during the early game easy. Sunspot and Lizard are great at contesting lanes early on. You don’t really need Armor since you’re not trying to pass a lot of energy to him, he’s just there to make your curve better. Iceman is also more board presence and is great at slowing down opponent’s early plays, making it even easier to get priority. Finally, Mister Fantastic is the GOAT of seizing priority – if you put him down in the center lane on turn 3, you’ve essentially guaranteed yourself a lane or two. I’d say that this part of the deck is the easiest to substitute. Just use whatever cards you want to get power for the early game.
Alt-Win – Zero, Red Skull:
This might seem like a headscratcher, but basically this duo is here to help you win when you have locations that make spreading out undesirable. For example, if you have Bar with No Name or Sinister London. When spreading out (Doctor Doom) doesn’t look like a great win condition, playing tall (Red Skull) is the fallback plan. Red Skull is also quite good if you run into Cerebro, which is an archetype that’s really good at spreading power out and actually gave me trouble. Zero can also be used on Lizard early on if you know you’re committing to the Power Wave combo.
Finally, I would like to say that Sandman is not that good versus this deck – it’s actually really rare that you need to play more than one card per turn against him by the time he hits the board on turn 4. I really liked building, testing, and playing this deck. It’s strong and rewards you for have good knowledge of the meta. If you have any questions hit me up either here or on discord.