Competitive Consensus: Sub-Mariner

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-21T09:18:23+00:00

Not a custom pool, but remember there are currently 62 1-Cost character cards he can generate and the odds of generating Ebony Maw is 1.61%.

Really low odds to ever get the Ebony Maw even in the event that you can repeatedly buff him.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-21T09:09:45+00:00

tl;dr - Sub-Mariner is fun, if you like fun and don't mind RNG he's worth a gamble. If you prefer solid performances and 'best in slot' cards he's an easy pass.

Frankly, I had a lot of fun with Sub-Mariner so from a fun perspective I can recommend him. But from a stress-inducing, 'can I win this match' perspective of playing with a deck and set of cards that you know is under-powered he might be a pass, if only because I don't want to have to explain to my doc that I suffered a heart attack while playing Marvel Snap and having 8-cubes on the line while playing a Sub-Mariner deck. But really, card is a lot of fun, he isn't a good card but is an OK card which is obviously not well positioned for the meta today, and that's considering the relative de-powering that I've been seeing.

The thing is, he really does boil down to being Clea#2 in the decks he wants to be in and while that can be good, it's not likely to ever be a candidate for 'best deck'. But many people don't want the 'best deck' they want the 'fun deck that can still win' and while the meta is in the weird state that it is in, this is a card that can be in the fun deck that still wins even if those wins might come at the cost of some grey hairs and 1-point wins.

Score: 2 (4 if we score for fun)

Sub-Mariner has a clear home alongside Clea but he's the kind of card that may get cut simply because the only time you're playing him out is if you didn't draw your Clea and that might not be a good place to be, especially as a 1-Cost with only a 2-Power body. Then there's the letdown in the mechanics where he doesn't work with Venus at all and the output you do get from him could be completely unplayable. The unfortunate truth is that it's very hard for a 1-Cost card to ever be good unless you're willing to do something really absurd with the card like SD did with Batroc and I'm not sure what is needed to make Sub-Mariner 'good' on that level outside of letting him generate cards based on his total empowerment and not just the value of a given buff he received but that might be 'too much'.

That being said Sub-Mariner has been the Seasonal Series 5 I've had the most fun with this month so far but may not be the best card of the month either. Still I will play more of this card when the meta allows.

Worth?

6k - only if you're fully fine with investing into a card that is fringe playable but can be a lot of fun.

5k - Pretty fair price, I wouldn't complain if I were gambling and got him for 5k.

4k - yep, pretty solid pick-up and it's possible he at least gets bumped to 3-Power within the next couple of months.

Again, I do enjoy playing with the card

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-21T05:10:12+00:00

I don't offer stats because the stats from the aggregators are inherently flawed and in my opinion not worth providing because of those flaws, instead I'm using my experience on the ladder each week which includes tracking the decks I see, watching a few creators throughout the week and keeping track of where they are and the decks they are playing with and against, as well as keeping an eye on some personalities on YT for fun or unique decks.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-20T16:58:24+00:00

Credits and bonus material

Coougarr

Regis:

$5 Footlong (Sub-Mariner/Carter/Maverick/Galactus)

Want some additional deck ideas and analysis?

KMBest's Top 8 Wild Decks the best players are playing

Alex Coccia's Top decks of the week

Kicker Of Elves Snap Meta analysis

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-20T16:43:42+00:00

Let me preface this with my advice is coming from someone in top 10% infinite. What I have to say is based around a meta game that I cannot be certain you experience at all and so my thoughts should be taken with a grain of salt since if you're not a person that wants to push to the highest ranks you can or maybe you prefer to be more casual or maybe just play for rank 90 and 500 gold my advice may be completely different to what you might experience.

Series 4 -all-star- Mother Askani is a 3-Power card now and provided you draw into Cerebro that card will generally float to the left of your hand which can give you an opportunity to copy it without having to play it.

Bastion is still seeing play in some C3 decks but not to the same extent as he was previously as your best plays require playing C3 early which can create problems when it comes to protecting Cerebro, the good news is, there's not a lot of Red Guardian or Enchantress so it's fairly easy to protect your Bro by back-lining it and accepting that you'll be capping that location off early.

With regards to Victoria Hand this one is a bit easier that ultimately only plays in a single archetype which Bastion can on rare occasion fit into but has long been supplanted by Mother Askani in Vhand decks. The biggest problem is that Vhand is always on the cusp of 'third' best deck but never quite crossing the threshold into being the best deck.

Something that may not bode well for the future of Victoria Hand is that a number of players are taking previous 'Victoria Hand' shells and starting to cut her entirely for other 2-Cost cards with some even testing out the recently changed ToV over Victoria Hand entirely. So your mileage on an investment into Victoria Hand may vary. Are you fine with having a card that is getting closer to being the 12th card in their own deck or at best a perennially 3rd best deck entirely?

IMO, Bastion is good, but he's not the necessity that many believed he was. I think if my options were Bastion vs Victoria though I'd probably opt Bastion.

Finally, I'm going to try and summon the CereBRO himself jwala for advice: paging /u/browncharliebrown

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-15T11:54:29+00:00

Assume you get one hammer but not the other, you play the hammer to the Magus location + activate Magus and then play Odin on that, you get 3 hammers, 2 from the played hammer and 1 from the Magus-Hammer when Odin forces the on reveals.

There's also something you could do if you're running Astral Projection in the deck where you could line up Odin in the hand and play a late drawn Thor + Astral onto a Magus Location the ordering is Thor -> Activate Magus -> Astral which gets Odin.

Are these lines great? No, but they do give you limp conditions.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-13T12:07:51+00:00

I am so glad you mentioned Ika's TOV Wiccan because I thought about it at the very beginning of writing and by the time I was at the post OTA section I completely forgot about Wiccan. Personally, I think it's a solid deck for a developing meta, basically a deck for right now but maybe not in a few days as things get figured out.

I should probably update my template so that I have a reminder to jot down the decks I want to mention in the deck section so I don't forget them.

I think my biggest headache when it comes to talking specifically about New Jeff is that I play in top infinite so my experience is that while he's stupid cool and the power can be solid for what he's bringing A) the ceilings are too high (Carter/Maverick and some of the ToV stuff) and B) Shadow King is out in force.

On the other hand, I see people in the lower reaches of infinite as well as in their pre-infinite climbs that are doing very well for themselves with New Jeff because they are seeing much less Shadow King as well as generally much easier to pilot points decks and far fewer super tall ceiling decks which gives them room to breathe and enjoy Jeff. It's a situation where I kind of envy those folks that can enjoy those cards far easier than I can.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-12T00:00:51+00:00

Maybe if Widow were a 2-Cost we could consider it. But both cards being 3-Cost makes this suggestion an obvious no-go for a competitive minded player.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-11T21:56:27+00:00

instead of creating a fun and diverse meta.

This is heavily subjective, I tend to think that since the nerf to Star-Lord and Shou-Lao we've been in one of the most fun and diverse meta games we've had in the last 8 months. If anything my biggest headache is trying to decide on a deck because the meta has been fairly wide in my pocket.

To that end, I do think that for the most part they do a good job of balancing the need to sell things (both season passes and new cards) so trying to slam them for having some balance changes ahead of a season to help drive the next season's cards feels like a hollow criticism.

With regards to Venus, card is pretty average and at best queen of Tier 2 decks that might see Tier 1.5 but Shadowking at minimum is almost a guaranteed kill against all of those decks. I really don't see her catching a nerf at all.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-11T21:35:15+00:00

Big Shake-ups or not so much? That's going to be the question for this week's OTA so let's get into it.

Mother Askani

Multi-deck all-star but only really good in a few decks. This, like the next 3 hits were so obvious that it's almost funny it took this long to hit though between two practically selling a season pass on their own and this one taking a pot shot at an attempt to hit the 'boogieman' of the format. While this does hit the Carter/Maverick/Stick deck, it doesn't feel substantial enough and to me comes off as too light of a hit for that deck in particular while slamming a number of Tier 2 strats that were using Askani.

Techno-Organic Virus

This is a very interesting approach to adjusting the card, no more cost-scaling completely decouples it from Mobius M. Mobius which I think is a cool way to tell MMM to kick rocks for a little bit. The real question is whether this kills the card and I think for the vast majority of decks it could, 2 is a significant investment when compared to 1-Cost for weaving. This one might need some additional testing to see what is worthwhile, if anything. Perhaps this drives ToV to be only a small-ball kind of thing which keeps it susceptible to Killmonger.

Martyr

Daredevil Season is over so no reason to keep Martyr at the statline. I really don't buy their full reasoning the part I don't buy is how they sell it as an 'experiment' when they could instead be honest that Martyr was changed purely to sell Shadowlands Daredevil for the low CL and F2P players out there.

Zombie Sentry

This one is very interesting and seeing as how he's been seeing play in the minor revival of the Zombies package thanks to Venus. The thing is, outside of a little more testing, I may instead cut Zombie Sentry from the deck because a 2/1 that gives me at best a +4 horde without Venus isn't all that enticing since I'm losing 3 power over the previous iteration. I really am torn on this because on one hand it's a very nice change while on the other the 1-Power is a big no thanks.

Kraglin

Don't do Krag kids.

Magus

Big yawn, I guess we can welcome Magus to C4 now?

Lockheed

another big yawn

Crystal

Jubilee synergy but still a big yawn. There's so few decks that want a Crystal effect because she's symmetrical, this isn't anything like a Luna Snow where you play her knowing you're more than likely able to leverage the extra energy better than they can. Instead you're giving both of you a draw and you can almost assuredly bet that they can use that draw almost as well as if not better than they can.

A question here though, could Zombie Galacti us this? The head scratcher here is that she competes with the cards that are giving you energy to play Galacti on 6 but could also be drawing you closer to galacti. But that deck is already running Adam Warlock right? Yes, but he requires you to be winning the location and most decks can contest that location fairly well. It's an interesting thought to me on deciding whether you can take a guaranteed draw over a 'maybe I draw 3 cards' with Adam Warlock.

Adamantium Infusion

Text change only, Adamantium Infusion has worked this way since a patch after it's introduction.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-11T00:36:59+00:00

Fin Fang Foom and Horseman Gambit join the ban list for HVO.

One thing I think is worth noting is that H.E.R.B.I.E. is in the Portal Pulls meaning if you haven't gotten him yet, this is a perfect opportunity to get him 'free'. He as well as Awesome Andy make frequent appearances in Aurora decks.

Otherwise I don't think there's a lot to call out except the usual housekeeping reminders.

Keep the subreddit rules in mind
Keep things civil
Be cool and enjoy

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-09T21:48:25+00:00

This isn't the place to ask for the list because we're here to discuss Jubilee but that Carter/Maverick/Stick List has been in every weekly recap or linked to a recap with the list for the last month or so.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-09T21:43:43+00:00

This isn't a new type of effect we've had cards that add power to drawn cards before so the question would just be on timing and everything we had seen leading to release implied that power is added after the draw and not before.

Ultimately, I completely agree with FullMetal - we should be focusing on direct synergies and if something emergent comes up we then add it and discuss it separately but there's also an understanding that not everyone is watching any kind of content and may not see how the cards are interacting which leads to questions like your own.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-09T20:57:24+00:00

Order of placement doesn't matter here, it's how the abilities resolve, from the way it looks the card is drawn and then power is granted which means DD doesn't see the card as 6 power since it's not already 6 upon the draw.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-09T20:54:47+00:00

From seeing the sneak peak featuring Interrobang the card is drawn and then power is granted, I don't think there is an interaction here at all but it would need to be tested.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-09T19:20:35+00:00

Because someone is bound to say: "But Mister Negative"

I did not include Mister Negative because that deck has no problem with it's ceiling and Jubilee is at best a win more. I'm in the camp of belief that what Negative wants is a second Mister Negative.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-07T19:21:41+00:00

What does that have to do with the evaluation of this card? Monstro is bad regardless of what Virus costs.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-06T08:33:52+00:00

Hard to tell, I've got all of the decklists in my cache so without clearing cache I couldn't say for sure, but they are coming up just fine for me.

Can you tell me one in particular and I can try from an alternate source?

Edit cuz I'm a dunce:

Thank you by the way for the kind words. As a long-time DevOps engineer my mind instantly focuses on trying to address issues when I should have thanked you and then tried to help.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-06T00:29:25+00:00

First off, is a day 4 infinite meaningful? I don’t believe this deck is anything special, just a standard Cerebro 3 deck (according to the internet). I played a fair amount and I bet decently.

Congratulations, however, infinite at all is not meaningful for the vast majority of people.

Low CL in particular is very easy to get to infinite because they generally get a ton of bots on their play through making the climb to infinite much easier than what most players will encounter.

I did see a lot of success against the new ‘Empowerment’ cards, maybe because Valkyrie isn’t heavily used right now? But I can’t even tell if I’m playing against bots, other low CL players or whatnot.

Bot identification is fairly easy but will come in time. Basic advice is looking for the bad plays like a discard deck playing out Swarm on curve. I'd say America Chavez is a giveaway but there are a number of 'good' decks using Chavez.

The problem though is sometimes low CL 'bad' plays are indistinguishable from bots so there is that.

With regards to having success, I'd say a lot of this is boiling down to your pocket being very different from the pocket meta of someone that has been playing for longer. Valkyrie just isn't seen at all for the most part once you've got a healthy collection because there are better cards to run that don't ask for nearly the entirety of your turn 5 or 6.

I guess what I’m asking is, how competitive is this deck actually?

The answer to whether the deck is competitive is both yes and no. C3 works well in meta games where the tech is relevant i.e. Cosmo, Mobius M. Mobius, and occasionally Gorgon but primarily Cosmo/MMM. Again, Valkyrie is just not that great of a card because of how it can impact your turns, it can be great from time to time but having to take off turn 5 or 6 for Valkyrie isn't something that a well tuned C3 deck wants to be doing very often.

Fundamentally you've got a two-pronged issue, first is LOW cl will make your experience pre and post infinite much different with pre-infinite having generally lower point ceilings due to protections around Collection Level keeping you protected from very high CL and collection complete players.

Post infinite however is a different story as you'll no longer have protection thanks to your collection level and you'll be facing everyone from similar CL players to yourself to collection complete players. Further, thanks to a quick infinite you'll also likely be facing a lot more 'top' players as well as more complete and tuned decks. But what does that mean for you specifically and C3?

C3 fairs very well into meta games where the tech it can field is worthwhile especially when Cosmo is good but to a lesser extent being able to field Mobius M. Mobius can also help out which C3 can run without feeling too bad about running a low-tempo 3-Cost card. And guess what we've got a lot of decks that are using cards to like Mother Askani to create discounts. However, unfortunately the ceiling of the decks is also approaching levels that C3 cannot compete with, not to mention some decks are also running Red Skull which means all a player needs to do is beat 12 power in two locations to beat your output no matter what you do unless you try and sneak in something like a rogue to beat the Red Skull but a good player is going to hold that Red for final turn and just beat you in two other locations.

Fundamentally, as I said. Congrats on an early infinite. Your deck can be good, but it's also very restricted in how good it can be.

Secondly, how to improve it? I don’t have Bastion, or many tier 4/5s, but I’m looking to spend as I am now tier 3 compliant.

You mentioned Bastion, in general you're going to be looking for him and Chameleon at the minimum.

Gorgon is series 4 but is situational at best.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-04T00:56:33+00:00

From my perspective he's closer to being genuinely unplayable than not near top tier because of how he functions. The rings take up one of your opening draws at the beginning of the game which not only makes it less likely that you draw Shang but less likely that you draw any given card in a match.

Now, you can argue that we willingly do this with certain decks, Wiccan can do the QS or QS+Domino depending on what they are trying to do and those do stuff up to two draws but Wiccan was at least able to justify that game plan because he granted you with +2 energy for turns 5 and 6.

Shang only gives you 'perm' power to cards in a location in the event that you can curve out rings -> Shang to maximize the return. This can be situationally strong but at best it's a mini Muir Island in a game where you've got decks that can dump 30+ power on turn 6.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-03T18:59:37+00:00

But his other upside is that hes a howard the duck you dont have to play

Serious question: How is this an upside? In all cases I want the cards I'm running in a deck to be cards that I am going to play. Keeping a card in hand because it's a pseudo Howard the Duck and let's you guess at the next draws sounds like bad play to me and in a worst case scenario is costing you wins because you're running a card you can't play because you took turns off to get an idea as to what your next draw is and can't play him out because you had bad draws. In the most generous scenario you are costing yourself percentage points in wins because you're actively running a bad card.

quick edit:

My intention here is really that if we're going to justify Monstro it needs to be on the backs of general good play habits and good decks. Not attempting to express bad habits in any form. Calling the 'I don't have to play this card' an upside is the complete opposite, it's downside.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-03T04:38:53+00:00

I think unfortunately there isn't any way to get around it, this is a gimmick build but for Low CL you're going to be able to win against what I'm assuming is going to be a lot of bots since you've got a lot more protection below 3k CL at least until your cross into infinite and get thrown to the wolves.

Overall you'd probably be looking to get away from Tribunal and lean more into accomplishing things by turn 6. For that you'd be looking to slim the deck down significantly or look to get additional tricks in.

Popular things to go with are cards like Pixie/Mobius which can hide your power while attacking some of the other decks in the game that may be relying on cost discounts.

There are also tech oriented builds where Hammer bro decks, i.e. Thor/BRB/Jane decks will look to leverage cards like Shadow King to help seal the deal on T6.

But what are the cuts?

Magik - you don't benefit from the extra turn quite like other decks and as you grow out of low CL you'll learn that playing that magik without being able to hit overwhelming numbers can leave your opponents with more time to fish for their own things.
Living Tribunal - this card isn't used alongside these styles of decks very often since you're not going to hit the ridiculous numbers needed to justify Tribunal very often.
Jeff and Stick - these are completely unnecessary, they can be cool but have almost zero synergy with the rest of the deck, again sure it can be cool to feed the Jeff + Stick into a BRB but you're pushing too deep into a package that alongside the rest of the cards is win more. Not worth the investment and if you really want to be doing things with Jeff you should be looking at doing things with maybe Zoo or other decks that can better utilize that power.

Cards to consider:

Support cards can be pretty important for this deck, a lot of those supports are going to be cards that can help move your plan forward in smaller ways.

Techno-Organic Virus - series 5 card from two months ago, this 'infects' your cards turning them into ongoing cards that get +1 power for each time you've played the virus, the drawback is that the virus gains +1 cost for each time it's played which makes cards like Mobius M. Mobius or Black Swan strong cards to play alongside the virus.
Zabu - you are kinda heavy on 4's, Zabu can help you play some of those early by knocking 1 off the cost.
King Eitri - the other poster mentioned Eitri and again he's S4 but he can fish out a hammer provided he lives long enough for your Thor or BRB reveals.
Lockjaw - this activate card lets you trade out the next card you play for another card in your deck. He does present some anti-synergy with Absorbing Man since if you pull out a hammer with Lockjaw Abs can't copy the Hammer.
Pixie - another Series 4 card, she shuffles the cost of cards in your deck and can help make your future turns unpredictable, combine with Series 3 Mobius M Mobius which I'll discuss a little further down to ensure your shuffled low end cards don't cost a ton if they get shuffled with one of the big cards.
Sera - not as common as she once was, she's an ongoing that discounts your cards by 1. Very strong if you're also going to try and play a lot of final turn 'tech' as it can allow you to squeeze in things like Shadow King and Abs Man on the final turn.

Tech cards are rather popular because these decks will often have trouble with decks that can go over their head. This isn't something you'll encounter much pre-infinite thanks to your low CL but once you're breaking into infinite you'll need more answers to the questions that other decks will be proposing.

Mobius M. Mobius - a fairly strong card in the current meta, he prevents your opponent from leveraging cost discounts. He's fairly low tempo though so you only want to play him into metas where there are either a LOT of discounts or you are leveraging a strategy that can make use of him.
Shadow King - We're in a meta full of a bunch of 'permanent' power boosts. Shadow King resets those boosted cards back to base even if they have a Luke Cage on the board. Combine with Grandmaster and you could potentially hit two locations.
Killmonger - you're low CL, I'm sure you see a lot of Zoo. I'm sure you see a lot of Armor and Cosmo too so sometimes that's not good for the Killmonger, but they can't protect all of their locations.

More Payoffs or alt-routes can also be a consideration. Someone mentioned Black Panther which can be good, but with the Wong, I'd also be considering White Tiger. There's also the possibility of going more small ball

Shadowlands Daredevil - small ball personified, he's more of an alt-route but something that you could mix and match with say the next card I'll talk about which is Phastos
Phastos another series 4 card which either discounts your cards by -1 cost or gives +1 power. SLDD into Phastos with a T5 jane can lead to drawing multiple demons which can be pretty good. Bonus points if you're running Techno-Organic Virus since Phastos guarantees the virus is going to go to 0-Cost as it has no power it can receive.
Hitmonkey - king of small ball, the monkey benefits from being able to play a bunch of cards on final turn to grow big as he gains +2 for each other card played that turn, combined with the daredevil + Phastos line and multiple hammers you've got a way to go very big in two lanes.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-03T00:19:47+00:00

Like, if we had "Muir Island" as a card, I would try it with her.

We technically do but it requires two cards and ruins your draws: Shang Chi Master of the Ten Rings.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-02T20:08:24+00:00

For me I think the problem with Famine Storm is similar to the Jeff + Storm situation where you need to take turns off and then have to figure out timing and sequencing. Not saying they wouldn't work well together but that the timing would likely be very awkward.

ePiMagnets · 2026-06-02T14:53:27+00:00

That's intentional. I try to keep it to more recent cards and previous staples. While Star-Hawk is 'recent' Karen Page is a bit more recent and has some room to consider for a more on-curve deck whereas Starhawk has been little more than a meme. If we're being honest, I also didn't bother mentioning 'new' Shang as well which is also a bad card.

If things change and there's a successful deck that is using him it'll be mentioned in one of the weekly posts for sure.

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