Another OTA balance change for MARVEL SNAP dropped today, bringing with it three buffs to cards the developers felt were underplayed.

May 4th - OTA Balance Updates

Quote From MARVEL SNAP

As we're working on this update, the MARVEL SNAP metagame has a good amount of variety and players experimenting with new strategies, so we won't be rocking the boat too much. Last week featured four changes we’re still waiting to fully evaluate, so this week will just include a few small buffs to cards that could use a little love.

Orka
[Old] 6/9 - Ongoing: +5 Power if this is your only card here.
[New] 6/11 - Ongoing: +5 Power if this is your only card here.
This isn’t very complicated–Orka released low, consistently one of our least-played cards and weak on winrate. He’s especially vulnerable to “splash” damage in a metagame where being able to counter Galactus has a higher priority for players, so the solve should clearly involve raising his floor, a design term for the card’s weakest outcome. Just buffing his base Power also keeps his Ongoing symmetrical with Namor’s, further focusing on their fishy feud. We don’t expect to see Orka suddenly start tearing up the competitive ranks, but it’s free for us to make him stronger.

The Collector
[Old] 2/1 - When a card enters your hand from anywhere (except your deck), +1 Power.
[New] 2/2 - When a card enters your hand from anywhere (except your deck), +1 Power.
Those of us who were playing in the beta no doubt remember the glory days of The Collector, and the nerf that was merited then brought him in line as an on-curve play in some Discard and Devil Dinosaur decks. However, he’s been largely squeezed out of those archetypes since, without finding a new home. Hopefully he’ll be a bit more competitive with other 2-Cost cards at this rate, and start earning those slots back or showing up in new decks, like Bounce.

Luke Cage
[Old] 2/1 - Ongoing: Your cards can't have their Power reduced.
[New] 2/2 - Ongoing: Your cards can't have their Power reduced.
The two most popular decks with Luke are middling performers on the numbers, and the surge in Super Skrull plus the buff to Enchantress have both indirectly weakened him. We actually considered testing 3 Power briefly, but recalled how the Hazmat buff to 2 Power months ago killed a delightful Cerebro-1 deck. This change thus restores that combo as an interesting option for Cerebro-2, since Luke protects that deck from a handful of meddlesome locations as well. The added Power makes Luke more viable as a “tech” card in other decks, which might come in handy if afflict strategies reach a new high in the near future.

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Thanks for tuning in! We’re still gathering data on these OTA updates and observing the impact on your play experience, so we appreciate all of the passion and feedback around these weekly changes. We don’t have a decision yet on whether or not the cadence of these OTA balance changes will continue at a weekly pace through more of the summer, so thanks in advance for your patience on that front and we look forward to communicating more soon. Happy snapping!

Important and Correct Opinions

We're here to share our incredibly crucial thoughts about these buffs, including metagame predictions that are guaranteed* to be 110% correct.

Orka is a cool card, but it's never been highly sought-after or played. When Series 4 first launched, a bug kept Orka from getting into the game right away and we honestly think that not very many people even noticed. On the surface it was a more expensive Namor, and didn't bring enough Power to win a location by itself. In our opinion, its biggest drawback is costing 6, which means you can't play it and then buff it with Spectrum unless you use Electro or some other very specific card to enable that. Although 16 Power might actually be enough to win a location solo, we think that as long as Orka costs 6 Energy it's going to continue to see very little play.

Luke Cage is a good buff for a card that wasn't terrible. We especially like that they've enabled a Cerebro 2 build with Cage and Hazmat, and we expect to see a lot of players experimenting with that deck in the days to come.

The Collector got a slight boost in baseline Power, which should make him once again a juicy option in decks that add cards to hand with Sentinel or Agent Coulson. The main problem with Collector is having the chance to play him early enough to get that extra Power going and this uptick to his base stats should make him a more palatable option. Discard decks with Swarm and Apocalypse should see if they can find space for him.

How do you feel about these balance changes? Share your thoughts in the comments!