03-09-2024, 05:10 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-09-2024, 05:29 PM by xenosthelegend. Edited 1 time in total.)
Today we will be comparing each ISFL team to a deck archetype in Marvel Snap. Not all of these comparisons will be perfect, and the nature of Snap with its various pocket metas based on your personal rank and collection level as well as the constant tweaking of the game through frequent OTA updates, patches, and new cards releasing weekly may lead to varying results on a week to week and even day to day basis. But without further ado, let’s get into it! Note that deck images provided are just one build of an archetype and some cards may be swapped around due to preference or pocket meta states.
Arizona Outlaws: Hela Lockjaw
Hela decks have been around for a long time, and while they have always had strong high roll potential, the rng aspect of discard in general and the heavy reliance on getting Hela in your hand in time has made it traditionally very inconsistent. The recent addition of Corvus Glaive to the game however really took the deck’s consistency to another level. Not only does Corvus discard two cards for Hela to bring back later, you get an additional max energy that lets you play a 6-drop on turn 5 as well as turn 6. Along with the standard rng effects of Lockjaw or Jubilee cheating out cards early, this really made Hela one of the more dominant decks in the game this past season.
Similarly, the Outlaws have been an above average team the past few seasons, posting three straight 9-7 records coming into Season 46. There were expectations of improvement and getting back into the double digit wins column this season, and things were looking good through 11 weeks as Arizona posted a strong 8-3 record to that point. A week 11 loss put them in a three-way tie for best record in the ASFC with Orange County and Austin, but the team knew something had to be done. Enter the Outlaws version of Corvus Glaive: Remi Musgrave-Smythe. Since the addition of the brutal Mauler OT, the Outlaws have not lost a game. With their sights set on an Ultimus championship, Arizona will have to hope that the rng falls in their favor one last time. (Editor’s note: rng did in fact fall in their favor as they are your Season 46 Ultimus Champions!)
Austin Copperheads: InSheNaut
When it comes to High Evolutionary decks, InSheNaut is often the goto build for consistent, reliable power. It does a good job of building power early with the use of Sunspot, Misty Knight, Nebula, and Cyclops to put the pressure on and somewhat influence where their opponent would want to play (whether that’s on Nebula to keep her from growing or away from Cyclops to avoid getting zapped). Ideally you’ll want to use Magik to add a turn 7 to the game (often using Cosmo or Leech to prevent your opponent from getting rid of it), skip turn 6 to build Sunspot and activate your HE cards, then drop She-Hulk and either Hulk or Infinaut into two separate lanes for a big last turn swing of power. While this deck doesn’t have quite the high roll swing that some other current meta staples bring to the table, it can put up power consistently and win at a reliable rate.
The Austin Copperheads fit this consistency mold very well, as they have managed 9 or 10 wins in 4 of the last 5 seasons. Similar to the InSheNaut deck, the Copperheads have a very balanced attack, able to widdle teams down early with a reliable running game and go over the top late with an explosive passing attack. In fact Austin was the only team in the ISFL to rank in the top 4 in both passing and rushing offense. Team captain Howard Coward took control of things on the ground, rushing for over 1,300 yards on the season. Meanwhile, quarterback Jay Cue III was the only player in the league to throw for over 4,400 yards and 30 touchdowns this season, and the receiving duo of Delores Bickerman and Zaphod Beeblebrox were one of just three duos to catch over 1,000 receiving yards and at least 9 touchdowns a piece. Despite all these achievements, the team struggled after a hot start, losing 6 of their last 10 games and stumbling into the playoffs on a two game losing streak.
Baltimore Hawks: Thanos
Thanos is quite a special card: at the start of the game, you add the 6 infinity stones to your deck. These stones are all 1 cost cards that have effects that are often better than typical 1 cost cards (many of which let you draw more cards, which helps a bit with the consistency lost from having a deck that’s 50% bigger than usual). The most popular Thanos deck these days is a Lockjaw based one. Basically you use energy cheat cards to get Lockjaw down, then feed cheap cards like said infinity stones into Lockjaw to cheat out chonky big boys faster than your opponent can keep up with. The raw power the deck can put up is very high, even if Thanos himself is often not a part of it. Thanos decks tend to go with the mantra “we know you can Shang Chi one of us, but you can’t Shang Chi all of us!”
The Baltimore Hawks were the obvious comp here as they completely steamrolled the league this season. While they didn’t end up with the best record overall, they did have the most points scored and the fewest points allowed. Not everyday a single team has the best offense and the best defense, but this is why Baltimore fits Thanos since it’s the perfect blend of over the top high power cards and strong defensive tech cards that really put a strain on the opponent. Sure the recent Lockjaw nerf brought Thanos decks down a peg (and maybe that’s the real reason Baltimore couldn’t get things done in the playoffs), but both the deck and the team are still quite formidable, and it wouldn’t be a shock to see Baltimore back at the top again next season.
Berlin Fire Salamanders: Cerebro 3
Cerebro decks have always been a little bit of a memey kind of deck, as you’re essentially locked into one power number across the board. While you can choose just about any power number and utilize broad support cards such as Green Goblin, Hobgoblin, and Ironman to fill in spots as necessary, typically the most popular of Cerebro decks are Cerebro 2, Cerebro 3, and Cerebro 5. Of the group, Cerebro 3 is usually the most consistent (for as consistent a Cerebro deck can be) as you can manipulate your cards power to 3 using Bast and Valkyrie. You also have access to location control in the forms of Scarlet Witch, Rhino, or even Quake, which can be very important as there are some locations that just straight up ruin your gameplan. Finally you get access to some very strong tech cards in Mobius, Cosmo, Killmonger, Shang Chi, Juggernaut, Gambit if you’re feeling spicy, and the previously mentioned Valkyrie. Choose a set that fits your needs best and roll the dice that 28 power can win you two lanes (well one lane and whichever lane you end up Valkyrieing in the end).
The Berlin Fire Salamanders perfectly embody Cerebro 3 because overall, they just aren’t all that good on a game in and game out basis. Sure they can make the plays necessary to sneak out some strong wins here and there, but their defense is just too vulnerable to too many things. In addition to giving up the most points in the NSFC, Berlin forced the fewest turnovers of any team with a mere 19 FF + Ints.That’s not to say that the Fire Salamanders were completely terrible all the way around, as they did have some talented players put up some strong seasons. Emile Charles in particular showed off his skills as he led all players in touchdown catches with 13. His 14.3 yards per catch was also the highest among all receivers to go over 1,000 receiving yards this season. Players like Charles can make the difference in winning a game, it’s just a shame that they couldn’t make that difference often enough.
Cape Town Crash: Sera Control
Sera Control is one of those decks that people fall back on when they don’t know what to play in the current meta but still want to win games. It specializes on using cheap cards to establish some board presence, drop Sera on turn 5 to discount their cards, then unleash a massive turn 6 with various tech cards and cheap high power cards with drawbacks that are less of an issue at the end of the game in order to nerf the opponent’s power while dropping a bunch on their own. If you like tech cards, this is the deck for you, as typically more than half the deck is all about making it difficult on your opponent or taking out their key cards entirely. It’s been a strong meta staple for a long time, though it’s overall effectiveness has diminished a bit over time as more and more decks can go wide with big power.
Cape Town Crash is the perfect comp to Sera Control because of their defensive mindset. Despite posting just a 7-9 record this season, they were 3rd in the league in points allowed. In addition, despite 7-9 records the past two seasons, they went through a 5 season stretch of 10+ wins, similar to how Sera decks were dominant in the meta in the past. The Crash are loaded in defensive talent, including Legs McMillan who led the league in PDs as well as tied for the lead amongst cornerbacks in interceptions. Cape Town also features the forced fumble leader in Rolud Onyxgut as well as the leader amongst cornerbacks in Luigi Numberone. And we still haven’t even mentioned Justin Willis, who is tied for second in sacks! Such a dominant display of defense is the perfect fit for a Sera Control deck.
Chicago Butchers: Heli Discard
Not to be confused with Hela Discard, Heli Discard is a newish take upon the old Dependable Discard archetype that features Collector and Helicarrier as an extra avenue to build power through discarding. The deck is a fairly standard discard shell, aiming to discard Swarm, Apocalypse, and Helicarrier to power up Morbius and Collector to crazy levels. This iteration also features newer cards Proxima Midnight (to get free power on the board) and Corvus Glaive (primarily for the double discard effect, though sometimes you can make use of the extra energy if you get some good stuff from Helicarrier). The deck doesn’t reach quite as high as some of these other decks, but all the various playlines it can employ give it a level of consistency that it was missing since the America Chavez rework.
The Chicago Butchers are a solid fit for this archetype because it was a once proud franchise that recently went through a stretch of bad seasons (similar to how Dependable Discard suffered after the America Chavez change). Similarly, the team has started to pick up steam recently, being middle of the pack the last two seasons. And, in the same sense that Corvus and Proxima really boosted the deck very recently, the Butchers actually ended the season on a 4 game winning streak. Will this momentum carry them into success next season? Or is this just a fluke flash in the pan and they’ll regress back to mediocrity again? Only time will tell.
Colorado Yeti: Phoenix Force
Phoenix Force is a bit of a high-roll deck where if you get one of your playlines, you’re gonna put up numbers, but you really need those playlines to be effective. The primary goal is to use Phoenix Force to bring back a Multiple Man and utilize cards like Ghost Spider and Doctor Strange to get enough copies to just flood the whole board with Multiple Men. Hitting Human Torch with Phoenix Force is the secondary option, as Human Torch can get to a crazy high power level this way, though you’ll need Arnim Zola to split him in order to get that power across two lanes. This variant is quite vulnerable to Killmonger and somewhat vulnerable to Shang Chi, though Venom can protect from the former. If you fail to draw Phoenix Force (or Human Torch/Multiple Man), the back-up plan is simply Shuri into Nimrod, then using two of Carnage, Dethlok, and Venom to flood Nimrods across the board. Definitely a fragile deck, but can be fun and effective when it works.
The biggest similarity between Phoenix Force and the Colorado Yeti is their streakiness. You can definitely go on long droughts of losing with this deck, like the Yeti started their season 1-8. However, this streakiness soars both ways, as Colorado followed that abysmal start up by winning 5 of their next 6 games, including impressive wins at Austin and Saratosa. Phoenix Force is a strange blend of movement and destroy based cards, and there are many locations in Snap that favor both of those archetypes. Thus it may be no surprise to the rest of us here that Colorado was surprisingly effective on the road this season, relatively speaking of course. The Yeti went 3-5 both at home and on the road, providing both Austin and Saratosa half of their home losses this season. They may not be the best team, but they can still catch you by surprise.
Honolulu Hahalua: Mister Negative
Mister Negative is the epitome of an “all or nothing” kind of deck. The ideal playline for a Mister Negative deck is to play Mister Negative on 3 (with the help of Zabu or Ravonna Renslayer) or at least 4, drop Jane Foster on 5 to draw all of your newly negatived cards, then just dump your entire hand on 6 for insane power. For those who aren’t familiar with Marvel Snap, Mister Negative is a card that swaps the cost and power of all the cards remaining in your deck. So you fill your deck with strong cards like Iron Man, Knull, and Arnim Zola who have a high cost, zero power, but a super strong effect, swap the cost and power with Mister Negative, draw them all with Jane Foster, then flood the board with them to put up power that very few decks can come close to matching. Of course, if you don’t draw Mister Negative early, then you’re just stuck with a bunch of high cost cards and not enough synergy to get them to overpower your opponent.
Honolulu fits a Mister Negative deck perfectly because they’ve had some big high rolls in recent seasons, but utterly pooped the bed this season. To call this season a disappointment is an insult to teams who have a disappointing season. Many people pegged Honolulu as the top team in the ISFL this season. Instead, they completely sold, both figuratively and literally, and fell to an abysmal 2-14 record. A disappointing week 1 loss by 1 point to the Austin Copperheads snowballed into a 5 game losing streak to start the season. Although they squeaked out a 2 point win in week 6 against New York, the damage had already been done, and Honolulu decided it was time to sell out. The firesale was on as they proceeded to make 6 trades over the coming weeks, selling many players off for picks and beginning to rebuild for the future. Perhaps they will successfully draw Mister Negative early in the game next season…
Orange County Otters: Ongoing Tribunal
Living Tribunal decks primarily come in two flavors: Hela Tribunal and Ongoing Tribunal (although I have seen some shenanigans with a Phoenix Force Tribunal showing up more recently). We’re going with the Ongoing Tribunal variant here as we already have Hela and Phoenix Force based decks already. Ongoing Tribunal is actually one of my more favorite decks to play recently. It specializes on using cards like Zabu, Ravonna Renslayer, and Sera to make the rest of their deck cheaper, utilizing Magik to add a turn 7 to the game, then make use of all that to stack Iron Man, Onslaught, and Living Tribunal together to put massive power across the board. Mystique is a key component in this, as doubling up Onslaught onto an Iron Man gives an unbeatable amount of power, or even double Onslaught onto a Sera makes everything so cheap you can play your whole hand out. You can also use Mystique to double Iron Man in a pinch for a pseudo-Onslaught effect. Throw in Jubilee and Iron Lad for the reach to fairly reliably access every card in your deck and you have something that can outpower any deck in the game. Just… hope they don’t run Enchantress.
The Orange County Otters are a perfect fit for this deck because they have one of the highest scoring offenses in the entire ISFL. In fact, they had the highest score in a given week more than any other team this season, pacing all teams in points in 5 weeks this season. This was punctuated in week 5, where they dropped a whopping 51 points on the New Orleans Secondline, the highest score any team put up this season. The Otters offense was a huge reason for their success this season and featured a multi-faceted attack that was tough to beat. It all starts with Lloyd Bannings, who led the ISFL in passing touchdowns. Of course, if you sell out on the pass, you gotta face Reginald Shrubbery, who led the ISFL in rushing touchdowns. But really, if we’re talking offense here, we gotta talk about Walrus Jones, who led the ISFL in pancakes. When you got stars like this, it’s definitely a tall task to stop this offense.
New Orleans Secondline: Loki
Lowkey, Loki is one of the most dependable decks in the game. The main premise of the deck is utilizing cards like Snowguard and Agent Coulson to fill your hand with more cards, then either stay the course and drop Devil Dinosaur for big power, or if you need an influx, play Loki and utilize your opponents cards against them. Quinjet is an essential part of this deck, either for further reducing the cards you receive from Loki or getting a discount on the cards generated from your other card generators. The deck is tough to play against because of the random aspect of it: you never know what Agent Coulson is gonna give them. Loki itself can be a mixed bag: most of the time getting a bunch of your opponent’s cards at a big discount is a strong play, but some decks rely on specific combos to the point that you may not get a workable set of cards from it. Still, the overall package is often enough to be a strong contender in many matchups.
Admittedly, not all of these comparisons are perfect fits. Many of these decks are pretty good overall, and it’s less fun talking about decks that are actually bad, so some of these teams on the low end are getting better comparisons than they probably deserve. Having said that, this isn’t the worst comparison either. As alluded to previously, Loki replaces your hand with cards from your opponent’s starting deck, though with a reduced cost. So it’s fitting that when New Orleans made a trade with Honolulu in week 7, they immediately went on a 4 game winning streak. That’s about where these comparisons end though, since those were the only 4 games the Secondline won. Still, sometimes it’s more about the fun you’re having than actually winning, and the randomness of Loki makes it a lot of fun for people who enjoy that kind of thing.
New York Silverbacks: Anni Hawk
Anni Hawk is a subset of a more broad Zabu Good Cards kind of deck. Basically you just package together small groups of good cards together and hope for the best. Zabu is a key figure in these kinds of decks as it’s a 2 cost card that reduces all your 4 cost cards by 1. This allows you to play a 4 drop on turn 3 and two 4 drops on turn 6, which can give you a strong swing. For this particular archetype, we’re focusing on two core packages of cards: Annihilus and Darkhawk. The Annihilus package includes the Hood and Sentry, which if you’re maximizing Annihilus, are effectively two 1 drops for 9 power and a 4 drop (3 with Zabu) for 20 power. Not too shabby at all. Annihilus pushes all of your negative power cards to your opponent’s side; the Hood has -3 power itself but gives you a 1 cost Demon with 6 power while Sentry has a big 10 power with the “downside” of generating a -10 power void on your right lane (which Annihilus turns into a big swing in your favor). Meanwhile the Darkhawk package includes Korg, Rock Slide, and often Black Widow. Darkhawk grows in power based upon the number of cards in your opponent’s deck. Korg and Rock Slide add useless Rocks to their deck while Black Widow stops them from drawing a card. Sprinkle in some tech cards and you’ve got the foundation of a strong deck (though it did get knocked down a little with the recent Darkhawk nerf).
The New York Silverbacks are a solid fit for this deck because they’ve been a strong team in the past that has slowly been slipping in the ranks and finally fell below .500 this past season. Granted, a lot of their success this season was concentrated upon a 5 game win streak towards the end of the year, but they still had some impressive wins against Sarasota and Austin. The offensive capabilities of the team held up their end of the bargain, for the most part, as captain Blaine Falco was second in the league in passing yards while Frank Dux held his own on the ground by tying for the league lead in rushing touchdowns. Granted, Falco’s completion percentage was amongst the worst in the league, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers! Much like how Snap players are still feeling out how to best utilize post-nerf Darkhawk, the Silverbacks are still trying to feel out how to best navigate their path into the future.
San Jose SaberCats: Destroy
If you want a deck that’s reliable, performs well, and has the potential for a big high roll, then Destroy is your deck. The premise is simple: play cards that want to be destroyed and destroy them will cards that destroy! Ideally you want to destroy Deadpool, who starts at just 1 power but every time he’s destroyed, he doubles his power and returns to your hand. So you use cards like Nico Minoru, Forge, or Hulk Buster to boost his initial power, destroy him a few times, then suddenly you got a monster 1 drop ready for the taking! Play him late with Venom (who gains all the power of the cards he destroys), then pop off at the end with Knull (has power equal to that of ALL cards destroyed) and Death (whose cost goes down by 1 per card that is destroyed) and you can pop off for a huge amount of power at the end of the game. Plus, a lot of locations naturally favor destroy with either destroy based themes or duplication themes (getting multiples of your buffed cards really tilts things in your favor). Do note that it’s overall effectiveness has gone done with recent nerfs to Forge and Hulk Buster, but it’s still reliable enough to get the job done.
Finding a good comp for Destroy was a bit hard, but I feel the San Jose SaberCats fit the bill. Overall they are a bit above average, taking care of business against bad teams but struggling a bit against good ones. One notable thing about them is they were actually better on the road than at home, posting a winning record in other team’s stadiums. This is similar to how Destroy gets a nice boost from certain locations: sometimes things out of your control tilt in your favor. They also followed a similar power curve as Destroy this season, starting the season with a 5 game win streak before struggling to a 4-7 record after, similar to how Destroy was dominant early on but slowly got brought more inline with card nerfs. If we want to talk players here, we could mention the fact that Cruella de Ville led the ISFL in tackles. There is a more fun fact to talk about here though: running backs Maple Dogwood and Kit Fisto both had exactly 656 rushing yards. Sadly, Fisto took one additional carry to get his yards, so it isn’t a fully synced up stat line, but it’s still impressive nonetheless.
Sarasota Sailfish: Galactus Junk
Let’s just get this out of the way now: Galactus Junk is an annoying as hell deck to go against. Galactus is personally a card I just hate on principle because it affects the game in such a negative manner that it’s up there with Leech and Alioth on cards that are just pure unfun to play against. People play card games to play their cards, and all of these cards limit or prevent your opponent from playing the game. Back to the deck, you remember that Annihilus package I touched on a bit earlier? Take that and ramp it to 11. This deck features that along with cards like Selene to push more negative power and the combo of Green Goblin and Hobgoblin to directly throw negative power to your opponent. The ideal Galactus playline is to just shove a bunch of negative cards onto the opponent in a lane that’s empty on your side and drop Galactus there to win the game. Galactus just completely removes the other two locations from the game, but he can be the only card at the location you play him at, and you must be winning said location, so that’s why you’ll need to stick your negative power cards onto the opponent’s side first. This is definitely the deck you want to play if you want to be an annoying jerk.
Speaking of annoying jerks, we have the Sarasota Sailfish! (or as @roquefort would call them, Saratosa). The Sailfish were an interesting team this season, managing a record just over .500 but still placing 2nd in the NFSC thanks to a strong second half that saw them win 6 of their last 8 games. Saratosa was the definition of playing up (and down) to their opponents. Of their 7 losses, 6 of them came to teams with a worse record than them. On the flip side, they were undefeated against the conference leaders of the ISFL, winning both games against the Baltimore Hawks and their one game against the Arizona Outlaws. Fittingly, they were knocked out of the playoffs by yet another team that had a worse record than them. Sometimes things just don’t make any sense.
Yellowknife Wraiths: Lockdown
If you like control decks, then Lockdown is the deck for you. Lockdown tends to use cards like Storm and Professor X to lockdown a location, making it unplayable for either player. Then they’ll utilize cards that can cheat power into those locked down locations to win them outright. Storm turns a location into Flooding, which gives both players one more turn to play cards at that location, while Professor X completely locks out his location, making it impossible to play any more cards there (with the one exception of Jeff!, who ignores everything and can be played anywhere he wants). Most Lockdown decks these days rely more on Storm, then use cards like Vision or Jeff! to move into the lane after it’s already closed off or Doctor Doom to spawn token cards there. They also tend to use cheap but strong early game cards like Nebula or Medusa to put a lot of potential power on the location before locking it down. Ultimately, Lockdown wants to limit you from playing your cards the way you want to rather than trying to beat you in a straight up power race.
Finally, we come to this season’s Cinderella story: the Yellowknife Wraiths.The Wraiths fit well here because Lockdown tends to be a more defensive oriented deck, and Yellowknife was a more defensive oriented team, ranking in the top half for points allowed while falling near the bottom in points scored.A key component of their defense came in the form of Mo Gago, who led all defensive linemen in tackles for a loss. Offensively, the Wraiths were led by Money Tolliver, who led the league in rushing yards. The biggest story though is just how much things changed from one season to the next. In season 45, Yellowknife was the worst team in the league. This season? They went all the way to the Ultimus! Of course, they didn’t win the Ultimus, and they lucked into getting there a bit with two overtime wins in the playoffs to get there. And don’t forget they were only 8-8 in the regular season but still made the playoffs thanks to a weak conference and a favorable tie-breaker. Nonetheless, no other team can say they lost the Ultimus this season, and really that’s what’s important here.
Arizona Outlaws: Hela Lockjaw
Hela decks have been around for a long time, and while they have always had strong high roll potential, the rng aspect of discard in general and the heavy reliance on getting Hela in your hand in time has made it traditionally very inconsistent. The recent addition of Corvus Glaive to the game however really took the deck’s consistency to another level. Not only does Corvus discard two cards for Hela to bring back later, you get an additional max energy that lets you play a 6-drop on turn 5 as well as turn 6. Along with the standard rng effects of Lockjaw or Jubilee cheating out cards early, this really made Hela one of the more dominant decks in the game this past season.
Similarly, the Outlaws have been an above average team the past few seasons, posting three straight 9-7 records coming into Season 46. There were expectations of improvement and getting back into the double digit wins column this season, and things were looking good through 11 weeks as Arizona posted a strong 8-3 record to that point. A week 11 loss put them in a three-way tie for best record in the ASFC with Orange County and Austin, but the team knew something had to be done. Enter the Outlaws version of Corvus Glaive: Remi Musgrave-Smythe. Since the addition of the brutal Mauler OT, the Outlaws have not lost a game. With their sights set on an Ultimus championship, Arizona will have to hope that the rng falls in their favor one last time. (Editor’s note: rng did in fact fall in their favor as they are your Season 46 Ultimus Champions!)
Austin Copperheads: InSheNaut
When it comes to High Evolutionary decks, InSheNaut is often the goto build for consistent, reliable power. It does a good job of building power early with the use of Sunspot, Misty Knight, Nebula, and Cyclops to put the pressure on and somewhat influence where their opponent would want to play (whether that’s on Nebula to keep her from growing or away from Cyclops to avoid getting zapped). Ideally you’ll want to use Magik to add a turn 7 to the game (often using Cosmo or Leech to prevent your opponent from getting rid of it), skip turn 6 to build Sunspot and activate your HE cards, then drop She-Hulk and either Hulk or Infinaut into two separate lanes for a big last turn swing of power. While this deck doesn’t have quite the high roll swing that some other current meta staples bring to the table, it can put up power consistently and win at a reliable rate.
The Austin Copperheads fit this consistency mold very well, as they have managed 9 or 10 wins in 4 of the last 5 seasons. Similar to the InSheNaut deck, the Copperheads have a very balanced attack, able to widdle teams down early with a reliable running game and go over the top late with an explosive passing attack. In fact Austin was the only team in the ISFL to rank in the top 4 in both passing and rushing offense. Team captain Howard Coward took control of things on the ground, rushing for over 1,300 yards on the season. Meanwhile, quarterback Jay Cue III was the only player in the league to throw for over 4,400 yards and 30 touchdowns this season, and the receiving duo of Delores Bickerman and Zaphod Beeblebrox were one of just three duos to catch over 1,000 receiving yards and at least 9 touchdowns a piece. Despite all these achievements, the team struggled after a hot start, losing 6 of their last 10 games and stumbling into the playoffs on a two game losing streak.
Baltimore Hawks: Thanos
Thanos is quite a special card: at the start of the game, you add the 6 infinity stones to your deck. These stones are all 1 cost cards that have effects that are often better than typical 1 cost cards (many of which let you draw more cards, which helps a bit with the consistency lost from having a deck that’s 50% bigger than usual). The most popular Thanos deck these days is a Lockjaw based one. Basically you use energy cheat cards to get Lockjaw down, then feed cheap cards like said infinity stones into Lockjaw to cheat out chonky big boys faster than your opponent can keep up with. The raw power the deck can put up is very high, even if Thanos himself is often not a part of it. Thanos decks tend to go with the mantra “we know you can Shang Chi one of us, but you can’t Shang Chi all of us!”
The Baltimore Hawks were the obvious comp here as they completely steamrolled the league this season. While they didn’t end up with the best record overall, they did have the most points scored and the fewest points allowed. Not everyday a single team has the best offense and the best defense, but this is why Baltimore fits Thanos since it’s the perfect blend of over the top high power cards and strong defensive tech cards that really put a strain on the opponent. Sure the recent Lockjaw nerf brought Thanos decks down a peg (and maybe that’s the real reason Baltimore couldn’t get things done in the playoffs), but both the deck and the team are still quite formidable, and it wouldn’t be a shock to see Baltimore back at the top again next season.
Berlin Fire Salamanders: Cerebro 3
Cerebro decks have always been a little bit of a memey kind of deck, as you’re essentially locked into one power number across the board. While you can choose just about any power number and utilize broad support cards such as Green Goblin, Hobgoblin, and Ironman to fill in spots as necessary, typically the most popular of Cerebro decks are Cerebro 2, Cerebro 3, and Cerebro 5. Of the group, Cerebro 3 is usually the most consistent (for as consistent a Cerebro deck can be) as you can manipulate your cards power to 3 using Bast and Valkyrie. You also have access to location control in the forms of Scarlet Witch, Rhino, or even Quake, which can be very important as there are some locations that just straight up ruin your gameplan. Finally you get access to some very strong tech cards in Mobius, Cosmo, Killmonger, Shang Chi, Juggernaut, Gambit if you’re feeling spicy, and the previously mentioned Valkyrie. Choose a set that fits your needs best and roll the dice that 28 power can win you two lanes (well one lane and whichever lane you end up Valkyrieing in the end).
The Berlin Fire Salamanders perfectly embody Cerebro 3 because overall, they just aren’t all that good on a game in and game out basis. Sure they can make the plays necessary to sneak out some strong wins here and there, but their defense is just too vulnerable to too many things. In addition to giving up the most points in the NSFC, Berlin forced the fewest turnovers of any team with a mere 19 FF + Ints.That’s not to say that the Fire Salamanders were completely terrible all the way around, as they did have some talented players put up some strong seasons. Emile Charles in particular showed off his skills as he led all players in touchdown catches with 13. His 14.3 yards per catch was also the highest among all receivers to go over 1,000 receiving yards this season. Players like Charles can make the difference in winning a game, it’s just a shame that they couldn’t make that difference often enough.
Cape Town Crash: Sera Control
Sera Control is one of those decks that people fall back on when they don’t know what to play in the current meta but still want to win games. It specializes on using cheap cards to establish some board presence, drop Sera on turn 5 to discount their cards, then unleash a massive turn 6 with various tech cards and cheap high power cards with drawbacks that are less of an issue at the end of the game in order to nerf the opponent’s power while dropping a bunch on their own. If you like tech cards, this is the deck for you, as typically more than half the deck is all about making it difficult on your opponent or taking out their key cards entirely. It’s been a strong meta staple for a long time, though it’s overall effectiveness has diminished a bit over time as more and more decks can go wide with big power.
Cape Town Crash is the perfect comp to Sera Control because of their defensive mindset. Despite posting just a 7-9 record this season, they were 3rd in the league in points allowed. In addition, despite 7-9 records the past two seasons, they went through a 5 season stretch of 10+ wins, similar to how Sera decks were dominant in the meta in the past. The Crash are loaded in defensive talent, including Legs McMillan who led the league in PDs as well as tied for the lead amongst cornerbacks in interceptions. Cape Town also features the forced fumble leader in Rolud Onyxgut as well as the leader amongst cornerbacks in Luigi Numberone. And we still haven’t even mentioned Justin Willis, who is tied for second in sacks! Such a dominant display of defense is the perfect fit for a Sera Control deck.
Chicago Butchers: Heli Discard
Not to be confused with Hela Discard, Heli Discard is a newish take upon the old Dependable Discard archetype that features Collector and Helicarrier as an extra avenue to build power through discarding. The deck is a fairly standard discard shell, aiming to discard Swarm, Apocalypse, and Helicarrier to power up Morbius and Collector to crazy levels. This iteration also features newer cards Proxima Midnight (to get free power on the board) and Corvus Glaive (primarily for the double discard effect, though sometimes you can make use of the extra energy if you get some good stuff from Helicarrier). The deck doesn’t reach quite as high as some of these other decks, but all the various playlines it can employ give it a level of consistency that it was missing since the America Chavez rework.
The Chicago Butchers are a solid fit for this archetype because it was a once proud franchise that recently went through a stretch of bad seasons (similar to how Dependable Discard suffered after the America Chavez change). Similarly, the team has started to pick up steam recently, being middle of the pack the last two seasons. And, in the same sense that Corvus and Proxima really boosted the deck very recently, the Butchers actually ended the season on a 4 game winning streak. Will this momentum carry them into success next season? Or is this just a fluke flash in the pan and they’ll regress back to mediocrity again? Only time will tell.
Colorado Yeti: Phoenix Force
Phoenix Force is a bit of a high-roll deck where if you get one of your playlines, you’re gonna put up numbers, but you really need those playlines to be effective. The primary goal is to use Phoenix Force to bring back a Multiple Man and utilize cards like Ghost Spider and Doctor Strange to get enough copies to just flood the whole board with Multiple Men. Hitting Human Torch with Phoenix Force is the secondary option, as Human Torch can get to a crazy high power level this way, though you’ll need Arnim Zola to split him in order to get that power across two lanes. This variant is quite vulnerable to Killmonger and somewhat vulnerable to Shang Chi, though Venom can protect from the former. If you fail to draw Phoenix Force (or Human Torch/Multiple Man), the back-up plan is simply Shuri into Nimrod, then using two of Carnage, Dethlok, and Venom to flood Nimrods across the board. Definitely a fragile deck, but can be fun and effective when it works.
The biggest similarity between Phoenix Force and the Colorado Yeti is their streakiness. You can definitely go on long droughts of losing with this deck, like the Yeti started their season 1-8. However, this streakiness soars both ways, as Colorado followed that abysmal start up by winning 5 of their next 6 games, including impressive wins at Austin and Saratosa. Phoenix Force is a strange blend of movement and destroy based cards, and there are many locations in Snap that favor both of those archetypes. Thus it may be no surprise to the rest of us here that Colorado was surprisingly effective on the road this season, relatively speaking of course. The Yeti went 3-5 both at home and on the road, providing both Austin and Saratosa half of their home losses this season. They may not be the best team, but they can still catch you by surprise.
Honolulu Hahalua: Mister Negative
Mister Negative is the epitome of an “all or nothing” kind of deck. The ideal playline for a Mister Negative deck is to play Mister Negative on 3 (with the help of Zabu or Ravonna Renslayer) or at least 4, drop Jane Foster on 5 to draw all of your newly negatived cards, then just dump your entire hand on 6 for insane power. For those who aren’t familiar with Marvel Snap, Mister Negative is a card that swaps the cost and power of all the cards remaining in your deck. So you fill your deck with strong cards like Iron Man, Knull, and Arnim Zola who have a high cost, zero power, but a super strong effect, swap the cost and power with Mister Negative, draw them all with Jane Foster, then flood the board with them to put up power that very few decks can come close to matching. Of course, if you don’t draw Mister Negative early, then you’re just stuck with a bunch of high cost cards and not enough synergy to get them to overpower your opponent.
Honolulu fits a Mister Negative deck perfectly because they’ve had some big high rolls in recent seasons, but utterly pooped the bed this season. To call this season a disappointment is an insult to teams who have a disappointing season. Many people pegged Honolulu as the top team in the ISFL this season. Instead, they completely sold, both figuratively and literally, and fell to an abysmal 2-14 record. A disappointing week 1 loss by 1 point to the Austin Copperheads snowballed into a 5 game losing streak to start the season. Although they squeaked out a 2 point win in week 6 against New York, the damage had already been done, and Honolulu decided it was time to sell out. The firesale was on as they proceeded to make 6 trades over the coming weeks, selling many players off for picks and beginning to rebuild for the future. Perhaps they will successfully draw Mister Negative early in the game next season…
Orange County Otters: Ongoing Tribunal
Living Tribunal decks primarily come in two flavors: Hela Tribunal and Ongoing Tribunal (although I have seen some shenanigans with a Phoenix Force Tribunal showing up more recently). We’re going with the Ongoing Tribunal variant here as we already have Hela and Phoenix Force based decks already. Ongoing Tribunal is actually one of my more favorite decks to play recently. It specializes on using cards like Zabu, Ravonna Renslayer, and Sera to make the rest of their deck cheaper, utilizing Magik to add a turn 7 to the game, then make use of all that to stack Iron Man, Onslaught, and Living Tribunal together to put massive power across the board. Mystique is a key component in this, as doubling up Onslaught onto an Iron Man gives an unbeatable amount of power, or even double Onslaught onto a Sera makes everything so cheap you can play your whole hand out. You can also use Mystique to double Iron Man in a pinch for a pseudo-Onslaught effect. Throw in Jubilee and Iron Lad for the reach to fairly reliably access every card in your deck and you have something that can outpower any deck in the game. Just… hope they don’t run Enchantress.
The Orange County Otters are a perfect fit for this deck because they have one of the highest scoring offenses in the entire ISFL. In fact, they had the highest score in a given week more than any other team this season, pacing all teams in points in 5 weeks this season. This was punctuated in week 5, where they dropped a whopping 51 points on the New Orleans Secondline, the highest score any team put up this season. The Otters offense was a huge reason for their success this season and featured a multi-faceted attack that was tough to beat. It all starts with Lloyd Bannings, who led the ISFL in passing touchdowns. Of course, if you sell out on the pass, you gotta face Reginald Shrubbery, who led the ISFL in rushing touchdowns. But really, if we’re talking offense here, we gotta talk about Walrus Jones, who led the ISFL in pancakes. When you got stars like this, it’s definitely a tall task to stop this offense.
New Orleans Secondline: Loki
Lowkey, Loki is one of the most dependable decks in the game. The main premise of the deck is utilizing cards like Snowguard and Agent Coulson to fill your hand with more cards, then either stay the course and drop Devil Dinosaur for big power, or if you need an influx, play Loki and utilize your opponents cards against them. Quinjet is an essential part of this deck, either for further reducing the cards you receive from Loki or getting a discount on the cards generated from your other card generators. The deck is tough to play against because of the random aspect of it: you never know what Agent Coulson is gonna give them. Loki itself can be a mixed bag: most of the time getting a bunch of your opponent’s cards at a big discount is a strong play, but some decks rely on specific combos to the point that you may not get a workable set of cards from it. Still, the overall package is often enough to be a strong contender in many matchups.
Admittedly, not all of these comparisons are perfect fits. Many of these decks are pretty good overall, and it’s less fun talking about decks that are actually bad, so some of these teams on the low end are getting better comparisons than they probably deserve. Having said that, this isn’t the worst comparison either. As alluded to previously, Loki replaces your hand with cards from your opponent’s starting deck, though with a reduced cost. So it’s fitting that when New Orleans made a trade with Honolulu in week 7, they immediately went on a 4 game winning streak. That’s about where these comparisons end though, since those were the only 4 games the Secondline won. Still, sometimes it’s more about the fun you’re having than actually winning, and the randomness of Loki makes it a lot of fun for people who enjoy that kind of thing.
New York Silverbacks: Anni Hawk
Anni Hawk is a subset of a more broad Zabu Good Cards kind of deck. Basically you just package together small groups of good cards together and hope for the best. Zabu is a key figure in these kinds of decks as it’s a 2 cost card that reduces all your 4 cost cards by 1. This allows you to play a 4 drop on turn 3 and two 4 drops on turn 6, which can give you a strong swing. For this particular archetype, we’re focusing on two core packages of cards: Annihilus and Darkhawk. The Annihilus package includes the Hood and Sentry, which if you’re maximizing Annihilus, are effectively two 1 drops for 9 power and a 4 drop (3 with Zabu) for 20 power. Not too shabby at all. Annihilus pushes all of your negative power cards to your opponent’s side; the Hood has -3 power itself but gives you a 1 cost Demon with 6 power while Sentry has a big 10 power with the “downside” of generating a -10 power void on your right lane (which Annihilus turns into a big swing in your favor). Meanwhile the Darkhawk package includes Korg, Rock Slide, and often Black Widow. Darkhawk grows in power based upon the number of cards in your opponent’s deck. Korg and Rock Slide add useless Rocks to their deck while Black Widow stops them from drawing a card. Sprinkle in some tech cards and you’ve got the foundation of a strong deck (though it did get knocked down a little with the recent Darkhawk nerf).
The New York Silverbacks are a solid fit for this deck because they’ve been a strong team in the past that has slowly been slipping in the ranks and finally fell below .500 this past season. Granted, a lot of their success this season was concentrated upon a 5 game win streak towards the end of the year, but they still had some impressive wins against Sarasota and Austin. The offensive capabilities of the team held up their end of the bargain, for the most part, as captain Blaine Falco was second in the league in passing yards while Frank Dux held his own on the ground by tying for the league lead in rushing touchdowns. Granted, Falco’s completion percentage was amongst the worst in the league, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers! Much like how Snap players are still feeling out how to best utilize post-nerf Darkhawk, the Silverbacks are still trying to feel out how to best navigate their path into the future.
San Jose SaberCats: Destroy
If you want a deck that’s reliable, performs well, and has the potential for a big high roll, then Destroy is your deck. The premise is simple: play cards that want to be destroyed and destroy them will cards that destroy! Ideally you want to destroy Deadpool, who starts at just 1 power but every time he’s destroyed, he doubles his power and returns to your hand. So you use cards like Nico Minoru, Forge, or Hulk Buster to boost his initial power, destroy him a few times, then suddenly you got a monster 1 drop ready for the taking! Play him late with Venom (who gains all the power of the cards he destroys), then pop off at the end with Knull (has power equal to that of ALL cards destroyed) and Death (whose cost goes down by 1 per card that is destroyed) and you can pop off for a huge amount of power at the end of the game. Plus, a lot of locations naturally favor destroy with either destroy based themes or duplication themes (getting multiples of your buffed cards really tilts things in your favor). Do note that it’s overall effectiveness has gone done with recent nerfs to Forge and Hulk Buster, but it’s still reliable enough to get the job done.
Finding a good comp for Destroy was a bit hard, but I feel the San Jose SaberCats fit the bill. Overall they are a bit above average, taking care of business against bad teams but struggling a bit against good ones. One notable thing about them is they were actually better on the road than at home, posting a winning record in other team’s stadiums. This is similar to how Destroy gets a nice boost from certain locations: sometimes things out of your control tilt in your favor. They also followed a similar power curve as Destroy this season, starting the season with a 5 game win streak before struggling to a 4-7 record after, similar to how Destroy was dominant early on but slowly got brought more inline with card nerfs. If we want to talk players here, we could mention the fact that Cruella de Ville led the ISFL in tackles. There is a more fun fact to talk about here though: running backs Maple Dogwood and Kit Fisto both had exactly 656 rushing yards. Sadly, Fisto took one additional carry to get his yards, so it isn’t a fully synced up stat line, but it’s still impressive nonetheless.
Sarasota Sailfish: Galactus Junk
Let’s just get this out of the way now: Galactus Junk is an annoying as hell deck to go against. Galactus is personally a card I just hate on principle because it affects the game in such a negative manner that it’s up there with Leech and Alioth on cards that are just pure unfun to play against. People play card games to play their cards, and all of these cards limit or prevent your opponent from playing the game. Back to the deck, you remember that Annihilus package I touched on a bit earlier? Take that and ramp it to 11. This deck features that along with cards like Selene to push more negative power and the combo of Green Goblin and Hobgoblin to directly throw negative power to your opponent. The ideal Galactus playline is to just shove a bunch of negative cards onto the opponent in a lane that’s empty on your side and drop Galactus there to win the game. Galactus just completely removes the other two locations from the game, but he can be the only card at the location you play him at, and you must be winning said location, so that’s why you’ll need to stick your negative power cards onto the opponent’s side first. This is definitely the deck you want to play if you want to be an annoying jerk.
Speaking of annoying jerks, we have the Sarasota Sailfish! (or as @roquefort would call them, Saratosa). The Sailfish were an interesting team this season, managing a record just over .500 but still placing 2nd in the NFSC thanks to a strong second half that saw them win 6 of their last 8 games. Saratosa was the definition of playing up (and down) to their opponents. Of their 7 losses, 6 of them came to teams with a worse record than them. On the flip side, they were undefeated against the conference leaders of the ISFL, winning both games against the Baltimore Hawks and their one game against the Arizona Outlaws. Fittingly, they were knocked out of the playoffs by yet another team that had a worse record than them. Sometimes things just don’t make any sense.
Yellowknife Wraiths: Lockdown
If you like control decks, then Lockdown is the deck for you. Lockdown tends to use cards like Storm and Professor X to lockdown a location, making it unplayable for either player. Then they’ll utilize cards that can cheat power into those locked down locations to win them outright. Storm turns a location into Flooding, which gives both players one more turn to play cards at that location, while Professor X completely locks out his location, making it impossible to play any more cards there (with the one exception of Jeff!, who ignores everything and can be played anywhere he wants). Most Lockdown decks these days rely more on Storm, then use cards like Vision or Jeff! to move into the lane after it’s already closed off or Doctor Doom to spawn token cards there. They also tend to use cheap but strong early game cards like Nebula or Medusa to put a lot of potential power on the location before locking it down. Ultimately, Lockdown wants to limit you from playing your cards the way you want to rather than trying to beat you in a straight up power race.
Finally, we come to this season’s Cinderella story: the Yellowknife Wraiths.The Wraiths fit well here because Lockdown tends to be a more defensive oriented deck, and Yellowknife was a more defensive oriented team, ranking in the top half for points allowed while falling near the bottom in points scored.A key component of their defense came in the form of Mo Gago, who led all defensive linemen in tackles for a loss. Offensively, the Wraiths were led by Money Tolliver, who led the league in rushing yards. The biggest story though is just how much things changed from one season to the next. In season 45, Yellowknife was the worst team in the league. This season? They went all the way to the Ultimus! Of course, they didn’t win the Ultimus, and they lucked into getting there a bit with two overtime wins in the playoffs to get there. And don’t forget they were only 8-8 in the regular season but still made the playoffs thanks to a weak conference and a favorable tie-breaker. Nonetheless, no other team can say they lost the Ultimus this season, and really that’s what’s important here.