Marvel Snap’s newest season pass, Into the Quantum Realm, introduces us to a new card: MODOK. MODOK is a 5-Cost card with 8-Power and has a game-changing On Reveal effect that discards your entire hand. MODOK’s effect may seem entirely unfavorable or even game-losing, but Discard decks are incredibly terrifying, surprising, and can turn the tables in a match very swiftly or at the last possible moment to attain that sweet victory. In our best Pool 2 and Pool 3 decks, we did cover two different Discard decks: Discardian Discord and Discardian Dissonance respectively. MODOK is able to improve Discard decks even more so through its On Reveal effect.
This guide will cover a few of the best MODOK-based decks, how to improve your already efficient Discard-centric decks, and even if you are not the sort of cardfighter to purchase Marvel Snap’s season passes, these decks will still be viable in creating in the future when you do eventually obtain MODOK due to the game’s card rollout system.
Discarding Detriment
Discarding Detriment is similar to Discardian Dissonance from Pool 3 but swaps out Gambit for MODOK. Colleen will always discard the lowest-cost card, so you want to be discarding Swarm. Swarm, when discarded, creates an extra copy, which also is a 0-Cost card. By playing these 0-Cost Swarm cards on top of Lockjaw’s location, you will be able to swap out for a much stronger card in your deck such as Hell Cow, America Chavez, or even Sword Master.
This deck does not use any 1-Cost cards, but this works best this way. For example, if you have Morbius, Swarm, and Colleen Wing in your opening hand, you need to play Morbius first just in case Colleen does not accidentally discard Morbius over Swarm instead.
MODOK excels in this deck since on turn five, we can play MODOK. If we have Swarm alongside Apocalypse in hand, it will discard these two cards, but due to their effects, Swarm will create an extra copy and Apocalypse will place itself back in your hand with an increase of four additional power. Though Swarm and Apocalypse are reborn in a sense, they will still count as being discarded, so the Morbius we played earlier in the match will become powered up. Sometimes, a location can be won solely with Morbius due to its effect to increase its power by two each time a card is discarded.
If MODOK does discard everything else from our hand on turn five, we still have America Chavez that will always be drawn on turn six, if she is in the deck. And, if she is not in a location already due to Lockjaw’s card-swapping effect. A 6-Cost card with 9-Power can be a behemoth to be our final play to push a location’s power to a threshold allowing us to win.
This deck is more of a mid to late-game deck, but it can easily overwhelm your opponent in a matter of plays through Lockjaw’s combination with Swarm. Lockjaw is our setup for the entire match. MODOK’s addition to this deck has made it a solid contender in the top decks on Marvel Snap’s ladder.
This deck is an extremely mighty, combo-heavy, and detrimental deck to opponents that rely on On Reveal or Ongoing decks. This deck takes quite a lot of practice to understand its ins and outs–mainly due to Lockjaw, but as soon as you understand the playstyle, you will be able to rack up win streaks online.
Devastating Discard
Devastating Discard uses more early-game cards in comparison to Discarding Detriment. Iceman, Sunspot, Wolverine, and Storm are our additions to this deck type. Storm being able to flood a location will allow the opponent to scramble to play a card there within the turn limit, but combining Storm with Sunspot and/or Morbius will allow us to easily win that location throughout the whole game due to Sunspot increasing its power anytime we have left over energy or Morbius receiving an additional two power for each card we discard from our hand.
This deck is a lot more straightforward as a Discard deck since the Lockjaw inclusion in our previous deck is more for expert players. This Discard deck is much more beginner-friendly, but that does not mean it is lacking or that it cannot rival opponents on the ranked ladder. Sometimes, a less confusing or less RNG-based (random number generator) deck is better to lay out a concrete plan, follow the plan, and set out our win conditions.
Wolverine has recently changed and is now a 2-Cost card with 2-Power that will regenerate to a location when destroyed with an increase in its power by two. Wolverine will not be something we “play” in a turn, but will be something we have discarded through Colleen Wing, MODOK, or even Dracula. Since Storm floods a location, Wolverine’s effect will still allow it to regenerate on Storm’s location even if we cannot directly play cards on it afterward.
The only other card I would suggest for this deck would be Scorpion, which would be swapped out for Wolverine. Scorpion is able to decrease the power of all cards in the opponent’s hand when played will make it easier to overpower them. Iceman and Scorpion are both frustrating for opponents to deal with.
Deceitful Discard
Deceitful Discard is all about laying the foundations of our discard effects, but not having them activate until the end of the game. Invisible Woman is a card with an Ongoing effect that, when you play cards at her location, will not be revealed until the match is over. For example, this allows us to activate MODOK’s on-reveal hand discard effect much later, so as to not diminish our cards and resources.
Our ace of this deck is Hela. Hela’s on-reveal effect is that she will resurrect every card you discarded throughout the game to random locations. By combining her with Invisible Woman, we can meticulously resurrect our most dominant cards such as Giganto, The Infinaut, and Death. We can trick our opponent, and use this deceitful tactic to grab that victory.
Play Invisible Woman at a location on turn two, then on turn five, play MODOK at the same location. This will not activate MODOK’s on-reveal effect at that moment. On turn six, we play Hela on Invisible Woman’s location. Due to the sequence and order of events/plays, MODOK will, at the end of the game, discard our entire hand, which most likely would be Captain Marvel, The Infinaut, Giganto, and Death. Then, after MODOK’s effect is finished, Hela will then resurrect all of the cards we discarded throughout the game; especially what MODOK just discarded a few seconds ago.
Captain Marvel is a great way to lower the random number generator since when she is resurrected by Hela if we do lose because Hela resurrects randomly to locations, Captain Marvel will be able to fly to whichever location will be the game-winning one by itself.
Black Cat will be discarded by itself due to its effect on most occasions, and Lady Sif being able to discard The Infinaut, Giganto, or Death earlier in the game, will allow Hela to resurrect without the use of MODOK’s entire hand discard.
Discard decks have been wonderful throughout the past few seasons even without MODOK’s introduction, but MODOK is able to bring an effect that discards all cards. Previously, Hell Cow was the card that would discard the most with two cards from its own reveal ability, but MODOK’s combination with Morbius, Swarm, Apocalypse, and Hela allows more deck diversity in Discard decks alongside making previous win conditions much more consistent with its viability.
Discard decks do become an easy way to climb the ranked ladders as soon as it snaps in your mind the playstyles and win conditions they can deliver.
Be sure to check out our excruciatingly detailed best Pool 1, Pool 2, and Pool 3 deck guides and/or our tips and tricks for beginners in Marvel Snap. If you picked up the Savage Land season pass, check out our best Zabu decks, as well.
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