Best Surtur Decks In Marvel Snap

This November, a war spills throughout the Nine Realms, causing mass disruption that can only be halted by the brave warriors of Asgard or the new heroes arriving to Marvel Snap. This thunderous new season opens the Bifrost to welcome its new champions (or kick out enemies) as six new cards join the popular card battler in the "War of the Nine Realms" season.

The mystical fiery demon, Surtur, is one of the first new card releases for this new season as this powerful Asgardian villain comes prepared for battle, bringing along some massive abilities for high-powered plays. This guide details everything about the Asgardian demon, Surtur, by looking at its abilities, identifying its key synergies and counters, and spotlighting three decks featuring the card in Marvel Snap.

Marvel Snap Surtur Card Abilities Explained

As one of the most powerful enemies native to the dimension of Asgard, Surtur has had several tumultuous battles with Odin, Thor, and all of Asgard throughout its comic book history, including one fateful battle during Ragnarok. While the character has been synonymous throughout the pages of Marvel Comic, it did make one noted live-action appearance bringing about Ragnarok in Thor: Ragnarok, and it looks to bring about apocalyptic levels of chaos in Marvel Snap.

This Asgardian demon joins the epic card battler game as a three Cost and five Power card that boasts an All Mighty ability that may help Snappers secure location priority and the victory. Surtur has a Common Ability that reads, "After you play a card with 10+ Power, this gains +3 Power."

There are a handful of 10+ Power cards available in-game; however, playing them does leave them vulnerable to Shang-Chi, and Red Guardian can counter Surtur. Nevertheless, it's not impossible to get Surtur's power increased if paired up with cards to prevent Shang-Chi from targeting high Powered cards like Armor and Caiera, but it remains unclear if it continues to gain power if more high Powered cards are in play.

While we'll cover this angle in our deckbuilding section, how exactly can Snappers acquire this fiery demon and add it to their Collection? The card is the featured Season Pass reward with a variant also available from the paid tracker, and Surtur will likely appear at the Token Shop for 6,000 Collector's Tokens at the start of the December 2024 season.

Best Marvel Snap Surtur Decks: Skaaring The Demon

Looking at Surtur's base stats, the card is decent to play even when not triggering its ability; however, once a high Powered card is on the board, it will start to gain the +3 Power. It can continue to gain more Power for every 10+ Power card on board; however, counters like Shang-Chi, Shadow King, Cassandra Nova, and Scorpion, the latter two can be countered by Luke Cage, which gives us High Evolutionary deck ideas.

Nevertheless, Surtur will look at the cards' effective, not base Power value, before gaining power itself, and naturally, the first card that synergizes well with Surtur is Skaar, which reduces its cost by two for every card with 10+ Power. These two cards have similar card text abilities, so you'll want to insert Surtur in decks where Skaar shines best, like this mega-powered deck from Marvel Snap content creator PulseGlazer.

This Skaar deck swaps out Cosmo for Surtur, which features several 10+ Powered cards in Attuma, Crossbones, Cull Obsidian, and Typhoid Mary (the latter's ability will be voided with Luke Cage), but they have Zabu to reduce certain four Cost cards that are 10+ Powered. Cull Obsidian needs a one-Cost card to play (The Hood/Demon and Nico Minoru), which Attuma can destroy either one Cost card, and Crossbones can only be played at locations where Snappers are winning.

Best Marvel Snap Surtur Decks: Mister Negative On Demon Time

Outside of the Skaar decks, there are a few other archetypes that may synergize with Surtur, like Destory and Discard (think Apocalypse/Dracula), that may be overlooked. As previously mentioned, Surtur looks at a card's effective power, not just base power; cards like Hit-Monkey, Sage, and Gilgamesh are other synergistic cards for Surtur, and we suggest trying Surtur with Gilgamesh in Zoo decks.

These cards can gain power relatively quickly, especially in the case of Sage, which is often featured in Mister Negative decks. This negatively fiery deck from Marvel Snap content creator Ankh utilizes the combo of Zabu and Ravonna Renslayer to bring down specific cards' Costs, while Mister Negative flips every card's Cost and Power values to make them most accessible to play.

Cards like Sage, Blob, and Taskmaster can easily reach the 10 Power threshold, which helps Surtur gain +3 Power for each of them. Likewise, cards like Shuri can double certain cards' Power, such as Jane Foster, from a +9 Power (base value) to +18 Power, which could be increased further if Shuri and Jane Foster are played at Wong's location.

Best Marvel Snap Surtur Decks: Surtur Screams To Move

While we have yet to test if Discard and Destroy decks could synergize as effectively with Surtur, there are other viable options for Snappers to try and play. One interesting archetype that may effectively counter opponents that include Surtur in decks is a Move deck running Scream.

Scream has already been one of the strongest card releases during the "We Are Venom" season alongside Scorn; the Move archetype has greatly benefitted from the card's release, mainly when it's utilized to cause some disruption to the opponent's play. This is the intention behind this screaming deck from Marvel Snap content creator ReZ Snapper, which has the protection of Armor to protect valuable 10+ Powered cards that the deck includes.

Naturally, they'll want to protect a few of these high-powered cards, which is likely that Cull Obsidian may be one as it requires a one-cost card to be playable, which is possible with the inclusion of Martyr and Hydra Bob. Polaris, Aero, and Magneto will support Scream by pulling away their opponent's cards to other locations, which should at least see Surtur up to 3/14 if Cull Obsidian, Skaar, and either Aero or Magneto were played during the game. 

For more Marvel Snap news, be sure to check out our dedicated section or take a look at some of our Guides & Tutorials just below: