November Card Rankings | Knights of Avalon

Don your chain mail and sit down at a round table, because it's time to play with the Knights of Avalon in Marvel Snap! As always, Lauren and Scott got together to talk each other up and down on the new season's cards. Check out their conversation and then come back here for our finalized, thoughtful rankings!

Disagree with our evaluations? Found something we missed? Come join the conversation in the Discord server!

August New Card Schedule

The Cards

Grand Design

Note that Thursday’s OTA changed the text of Grand Design. The new text is similar but makes the Power distribution more predictable and opens up new deck synergy as you no longer need to have a card with 4+ Cost on the board to receive one of the buffs.

We referenced the previous data mined text in our video, but our rankings below consider the updated text.

The Final Rankings!

Lauren's Rankings

1. Arthur Pendragon
2. Merlin of Avalon
3. Knight’s Vow
4. Mordred
5. Lancelot
6. Sir Percy Black Knight
7. Elder Dragon of the Moon
8. Captain Britain

Further Thoughts

Arthur Pendragon

He’s just so big. There are only a few decks where he really shines, but Doom 2099 gets a huge buff from him and Anti-Polar Magneto is already one of the best decks in the game. Excalibur is really fragile, but it can apply its Power retroactively, meaning you can save it for the last turn.

Merlin of Avalon

The predictable Power distribution of Grand Design is very strong, especially if you have a way to amplify it. You really do want to get its Cost down, though – and it takes up space in your hand while you wait for it to be cheap enough. I’m not sure if it has a home outside of the Zombie Skills deck, but it’s awesome there. It’ll be cheap and you can make sure it hits your Horde to get an extra +5 to Zombie Giant-Man as well.

Knight’s Vow

This is yet another card with niche strength – there really aren’t any generically strong cards this season. I think decks that will want this over alternatives have just a few high-Cost cards and value the discount over the Power buff. Sera Surfer, Deacon Frost, and Kluh are some examples. Galacti might like this in addition to Wingbeat, possibly replacing one of its 3-Cost Ramp cards (like Luna Snow or Superior Spider-Man).

Mordred

I’ve been back and forth on how Powerful he is, and also how generic his strength is. I’ve come to the conclusion he’s quite strong, but also fairly narrow. You’ll really want to save him for decks where you can give him +4 on your own. He makes it a bit trickier for your opponent to take his lane, as any big card they play there gives you Power, too.

Lancelot

Lancelot represents a decent amount of Power in a handful of decks that are viable but not great. I like him quite a bit in anything running Black Knight, Spectrum, or Aurora, though!

Sir Percy Black Knight

He’s easier to get to a good rate than Elder Dragon, but the rate is rarely great. I think he needs to be in decks that can often discount him by at least three, and that really narrows which decks he can call home.

Elder Dragon of the Moon

I think Elder Dragon might be a win-more card. Most cards that can give it a big discount are typically saved for the last turn. Blue Marvel is an exception, but I’m not sure you can afford to squeeze Elder Dragon into a Zoo deck. Synergies that cheat it out and/or make use of its unique base cost (e.g., Hela, Mole Man, Vampire Enchantress) are interesting, but don’t seem especially strong. 12 Power doesn’t seem big enough to bend over backwards to cheat out.

Captain Britain

In a vacuum, she might be the fifth or sixth best card of the season – but she’s just very outclassed by other cards. Having to play her first and then 4-Costs makes her seem slow and clunky. There’s also a lot more Mobius than Quicksand or Entropic Havok out there. I have a hard time thinking of any deck that wants her over Psylocke FF, Luna Snow, Superior Spider-Man, Electro, etc. I hope and expect she’ll get a buff quickly.

Scott's Rankings

1. Arthur Pendragon
2. Merlin of Avalon
3. Knight's Vow
4. Mordred
5. Lancelot
6. Captain Britain
7. Sir Percy Black Knight
8. Elder Dragon of the Moon

Further Thoughts

Looking through once more after the conversation with Lauren, I do think a full Avalon deck has more legs than I had initially thought. I definitely still think a few of the cards here need a point of Power or two, though.

Arthur Pendragon

Super vulnerable to tech, but still represents a lot of free Power. Additionally, one of his primary homes (Doom 2099) is super face-up making that tech weakness stand out even more. His real role may be as a tech sponge rather than a star card. Meanwhile, the other obvious home (Anti-Polar shenanigans) may not even need him to succeed. One of the weaker #1 ranked cards we've had in a while.

Merlin of Avalon

My main basis for having this so high is that I just really believe it will be easy to make the Skill super cheap. The trick is to ensure you have at least one card at two locations, which should be easy.

Knights Vow

Not every deck can use this, but the ones that can will love it. There are so many Skills focused decks that this slides right into and it could also just become a bit of a midrange warrior that helps any deck that plays cards that range from 1-5 with at least a couple of 4s or 5 – it may sound niche now, but that's a lot of decks!

Mordred

I wish I could rate this card lower, but the cards below are just worse. I think this card has clear limitations – not every deck will want to stack one or more higher-Cost cards with him – and your opponent may be able to mitigate him with tech or smart play. Still, there's too much free power here for Doom 2099, Doctor Doom classic, and Anti-Polar Magneto to ignore. This will be a meta-relevant card.

Lancelot

If this is one of the top-half cards of the season, that's a real indictment of this season. That his ability is so similar to Jack Flag is annoying, but they are very different cards. Flag wants to be copied or boosted, but Lancelot has enough Power in his body that he really just wants to be put on board with enough cards to boost. The full Avalon deck does start to come together with this card.

Captain Britain

I don't think she's terrible, but Lauren is right that she's absolutely a buff candidate, and it's hard to rate such an obvious buff candidate much higher than this. I hope they do end up coming in with a buff because this is an exciting character and one that I think should be strong, for the success of the seasonal narrative. I think there will be plenty of mid-range decks that can make use of her, but few that will feel the need to until she gets more Power. In many ways, this should be the lynchpin of the full Avalon deck – she can ensure enough buffs to make Lancelot and Elder Dragon useful, while also discounting the higher-Cost cards needed to play that deck. I think she's off, but she's a couple points off, not totally off in her design.

Sir Percy Black Knight

Just scroll through any public tracker and marvel at how many decks are playing mostly 4+ Cost cards. Any of the decks that rely mostly on cheating a bunch of high-Cost cards into play can consider Percy, and I think he may allow a new crop of 5-Cost-focused decks to thrive and include Wilson Fisk. The main problem here isn't the mechanic, it's the Power. 9 just isn't enough to write home about and means he represents a slight upgrade over Monstro for some decks – not exactly a rave review given Monstro's current status.

Elder Dragon of the Moon

Don't read too much into me having this last, I actually kind of like this card and it could easily slot in higher. I just think its primary use-case (Zoo) is uncompelling. The problem Zoo decks are having isn't managing to put out enough Power late – Gilgamesh and Mockingbird to that already, even if Elder Dragon represents a slight upgrade to the package. The Hela use-case is real, but certainly won't feel obligatory. The real use will be in an all-Avalon deck. Maybe Merlin's Grand Design really is coming together after all. Like Sir Percy, the issue isn't the mechanic, it's the Power. 12 is great, but Snap is in a greedy place at the moment where it needs to be more. With pre-nerf Askani, I'd be a lot higher on this card.

That's it for this month! Come back next month for our December rankings. It's exciting times as we kick of the first of two Avengers: Doomsday tie-in seasons! If you have or need a cool deck for the new cards, come back for our weekly previews, be sure to keep an eye on the SnapDecks Twitter and Bluesky accounts, or get help cooking your own thing in the #🍳-the-kitchen channel of the Fourth Location Discord server!

Special thanks to SnapComplete for providing card art found in this article.