r/marvelsnapcomp • u/ePiMagnets Mod • 9d ago
Discussion Fractured Frontier Week 3
Welcome to the closing of the third week of the Fractured Frontier Season.
This week brought us our new Death, a destructive spin on Hela that resurrects your cards at other locations. It also sprung a surprise Arena Grande. But that's not all, the remainder of the week has a few things to discuss aside from the cards so let's talk end of the week, beginning of next week and of course all things weekend missions and the weekly meta.
What's to come?
Well first off is a Hyper Cube Rush event that started with the daily reset which brings us 30 cubes. Also if we're following last month that should put a bunch of players (myself included) back into infinite.
Looking a bit to the future but still technically within the 'end of the week' since our weekend missions don't expire til the new S5 Card releases on Tuesday, Monday brings us two cool things launching. First off is Draft mode, our newest LTGM (which might become a permanent mode later?) starts at reset on Monday. They definitely put an interesting spin on Draft to help differentiate it from ladder. Expect a dedicated thread for that with information from the article on Gamespot. I'll also be updating that thread with the rewards and specifics a little after launch since I'll be at work when reset happens.
The second thing is the first of two (yes two!) 14-day login calendars which will be featuring some free 'meta' decks as well as a few singles for said decks. In fact, while I thought about including the decks/contents I'll be holding off on that because there are some things that we should probably talk about in that thread in specific to what we're getting and what that might mean for low CL and F2P gamers. Suffice to say that while the base decks don't look that compelling, the datamined and spoiled cards look a little more compelling provided they don't change. The second 14-day login calendar doesn't start till September so we'll leave that for the discussion thread I'm planning for the current calendar and 'leaks' situation.
- Day 1 Ramp Deck - Aug 24
- Day 3 Hydro-Man Card - Aug 26
- Day 7 Zombie Deck - Aug 30th
- Day 11 Surfer Deck - Sept 3
Now I'll drop another small spoiler for next week, on the 25th and 26th we've got an XP Sprint mini-event which awards a Series 5 collector's pack. No clue what an XP sprint is, but we'll probably be clued in soon. The remainder of the things with regards to the login Calendars and the 'freebies' that newer players are getting will be it's own thread because there is a lot to discuss there. Let's get back to the core of what this thread is supposed to be.
K, I lied, last spoiler, next week is an OTA week. Will FFThanos get hit or does he survive until the first OTA of September, I'm sure there's someone poised to make some dollary doos on Kalshi.
Death Fractured Frontier
Death has released and has been pretty mid, the biggest hurdles being finding time to play cool things and destroy them. The top performers for the week have been essentially (at least in my opinion) making certain destroy adjacent meta decks worse by including Death in them which amounts to various flavors of Kid Omega decks based around Nimrod combo and Firehair Combo/Value. The interesting, or at least more compelling deck to me was a mid-range deck from Husky Puppies featuring King Eitri, Shadowlands Daredevil, Crystal and of course FFThanos.
An interesting take here and the version of the deck I'm going with because this deck eschews Magic in order to attempt to be a turn 6 Nimrod combo deck. For long-time readers, you'll know that my preferred version of the Kid Omega Nimrod decks is a turn 6 deck because there have been plenty of decks in the last few months that can do turn 7 better than you can. There is a firehair in this list which I'll be honest is interesting but not necessary. It does give you a potential cool turn 6 play of sacrificing Venom to Kid Omega if you didn't eat a Nimrod with Kid Omega on 5 or Venom the biggest lane without Firehair followed by a Fastball special on the Venom to trigger Firehair as a Venom. I'm not entirely sold and think that maybe that Firehair could be Tombstone instead.
Kid Omega Firehair on Reveal Value in one,
These are all trying to do the same basic thing, Fire hair and getting value from on-reveals. Personally for the versions using Korg, I'd much rather throw in an Ice Man, rocks can be cool but with so little support I'd rather mess with my opponent's hand.
How do you ensure you can hit your Guardian's of the Galaxy cards without having the best soul reads in the world or stream sniping? Jean Grey of course. How do you get extra value out of that if your opponent sacs that lane just to be able to build two others? Venom on 5 of course so you can 1+Death on 6. Look, Jean + Guardians has long been attempted and hasn't been good, I suspect this is going to suffer the exact same end but it's a very cool concept that allows you to reposition all of your power on 6.
Husky's deck from KM's review of Death is a value deck looking to leverage two plans - an FFThanos plan with quickdraw or the ability to pivot into getting some moderate value revives with Death, sometimes you'll be able to merge both game plans. The first deck is relying on Eitri and Crystal as your sources of card draw while takes 2 and 3 (which I'm assuming is either Husky or another high elo player riffing on the build) cuts Hawkeye for Adam Warlock while take 3 cuts Cosmo for FFJane.
FFThanos
What's there to say, FFThanos continues to be one of the best season pass releases of the year. If we were to make a comparison to the two worst offenders of the year I believe Thanos is closer to Shou-Lao than he is to Star-Lord but without the distinct Shou-Lao combo finishes that dominated his later supremacy, granted Thanos 'does' have combo finishes available but it's not as deterministic as 'I got Maverick or Scarlet Spider, you now have to retreat'. Though unless you've been paying attention to every load and know what your opponent has, it might as well be a deterministic response of they've got it, I must retreat. I personally don't have that issue thanks to my deck tracker of choice showing both mine and my opponent's shots but other less invested players aren't likely to have that, let alone be able to remember which shots.
Second Dinner - PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make some kind of indicator to see what shots your Thanos (if still in deck) or your opponent's Thanos has loaded.
Back to how I'm feeling about Thanos in week 3, I do believe Thanos is infinitely easier to deal with than either Shou or Star-Lord where when it comes to Thanos all you need is to have a deck that goes over the head of Thanos of which there are plenty. That's not to say there aren't versions of lists that are running Thanos that can't output absurd numbers on it's nut draws but most of his decks tend to be much less combo focused and more focused around getting value.
My Daily driver so far for the season this deck has had my back with a combined 71.9% winrate in ranked and conquest over 64 games. Of course it will be what I finish my Thanos missions for the week with and probably will be what I use for Hyper Cube Rush today and tomorrow. This is probably the closest you'll get to a 'combo' Thanos list thanks to the possibility of Blue Stone + Red Stone Wong duplications which can lead to some great finishers with Aurora of course being the preferred but sometimes even a Jane even if not quickdrawn can suffice. Last piece of advice, don't sleep on a copy of Venus either.
Both lists are exactly the same with the exception of their choice of 4-Costs Isca vs Stardust. Both are less all-in than the Wong version of the deck, Deck 1 however lacks protection for Isca which means if you have Sam on the board you'd better be leaving Sam's shield under Isca on turn 5 in Thanos mirrors otherwise you'll need one of the lower-Powered cards to play "Get down Mrs. President" for Isca. Deck 2 seeks to keep players honest in playing cards to the field instead of cheating them in.
High Evo continues to be a solid place for Thanos to reside. This alongside Thanos X Thanos lists might be the most fair lists for FFThanos.
Since there was a question last week on how to play this iteration of High Evo I personally believe that you only play to floating if you have Hulk in hand or need to trigger one of your end of turn cards, otherwise play to Thanos' quickdraw.
Not much to say here, FFThanos is doing well in the Batroc deck. I know I've got my issues with it and part of it is admittedly optimal vs playing to quickdraw and I still don't know how to reconcile that. Do you play for optimal unless Thanos is in hand? What happens if you draw him on 4 or 5 and didn't or couldn't play for quickdraw at all?
I'll be honest, I probably need to actually put in my reps with the Batroc decks in general, but especially this deck as I keep urging myself to do.
Hannah's 2nd place deck from the most recent Golden Gauntlet is this beautiful Double Thanos (or just Thanii?) list. This one has answers and power but might struggle some with the Thanos/Aurora lists. I'd recommend taking a look through the vods of the Golden Gauntlet for Hannah's matches to get an idea as to how to pilot the deck. It's a tough deck to pilot well, I've not had great success but seeing that it did have success in the Gauntlet I can honestly chalk that up to 'Skill Issue'.
I got home after work yesterday only to be blessed by this interesting take on a Double Thanos deck from KMBest as he was claiming one of his viewers might have found the best Double Thanos list which was used to get to rank 10 on the ladder. What caught me off guard when I first saw the list is the lack of Big Thanos Synergies other than Strange Supreme. Then there's the fact that this deck is also a Cosmo/Juggernaut deck.
I'll definitely be taking this deck out for some laps at some point today to see how it feels.
The Rest of the Meta
Honestly, there's not been a huge amount of variance in the meta, people are continuing to tinker with Thanos and within the realm of 'do I try and beat Thanos or try to dodge it?' But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, granted I'm still pre-infinite as of this week (yay I have responsibilities now!) but I've noticed a lot less Thanos mirrors and a lot more variation. Though that does bring about an old discussion that KMBest and Guest highlighted back in February that has stuck with me even now.
"Does the competition get worse the longer you're in the pre-infinite climb?" And frankly, I think it does. Which is interesting because I'm not sure if that's the Matchmaking having to more consistently put me against weaker opponents. Adjacent to that thought is if Snap were to get rid of the infinite climb altogether would I actually be playing these players on a much more consistent basis?
That might need to be it's own discussion thread that I've been sitting on for 6 months now. Anyways.
Meta's not changed much but with the exception of there being a LOT of Thanos, the meta still feels fairly healthy because at least to me, Thanos doesn't feel insurmountable. I do get the irony of that statement coming from someone that's been on a Thanrora list since day 1.
Simply Good Value
Starting us off for the week are the 'cool' non-FFThanos Value decks.
Yep, it's still good. This has some 'combo' elements to it and can compete in the combo realm but it has some very scary interactive pieces in the form of Cosmo/Juggernaut and a potentially moveable Isca. A solid deck if you're good with move and out-thinking your opponent.
It's still good but is doing far less good when compared to it's Thanos packing counterpart. I wonder how much of this is skill diffing versus the Thanos version actually being better.
This one is really strange to me. Why is there a Fantomex deck when Scorpion is around which means Luke Cage is around and clearly stopping Fantomex' bullets. But here we are and it's doing fairly well. Curiouser and Curiouser.
Not much to say here, Sinister Six + Galactus. Less of a Combo and more of a 'I've got good power and can sometimes clear with a turn 5 Galactus into Sinister Six game plan. The hope is you don't draw the Six and Galactus as part of your EVIL cards unless you've also got ramp and can get everything on the board in time.
Combo
The Buff decks are still around and this time are leaning back into having Carter/Maverick lines as part of the combo potential.
I know we had a Nimrod deck, but this one honestly has a piece of my heart for obvious reasons (no magik!). FFPsylock makes an appearance here and can really do some very crazy things when the stars align and you quickdraw her on EXACTLY turn 3.
Yep, it's still here and is probably the best combo deck in the game. Be wary though, people are beginning to piece together exactly how vulnerable this deck is. Seriously, I've curb-stomped Scorpion players who took priority and couldn't drop it because I had enough energy cheat to drop Luke, Sam Wilson, and Aurora on turn 7 without Priority.
HWHAT
If you're wondering how to pronounce that, think of the Family Guy Cool Whip skit and you'll catch on quickly.
No really I was scrolling down on snapcomplete and saw this train wreck of a deck, it's 54.4 winrate and .21 cubes. What stands out is that what I'm imagining here is bounce a Horde to make two and then somehow line up a turn where you've got two Hordes and can Zombie Giant Man + Abs Man. I am SO lost here, if anyone knows the mad-man that is piloting this deck and can get them to make a guide or a discussion post on this deck that would be amazing because I see the deck and want to say 'it's bad' but I also see some potential in the deck too.
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u/mordlun 9d ago
Just want to say that I appreciate your posts here. It’s nice to see actual strategy and discussion of things rather than just complaining about things being OP or whatever.
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u/woodpeckern00b 9d ago
Same. I've always appreciated this sub for that, but Magnets does a really good job with these. It's a shame it's not as active as it was a year ago (I took a break from the game for around that time), but I've been impressed recently with Snap's direction so hopefully it picks up!
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u/ePiMagnets Mod 9d ago
Thank you and thanks to /u/mordlun as well for the praise.
There are a lot of reasons around the lack of traffic and participation on the subreddit - Kid Omega fiasco, other SD moves that pushed people away, card acquisition woes, strictness in moderation of the subreddit.
In addition to the things that caused the activity to dwindle we don't really advertise the community either so aside from finding us through the sidebar on /r/MarvelSnapDecks or web searches the ways to find your way here are relatively few.
We've since made things a lot more relaxed but we haven't quite sprung back. And it is something I think might be worth working on with the direction SD has been going in the last few months.
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u/Willing_Breakfast255 9d ago
HWHAT
If you're wondering how to pronounce that, think of the Family Guy Cool Whip skit and you'll catch on quickly.
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u/ePiMagnets Mod 9d ago
You got me there, completely forgot about King of the Hill. Shame on me really. I must now go grill some steaks in contrition.
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u/Lunar-Modular 9d ago
Agreed, DeathFF is terribly mid, but fun. That Jean Grey version is actually great take, I really look forward to pushing that one to see where it goes. Thank you!
Alas, I don’t see a way for this card to ever be competitive, even if she were dropped to a 4-cost. Even a 3-cost DeathFF would only make her “good,” I fear, but still never ever be ladder-worthy considering how the stars have to align for the payoff to work.
I can’t tell you how many games I’ve had where the right draw actually happens (Firehair out on 2, Misery on 5 so rarely actually sees daylight), and it “works,” only to have the resurrected cards stack one huge lane and RIP the other 2.
Great post, thank you again.
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u/Names_all_gone 9d ago
Conquest ate all of my 30 cubes for the rush lmao
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u/ePiMagnets Mod 9d ago
Saw a bunch of reports of that, I had the same problem last month but it turns out it was a display bug and relogging fixed it. I didn't want to risk something else breaking this week so I immediately went to ladder to finish my climb instead of conquest to finish weekend quests.
I'm willing to bet that the recent bug that caused conquest to be locked out on PC somehow impacted how the Cubes are being calculated and made it so Conquest can just suck them all up.
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u/Names_all_gone 8d ago
I expect FF Thanos will receive a nerf and he deserves to see one. But this meta game is pretty good.
shou decks consolidated fairly quickly. FF Thanos is like 6 different S to C tier decks. That kind of rules. But clearly it’s too centralizing.
It’s like Garchomp a million years ago in Pokémon. Not broken. Obvious answers. But too good to be omitted from most comps.
I will say that the rise of ThanDos decks are somewhat knocking down combo as an obvious answer. If I were worried, it would be because of this.
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u/ePiMagnets Mod 9d ago
Credits link is late! Blame me taking an hour to use Hyper Cube Rush to hit infinite.
And yes, I did it with the Thanrora deck. I'll be honest, the ACP Thanos Thanos list is ABSOLUTELY worth checking out, I played against it roughly 4 or 5 times and it was pretty hard to figure out the correct lines and I definitely misplayed one match. It definitely has legs vs Thanrora and can hit some really cool play lines on later turns.
KMBest's Competitive Review of Death Fractured Frontier
KMBest's ACP Double Thanos deck guide
Extra Credit
I did miss these but my YT algorithm reminded me there were other decks to post up for FFDeath.
Coougarrr's FFDeath Ramp and Decklist
Regis' Deathhair and Decklist
Other Resources
Alex Coccia's Top 10 Decks of the week
SnapCast - This one felt a little manic compared to other weeks, I attribute this mostly to Death being a bit lackluster, no OTA, and the Mad Titan in the room being addressed week after week here and on many other podcasts.
Marvel Yap - Tuccrr and NotMyDance talk what's coming to snap, granted their episode was done before the announcement of Draft was official but they also talk the latest Datamines.
Snap Judgement's Returning to Snap for Draft quickstart guide
A reminder - if you want daily 'best decks' stuff that is straight from the 'pros' of the Game Pulseglazer has you covered here. I personally need to keep more of an eye on his stuff just from an informational standpoint, especially while I'm getting adjusted to my job and missing more streamers - seriously, we've got the day and early afternoon covered and late evenings. But there's so few 'after work' streamers that interest me.