Hey everyone, it’s Torikun here again.
We’ve had a brief week’s break from the SFWC during the opening weekend of the July season of Marvel Snap, but now we’re back in the mix of things, bigger and better than ever. The Snap.fan World Championship Series continues - now with a new sick logo.
The first event on this month’s calendar was the Season 14 Battle Arena 1. As the first major SFWC event to be held after the July update that brought Spotlight Caches, Jean Grey, and balance changes to High Evolutionary, the meta heading into the tournament would be in relatively unknown territory once again. And indeed, in a tournament that saw longtime SFWC participant and grinder W, previously known as wwlos, finally make his qualification breakthrough with a new take on Thanos Control, we saw a Top 8 composed of old favorites, new surprises, and a healthy amount of variety in compositions. With High Evolutionary’s withdrawal from the top tier of the meta given the nerfs to Evolved Wasp and Evolved Hulk, it’s now time to break down the new decks that have risen up to take its place.
Tournament Stats Overview
Deck of a Champion: W’s spin on Thanos Control
This tournament saw a resurgence in the number of Thanos decks being played; the Mad Titan was the second most common 6-Drop behind America Chavez with 22 appearances from 124 decks (17.7%). Leading the charge in the Top 8 was W, whose Thanos deck was paired with an absolutely astounding level of play in the Top Cut in order to secure his first tournament win. The core of this type of deck are the 5-Drops; all five of them are strong, especially when paired with Infinity Stones. Professor X is insane when ramped out on Turn 4 with either Time Stone or Psylocke and can be further supported with Klaw, Jeff, or Blue Marvel; Spider-Man can lock out many decks; and Devil Dinosaur is just really big when played in Thanos decks. Moving on to some of the more unorthodox picks, Cosmo can crush certain kinds of decks given some hard reads, such as Destroy, Luke Cage counters cards like Valkyrie (notice that this deck doesn’t run Valkyrie and is thus better off against opposing Valkyries and Killmongers), and Iron Lad just has many, many insane hits all-around (the Professor X hit in the Semi Finals being the most memorable one we got to watch).
W was inspired to bring their version of Thanos Control to the tournament as they saw that Thanos Control was quite popular based on the success of aniOmalY’s version of Thanos Control, which had won two tournaments within 4 days: Rally Cry and Card Thwips. Compared to W’s deck, this version of Thanos Control uses different tech cards in a few spots, such as Shadow King, Valkyrie, and Shang-Chi, and thus counters decks like Bounce, Shuri, and High Evolutionary Lockjaw a little bit better. There were 3 people who brought this exact list to the tournament, going 11-8 overall, and many more submitted decks that were built around this shell.
Another Thanos Control deck was present in the Top Cut, this one piloted by AndreVar14, who finished in the Top 8. This particular deck runs a few different choices—Valkyrie, Wave+Jean Grey, Iron Man+Onslaught, Armor—but the core plan of playing 5-Drops starting on Turn 4 is still very much present.
Heralding The Return of Silver Surfer
The High Evolutionary nerf opened the door for the emergence of many decks in the format, many of which were held down by their inability to keep up with the massive output potential of the evolved cards such as Hulk. Surfer decks, which are characterized by their ability to fit in many lower power tech cards that cost 3 energy, suddenly found themselves with a greater ability to breathe again given that their lower power numbers could actually compete again, while their suite of tech cards that included cards like Shadow King and Killmonger also happened to match up well against the other previous top deck in the format, Bounce. Thus, it’s no wonder that this simple deck, which matched up well against the previous archetype that won the last Battle Arena, found itself tied with Thanos Control as the most popular archetype in this week’s Battle Arena. While the deck’s lower power output of around the mid-teens can struggle against certain decks that go taller or bigger, the circumstances of the meta have allowed a more tech card-based deck to shine.
The basic Surfer deck to be aware of is the Top 8 deck piloted by coolkg2009. First theorycrafted by previous Battle Arena winner Quinee_Equinox, the big new breakthrough was the inclusion of Spider-Man over Sera as the deck’s top end, which synergizes better with the deck’s Lockdown-based gameplan alongside cards like Storm, Goose, and Juggernaut, whilst being less vulnerable to Spider-Ham compared to a Sera Surfer deck. The often maligned Shadow King has finally found his chance to grace the spotlight with his best showing yet (15.3% appearance rate among decks and 57% winrate in the Swiss), becoming a core card in these Surfer builds for his ability to target Bounce staples such as Kitty, Angela, and Bishop, Destroy cards such as Carnage or Venom, as well as cards buffed by Shuri.
From the basic Surfer shell, SFWC qualifier Lambyseries submitted yet another banger deck that has made a splash on the scene. Piloted by Semi-Finalist kx4n, this is a Surfer deck that sacrifices the lockdown subtheme in order to output a greater amount of points through the use of choices such as Maximus and Black Cat+Ghost Rider. The newly buffed Gambit also has a synergy with Ghost Rider while potentially being massively overrated for a 3-Drop depending on what is hit on the opponent’s side of the board. By ditching the lower power lockdown cards like Storm, this deck is able to consistently overpower Lockdown Surfer decks in the mirror by just outputting more points on average, as well as giving the deck a better fighting chance in certain matchups such as Patriot that the Lockdown Surfer deck struggles in. It’s not all positive for this version, though, as this deck is likely worse against Nimrod Destroy decks due to the lack of Cosmo. As always, every deck has its pros and cons, and it’s up to you to select a deck that best matches up against what you expect to face.
Bounce still the Best Deck?
The July patch came and went, leaving Bounce untouched from the nerfs so far. While the deck is likely to get adjusted in this week’s OTA, this was thus another week where Bounce would be the best deck in the meta; among the top 3 decks by usage, Thanos Control, Surfer, and Bounce, Bounce had the highest win rate overall in the Swiss with 63.4%.
Leandroleal might have ended their tournament in the Top 8, losing to the winner W in the Quarterfinals, but they managed to top with Swiss with a perfect 7-0 record with a deck close to the standard Midrange Bounce list, only running Falcon over Jeff due to a lack of access to the Series 5 card. Compared to more specialized lists for Falcon running more 1-Drops, Falcon does worse in the midrange list, and the loss of Jeff’s utility definitely hurts given the amount of Professor X in the tournament (17.7%, seen mainly in Thanos decks). Still, the record proves that this deck, even imperfect, is still quite potent given the lack of nerfs thus far.
As a whole, it’s interesting to note that Bounce was not as dominant in this tournament in terms of appearance despite its strengths and high win rate, with only 9 Bounce decks from 124 decks in the tournament. It seems like the trend of people preferring not to bring Bounce has continued, and people would rather bring Bounce counters or their own comfort picks to the tournament. After all, Bounce is a difficult deck to pilot, and there is something to be said about bringing something easier to play for the grueling Swiss rounds because it would decrease the chances of making mistakes before reaching the Top Cut.
Other Top Cut Decks
Despite the emergence of a “Big Three” in this tournament in terms of deck popularity between Thanos Control, Surfer, and Bounce, it’s not like these 3 decks shut out any other decks from competing like in previous metas with a Tier 0 or Tier 1 deck. I firmly believe that basically every deck in the Top Cut had an argument for winning the whole event, and deck matchups and regular variance had a hand in determining the winner. With that said, let’s round out the analysis of the Top Cut decks, shall we?
A Thanos deck may have won the whole event, but this Darkhawk deck definitely should have been favored in the Grand Finals to win the whole thing. GaloreToucan definitely shouldn’t feel too bad about losing a favored matchup to finish second because W played absolutely immaculately in the Finals. GaloreToucan’s Darkhawk deck, in comparison to other Darkhawk decks, opts for Sera and tech cards similar to a Sera Miracle deck for final turn explosions over restricting plays with Wave on Turn 5 instead. It’s a strong deck with the capability to play in every matchup, but luck simply ran out at the end.
OKJK brought a Patriot deck as they finished in the Top 8. It looks to be a fairly standard Patriot deck, with a spicy tech of Super Skrull to catch out other Patriot decks, as well as Iron Men in Bounce or Ongoing cards in Thanos decks. Patriot is generally just a stable deck capable of outputting big numbers at times, and in the right hands and with favorable games, it can still win games even today.
Finally, to round out the Top 8 we have HarbourH’s Ghost Rider Tempo deck, which can only be described as a pile of powerful combos such as Zabu+4-Drops, Kitty+Angela, Daredevil+Professor X, and Lady Sif+Ghost Rider+Infinaut. It’s simply a deck with many ways of winning games, which can output a lot of power when things line up.
Other Meta Trends
Shuri Kitty: The Next Form of Bounce?
If you look at the deck win rates, one category sticks out: Shuri Kitty. With an overall win rate of 63.64% in the Swiss, this was the archetype with the highest win rate among archetypes that were brought at least once. This deck is best described as a combination of Bounce, given the Kitty+Angela combo, and the old Shuri Red Skull deck, featuring the classic Shuri+Red Skull+Taskmaster combination that is now capable of winning games given that Red Skull has returned to his old 5/14 statline. Besides these classic combinations, Kitty Pryde can also be an excellent recipient of the Shuri buff, with a line of Kitty+Shuri on 5, then Kitty plus a 5-Drop on Turn 6. There are a lot of combos in this deck capable of outputting great numbers, and a sample deck from previous Battle Arena Runner-Up WhatAmI is included, who finished the Swiss with a 5-2 record.
With nerfs to the bounce deck seemingly looming, people have already begun looking forward to the next busted deck to rise post-nerfs. Personally, I have no clue how Bounce will be nerfed, but I would hazard a guess at a nerf towards Hit Monkey. If Kitty Pryde remains untouched, then this might be the next deck to rise after the incoming OTA changes.
Nerfed Cards Struggled
If you are looking for evidence that Second Dinner’s nerfs have measurably done something, then look no further than the abysmal performance of High Evolutionary in this tournament. From dominating tournaments and being brought by everyone, High Evo regressed to appearing in just 9 out of 124 decks, an appearance rate of 7.3% and a win rate of 36.1%. Other decks simply point slam harder than HE Lockjaw now and lockdown better than HE Lockdown. Simply put, the biggest effect of nerfs is that other options simply become better versions of the card or deck that was nerfed.
Some other huge drops I noticed in the stats: Doctor Doom stocks finally crashed in this tournament, as the villain featured a measly 14.5% appearance rate and 39.7% win rate, a far cry from the era when Doom featured in more than half of the decks and had a positive win rate even while doing so. Doctor Doom’s nerfs also had the knock-on effect of discouraging players from bringing Ramp decks, as decks that depend on copying Doom’s effect multiple times suffer a greater loss in points compared to the old days.
How did the new cards do?
This tournament saw the debut of two new cards in the SFWC Series: Phoenix Force and Jean Grey. Phoenix Force saw a bit of a presence in a few Destroy decks, as well as a presence in a new archetype of Move Destroy synergizing with cards like Multiple Man. Ultimately, Phoenix Force decks didn’t perform particularly well, with an overall card win rate of 41%, because the card can be clunky to set up and the payoffs aren’t that great even if things do line up. I do believe that the card can be an improvement to certain decks as a combination of Armor and Vision stapled together, but it’s not surprising that a combination of mediocre cards results in something mediocre.
On the other hand, Jean Grey is a lot more interesting, appearing in 10 decks with a win rate of 53%. In this tournament, she appeared in a few different decks, from Thanos decks, to Surfer, to Shuri Kitty, and even Doomwave and She-Hulk Infinaut. I believe that she can have useful applications as a sort of tech card whenever the meta shifts towards playing fewer cards per turn, synergizing with cards like Kitty and Jeff so you yourself can play around your own Jean Grey. However, in a meta where Kitty is dominant (appearing in 25% of decks with a win rate of 56.8%), this is likely not the best time for Jean.On the other hand, Jean Grey is a lot more interesting, appearing in 10 decks with a win rate of 53%. In this tournament, she appeared in a few different decks, from Thanos decks to Surfer decks, Shuri Kitty decks, and even Doomwave and She-Hulk Infinaut decks. I believe that she can have useful applications as a sort of tech card whenever the meta shifts towards playing fewer cards per turn, synergizing with cards like Kitty and Jeff so you yourself can play around your own Jean Grey. However, in a meta where Kitty is dominant (appearing in 25% of decks with a win rate of 56.8%), this is likely not the best time for Jean.
Closing Thoughts
More than anything, what stood out to me during this tournament was the amazing, consistent play of W in the Top Cut. On stream, we had the pleasure of watching all three of W’s games, where we saw some of the highest levels of Marvel Snap being played by him in order to achieve tournament victory. Following the tournament, I asked W for advice for aspiring tournament players on how to maintain such a high standard of play.
“As far as advice goes, know your list, know the meta, all the usual stuff, but don’t let everything become daunting. I was down a lot in the tournament, but I trusted my deck, and I trusted my ability and would fight back each time. Let it all come to you, and trust the process.”
Truly, what this tournament emphasized more than anything was that proper deck choices must be combined with proper play in order to take home the tournament victory. Congratulations once again to W for a master class in demonstrating exactly what that entails and thus qualifying for the Snap.fan World Championship.
The Season 14 Battle Arena 1 is only the first of the July events for the SFWC. Next weekend will be a double-header, with the Season 14 Battle Arena 2 being hosted on Saturday and the Snap Clash Open July being hosted on Sunday, with each tournament giving away one spot at the World Championship for the winner. With OTA changes likely coming for Bounce, this weekend is set to become yet another instance of brilliance at the SFWC Series. Anyway, this is Torikun, signing off until the next issue of Battle Breakdown.
Battle Arena Sign-Up Link:
https://www.communitygaming.io/tournament/season-14-battle-arena-2
Snap Clash Sign-Up Link:
https://battlefy.com/snap-clash/snap-clash-open-july/64ac23ff7b7e0730c945cf07/info