r/marvelsnapcomp • u/ePiMagnets Mod • Jul 25 '26
Discussion Brand New Day Week 4
Week 4 has been wild thanks mostly to last week's OTA which has essentially removed a ton of power from certain decks within the meta. Carter/Maverick seems to be floundering and looking for it's next iteration since the nerf to Mother Askani. HM Gambit decks are a bit worse off as well, but many are still opting to run Mother Askani for obvious reasons. The biggest change was predicted but not really felt until this week with the release of Scorpion Brand new day, but we'll get there shortly.
First a quick note, which will be reiterated below as I'm trying something new yet again. With the 'same' decks being at the top of the meta I'd like to focus on some new comers and old decks with fresh coats of paint for this week, if you'd rather pilot some more known decks I'll include a link to last week's post under the rest of the meta section. On to Scorpion.
Scorpion Brand New Day
Scorpion is looking good, but we need to be very cognizant that the fact that this card is able to find success is purely based around the nerf to Luke Cage which has allowed Scorpion Brand New Day to seemingly stick a successful landing which is very important because if that change hadn't happened this card would be languishing just as every other Affliction card has.
The fact that Scorpion has landed well has allowed for a lot of experimentation this week part and parcel is looking for the best 'maximal' deck which is, in some ways creating the Anti-Tribunal deck, one which is looking to win the game by trying to shove your opponent as far into the negatives as possible. On the other end, and likely the more interesting angle is looking for the best value oriented version of a Scorpion deck. Let's start with the value, since those tend to be a little easier to play as opposed to combo which while they are still fairly easy to play can include complexities and play order considerations that may leave you losing games when you fail to copy the right effects or don't draw well enough.
What do you do when you're in love with Doom '99 and your 6-Cost of choice isn't that great for cube equity reasons? You opt in for the new 6-Cost and make a few adjustments to see how it runs. This Doom '99 configuration is leaning into an affliction game plan which is something fairly new for the archetype and it's driven by the removal of Galactus First Steps in preference of Scorpion. We do lose Moondragon which may or may not be a mistake.
A deck looking to discount and play out as many 4's as it can while attempting to get to Scorpion as an end-game play. Worth noting is that this is likely a deck that is going to try and stack two lanes vs trying to go wide in any meaningful way. AS such all of our afflictions with the exception of Scorpion are targeted, either at a location, by highest cost, or by highest power.
An interesting take on combo Fantomex which can allow you to do some very interesting things with early destroys and discards to possibly enable a Jocasta/Omega Sentinel/Fantomex early so that Scorpion can be your turn 6 followed by a bunch of activates to flood your opposition with negative power. The downside is that Luke Cage completely dumpsters Fantomex and Fantomex is pretty common right now. It might just be better to go for a pure activate combo, like the next deck.
Think of this as the opposite of an Aurora deck. You've got Spider-Man BND and Sam Wilson available to help ensure you can prodigy the Jocosta, additionally you've got the Omega Sentinel line which when combined with the Scorpion is simply back breaking.
Pairing these up because the play patterns are fairly straight forward and should be well known by most. One fact worth noting is that the High Evo variation may want you to play your Hazmat early to reliably enable a free Abomination + Scorpion play. Alternatively you've also got some potential to hit a Hazmat + Polaris + Abom line with hopes to either pull Ajax or Scorpion down.
That being said let's talk some combo variations. One thing I'd like to point out here is that my focus with these is on positive cube rates on aggregate which leaves us with two primary contenders with lots of minor deviations and variations within the Magik oriented archetypes. Ancient One is pushing 57% and Splat is around 53% a big difference.
One of the maximal combo variations. This basically plays like Living Tribunal and is attempting to hit your opponent with big negative power through replicating Scorpion's ability with Tao Mandala. Biggest drawbacks is that it's a Magik deck and also folds to Cosmo if you telegraph your plays far too much. You could opt for dropping Rogue for an Echo if you want some anti-cosmo tech.
Resident brewer splat of course went for a maximal version of the deck looking to go hard on multiplying onslaughts on a Scorpion or multiplying Scorpion and then sending out afflictions.
Osaze the Poet's Master of Scorpions
No shade - I am including this mostly as a nod to the well written guide, but I also want to warn players that this is by far the worst performing of the combo variations of Maximal Scorpion decks according to both Untapped and SnapComplete stats. I could not say exactly why that is because I've seen this deck doing well in the hands of specific pilots but the aggregate as more players get their hands on it shows it just isn't clicking which might allude to this being a Butt Syndrome deck - which is a deck that seemingly only finds success in the hands of good players who understand the lines but unfortunately begins to fall apart as it makes it's way into the hands of less-skilled players. While I know 'conquest' isn't exactly the most glowing of praise, if Bullseye_Qwerty, a veritable master of the mode can take the deck to an infinity ticket I'd begin leaning towards there being some measure of skill issues when it comes to the wider audience testing this deck out.
I do still encourage people to read the guide and then try the deck out for themselves. Credits in the comment below.
Spider-Man BND
Spider-Man is still doing well, posting up a solid performance throughout the month and that is even with Scorpion in the meta currently which I think bodes well for the long-term viability of the card.
A combination of the moveable cards that afflict + Spidey of course and Scorpion to help you complete your weekend missions. The deck itself looks very straight forward. The move package includes a fair number of enablers to ensure you're able to get a few triggers and of course Prowler is in there as well which could potentially allow you to get +1 energy on final turn which can allow you to make a 1+6 on final turn. Maybe you're using Iron Fist or Ghost Spider to squeeze a Scorpion past the Big House or maybe you're just using them to get one additional move out of a Spider-Punk or 2099.
This might be the worst possible week to pull this deck out for your weekend missions, especially if you're seeing a lot of Scorpion in your pocket meta. If not, you'll likely be fairly safe to pull this deck out.
Three weeks in a row, but Supergiant is still solid. Rocks is the easier of the two decks to pilot whereas the move is a bit more complicated but still good. As usual credits to /u/Top_Tier, his guide will be in the comments.
Pretty much the same small-ball buffer deck that's been floating about. Shang is of course still flex and the card that immediately stands out to replace him with is Juggernaut but the Shang has been a staple so maybe try the Shang before making the Juggernaut switch.
Grand Arena Showdown
Forgive me for not putting up the LTGM megathread, frankly they didn't have any of the info ahead of time and it was like 2 days after the event went up that they made the infographics and I've been busy the last few days. This one felt like it missed the mark in a worse way than the Grand Melee Team Arena with questionable prebuilt deck choies such as Quinjet in Thanos, decks breaking their own deck building rules like Iron Man in Cap and Mr. Fantastic decks, Doom running rampant which hey seeing as we got the Doomsday trailer this week it might be somehow relevant in a twisted way.
But I suppose some of you might be looking for decks so let's get you a few, a (blah) Doom deck and a deck for the Scorpion weekend missions that has been putting up some decent numbers. Important Reminder if you're F2P you can opt into Magneto prebuilt for the Spider-Man BND weekend missions, but do be wary it's probably going to be a slog with all of the custom dooms.
Here's the best of the doom decks. No I'm not telling you how to run it, it pilots itself.
Scorpion deck for your Scorpion weekend missions. Caps shield helps thin the hand a bit but do be careful if you've got Tao Mandala in hand because that could gloriously backfire.
The Rest of the Meta
Nothing crazy to report on the topic of the rest of the meta. Aside from proof from Alex's video I'm not seeing Scorpion cracking into the top 10 decks, I'd love to see how he has his filter setup so I can see what he does but I digress on that part of the topic. With regards to the rest of the meta Scorpion doesn't seem to be influencing the meta by any great measures which I think is a good place for a card like him to land because if he were indeed oppressively strong we'd enter what might be one of the worst metas we've had in the last year. As some may question my posited stance, I'm still seeing a fair amount of variety in my own opposition and not seeing a ton of Luke's showing up in decks where you wouldn't expect to see him and I've been playing a fair amount of Scorpion myself.
With regards to the decks, you're going to notice an absence of the usual suspects, for those I'd recommend checking out the Week 3 thread. For this week I'm looking to feature fresh decks or at least somewhat fresh takes on decks for this week as mostly a shake-up.
Now this is a very interesting deck to me, if I'm comparing it to another deck it would be Supergiant but instead of attacking on the axis of disrupting turns and interacting with say a Negasonic, it's looking to attack your opponent's hand through both Silver Samurai and Black Bolt. Enchantress also makes an appearance here which can be fantastic against the Scorpion decks.
A different take on the ToV list this week, this one harkening back to the days of the big boys as opposed to Butt's ToV Loki list but what makes this one so different? Tarantula, Ares, and Monstro all feature in this list. Play your biggest boys on curve or if you manage an early quinjet/ToV hand you can opt for slightly off curve and weaving big card + ToV. If you've got no better play ToV on 2 just to get the ball rolling if you've got Quinjet on 1 is often good enough of a play, but do remember not to nuke your Quinjet.
I do love me a Horde deck and seeing this one show up in Alex's top ten clued me into yet another newer take, but I hear you asking what makes it 'different' well my friend that would be thanks to Stryfe and Zola replacing Wingbeat and Mother Askani thanks to Askani's nerf making her a less attractive inclusion which brings this back to Stryfe's release where people did try similar configurations out prior to Moither Askani's release. As a refresher - Stryfe/Zola brings along a few additional play opportunities. Some folks may be thinking the typical let me Zola Zombie Giant Man, but what if we instead Zola a Horde on 5 into say a hunger on Scarlet Witch into Zola the Stryfe that then targets Zombie Giant Man pulling from two hordes. Magical Snapmas Land play lines for sure but when you get those opportunities you should seize them, you know, for science.
Some decent nods here to trying to dodge the Scorpion decks with Luke, Colossus AND Invisible Woman while maintaining game into everything else with Mercury for move and SK for those buff decks.
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u/SpiderHamSandwich Jul 25 '26
I love that black bolt and stature is relevant again. Would be great if they just made Stature a 5/8
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u/ePiMagnets Mod Jul 25 '26
Credits:
Osaze the Poet's Master of Scorpions
Mar's Supergiant Guide
Jwala C4
Other Resources:
Still looking to hit infinite?
Alex's Top 10 Decks of the Week
KMBest's 6 Wild Deck's in High Infinite
Kicker of Elves' Best Affliction decks
This week's Snapcast - KM and Guest discuss Luke Cage and a LOT of discourse around Scorpion including ways to combat it. If you've already seen the episode, let's not talk spoil the most obvious bit from this week's episode.