MARVEL SNAP – Guide to Deckbuilding

Deckbuilding 101

Note: This guide will not cover Series 1 and Series 2 archetypes, though these tips will translate to lower collection leveled players.

As you may or may not already know, there are a lot of cards in Marvel Snap. A player can be easily overwhelmed by the amount of worthwhile card-combinations or “good decks” are available to them after moving out of the early series.

A few definitions relevant to this article:

Archetype

An archetype refers to a category, classification, or style of deck. Archetypes are typically pretty broad in definitions (such as Destroy, Bounce, Move, etc) though can be specific in nature in rare cases (such as with Hela-centric decks).


Shell

A group of cards that forms the basic structure of a deck; these are typically irreplaceable or difficult-to-replace cards. For example, a “Destroy shell” would include cards like Venom and Carnage, or a “Bounce shell” would include Beast and Falcon.


Package

A group of cards whose synergies work together. Typically 3 to 5 cards that can be slotted into a variety of different shells or archetypes. For example, Annihilus, Sentry, and The Hood form a package that can be used in a Bounce shell or a Lockdown deck.


Mode

How you choose to build the deck. For the purpose of this article, Archetype or Shell/Package are the two modes of deck-building (though there are many methods to deck building within each mode).

Once you’ve settled on the mode you’re going to use, you should decide on which abilities are relevant to the deck.

Marvel Snap Abilities as Archetypes

In the most basic sense, using the predefined Marvel Snap developer designated categories is the quickest way to find “synergy between cards” to build a deck around. It is decidedly simpler with a narrow archetype such as move or discard, and much less desirable (though not impossible) to use this method with cards from the Ongoing or On Reveal sections (at least not without a solid plan).

Marvel Snap Abilities:

  • On Reveal
    • See below subtypes
  • Ongoing
    • See below subtypes
  • No Ability (Patriot, High Evolutionary aka Evo)
  • Discard
    • Hela (The Living Tribunal and/or “big bodies”)
    • Collector + Morbius (“Classic Discard”)
    • Black Knight
    • Dracula + Strong Guy (“DracDump”)
  • Move
    • Little Movers (Angela Package, Jeff!, Vision)
    • Control (Spider-Man, Magneto, etc)
    • Traditional (Dagger/Multiple Man, Kraven, Heimdall)
  • Destroy
    • Classic
    • Nimrod
    • Galactus

Subtypes of Snap Archetypes:

  • On Reveal (the following are examples only)
    • Wong + Odin
    • Beast + Falcon (with Werewolf by Night or another ‘scaler’ like Angela)
    • Phoenix Force (Hybrid Move/Destroy deck)
  • Ongoing (the following are examples only)
    • Spectrum Ongoing
    • Tribunal

Community Defined Archetypes:

  • Bounce
  • Control
  • Goodstuff (Midrange)
  • Clog (aka Junk)
  • Lockdown
  • ToxicEvo (aka Affliction)
  • Agatha
  • Mister Negative
  • Silver Surfer
  • Cerebro
  • ..and more

Packages & Shells

As you can see by that non-exhaustive list, there are a lot of “abilities” in Marvel Snap that you can build your deck-idea around. Not even taking into account the various meta choices and collection concessions a player will have to make, it has become harder and harder to approach deck building in the sense of “use these 12 cards.” As more niche/hybrid cards are released (eg: Miek, Phoenix Force, etc.) having an understanding of shells and packages will be a great skill to lean on.

While seemingly similar – and often used interchangeably – Shells lie between Archetype and Package as a way to help the deck builder define the purpose of the deck (before even playing 1 game of Marvel Snap).

Allow us to illustrate with a silly analogy:

  • Archetype – category of food (Canadian)
  • Shells – a certain type of food (pasta dish)
  • Package – the things that make the food (Kraft Dinner)

During the initial writing of this article “The Sentry Package” was a dominate force in the meta which included: Sentry+The Hood+Annihilus

The use of these three cards could potentially swing the game in your favor by: -3 (The Hood), +6 (Demon), +10 (Sentry), -10 (Void), +6 (Annihilus). All totaling to -13 for the opponent if Annihilus is able to send those cards over, and +22 for you; in essence 35 points in 11 energy works out to be a very good investment of your resources.

To further this idea of Packages and Shells – lets use this deck as an example:

  • Package 1: Sentry, Hood, Annihilus
  • Package 2: Korg, Rockslide, Black Widow, Darkhawk
  • Package 3: Beast, Falcon, Korg, Hood, Nico Minoru, Iceman
  • Shell 1a (Deck Control): Korg, Rockslide
  • Shell 1b (Hand Control): Iceman, Black Widow
  • Shell 2 (Lane Control): Widow’s Kiss (from White Widow, Annihilus, Widow’s Bite (from Black Widow))

So a question proposed to you reader, “is this a bounce deck, a sentry/hawk deck, a combo/control deck, or something else?”

This deck has removed the “Darkhawk package” and associated “Bounce synergy” instead adding in a “Lockdown package” of Professor X, Cannonball, Nebula…and Jeff! Intending to add a different style of control while still using the powerful Sentry package mentioned earlier. Spider-Ham offers a bit of information, and the combination of Pixie and Mobius M. Mobius is a powerful tool for cube equity.

Thank you for your time and I hope this little tutorial was helpful to you.

Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 8015 Articles
I love games and I live games. Video games are my passion, my hobby and my job. My experience with games started back in 1994 with the Metal Mutant game on ZX Spectrum computer. And since then, I’ve been playing on anything from consoles, to mobile devices. My first official job in the game industry started back in 2005, and I'm still doing what I love to do.

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