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Welcome to another Deck Guide article, the series where we break down the data behind some of Marvel SNAP’s top decks and archetypes. Today, we’re going to review Cerebro 3, the cards you need to make it work, and why you might want to be playing this fringe archetype right now.
Key Cards
The deck primarily centers around Cerebro’s ability to give your highest-Power cards +2 Power, so you want to make sure to have multiple of your highest Powered-card (ideally, all) on your board have the same Power. In this version of the deck, your goal is to place as many 3-Power cards on your board as possible.
There’s a wide selection of cards that are also auto-includes if you’re looking to build a Cerebro 3 deck, such as Mystique, Luke Cage, Bast, and Sentinel alongside its titular card, Cerebro. Jeff the Baby Land Shark is also a great addition if you have it in your collection.
Cerebro 3’s Most Popular Cards
With Arishem on the rise since its release on July 2nd, many cards that are part of Cerebro’s 3 arsenal have found a second life and by hard countering popular cards in Arishem decks. Examples of this include how Valkyrie, Cosmo and Shang-Chi are great counters to Blob, or how Mobius M. Mobius greatly diminishes the potential power output from Loki.
Your typical gameplan as a Cerebro 3 player is to place multiple 3-Power cards throughout the game—hence why Sentinel is such a great card in the deck— and then play Cerebro followed up by Mystique to give all your cards +4 cards each. This means a full location would you give you 27 total Power, which is enough to compete with most decks in the meta. Ideally you manage to play Ravonna Renslayer along the way to make your Cerebro + Mystique play cost 4 Energy instead of 6 Energy, or to play your Iron Man a turn earlier.
If you’re having a hard time agains a single big target in one of the lanes, you can always use Shang-Chi or Valkyrie to deal with them. Pro tip: try to line up your big Valkyrie play in the same lane as your Cerebro and Mystique for major power swings!
The Raw Data
With +0.04 average cube rate, a weak 46.1% winrate, and an unbelievably low 0.1% popularity at ranks 80+, Cerebro 3 doesn’t even have enough games to be place in our Tier List. However, its Avg. Cube rate puts it side-by-side with other fringe archetypes such as Ramp and Hela. The fact that it’s so sparsely played right now might also work to your advantage as your opponents might not expect it.
Good and Bad Matchups
By far the most common matchup you will face right now when playing Cerebro 3 is Arishem, which you should be slightly favored against— especially if you stack your deck with tech cards against it like explained above. One important thing to highlight is that knowing when to snap or retreat against Arishem is key to maximize your cube gains, even if your overall winrate against it might be negative.
Cerebro 3 particularly struggles against Darkhawk decks, sporting only a 46.2% winrate and a negative cube rate against it. Remember that these stats may change over time, so make sure to visit the Meta Page to see how Cerebro 3’s position in the meta has evolved.
Best Cerebro 3 Decks
Highest average cubes is the preferred metric to measure a deck’s success if your goal is to climb the ranked ladder, so let’s take a look at some of the top Cerebro 3 decklists in the meta right now with at least 20 games.
Both of these lists should be great choices currently, but if neither of them fit your play style or collection, don’t worry! You can find many more Cerebro 3 decks in our decks page.
But what do you think of Cerebro 3? Does it working well against Arishem makes you want to play it? Let us know your thoughts over at @UntappedSNAP on Twitter/X or in our Discord Server, and make sure to check back soon for more Deck Guides, Card Reviews, and everything else you need to know about Marvel SNAP!
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