Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. Guides

Marvel Snap: best decks for beginners

Jesse Lennox
By

The hardest part of any deck-building game is, well, building your first deck. Even in a game as friendly to those unfamiliar with the genre as Marvel Snap is, it can easily look intimidating when asked to narrow down all the available cards into a single deck. The fact that decks can only have 12 cards in total does make it more manageable in some ways, but also raises the importance placed on each card you choose to fill one of those slots.

In the early hours of Marvel Snap you won’t be overwhelmed with available cards. Even so, the beginning set alone will give you thousands of possible deck possibilities. If you’re more interested in getting a feel for how the game is to actually play before worrying so much about managing your deck in Marvel Snap, here are a few favorite decks you can build early on that will help you get into the game faster.

Recommended Videos

Further reading

How to get new cards and what card pools are

Marvel Snap's card progression levels.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Marvel Snap is a free-to-play game, and doesn’t let you buy cards with real money. Instead, to keep everything fair, all cards you get are earned playing and awarded at random. The more you play, the more Credits and Boosters you will earn. Credits can be used to upgrade any card in your deck, while Boosters can only be applied to certain cards. However, these upgrades are just cosmetic in nature.

Related

The way to actually unlock a new card is by improving your Collection Level. This is done by upgrading your cards using those Credits and Boosters, or purchasing duplicate cards from the shop and upgrading them as well.

At certain Collection Level milestones, you will unlock a Mystery Card. This card will be a random card from your current card pool. Card pools are broken down based on your Collection Level, with three total:

Pool 1: Collection level 18 — 214

Pool 2: Collection Level 222 — 485

Pool 3: Collection level 486+

You won’t have to worry about the second and third pools for a while, so all the following beginner decks will only use cards you can get in the first pool.

Kazoo deck

Deck of cards in Marvel Snap.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Our first beginner-friendly deck is well known among the community as the Kazoo deck. This is because it is a very reliable and easy-to-play setup that packs in a ton of one Energy cost cards, with Ka-Zar being the high-cost anchor. His Ongoing effect really ties the deck together and makes all cards that cost one Energy have +1 Power.

  • Ant-Man
  • Blade
  • Elektra
  • Hawkeye
  • Nightcrawler
  • Squirrel Girl
  • Angela
  • Captain America
  • Wolfsbane
  • Ka-Zar
  • Blue Marvel
  • Onslaught

Scarlet Witch

Marvel Snap promo image of multiple Marvel characters.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

This deck is, as you can guess, built around Scarlet Witch. This is a more brutal, heavy Power focused deck that encourages buffing your other cards and shifting them from one Location to another to keep your opponent on their toes.

  • Scarlet Witch
  • White-Tiger
  • The Watcher
  • Iron-Fist
  • Cable
  • Angela
  • Nightcrawler
  • Jessica Jones
  • The Punisher
  • Hulk
  • Enchantress
  • Bishop

The Avengers

Iron Heart in Marvel Snap's animated trailer.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Time to assemble The Avengers! It just so happens that the core members of The Avengers synergize quite well, especially their Ongoing abilities. Iron Man can double other cards’ Power, while Captain America also grants additional Power, but it is Onslaught that is this deck’s real kicker. Onslaught’s ability to double any Ongoing effects in the same Location basically ensures you will win that Location.

  • Iron Man
  • Captain America
  • Ant-Man
  • Hawkeye
  • The Watcher
  • Armor
  • Kraven
  • Namor
  • Mister Fantastic
  • Ka-Zar
  • The Punisher
  • Onslaught

Dinosaur Control

Marvel Snap trailer shot of Miles Morales, America Chaves, Iron Heart, Venom, and Black Panther in a mech.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Finally, if you want to overwhelm your opponent, the Devil Dinosaur-focused deck isn’t quite as easy to pull off as the others, but very fun once you do. Devil Dinosaur is your main unit here, and you’re going to focus on his ability to get +2 Power for every card you have in your hand. Knowing that, the rest of your deck is focused on filling your hand as much as possible, such as Sentinel which adds a copy of itself to your hand when played, and Cable which takes the bottom card from your opponent’s deck and puts it in your hand.

  • Ant-Man
  • Mantis
  • Nightcrawler
  • Cable
  • Sentinel
  • Cosmo
  • Jessica Jones
  • White Queen
  • Iron Man
  • Devil Dinosaur
  • Onslaught
  • America Chavez

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jesse Lennox
Jesse Lennox
Jesse Lennox loves writing, games, and complaining about not having time to write and play games. He knows the names of more…
The best Feats in Baldur’s Gate 3
A wizard charges a spell to hit a minataur.

As overwhelming as it might feel to create your character and pick your race and class at the beginning of Baldur's Gate 3, Larian actually kept one aspect of this process tucked away from you. As you level up and learn new abilities, you will eventually unlock what are known as Feats. Unlike your class skills, you're free to choose from any Feat in the game regardless of your class, which adds an entirely new layer to how you build your character. There are dozens of Feats available, so even if you take the time to read through them all, knowing which one is worth your time is difficult. Rather than roll the dice on whatever Feat looks good, here are the best ones to pick in Baldur's Gate 3.
What are Feats?

Simply put, Feats are additional buffs or bonuses you add to your character, such as stat bonuses, granting a new ability, or adding perks to weapon types. Once you've unlocked a specific Feat, it will remain on your character until the end of the game.
How to get Feats

Read more
How to preorder Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and the limited edition PS5
Venom on the streets of New York in Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

Are you ready to suit up and swing back into action as both Peter and Miles in Spider-Man 2 coming on October 20? Venom, Kraven, and many more villains are sure to be plotting plenty of obstacles for our web-swinging heroes, however, all you need to worry about is getting your hands on the game itself. Thankfully, you don't need a spider-sense to find out all the details on pre-ordering the sequel to one of the PS4's best exclusives. Here's how you can pre-order Spider-Man 2, as well as all the details about the available editions so you can show your love for the wall-crawler.
Where can I preorder Spider-Man 2?

Being a PlayStation 5 exclusive, the easiest way to preorder Spider-Man 2 would be to go through the official PlayStation store, though you can find it through all the major outlets as well. If you're looking to go for the most expensive Collector's Edition, then that is only available through PlayStation Direct.
Spider-Man 2 Standard Edition

Read more
Venom attacks in the Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 story trailer
Venom on the streets of New York in Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

Insomniac Games showed a story trailer for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Thursday night, giving us our best look at the game's interpretation of Venom yet.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 - Story Trailer | PS5 Games
At San Diego Comic-Con this year, Insomniac Games held a panel called Marvel's Spider-Man 2: Symbiotic Relationships, where developers and voice actors revealed more about the game, its story, and its characters. Most notably, we got this new story trailer for Marvel's Spider-Man 2, which features characters like Venom, Harry Osborn, and Mr. Negative.
The trailer begins with Harry Osborn and Peter Parker catching up now that Harry's out of the weird stasis his father kept him in. He asks Peter to help him "heal the world." We then see Harry meet Miles, who questions if Peter will still have time for Spider-Man now that he's helping Harry. After that, Kraven's forces begin attacking, and Peter asks Mary Jane to look into the villain for him.
Then, in one of the trailer's more surprising moments, Martin Li, who was the villain Mr. Negative in Marvel's Spider-Man and killed Miles' father, appears. He seems to just live in New York as a regular person now, although Miles' Spider-Man does confront him and say, "You don't know what you took from me." After this, the trailer shifts its focus to the Symbiote, which we see corrupting Pete, scaring Mary Jane, and more.

The trailer ends with Tony Todd's Venom saying, "We're going to heal the world," before beginning to tear up the streets of New York while fighting Kraven's forces. Venom has a very beefy, threatening look that's quite intimidating, while his one line in the trailer implies that Venom could be Harry Osborn, making this villain more tied to Peter and Harry's lives. It all certainly sets the stage for what's bound to be an enthralling superhero adventure when it launches in a couple of months.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 will release exclusively for PS5 on October 20. 

Read more