As a beta player, the Marvel Snap question I get asked the most is, “What deck should I play?” It’s difficult to answer because everyone has different cards depending on how high their Collection Level is. If you look at a resource like Marvel Snap Zone, you’ll see a list of meta decks full of cards you don’t have access to for a long time. The Collection Level grind is so long that it will likely take several months to a year before you’ve completed the full collection and are able to build any deck you like. Marvel Snap is purposely designed to give every player different cards. You’re expected to use what you’ve got and make the most of it, and everyone else is doing the same thing.
One of the strengths of Marvel Snap, at least early on, is that you can win games with almost any deck. As long as you put a little thought behind your decisions and make some adjustments based on the kinds of strategies you’re losing against, crafting your own deck in Pool One is both expected and effective. Until you reach CL222, everyone is using the same collection of starter cards to makeshift a deck, so you really can’t go wrong.
That’s not especially satisfying for some people though. If you play other CCGs like Hearthstone and Runeterra, you’re probably used to building archetypes. Even in Marvel Snap, decks should have a cohesive strategy - it’s just not easy to do that when your selection of cards is so limited.
You can try building a Destroy deck with Apocalypse, an On Reveal deck with Odin, or a Move deck with Heimdall, but you’ll quickly find that you just don’t have enough of the combo pieces available to make these archetypal decks work consistently. In Pool One you’re usually better off picking strong cards with powerful effects even if they don’t work together. In my experience, there’s only one meta deck that is budget-friendly enough to be played in Pool One. Let me tell you about the deck that took me to Rank 100 two seasons in a row - one I still play on occasion even in Pool Three. The deck is my version of an archetype called Budget Ka-Zoo, and if you want to climb quickly in Pool One, I suggest you use it.
Here’s the deck code if you just want to copy it and start playing right away:
The name Ka-Zoo tells you everything you need to know about how to play this deck. Your zoo is all of your cheap 1-cost cards, and your goal is to fill your board with them then buff them with Ka-Zar. You want to keep your hand count as low as possible with the deck because of Strong Guy. If your hand is completely empty after turn six, Strong Guy gets +6 power. The common strategy is to hold Blade until your final turn, that way if you have two expense cards in your hand, like Iron Man and Bishop, you can play one of them with Blade and automatically discard the other one to empty your hand.
This is an aggressive deck that will allow you to play multiple cards every turn, fill up all three locations, and overwhelm your opponent. Best of all, you get every card in it throughout Pool One except for Iceman, who is Pool 2. Until you get this last card, you can sub in Miles Morales (if you own the battle pass) or any other 1-cost card. I like Korg, Iron Fist, or Squirrel Girl as alternatives.
This deck quickly falls off in Pool Two thanks to the introduction of Killmonger, a 3-cost card that destroys all 1-cost cards on the board and will completely ruin your game. For this reason, I’ve been recommending that players stay in Pool One (under CL222) for as long as they can in order to climb the seasonal ladder and reach Rank 100. If you can hold off on getting new cards and save up your credits, this budget deck will serve you well at the beginning.