Greeting fellow snappers! In this guide, I will try to cover some advanced tips and strategies that you can use if you want to climb the ladder and enter the Infinite rank in Marvel Snap. I am writing as a F2P player who has been in Infinite for 6 seasons in a row – first time as a player with collection range of 600 to the the present one of 4500. That being said, I do want to put a disclaimer: I don’t think that getting into Infinite rank qualifies as being better then players still climbing the ladder. In my experience, hitting the Infinite rank in Marvel Snap is more about the deck choices you make, location awareness, cube management and countering current meta decks.
I have already covered some basic strategies in my Marvel Snap Beginner guide so if are new to the game, you would want to check that one first. As I’ve said, in this one I will focus on some advanced tips that worked for me – so, without further ado, check out the tips and strategies for getting into Infinite rank in Marvel Snap.
Cube Management: Knowing When to Snap
I know that this one seems like an easy one, but really, this is what it’s all about – If you want to climb the Infinite ladder, you simply need to get the cubes. This is why the overall win-rate of the deck that you play with is not important here; but the cubes ratio is. Probably one of the example are so called “gamble” decks, such as Hela Living Tribunal or Counter decks like Sera Control. The whole point of having a deck like that is to lure your opponent into snapping because they have the priority before the last turn and hit them with something that they don’t expect.
At the same time, being aware of what your opponents play will be is a big part of this strategy. For example, if you are playing a Negative Wong deck and facing a typical Destroy deck, you should easily snap providing that you have the key cards. The reason for this is the fact that Destroy decks don’t have any hard counters for Negative Wong (Cosmo, Doctor X, Enchantress, Leech etc). On the other hand, in the same situation, playing Wong vs High Evolutionary deck and snapping is a bad idea – they might have Enchantress and/or Leech since those are staple cards in those decks. If you are still experimenting with this and you are not sure what decks are most common, you can always play Conquest for a day or two and see what most players are running – due to often balance patches in Marvel Snap, meta-decks shift very quickly so staying up to date is really important here.
Exploiting Hot and Featured Locations
Every Sunday and Wednesday, there will be a location that will appear 50% more often but in all honest, it feels like every second game features the hot location. Featured locations are new ones and they will appear also very often but only in a week after it’s release. You can see the hot or featured location on your home screen once you enter the game (you might need to swipe few times). Anyway, exploiting the location is one of the most important things as it can give you a huge advantage (or disadvantage) based on a deck you are playing or facing.
Last weeks example is Nidevellir, the location that gives +5 power to all cards on it. Now, think about this – which deck exploits this the best? Most players played with Destroy decks since the synergy between this location and Knull as well as Venom is more than obvious. So, here are faced with those choices:
- You can either play the deck that exploits that location, in this case Destroy
- You can play a counter deck for the deck that exploits the location (Sera control).
Another example is Savage Land, a hot location few weeks back. This one is a tricky one but think about this – Destroy works well here as well since you can play Carnage on turn 2 easily providing that you played either Deadpool or X-23 on turn 1. Also, Annihilus decks are great here as well but the problem would be the hard counter that Destroy decks have for them. On other hand, this location is horrible for any Ms. Marvel deck since her ability won’t work (Raptors are both 1-cost). Also, Move decks would have difficulties since they need a lot of space.
You see the point – try to analyze the hot location in accordance to the decks that you have and in accordance to the decks that most players are playing at that moment. Find the counter or go with a meta deck (if you have one) for that location.
Playing a Meta Deck
Meta-decks, or simply put, the most efficient decks at the moment, are a bit difficult to identify. I’m saying this because, although you can see the win-rate online on certain decks, that still doesn’t guarantee you the same data will be applied in your current rank. The reason is the fact that some decks are efficient early on but became outdate once you advance through the game – perhaps Kazoo is the best example of that. I remember that I hit my first Infinite rank with a simple Ongoing deck but if I played it now, I’m pretty sure that I would lose most of the games (since my Collection range increased).
That being said, some decks are evergreen – Shuri decks, Discard decks, Destroy decks, Cerebro, all of them do have a potential to get you into Infinite rank. Usually, the simplest thing works the best- last summer, when I started playing, the simple combo: Shuri – 5-cost-high power-card – Taskmaster was a meta play and it still is to the present day. The more complicated the deck is usually means that the more unreliable it gets. So, keep it simple and if something works – stick to it until it doesn’t. Once it stops “working”, identify what decks are you loosing against – and move to the next paragraph in our Marvel Snap Infinite rank guide article where I will explain counter strategies.
Countering Meta Decks
If you keep loosing, there has to be a reason for it; and usually it’s a deck archetype that many players play with at that moment (or the one that you keep getting to play against). There are two ways to counter this: by adding a counter card or making a whole counter deck.
Add hard-counters into existing deck(s) that you were winning with
If you are going with the first option take a moment to ask yourself a couple of questions: The cards that keep bothering you the most, are they on-reveal, ongoing or something else? Does the priority on last turn have something to do with the fact that you are losing? Do you need priority at all? Do you get outplayed or you simply lack power to win? Based on these answers, consider adding a counter card. Some of the most useful hard-counter cards are:
- Shang-Chi: works against most decks, especially Destroy, HE, Blob, Wong but be sure to add him in a deck which doesn’t have priority on last turn
- Cosmo: Although on paper it should be a perfect counter it has fallen off meta lately and feels a bit clunky now; you can use it against Wong and Hela decks
- Enchantress: Works fine against all kinds of ongoing decks, generally a really good card
- Rogue: Has a niche usage but can be really good, especially in Sera decks when played on final turn
- Shadow King: One of the most underrated cards in the current meta that relies heavily on Destroy decks; has a real good synergy with Absorbing Man
Sometimes it’s just not possible to add some of these cards in certain decks. For example, Hela Living Tribunal deck has no use of any of these cards. If this is the case with your current deck, check out the next paragraph and see how you can make a whole new counter-deck
Making a counter deck
There are many kinds of counter decks as there are many decks to counter – so I won’t get into details about each one, I will just briefly explain how counter decks work and give you an example of it. Every counter deck is essentially two-folded: you will have a part of the deck that will keep you in game and provide enough tempo while the other part of the deck (counter) deals with opponent’s cards. It sounds difficult but it’s actually super easy once you get a hang of it – check out the example of a counter deck:
Deck Code: eyJDYXJkcyI6W3siQ2FyZERlZklkIjoiU2hhbmdDaGkifSx7IkNhcmREZWZJZCI6IlNlcmEifSx7IkNhcmREZWZJZCI6IlNoYWRvd0tpbmcifSx7IkNhcmREZWZJZCI6Ik1lZHVzYSJ9LHsiQ2FyZERlZklkIjoiTWF4aW11cyJ9LHsiQ2FyZERlZklkIjoiQWJzb3JiaW5nTWFuIn0seyJDYXJkRGVmSWQiOiJaYWJ1In0seyJDYXJkRGVmSWQiOiJDcm9zc2JvbmVzIn0seyJDYXJkRGVmSWQiOiJFY2hvIn0seyJDYXJkRGVmSWQiOiJJcm9uTGFkIn0seyJDYXJkRGVmSWQiOiJTdXBlclNrcnVsbCJ9LHsiQ2FyZERlZklkIjoiT21lZ2FSZWQifV19
As you can see in this deck, there are several counter cards: Echo, Shadow-King, Shang-Chi, Super Skrull, Absorbing Man (with Shang-Chi or Shadow-King). The other cards are either support (Zabu and Sera) or tempo cards (Crossbones, Omega Red, Maximus). The whole point of the deck is to surprise the opponent on the final turn – and the deck is extremely flexible. With Zabu and Sera in play, you can throw Omega Red followed by double Shang-Chi on final turn for example. Or you can Throw Super Skrull and Medusa + Maximus on middle location. Although this deck obviously lacks firepower, the amount of hard and soft counters that it has makes it valuable.
This is just an example that’s based on utilizing Zabu and Sera combined effects with 4-cost cards. You can combine those counters with Aero mechanics and make a similar deck based on Aero. Just be sure to follow the same pattern – something has to get you the necessary power in your deck and the other cards need to counter the meta deck that you keep losing against. Good luck!
Dealing with Non-preferential Matchmaking
I’ve seen many players complaining about the “unfair” matchmaking mechanics – saying that sometimes the decks that they face are perfect counters for a deck that they are currently running or that the locations are counters for their decks. I’ve experienced the same feeling many times and although there is no official confirmation on how these mechanics work, I am pretty sure that non-preferential matchmaking does exist and that it’s not just pure bad luck. I’ve noticed that this happens after I climb several ranks while playing the same deck. Whatever the case might be, here are some tips on how to deal with non-preferential matchmaking:
- Replace few cards in your main deck with the cards that you haven’t upgraded a lot. Sure, you can’t do this with every deck but if you can, try to replace at least hard-hitting cards.
- Play a few rounds of Conquest with another deck and then return to regular matches.
- Stop playing with your main deck and play with another one that has completely different mechanics (e.g. Discard, Move etc.)
- Make a deck that you have never played with before and play with that one.
If none of these things work, you should definitely pause and stop playing for a few hours. If you do play, then be on the lookout for opponents snaps – especially the ones on Turn 5. Chances are that a perfect counter for your deck is coming on turn 6 (e.g. Alioth, Cosmo) so you really don’t want to risk your cubes while non-preferential matchmaking is occurring.
Final Thoughts on Marvel Snap Infinite Rank
As you can see, there are many things to account for when climbing the Infinite ladder in Marvel Snap; from cube management to knowing all the meta decks currently that you might be facing. If you are still struggling with hitting that 100 rank, a word of advice: It’s fine if you don’t get there. Nothing special will happen in Infinite rank and to some degree, climbing the ladder is probably even more exciting and offers a more engaging game experience then playing against same meta decks in Infinite rank. If you still want to get there, rework your decks, try some of my tips and come back again next season – I am positive that you will get into Infinite eventually. Cheers and good luck!
Image Credits: Nuverse, Marvel Snap
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