Deck building is one of the major ways in which you can improve in Marvel Snap. Overlooking this key component of the game will force you to rely on others to make decks for you and limit the amount of fun you can experience in this game. You will be reliant on them to fit your playstyle and the meta. Learning how to deckbuild is challenging so here are 10 commonly overlooked features that can help you become a better deck builder.
- The Meta
No matter where you are playing in Marvel Snap, whether you’re in Iron or the top 10 of Infinite, you are going to experience a pocket meta. Understanding why these meta decks are strong and how they work is important to your skill as a future or current deckbuilder.
Are these decks you are facing easy to play? Are they built to counter a specific previous meta deck? Are they built to get super specific combo lines off? Whatever the case may be, anticipating how well your deck does against these meta decks comes down to how it answers the meta. Will your deck be putting out more points than the meta decks? Will your deck be countering what the meta deck is doing? - Energy Curve
What does your curve look like? What are you trying to achieve with this curve? Many Marvel Snap players are playing “good cards” in their deck without any consideration of the curve of the deck. Can you consistently have early turn plays? Or is your deck specifically trying to play cards that ramp up your energy to play bigger cards later?
My personal favorite template curve that I like to build a majority of my decks around have 2 one drops, 3 two drops, 4 three drops, 2 four drops and 1 five drop. I find this curve serves me well when I am playing the game to consistently develop my board while being able to play late game finishers.
Strong decks have plays that they can reliably make on turns 1-3, or they’re intentionally skipping early like Star-Lord, Master of the Sun or Electro Ramp Decks. - Hidden Information/Cube Stealers
If your goal as a deck builder is to gain more cubes and climb faster than your opponents, having cards that provide hidden information or can steal cubes is tremendous.
I like to break these cards up into 3 categories: Fully Hidden, Semi Hidden, Can Be Assumed
Fully Hidden cards, like Scarlet Witch, Juggernaut, Shang-Chi, and Legion, are cards that your opponent has no idea that you have this card at all and they can’t foresee you playing this card. You will find many cards in this category commonly referred to as tech cards. Arishem strength lies in the fact that your opponents have no idea what could be in the Arishem gamer’s hand and that hidden information can cause misplays or overcommitments in lanes to prevent getting blown out by surprise.
Semi Hidden cards are cards that your opponent knows you have something but they don’t know what it is. A lot of create cards fall into this category, Iron Patriot is a wonderful example of Semi Hidden. Your opponent knows you have a discounted Iron Patriot card but they don’t know whether it's a Mister Negative or Thanos.
Can be assumed cards are cards that generate exact or expected outcomes. Cards like Merlin are perfect examples of this. You know they might have an Omniversal Presence but you don’t if they rolled an Once And Future instead. - Build for YOUR Combo
Some people do not care to climb the ladder in this game and that’s 1000% okay! Some people want to see some cool unique combo go off in their game and understanding deck building can help you accomplish that as well. You will need and want deck thinners and extenders in order to make the Combo you have in your mind’s eye go off!
Cards like Nico Minoru, Crystal and Magik are wonderful tools to help you get to the cards that you need in order to get this dream combo off! Do not get discouraged when it doesn’t happen the first time you try it. Stick to it and you will be able to get off that Kid Omega/Wolverine Combo! - You Can’t Tech For Everything!
One common deckbuilding mistake I see happen is the over-teching to counter any matchup. I can teach this one with a story, my dad is an avid destroy gamer. He loves to destroy the deadpool a bunch of times but hates it when someone plays an Armor on him so he decided to swap out Deathlok for an Enchantress.
He called me one day soon after and asked me why was everyone playing Shadow King and Shang-Chi, and I responded that they were good for the meta right now and you can counter them with Cosmo. He decides to swap Moira X for Cosmo.
He kept playing and started getting really tired that Fin Fang Foom and Star-Lord, Master of the Sun was beating his destroy deck so he swapped Nico Minoru for {card_link|ShangChi}}. At the end of it all he had more tech than destroy cards and he was sad that his deck just didn’t do what it used to do anymore.
Playing too many tech cards can seriously harm the game plan that you're trying to accomplish. Be aware of the match ups you’re weak against and learn to play around those weaknesses. - Recognize Crutch (Cope) Cards/Decks in Your Deck Building
I am super guilty of this one. I love playing Khonshu and Dormammu and I try to make them work in a myriad of different archetypes. I am trying to force them to work in decks and need to recognize that they’re not going to work in every deck. Everyone of us have our favorite cards in the game and we need to be able to remove ourselves from interfering with our deck building.
If you are going to one-trick a deck you must accept the highs and lows that come with that deck. I LOVE playing Destroy strategies but if I decided to one-trick that I have to accept that my one deck I love will not always be good in the meta. Changing out cards and sometimes decks to do better in the game is healthy. - Over-synergized vs Scattered
Many decks can suffer from being oversynergized or scattered. Let’s take my dads deck for example again. When he replaced Deathlok for Enchantress I would say that he was actually changing his deck from being over synergized into a more cohesive deck.
Having a small amount of flexibility in your deck is good and allows you to better answer the meta. However once he started replacing too many cards his deck became scattered. Losing its core synergy that made the deck fun to play in the first place.
A rough ratio to follow is 2 cards, 2 cards should be your flex spots. More than that and you’re potentially losing out on key synergies. Any less than that and you’re leaving match ups that could be turned into favorable match ups with you with the right flex option. - Not Willing to Experiment (Thinking outside the Box)
Sometimes in our deck building we tend to use the same cards over and over again and not think about what other options are there. There are over 450 cards in Marvel Snap! There is so many unique and different synergies that have yet to be tried. Do not be afraid to experiment and try new things. I always say give something 10 games before scrapping an idea. - Power Cards
This game revolves around having more power than your opponent in two lanes. What cards in your deck give you the power you need to win multiple lanes. Do you have the ability to generate lots of power during the course of the game or at the end of the game? What does the ideal power output look like for your deck? What is the low roll power output for your deck? - Understanding your Worst Match Ups
Knowing what hurts your deck and how to play around that is instrumental in the success that you will find with the deck. For example if you’re playing afflict be aware of the other decks in the meta that are running Luke Cage.
Understand that if you see a Cerebro gamer you’re immediately unfavored in that game because a majority of Cerebro gamers run Luke Cage in their decks. Understand that if you’re playing Hela, decks that run Stardust are going to be eager to face you and you need to be prepared to face them.
Before you lock in a play, double check if you have answered and thought about each of these tips to make sure that your deck is on its way to having a great time in Marvel Snap!
Check out other awesome Deck Builders Fest articles at Marvel Snap Zone and others coming later this week!