The first official public tournament for Marvel Snap was this past Saturday. After surviving nine Swiss Rounds and three Bracket rounds we were left with one player. The Champion of the Golden Gauntlet, Derek0768, who left the tournament with an undefeated record of 12-0!
Due to the state of the current metagame, many participants (including myself) believed a Thanos deck would be the winning list. While the Top 8 did include four Thanos lists of differing kinds, it wasn’t the deck archetype that ended up winning. That would be a Bounce list, with relatively few expensive cards in it.
I immediately knew that many would want to try the winning deck out since it appears to be cheaper to acquire than most other decks, so I reached out to Derek, to get his direct thoughts on the deck, his background, and his experience with the Golden Gauntlet.
Derek, how long have you been playing Marvel Snap and do you have a background in playing other card games?
I’ve been playing snap since global launch. Took a couple breaks but have been playing for most of the time since then. This is also the only card game I’ve played or seen gameplay of.
If you could vacation anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Coppenhagen.
Where do you stand on the “Pineapple on Pizza” debate? Yes or no?
Haven’t tried pineapple on pizza yet but pretty sure it’s a no.
What was your biggest fear going into the tournament?
Mostly the combo decks, I didn’t really have any means of beating combo decks.
Derek0768 Golden Gauntlet
“Iron Man Bounce”. Is this the kind of deck you think would do well on ladder and conquest or was it created specifically for the Golden Gauntlet?
I don’t think the “Iron Man Bounce” list is very well placed in the meta and didn’t really expect it even win when I was choosing it.
So why choose Bounce at all? Why not a more known quantity like Thanos?
I don’t really like playing the best decks and more so don’t like playing mirrors. I didn’t think I could play 10 hours of Thanos and not mess up snapping in the mirrors. A more linear deck like Bounce is just much easier for me to play and snap with, and it has a good matchup into what I expected to be the second most popular deck, Silver Surfer.
Out of 12 cards, 3 are Series 5 and only 1 is Series 4. This is probably as close to budget as we can call a deck in Marvel Snap. Do you consider yourself a budget player?
I’m not exactly a budget player but I do enjoy playing a decent amount of cards that can be considered budget.
Silver Sable, Nico Minoru, Toxin, Hit Monkey. Can you play the deck without any of them? Are there any workable replacements?
I think only Silver Sable can be replaced for Hawkeye.
The newest card in this deck is Toxin from back in October. What are your thoughts on new card designs? Have they been power creeping the game or do you think they have largely been overhyped since you aren’t using any of them? What are your thoughts on the new card acquisition system?
I don’t think power creep is really a thing to worry about now or anytime soon. I think they did move the median power ceiling a bit but that is bound to happen. Regarding new cards, most of them are just not really useful in Bounce, which is why I’m not playing them. The new card acquisition system seems like a pretty good upgrade to the previous system which I already didn’t mind.
What is your favorite card in your deck? What is your favorite overall card in Snap?
Favorite card in my deck is Beast which was previously my favorite card in the game before it lost its cost reduction, but has now been overtaken by She-Hulk.
The Tournament
What is your philosophy on snapping and was it different during the tournament? What are your thoughts on aggressive snapping versus little to no snapping at all?
Seeing as I mostly play only ladder, I snap pretty aggressively and most of that translated into the tournament.
The only difference between my ladder snapping and the tournament was I was more conservative in my good matchups seeing as I was already favored in the long run.
Being able to snap aggressively when you notice advantages in matchups you are favored into and retreat when things go wrong, even when it might be only for one cube, has always been the best way to snap in my opinion.
Locations played a big role in the finals. Elysium, The Raft, Avengers Compound, New York. What are your thoughts on locations and do you believe that Competitive Snap suffers from their unpredictability?
Locations are a core part of snap and is one of the best parts, introducing variance into each game so as to not only leave it up to draws. It makes snapping and retreating a more skillful part of the game.
When you lost the 4 cube game and were down to your last cube, what was going through your head? Did you think you had lost the match?
When I was down 1-4 I was pretty much hoping that I could draw decently well. I was thinking I could consistently put out enough points against Thanos to the point it left me at basically a 50/50 on the last turn. As long as I didn’t get screwed by locations.
The last turn. Just like in the movie it literally came down to Thanos vs Iron Man, making it your very own “I am Iron Man” moment. Did you ever consider not going for the New York location? What made you think abandoning the right location was safe? How do you typically play with that location in a game?
On the last turn I was basically trying to do the math of how big would they have to go regardless of getting hit by either one of the tech cards. (Cosmo moving or getting my Iron Man Enchantressed.) It made me realize that the way they beat my play would’ve left them very vulnerable to most of my other plays, because it’ll have required a read of them basically throwing one other lane when they already had lost one.
What is some advice for players who pick up your deck from watching your performance in the tournament?
If you want to play Bounce you have to really understand your matchups and possible tech cards that can come and appropriately play around it.
A lot of time you’ll have to plan about 2 turns ahead while factoring in your possible draws in combination with your hand, which will give you a general idea of how the game is going to go.
You also have to hold your cards to either not die to a tech card or not run out of resources. Sometimes this means having to give up power potential to be more concealed in points and dodging tech, by making awkward plays to throw priority.
Final Thoughts
Huge thanks to Derek for sharing his thoughts. You can typically find him in the official Marvel Snap discord server both helping other players and commiserating with them. He’s also a member of the PXL alliance, The Order of the Pixel.
If you’re looking to build the deck yourself, and are missing a couple pieces, Nico Minoru, Silver Sable, and Toxin can be found in the Collector’s Series 5 Packs while Hit-Monkey can be found in the Collector’s Series 4 packs.
The Hood, Hit-Monkey, and Toxin all have datamined bundles coming up, which you can few here.
Perhaps Second Dinner will make things easier for all of us and take this as an opportunity to make a new pack type based on the winning Iron Man Bounce deck with all these cards in one convenient place?
If you have any more questions about the deck, or want to share your explosive moments with it, feel free to leave comments here for us to see!