Another OTA balance change for MARVEL SNAP dropped today, bringing with it three buffs to cards the developers thought weren't seeing enough play, and one nerf to a card considered too prevalent.

We'll show the changes, then share our thoughts on what they mean for the game.

June 22nd - Balance Updates

Quote From MARVEL SNAP

Hope everyone has been enjoying the new Conquest mode! We’ve got a suite of balance
updates for you this week before the first Infinite Conquest starts next week: one nerf affecting a wide range of decks, and three buffs. Let’s get right to it!
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Doctor Doom
● [Old] 6/5 - On Reveal: Add a 5-Power DoomBot to each other location.
● [New] 6/5 - On Reveal: Add a 4-Power DoomBot to each other location.

Doctor Doom is our most played 6-Cost card by a large margin, and for good reason. His ability to spread power and bypass restrictive locations makes him an excellent card in many past and current top decks like Lockdown, Electro Ramp, and Lockjaw. In fact, he's so good at contesting "closed" locations that he actually encourages decks to be built around doing so more often. By taking 1 Power off his DoomBots, we’re looking to tone down his overall strength and improve the diversity among our 6-Cost cards in top decks. While we’re sad to lose the symmetry between Doctor Doom and his DoomBots, we hope this will bring his decks more in line with the rest of the competition–besides, Doom's tougher than a Doombot.

Red Skull
● [Old] 5/12 - Ongoing: Enemy cards at this location have +1 Power.
● [New] 5/14 - Ongoing: Enemy cards at this location have +2 Power.

Red Skull terrorized our meta for a while in a strong partnership with Shuri. Now that Shuri has been nerfed, we felt it was a good time to restore Red Skull to a higher value. Red Skull is a
more interesting card with more base Power and a more detrimental Ongoing effect. This has helped him perform well in decks with cards like Enchantress, Sauron, and of course Shuri. We
hope powering up Red Skull will give these decks a boost and create more meta diversity. Sorry, Cerebro.

Nimrod
● [Old] 5/5 - When this is destroyed, add a copy to each other location.
● [New] 5/6 - When this is destroyed, add a copy to each other location.

This one’s been on our wishlist for a while, but we’d been wary of it for fear of making Galactus
more popular as a consequence, since that was the most popular Nimrod deck. Now that we’ve shipped our Galactus nerf, we’re confident in giving Nimrod a small boost that will hopefully make him more promising fodder for Forge, Shuri, and Venom. We've also got some upcoming cards we expect to reward destroying cards even more, so stay tuned for those synergies!.

Nick Fury
● [Old] 5/7 - On Reveal: Add 3 random 6-Cost cards to your hand.
● [New] 4/5 - On Reveal: Add 3 random 6-Cost cards to your hand.

Nick Fury has never quite found a place to shine. As a 5-Cost that grants 6-Cost cards, there’s
not much time to take advantage of the cards he spawns. By bumping him down to a 4-Cost,
effects like Titan and Quinjet give players the opportunity to play two of his reinforcements on
turns 5 and 6. Plus, it gives Agent Coulson the ability to give Nick a call when he's in a jam and
could use some avenging. We’re excited to see what you’ll assemble with Nick Fury’s new stats!

Pig
● [Old] 4/0 – “oink!”
● [New] 0/0 – “oink!”

Spider-Ham’s token wasn’t meant to consider its own base cost to be 4, and that has some interactions with cards and locations like Zabu and Asteroid M that just aren’t intuitive to play with. We’re adjusting it to 0-Cost to avoid those interactions.

Bonus OTA: KrakoNAH
With this update, we’re also taking Krakoa out of the game to be redesigned at a future date.
Turn 5s everywhere rejoice!
—
Thanks for stopping by! Please note that we will not have our regular biweekly OTA on July 6th
in observance of our studio’s summer shutdown, so our next update will be our full-sized patch
currently scheduled for July 11th. Happy Snapping, and good luck in your Infinite Conquests!

Quote From MARVEL SNAP

Weekend Missions:
The issue with Weekend Missions was solved in today's OTA update and we expect that missions will run smoothly for this upcoming weekend. Compensation for the first set of Weekend Missions is still planned and we're hoping to send next week! As a reminder that will be the following:
🔸 1000 Tokens for anyone that purchased Silk during her spotlight week
🔸 150 Gold for anyone who purchased the Season Pass during Week 1 or Week 2
🔸 200 Credits for all players

Spider-Ham now available in Collector's Reserves:
The issue preventing Spider-Ham from appearing in Collector's Reserves was solved in today's OTA update. Spider-Ham is now available in Collector's Reserves as intended. We'll be sending 3000 Tokens to players that would have opened Spider-Ham in Collector's Reserves while the issue was active.

I Think, Therefore I Share My Opinions on the Internet

First, we'll say that it's nice to know that the problems the game had with rolling out Weekend Missions following last week's patch were able to be fixed by an OTA, rather than needing to wait for another full patch. Now let's get to the breakdown.

The most significant change in this OTA is the nerf to Doctor Doom, bringing down the Power of his Doombots and making him slightly less likely to win a location that nobody can play to. It's not a huge change, so we'd expect Doctor Doom to see about as much play as he was but maybe this change will matter in, like, 5% of games.

Red Skull going back to his old ways just makes sense following the nerf to Shuri - now he's once again a solid option for Dracula Dump decks and Zero/Sauron decks may also feel the love.

A tiny Power bump to Nimrod is nice, but we don't think this will hugely increase the amount of decks willing to play with it.

Finally, a huge buff to Nick Fury, making him a real threat alongside Quinjet (and also Zabu). This honestly has the feel of a change that will make a difference; for example, Dino/Darkhawk decks seem pretty likely to slot him in now.

And getting rid of Krakoa can only be a net positive for players - although we find it strange that they removed it from the game, rather than reducing its appearance rate. Ego's still in the game, so why does Krakoa get shown the door?

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