If you've been playing Marvel Snap for a while, you’ll notice that just like certain cards and decks, the popularity of card Costs also rises and falls. This is often due to the release of new cards shaping the meta and determining whether it's the season for small, impactful, low-cost cards or your beefy, high-cost cards. Some Cost categories have standout cards that dominate the meta, while others offer a broader range of solid options within the category. In most card games, having a lot of options is great—it encourages strategic thinking, unique deck-building, and tough choices, pushing you to explore different possibilities. Starting today, we’re introducing a 6-part series that covers how Second Dinner has been treating each of its Cost categories recently, and we begin with our tiny but impactful 1-Cost cards!
1-Cost: Simple, Easy, But Sneaky
Nobody likes wasting Energy, so playing a 1-Cost card with its minimal requirements often feels pretty good to smooth out your curve and use up your leftover Energy in that turn. Although 1-Cost cards seem like a one-and-done deal, most of them stay relevant throughout the game, like Deadpool, Human Torch, or Sunspot, which can easily reach 10+ Power if they have the proper setup. Besides these staple cards, no other meta proves the 1-Cost’s replayability better than the one we’re in right now!
With the release of Araña and Madame Web boosting all deck types of the Move archetype, Nico Minoru recently became the face of Marvel Snap, overtaking Shang-Chi to become the most popular card in the game with nearly 115,000 games in the past month, and this trend is only continuing upwards since she was barely in the top 5 last week.
Nico showcases the best of this Cost Category—versatility, Power, synergy, and reusability. With six different and powerful spells, she fits into several meta-defining archetypes at the moment, including Move, Bounce, Nimrod, and, of course, Destroy (although Destroy is a little less dominant these days.) Despite the higher sample size, Nico still maintains a healthy 54.94% win rate and 0.4 cube rate, which is noticeably above average among cards with more than 100,000 games.
Climb, Climb, And Continue Climbing
Let’s take a look at some of the other 1-Cost cards famous in the meta and known for their Power output. Silver Sable, the newest 1-Cost On-Reveal card released at the start of the month as of writing this article, is already showing her flair in the scene. She’s effectively a 1/5 when you play her the first time. Sounds good, right? Wait until you bounce her with Falcon or Beast and play her again to make her an effective 1/9 or 2/9. Even better, but not enough, you say? Just bounce and play her again as a 1/13! The same goes for The Hood, who you can repeatedly bounce to add several 1/6 Demons to your hands or make him switch sides with Viper or Annihilus to make him a 1/9, who also clogs your opponent’s board.
Another core card of Bounce that we shouldn’t forget is Kitty Pryde. While Kitty doesn’t generate high numbers alone, her ability to be played alongside cards like Collector, Angela, Thena, Bishop, and Hope Summers makes her special. Every time you play her, you’re simultaneously buffing 2-3 other cards in play, which continuously stacks up and becomes highly noticeable in the endgame. Although Kitty’s main archetype, Ramp, is slightly declining in higher ranks, her 8.31% play rate clearly shows that she’s still in a good spot.
Lastly, many high-rank players have had their eyes on Hydra Bob if you're looking for raw Power output. Although Bob doesn’t have an incredible play rate, win rate, or cube rate, he is a bit too “over-tuned,” especially when you compare him to the competition. Looking at other 1/5 cards in Marvel Snap, he’s easily the best of the bunch. The other options include Titania, which is finicky at best and is only played in 1 archetype, and Martyr, which players argue is the worst card in the game.
Clog and Bounce decks are currently raking massive figures in mid-high Infinite with 55.74% and 64.83% win rates, respectively, and with these 1-Cost cards being almost a mandatory addition to these decks, you can see their potential. To exemplify this, here’s a Clog-Bounce deck that’s winning matches at an insane rate.
Decks For You To Try
SABLE BOUNCE WICCAN
This version of Bounce, which includes 1-Cost staples like Silver Sable, The Hood, and Nico, has amassed nearly 700 games with a whopping 64.83% win rate and 1.02 cube rate, which is hilariously good. Thanks to Nico’s multi-purpose abilities coupled with Silver Sable and The Hood’s replayable nature, this deck plays to the strengths of 1-Cost cards, and the numbers show that it’s indeed working.
MARVEL BOY
Of course, we can’t complete this Cost category’s deck discussion without talking about the beloved KaZoo archetype, and this version of the deck with Marvel Boy showcases just how well 1-Cost cards are doing. With almost 4000 games under its belt, it has maintained a consistent 58.6% win rate and 0.67 cube rate, and its sheer customizability, thanks to the vast pool of strong 1-Cost cards, makes KaZoo highly accessible.
Araña Enters The Arena
While on the topic, we should also discuss another intriguing 1-Cost card that’s recently released – Araña, currently seen as a “must-have” tool in Move, specifically the ones with Pheonix Force, another emerging deck. As one of the two cards in the newest Activate archetype, she’s currently being experimented with in several popular decks, like Silver Surfer and even Destroy, as her ability resembles the powerful 1/2 Forge we had a few months ago.
However, because the Activate keyword is so new, players are still learning about her interactions, which is why her play rate and win rate (both of which are currently hovering in the Top 150) are so low despite being played alongside Madame Web quite often in High-Infinite ranks. If you’re still wondering whether Araña is a worthy purchase, I think it’s best to wait as others figure out how to handle her. After all, compared to Symbiote Spiderman, Araña is more complex because her design differs from what her home, the Move archetype, typically uses.
Rising Stars Among The Category
Black Knight’s relevancy has always depended on his 4-Cost Ebony Blade. When Hela was still popular, and the Ebony Blade couldn’t be destroyed or its Power reduced, Black Knight was a superstar among 1-Cost cards. Then, with the Ebony Blade’s nerf making it susceptible to Shadow King and other Power-decreasing options, this card saw a steep loss in popularity.
The return of Black Knight has been a long time coming. Although the Ebony Blade’s nerf is still felt, Black Knight has found himself in an unlikely shell: Agatha. While Agatha’s 2.28% play rate and 50.8% win rate show she’s still on the lower end of Marvel Snap, her combo route with Black Knight is surprisingly powerful (i.e., Playing Black Knight on Turn 1 and discarding Agatha with Lady Sif or Moon Knight on Turn 3 to get a 4/14 Ebony Blade.) This combo, paired with Stature and Blackbolt, makes a unique discard package starting to appear in higher ranks.
I briefly discussed Move decks aspiring to glory once again with the release of Araña, which has brought back two important 1-Cost Move cards: Human Torch and Ghost Spider. Torch, of course, rivals cards like Deadpool for having the highest ceiling among 1-Cost cards, and he is seen in roughly 5.5% of matches, meaning he’s gaining more traction every day. Ghost Spider, a key Move enabler, is in a similar position with a decent 6.59% play rate. Together, these two are a lethal Card combo, and if you repeatedly Bounce them with Beast or Falcon, you can easily stretch their effective Power output into double digits.
Diamonds In The Rough: Valuable Underplayed 1-Cost Cards
Due to the vast number of options, it’s inevitable to see a few low-cost cards not having time in the sun, usually because either they’re considered worse alternatives or their archetype isn’t doing too well in the meta.
With Destroy going down in popularity at higher ranks, it’s no wonder that X-23 and Deadpool, the two staples of the archetype, are nowhere near the position they once were. Both cards have a ~50% win rate, and, given how the current meta is full of anti-Destroy cards like Cosmo and Shadow King, they’ve become extremely volatile. The Destroy package, as a whole, is in a damp state, not even cracking the Top 20 in win rate or cube rate. Like Black Knight, X-23 and Deadpool’s fates are tied to the relevancy of Destroy, so when the archetype is a prevalent force (which it isn’t these days), you’ll see this combo more often.
Compared to X-23 and Deadpool, which suffer from deck irrelevancy, Nebula and Sunspot have been severely underplayed purely because of better combos and alternatives in this Cost category. Nebula was usually among the 3 most popular 1-Cost cards in the game, and now she’s dipped down to the low 30s. Sunspot’s in a worse condition–he was already being Power crept and known as a “worse Nebula,” and after newer entries like Silver Sable, he’s not even among the Top 100 cards in popularity. You might be wondering, “What happened to these two?” Well, there are a few explanations for that.
As highlighted earlier, Silver Sable can easily reach high single-digit Power output within a few turns, and her compatibility with Bounce and Junk strengthens her case further. Neither Nebula nor Sunspot fits in those decks, and the decks where they do fit in, like the War Machine package, are still either dormant or in their early stages. Silver Sable’s just more practical and easier to play, so players opt for it without giving it a second thought.
Besides that, some decks that previously used Nebula and/or Sunspot, like High Evolutionary, are ditching them entirely for a different strategy. Previously, High Evo aimed to reach high Power levels, and when players saw that this strategy wasn’t working, they decided to go with the Toxic route. The best deck in the game is a Power-snatching High Evo deck. Another thing to note is that Shadow King’s presence limits Nebula and Sunspot's effectiveness. These cards need several consecutive turns to gain any Power, and Shadow King erasing those numbers in a snap is extremely frustrating.
Conclusion
Despite the re-emergence of Hela after the recent changes, 1-Cost cards still hold a key position in the metagame, especially since Clog decks, which effectively counter Hela, are primarily using 1-Cost cards, as mentioned earlier. We’re currently going through a phase of Marvel Snap where abilities matter more than raw Power, and playing low-risk, low-cost cards to use and later re-use their abilities is proving a viable strategy. Players want to play their cards as quickly as possible to replay them near the end to get even more value out of their hand.
The newly-released Araña is already providing enough synergy to Move via buffing Dagger, Human Torch, and Vulture that it rivals Hela decks, and with Bounce and Clog being as popular and reliable as they are, this Cost category is relevant at almost every rank.
We hope you now better understand 1-Cost in the current meta-game and which cards in this category are thriving these days. In the comment section below, let me know what 1-Cost cards you're using and facing the most in your recent Marvel Snap games!