Welcome back to Meta Monday! With the release of a highly anticipated card and an OTA last Thursday, the metagame has experienced a decent shift from the previous week. Let's just dive into the pillars of the meta game!
Pillar One: Agatha
This might shock many people, but since the recent change to Agatha, she has become quite the legitimate meta contender. You can see this on the ladder and when watching Twitch streams, but the data also backs this up. While many people might think that this is just a lot of people memeing realistically this is a competitive deck that can hold its own against pretty much anything in the current format.
There is one version that pretty much everyone is running but there are some cards to move around if you do not own them or want to be different.
Is this Agatha?
The most notable changes are subbing Makkari for Vision and a different 1-cost like Nebula or Hydra Bob for Silver Sable.
So why is this so popular? Well with the added player agency given to us during the most recent OTA Agatha has become a good deck-thinning tool as well as providing a good base for Black Knight to flex his ability. Since Agatha starts in your opening hand your probability of drawing a certain card in your deck by turn six increases from about 75% to 83%. Now, 8% is not that big, but in Marvel Snap where every card matters, 8% is a big deal. Also, since you have a 14 power card with Agatha in your hand Black Knight always has a target he wants to discard for good value. Furthermore, she only plays cards for you on the even turns and you run 3 ways to get rid of Agatha you have a 58% chance to draw one by turn 3. On Turn 3, you are in control so no longer can she screw up by playing something you do not want played turn 3. Combine this with the disruption of Moon Knight and Black Bolt and you have a potent combo that can put out a lot of power and is more guaranteed to have what they need than other decks.
Pillar Two: Madame Web
As one of the most anticipated cards of this season Madame Web has made a big splash in the meta game over this last week. If you did not run into a deck running her while playing this week I would be very surprised. Throughout the week full move combo, move bounce, and some move clog options have been used to a good effect.
Madame Web 1
Madame Web 2
Madame Web 3
All three hover around the same idea, use Madame Web to boost the power of cards by moving them out of the lane and then bounce them back to your hand and do it again. While they try to win in different ways this is the main idea of these decks. I expect these decks to get even more prominent after Araña is released on Tuesday.
Pillar Three: Lockdown
Yet another deck has arisen from the shadows since the most recent OTA and that is War Machine lockdown which tries to leverage the new ongoing ability of War Machine to lockdown the potential plays from your opponent while still being able to play yourself.
War Machine Lockdown
This deck has one main job of locking the opponent out of playing on the last turn while being able to play themselves. It also can push out a lot of stats because War Machine removes the restrictions of several cards that are way above the rate for their energy investment. While this is at a peak of play because the OTA was very recent I expect this to lose a little bit of steam as more and more players realize the play patterns and how to counter the potential lock-out on turn 6.
Pillar Four: Old Reliable
When a metagame is in flux or experiences drastic upheaval players will typically resort to playing their comfort and reliable decks until a new best deck emerges or things have settled down. Since there was a lot of drastic change this last OTA the old reliable options of Destroy, Zoo, Discard, and Surfer have crept back up in popularity. These decks are good in most situations as the game progresses either adding or removing a card here and there as the meta develops and new tools are added.
Zoo
Surfer
Discard
Destroy
They also remain in the metagame at around the same rate because the Bounty system from Alliances is easily checked off when using these decks. I don’t see these changing anytime soon and I am sure they will remain a part of the meta game for a while.
Meta Outliers and Counters
With many different strategies in the metagame, there are a couple of meta outliers performing well. These are just two different decks that are performing well but are underrepresented.
Ongoing
This deck is trying to capitalize on most other decks not having room to run Luke Cage and afflict as much pain as possible while also being able to use War Machine to counter the lockdown decks. Spectrum is a good last turn 6 for any of those people still trying to play Sandman as well as a good option when you only have one possible location to play and can only play one card as it buffs pretty much everything in your deck. This also is the best non-move deck that Madame Web is included in.
New PF
With lockdown coming back without Professor X, Phoenix Force has become a solid option as well as being able to out-power most Agatha decks if you can get the combo off which is not that difficult since they only have one possible form of disruption in Moon Knight before your main PF line would start working.
Meta Health
Other than the possible feel-bad portions of the metagame due to lockdown coming back, there aren’t many things wrong with the current metagame. I know this can be a subjective topic but, given our definition of metagame from the first Meta Monday, no one strategy is taking over allowing for many decks to thrive even if there are feel-bad moment decks out there. What is your favorite or worst deck in the current metagame? Let me know in the comments below!
GIVEAWAY WINNERS
Congrats to Icecrime (PMV) and MisterAV(MV) as our code winners. I will ping you in the deck building channel on the official Snap.Fan discord and will get you your codes from there. Make sure to comment on what variant you got once you have received your code!
