Sanctum Showdown Strategy Guide - January '26

How to Dominate Sanctum Showdown

Sanctum Showdown is back! Let's get ready for Marvel Snap’s most dynamic, sweatiest, limited time game mode! It's a personal favorite of ours, so we're excited to share our thoughts, strategies, and decks for this mode!

If you're interested in the mode's economy, check out Lauren's guide, linked below!

The Ultimate Guide to the Sanctum Showdown Economy

Lauren guides you through the economy of Sanctum Showdown, and compares this edition to November’s.

Fourth LocationLaurenWhatevs

Refresher Course

Sanctum Showdown is a game mode where you win bonus points for winning whichever location is randomly denoted as the Sanctum. Starting on turn 3 both players can Snap to up the stakes at the Sanctum location. The winner is the first to 16 points. Win and you get your entry ticket (Scroll) back – winning is important in this LTGM.

General Strategy 

Moving, dodging, reading, skipping, and scamming are the name of the game in Sanctum Showdown. The most important single skill in Sanctum Showdown is to know when to take a turn off of going after the Sanctum to set up for bigger turns and a better chance to keep your ticket. Most opponents will telegraph their plays via Snaps or net-decking. Learn to sit out one turn and fight for the next one. I hear people lament the lack of comeback potential in this mode, but come from behind wins represent a healthy chunk of my Sanctum wins each time.

Movement is key. There are always players who arrive in Sanctum with just the largest cards available. It can be a legitimately hard strategy to beat if you're unprepared. You can dodge the few Guardians that are still legal with movement, but you can also rearrange your power to beat big cards. Key cards that can go in almost any deck, not just decks with move payoffs are Ghost Spider, Doctor Strange, Spider-Punk, Fan Fei, Miles Morales, Stegron, and Heimdall.

How to Avoid Mirrors

The most common complaint about this mode is that everyone is playing the same thing. Most people haven't taken the time to learn the ins and outs of the mode – either they don't care to or they're afraid to lose tickets while learning – so you will definitely see a lot of net-decked Zoo and Skaar lists. The upside of this is if you take the time to learn the mode and built to its strengths you can take advantage of all the people who never move past level one thinking in Sanctum. When you've got the right deck, strategy, and a strong grasp of the meta Sanctum Showdown can legitimately feel like pub stomping. Take the advice here, take the time to learn, and play these decks (with thoughtful changes as the meta evolves) and getting under the regen cap for scrolls will be the biggest challenge you face.

What's Changed

There are two additions to the ban list and two removals. Man-Spider and Sauron were added while Debrii and Gamora were removed. I'm quite happy about all of these changes. Man-Spider and Sauron would probably have dominated in play rate were they not banned, Gamora deserves to shine a bit in the one game mode she's viable, and Debrii is clear since she no longer clogs – she'll be good in Zoo decks now.

We got plenty of new cards since the last run of Sanctum. Cards like Hydro Man, Spider-Punk, Ezekiel Sims were around to make an impact last time, but now that they've been around longer I expect them to penetrate the meta deeper.

As far as newly released cards I can imagine Lin Lie, Fastball Special, Chamber, Maverick, Dragon Lord, Shou-Lao, Aurora, Weapon H, and Fin Fang Foom all finding a foothold in this mode to varying degrees. Shou-Lao is clearly the best card in the game right now, but he is unlikely to dominate Sanctum to the same degree as ladder because of how the modes differ.

There have also been a lot of relevant balance changes from the buffs to Ghost-Spider, Iron Fist, Dormammu, White Queen, and Orka, to the nerfs to Human Torch, Sparky, and the change to War Machine.

Move Them

Even without Scream, one of the most powerful strategies in the mode is to move your opponents cards. The very first deck I'm going to recommend comes from Benjamin Roller. He's perfected this list across the lifespan of Sanctum Showdown and he always has a sky-high win rate with it.

Ben Roller's Sanctum Deck

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Move Yourself

You can move your opponent or you can focus on moving yourself. This strategy is still very strong in the mode even with the ban to Rocket Raccoon. Dodging Star-Lord, Gamora, and Fin Fang Foom will still be important. Human Torch is smaller now, so I do expect this strategy to be less dominant than it was.

Sanctum Move

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Kill Some Cards

Below is my personal favorite Sanctum Showdown list. 2099 is not only in there because LTGMs are a great excuse to play him, but because killing your opponents cards is especially powerful in this mode. Shang Chi is a pretty bad card on ladder now, even with all of the giant cards running around, but he is significantly better in Sanctum where you know your opponent will try to play big cards and you can use him to steal matches. You can see Ben and I both chose to play him, despite rarely playing him on ladder. Elektra, Killmonger, Shang Chi, and even Spider-Man 2099 are great in this game mode!

Scott's Killjoy Sanctum Deck

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The Classics

The two decks you can expect to face most often are Zoo and “big cards.” Here are my personal twists on them to take advantage of the mode and newly released cards. Zoo has new potential pieces in Lin Lie, Debrii, and Rhino, while big cards will have to change substantially with the loss of Sauron and Man-Spider.

Scott's Sanctum Zoo

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Scott's Sanctum Power

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Full Ban List

Behind the paywall you'll find a whopping 11 (eleven!) more Sanctum decks to suit any play style that I am sure can have solid win rates, including Affliction, Debrii, Darkhawk, and Destroy builds! We appreciate any financial support we get and it helps us create more ad-free content for you!