Lockdown is an archetype that has existed since the beginning of Snap, but it's also the archetype that has changed the most. When any version of lockdown becomes too powerful, you can bet Glenn Jones and company will come along with the nerf hammer. Lockdown is like the fugitive archetype, trying to stay one step ahead of the balance cops. What makes lockdown an appealing archetype is also what means nerfs and reworks will always be nipping at our heels.
The goal of lockdown is to create a deterministic win.
Similar to Galactus, lockdown seeks to narrow the game. Galactus dramatically narrows the game to one lane with his On Reveal ability; we must work more complicatedly. Sometimes, we try to close one lane as soon as possible and compete for one of the remaining lanes. We sometimes scam or trick the opponent into playing where we want them to. There are a lot of different tools to close off lanes or prevent our opponent from playing cards, but the end goal remains the same: win one lane early and reduce the amount we have to account for to win at least one other lane. We're trying to create a board state where we've won before the final cards are played, whether our opponent recognizes it or not.
This is meant to be an evergreen guide, so. At the same time, I have complete faith in the competitive ability of the lists spread throughout this guide. They are meant to illustrate different approaches to the concept of lockdown. You should be able to keep the core concepts and adapt them far into the future to account for balance changes and new tools we get as more cards enter the game.
The Locks
After the rework to Spider-Man, we have three cards that can lock down a lane to varying degrees.
Storm is the primary lock card and is usually what people mean when discussing the archetype. Professor X has lost a bit of his luster after losing so much power. Goose is the third, often overlooked lock card. He is usually forgotten, but his "soft" lock can be powerful in certain decks. Jean Grey could also be considered a lock card, but her lock is pretty soft, and the "lock" Echo provides is even softer. However, Jean and Echo can be helpful in tandem with the other locks.
The Finishers
Once we've locked down one lane, we need a way to win another lane, and we sometimes need to shore up the locked lane as well.
The most common top-end finishers are Dr. Doom and Alioth. If you are ahead and have priority, Alioth can slam the door. Your opponent was dead before they even knew it. Sometimes, we haven't put out enough power across the board, or we're facing an opponent with sneaky tricks to get into our locked lane or place their power in unpredictable ways. Dr. Doom is a great way to add to a flooded location or spread 15 points across the board.
Ms. Marvel serves a similar role to Doom, ensuring that we have enough power spread where we need it. She can be played earlier or as a late surprise alongside another card.
Magneto can also be a workhorse in lockdown decks. He's big enough to win a lane often, but he can pull opposing cards out of a flooded location or mess with our opponent's plan for where their power will go or the placement of their cards like Ms. Marvel.
Heimdall is a fun way to juke the opponent. We can allow them to think we've lost a closed location only to shift everything on the last turn.
Leader used to be a strong lockdown card, but Alioth outclasses him in most situations. Still, if you don't have Alioth, don't want to play him, there is a metagame reason to shift away from him, or there is some reason you need the redundancy, Leader is a viable and fun alternative.
The other method of finishing off our opponent is our various "tech" cards. You can play these cards to interact with your opponents' cards and often entirely invalidate your opponent's best play. Shang Chi is the king of the techs, but that could change swiftly with a metagame shift or balance changes.
Power
We also need our meat and potatoes. Our beef. These are the cards that make sure we have enough power to win. They all synergize with the lockdown archetype to various degrees. For example, Nebula, a lockdown staple, includes a soft control element to dictate where our opponents play, and she can grow out of control if you get her in a locked location.
Some Finesse
In lockdown decks, we need our lock cards, game-winning finishers, and enough other power to take the match. Below are a few of my favorite "finesse" cards to steal wins and cubes. Some are underplayed gems, while others are archetypical staples but excellent cube thieves.
Keep an eye on Captain Marvel. I used to play her in most of my lockdown lists in her two previous forms (4-5 and 5-6). The nerf to 4-4 has been a bit much to overcome, but I think she may get adjusted again soon. She has excellent synergy with Omega Red. Omega Red is a new tool to the archetype, and one that I feel has potential, despite being utilized inefficiently in initial lockdown builds with him that players quickly moved on from. Several other finesse cards are excellent priority payoffs, like Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and you can include others like Cosmo and Armor. Also, I'm sure a lot of you are just going to click the "copy code" button on the decks below, but if you click through to the decklist via the deck title, I've included a lot of fun and spicy deck suggestions for if you're missing a card or want to try something different.
Lockdown Decklists
Classic Lockdown
This is the current most favored lockdown list. This is the most likely combination of 12 cards you'll see for this archetype, and you can often expect the exact other 10 or 11 after seeing just 1 or 2 cards played. Medusa is here to provide reliable raw power. You're happy always to have to play her in the center because you'll often have a Jeff on the left or right to help activate Ms. Marvel. Medusa is suitable for establishing priority. She is chosen over Lizard because he can be a liability, but you could also consider Lizard in this list. Lizard can also provide soft protection for your Ms. Marvel when you play them in the same lane. Silk doesn't work well with Ms. Marvel, but you can consider Silk for any lockdown list that isn't playing Marvel.
Zabu Prof Lock
Prof Cull Destroyer
Here are a couple of lists that use Professor X differently. You might notice that Cull Obsidian is in both lists. He is pretty good in lockdown and has revitalized Professor X-based lockdown lists since he can help you keep up from a power perspective despite playing a one-power card on turn five.
Quake Lock
Reworked Quake has recently been one of the lockdown archetype's better additions. She is excellent at achieving our goal: create a board state where your opponent has lost. They don't know it yet. You generally want to play her on turn 4 immediately after Storm, but there are other situations where she is good. She is a little bit awkward alongside the traditional 4-cost cards that lockdown plays, and you'll see her in a couple of Zabu-less lists below for that reason. Again, I've popped Cull Obsidian in here since he's one of lockdown's new toys. Still, he can be replaced with quite a few different cards, including 4-cost cards like Omega Red and Jessica Jones, disruptive 1-cost cards like Iceman and Spider-Ham, or a premium 5-cost card like Vision, Legion, Spider-Woman, Klaw, or Aero. If you feel Cull Obsidian isn't consistent enough in any of these lists with just two 1-cost cards, you can try him with Squirrel Girl. No, Squirrel Girl is good in lockdown! Try this list with Squirrel Girl and Quake (just be careful with Nebula placement):
The Great Squirrel Cull
Goose Storm Lock
This list aims to create an uncontestable Omega Red lane behind Goose or Storm. Supergiant is a great card to play before a sneaky ongoing card like Omega Red (or Klaw, Blue Marvel, etc.) From there, we only need to win one other lane. Goose is excellent against Alioth in this deck. She-Hulk can get small enough to fit behind Goose when you need her to.
Surf Lock
Silver Surfer has access to various locks and commonly plays Goose already. The combination of Storm into Juggernaut is a bit less reliable than in the past now that many decks can contest closed lanes so well, but it is still powerful against decks that have no answer. Again, Goose is good protection against opposing Alioths.
Zabu Free Lock
Before the release of Ms. Marvel, lockdown lists tended to look more like this. Ms. Marvel can supercharge the list. If you want an alternative to lists with Zabu, this list type can still be powerful.
Move Lock
This powerful list allows you to buff Kraven while pursuing a traditional lockdown strategy. He can be in the lane you're locking down, or in a lane, you buff up on turn 6. Aero on 5 with priority is good to pull what your opponent attempted to contest your flooded lane with in turn 4.
Elsa Jean
This is another deck to remember when new OTAs or balance patches hit. I used to play a deck very similar to this a lot before Elsa Bloodstone was nerfed, and she'll hopefully be changed again soon. Depending on your pocket meta, you may need Cosmo over Negasonic Teenage Warhead.
HeimLock Maneuver
There hasn't been a top-tier deck that has utilized cards like Iron Fist or Heimdall to push power to a closed-off location, but we may be a meta-shift or a card release away, so keep the concept on your radar. This type of list takes advantage of the fact that we only need to win two lanes. Sometimes, you try to win an Octopus lane; occasionally, you fill it with your opponent's best cards and abandon it.
C Block
Cerebro hasn't been in the best shape lately, but OTAs often bring new tools. This list can max out power in a flooded lane while disrupting opposing strategies with Goose, Iceman, and Echo. Shadow King is decent tech, but remember, he can be used on locations like Shuri's Lab to set everyone, including himself, back down to their base power.
Lock Scam
This is my personal list. I am constantly iterating upon different lockdown decks, but this list (with a couple of cards flexing in and out) is what I have personally used to quickly get to infinite in each of the last two seasons. This list is excellent for scamming wins and winning more than the 1 or 2 cubes on which some of the above lists often subsist. Get prio and win.
Tips and tricks for playing the lockdown archetype
- Plan. Planning is essential for all archetypes, but especially for lockdown. It would be best to think about which lanes you're winning and how, basically from the beginning of the game and certainly by turn 3.
- Learn to leverage when you know you've won vs when your opponent knows you've won. Sometimes, you can be sure you've got the game locked up by turn 4. Occasionally, your opponent will have no reason to believe you have a play that can turn the game around on turn 5, but you know you do (e.g., Vision, Quake, Teenage Warhead, etc). Snap accordingly and try to understand how your opponent knows what is coming.
- Know the meta. This is generally good advice for the game, but it's essential for a lockdown player. Knowing the cards your opponent might reasonably be expected to play or have in their deck is particularly important for a deck that relies on locking a lane and snapping early based on priority. Take your time and think through their potential plays at critical junctures. Be aware of their potential Doom or Blue Marvel. Sometimes, it takes practice. For example, for a while, I had a blindspot towards Magneto pulling cards from the flooded lane, but it's a vital loss condition for a lockdown player.
- When playing vs Magik, hold your Storm. One of the easiest ways to cube wins is to get rid of limbo on turn 6 while ahead. It's such a strategy that you can build an entire deck around it by playing your own Magik to wipe away and scam wins. Try this total scam decklist:
Total Scam
- When playing in conquest mode, you must change the way you snap. Instead of snapping based on asymmetrical information like you often do on the ladder, think of conquest snapping this way: make your opponent pay to see your cards. Accepting the Snap is the tax required to see your tricky cards. Sometimes, your opponent will retreat, and you can save your Storm, Quake, or Echo to win more cubes later. Snapping on turn 3 before they get to see your Storm (assuming you think you're in a good position generally) is a good Snap. Also, it's not a boomer snap if you're snapping on turn 6 to conceal a key card or strategy. Also, if your opponent immediately snaps back, sometimes that's great, but try to analyze what it's signaling. Maybe they knew precisely what was coming and gave you an out to retreat for fewer cubes. Don't allow pride to cost you cubes.
- Be unpredictable. Nothing will allow good players to prey on you more than playing lockdown, most predictably. For example, vary your Nebula placement. Don't always play it far right. Sometimes that's great, but I've had a lot of luck going middle with her, too, or right if there's a reason.
- Unfortunately, lockdown isn't the best archetype for playing against bots. This can make it feel slightly more grindy pre-infinite than some decks feast on bots. The reason is that most lockdown decks are built to run away with priority, starting very early. Learn to recognize bots, and don't worry if you're not able to juice them for 8 all the time. Where is the fun in that, anyway? Also, if you're going to try to sandbag priority because you think you'll have a better chance to get 8 cubes from a bot, you better be right!
Conclusion
As a lockdown player, you'll inevitably see key pieces of successful decks get nerfed. But don't worry. I don't see the archetype ever totally going away; we'll have to keep finding new ways to adapt and create ways to utilize under-the-radar tools. Lockdown is a healthy archetype for any game in moderation because it keeps super greedy decks in check and rewards playing your cards out. Lockdown never truly dies. It just evolves into something new.