Marvel Snap

For the entire OTA Patch Notes, read on!

Quote From Marvel Snap

The following changes aim to relieve metagame pressure created from a variety of directions, especially the Professor X lockdown decks that have recently ascended to the top of the standings in public competitions, as well as our internal metrics. We're aiming to create a pretty big shake-up, so read on!

• Professor X
• [Old]5/1 - Ongoing: Lock down this location. (Cards can't be added, removed, etc.)
• [New]5/2 - Ongoing: Moving is the only way to add or remove a card from here.

We've seen glimpses of the danger Professor X could pose over the last year or so, but rarely realized that potential. In many decks where Professor X was popular, such as Thanos, Professor X wasn't often one of the better cards. However, some things have changed and over the last month Professor X has reached new heights. And that's not just because it solves other threats–Xavier is doing significant work against a sea of matchups.

Given the gameplay of Professor X isn't something we want becoming a dominant element of the metagame, we decided to make a change once the existing card pool failed to effectively counter Professor X. This change removes two ways Professor X shut down locations: switching sides and movement. The latter is the most meaningful, as cards that can move will now be able to challenge Professor X, while Cannonball–a dominant card in its own right–will no longer create a combo. We may arrive at a better solution in the future, as we know this weakens the "story" of the card considerably.

• Cannonball
• [Old]5/8 - On Reveal: Move the highest-Power enemy card here away. If you can’t, destroy it with a Rock.
• [Change]5/8 -> 5/7

Speaking of Cannonball, that card has spent weeks as one of the top cards in the game, and seen a ton of play to boot. While we're optimistic that removing Professor X will blunt that strength enough, Cannonball's dominance has been thorough and in enough different decks that we're taking away one Power. This should help ensure the metagame does shift and that a few other 5-Costs can return to the fray. If this hits Cannonball too hard, we can always revert it.

• Hela
• [Old]6/6 - On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded to random locations.
• [New]6/6 - On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded to random locations with -2 Power.

We've spoken at length on Hela in various forums. The deck has passionate fans and detractors alike, and has largely stayed within the tolerances we established for it. However, something else that's important to our definition of a balanced metagame is that players have options where they find problems. That's the foundational idea behind creating "release valves" within the card pool that can address various pressures. Whether Death and Sera are strong or not, Mobius is there for players who feel such threats merit special attention.

Moving Leech to 4-Cost was one of the ways we've tried to address this, but in that case the cure proved worse than the disease. We've tried subtler things, but have yet to see the kind of success we'd hoped for. We've also debated a variety of cards we could add to the game to serve this role, but new cards take time to get into players' hands. So today we're taking action very similar to what we did with Galactus, and adding functionality that will create a better balance dial on the card itself.

• Ebony Blade (created by Black Knight)
• [Old]4/0 - Ongoing: Can't be destroyed and its Power can't be reduced.
• [New]4/0 - Ongoing: Can't be destroyed.

This change is technically impactful to Hela, but that's not why we're making it. We've been happy to see Black Knight find plenty of homes after a soft start, but have decided that giving the Ebony Blade complete protection from interference is unnecessarily strong. Having a large card that's immune to Shang-Chi is novel and powerful enough to see play, and it wasn't trivial to let the Blade freely dodge locations like Negative Zone, either.

• Red Hulk
• [Old]6/9 - When your opponent ends a turn with unspent Energy, +4 Power. (if in hand or in play)
• [New]6/10 - When your opponent ends a turn with unspent Energy, +3 Power. (if in hand or in play)

It is with a heavy, fiery heart that we're sanding a touch more strength off Red Hulk. The goal for this card was to position it as a simple "big monster" with ranging strength, but that range hasn't been wide enough to ensure sufficient healthy competition with other 6-Cost cards. This is a fairly small tweak, but the card doesn't look like it's super far ahead in the data. There are plenty of novel decks playing 6-Cost cards that aren't Red Hulk, it's just been the default for a few too many decks aiming to make Power without leaning on heavy synergies.

• Gilgamesh
• [Old]5/7 - On Reveal: +1 Power for each of your other cards in play with increased Power.
• [Change]5/7 -> 5/9

After seeing a few of our big cards go "too big," we were more careful with Gilgamesh. The occasional Blob or Red Hulk will happen, but positioning such a card as the Season Pass would be a little more worrisome. However, after the first week of play, it looks like we were too careful.

This is a fairly fast turnaround to make on a new card, but the low cube rate of the card was in particular a large concern for us. We always want to ensure that the Season Pass card feels like a great addition to players' collection, but its performance thus far hasn't met that bar. While Gilgamesh and Blue Marvel get Very Large, the backup combos are weaker than expected and there are fewer other decks to slot into, so this change should ensure Gilgamesh's card communicates his canonical strength in-game.

• Captain America
• [Old]3/2 - Ongoing: Your other Ongoing cards here have +2 Power.
• [Change]3/2 -> 3/3

Just a small tweak to Captain America here. We hit the Spectrum Ongoing deck slightly harder than we wanted to during the last OTA, and we'd like to ensure Cap is an appealing card for early and endgame Ongoing decks alike.

• Shanna
• [Old]3/2 - On Reveal: Add a random 1-Cost card to each location.
• [Change]3/2 -> 3/4

Yeah, we're doing this again. Shanna is a tricky card to evaluate, as the card winds up taking four slots and has so much variance in Power. We don't like to change the same card a ton of times, but it's been a while since the last try. We'd held off for so long in part because we expected that Mockingbird and Gilgamesh Zoo decks might provide the lift we needed, but that hasn't been the case.

• Stegron
• [Old]4/6 - On Reveal: Move an enemy card from here to another location.
• [New]4/7 - On Reveal: Move an enemy card here one location to the right.

Stegron is one of those "fine" cards that's never really been good or bad. It's just failed to find a steady home, and we think that's in part due to the original effect's randomness hurting its appeal and its strength. Giving Stregron a more specific effect will create more space from existing cards, and perhaps lead to Stegron claiming a space all its own.

—

That's all for this week. Until next time, happy snapping!

This season is focusing on the Eternals, featuring Arishem (the Celestial/big red guy).

I've never been super familiar with the characters, so if I remember the movie correctly, Arishem commanded the Eternals to watch over Earth until the planet had enough...lifeforce? to birth a new Celestial; the Eternals eventually fought each other over whether or not they would continue with that purpose, after coming to love humanity. This led to the big fingers sticking out of Earth, which never gets mentioned anywhere else in the MCU - a plot hole so big you could drive a Celestial through it!

With Galactus dead, 90% of my opponents are High Evo decks…  So glad the big guy is gone, making the game into a one deck pony.  So much fun!

Sometimes I win, sometimes my opponent. How does the game decides who ins if we tie in one location, one location I win, the other my opponent?

Pay to win mechanics.

A rigid meta with clear power ratios for cards

Randomized locations

0 mulligans

0 removal

I've said it before and I'l say it again I don't really know what Mogwai sees in this game

I usually just use it as a casual distraction from LOR when I want shiny lights and to hear the announcer say "animated!"

But as a competitive experience no thank you I'd rather buy a loto card.

Galactus the World Eater

How To Play:
There are 2 phases to play the deck: Destroy Worlds followed by Winning. For the first couple of turns you attempt to retain priority, so you can ensure your Galactus lands through disruption (specifically Aero). Then you want to give priority away after Galactus to ensure your cards are Shang proof and your Shang is live (also applies even more to Valkyrie versions). Having turn 5 Spider-Man or Doc Oc after Galactus makes this even easier because it gives perfect information about your opponent's last turn. Kang has also given a big boost to this deck's ability to climb ladder as an additional way to see your opponent's last turn after Galactus, but also, and more importantly, allowing you to see if they have the Aero when you are about to destroy worlds. Snap + Kang > they play Aero, go back and retreat.

Additional Info:
With the advent of the Thanos meta the Galactus deck isn't in a great place, since its soft to Aero and early Leeches. But you can definately climb ranks thanks to the combination of the high power level and opponents not always prepping for it, due to the low volume of Galactus players on the ladder right now.

For a second I want to imagine that you're a card game designer, creating a design document that outlines the creation of a game.

You start by listing out all of the different factors that might decide winning a match or losing, and then creating logical and relavent design decisions as a direct result.

Scenario A: the person with the biggest number on one side wins.

1. Will there be spells that can influence the math represented by a creatures attack - no?

2. All spells effects will be integrated into creature text

3. Cards get played at the same time

4. There will be 3 locations which will provide a small degree of variance and decision making where none would exist otherwise

So what this effectively means is that the decks that present the strongest one sided board states invariably win...period

Scenario B: The person who goes from 20 to 0 life loses

1. Well you can cast spells to decrease life, so you need healing and counter spells to compensate

2. You have creatures, but you also must be able to block attacks so you don't die

3. You have buffs that are temporary that can only be played at the moment of combat interaction, but also permanent buffs for tribal decks

4. You can cast spells to kill units one at a time or all at once.

5. You have special wincons that don't involve life manipulation

You see the addition of a life total in a card game creates opportunities for spiraling design opportunities.

Games that don't have life Totals are simple a matter of bigger number wins, and without the means of direct interaction there is never a reason to play a deck that presents lower numbers then bigger ones unless you're just locking the opponent down so they can't play.

What you end up with is a dumb game by design, and it shouldn't be a surprise it was in the design document all along.

So like many of you I swap cards games now and then.

Hearthstone -> gwent -> shadowverse ->mtg arena -> lor -> snap

Early impressions were good in pool 1 and 2.

I got to vibranium with an equal card pool and equal footing with opponents.

Just maximizing the gambling mechanic by knowing exactly every card the opponent could have because they had the same cards as me.

Then I got to pool 3 and the game changed. Instantly it just became about mashing as much math into the opponents face in the 6 turns alloted and nothing else mattered.

So very quickly I started to miss things like instant speed interactions, fast speed interactions, removal, board cleares, like actual "counter play" beyond location locking, movement and killmonger/chang chi which are the exception not the rule.

So for the first time ever I'm regressing back a game, I'm back maining LOR because I disagree with Mogwai I think Snap kinda sucks.

When Ben Brode took out everything in card games that was "anti fun" he also took everything out of card games that was "pro smart" and that kinda sucks.

So yeah Snap you have a lot of growing up to do in my mind to match the perfection of LOR 

Just my 5 cents feel free to fight me in the comments.

Hi there!

I just found this forum and I've been trying to find places to talk about Snap that aren't reddit.

I wrote a handful of early game guides (and one guide on Apocalypse) but they're on a different site. I couldn't see any rules about promotion so I just wanted to ask first so I don't step on toes. If the answer is no that's totally fine. Just thought a guide to early game cards and decks might be helpful to anyone who is starting out and I spend so much time thinking about Snap, I just wanted to share and discuss my lists.

Cheers and Merry Christmas!

One of the things I liked about LOR is that there weren't any "best decks"

You could take a Swain deck that was powerful in vanilla LOR since the games launch, give it a numbers tweak during a patch and just go right back to winning with boat 3 years later.

But in snap it is a numbers game.

If you can play a card like brood and tripple or double buff it with the likes of patriot and silver surfer.

It's like gg good job you build the most vanilla of all decks that synergies with the most vanilla of all cards and you won by putting out the biggest numbers...gg go next? You win?

Ideally in card games people like to build "archetypes" not "anti archetypes" and when the anti-archetypes get better than the archetypes as your reward for spending money or grinding the game since day 1.

Like good for you I guess? Just not sure that's for me, like maybe if you want to get to infinite but if you're beating up free to play players in Plat that's just sad.

Once again we are running into the greedy pool 3 problem, every now and then you will face these decks you dont have the tools to deal with so Ben Brode can get your money.

This is why I hated hearthstone and I hate to see it here in snap too.

Yesterday I startet a Patriot deck. Worked fine. Today I started playing and after 10 games in which Patriot not shined up on my hand I wonder if there is some bug behind? Anyone else who faced such issue? (And yes Patriot is still in the deck :) )

short update. It could depend a change in the deck. I added blue marvel. This card is coming nearly 100%.

confirmed. Took blue marvel out. And Patriot showed up immediately.

Everytime I fill The raft, I get [Snap Card (Galactus.) Not Found] I've had Knull twice and I think Giganto once, but every other time it was Galactus.

(Also, the Danger room's rate of destruction is 75% for me. I have yet to see one of my opponent's card die to it)

So Marvel Snap definately has a noticeable pay to win curve.

Pool 1 = easy and fair climb

Pool 2 = much the same

You can hit vibranium very easily with just basic deck building sense and a normal amount of smart play.

But you hit Pool 3 and oh boy

It's just Wong into magic into crazy late game power spike combos

Meanwhile you're like wow I own all of like 3 Pool cards...like I guess venom is cool, human torch, idk I haven't gotten any new wincons yet.

So when you hit that wall collection level 500+ where cards are no longer guaranteed 

The developers are expecting you to essentially pay money to guarantee free wins.

Not because youre better, or because you're Galaxy brain, but you simple have an inherrant advantage.

So this is the ugly predatory side of snap.

The developers are aware of it, they purposely shield you from it sub collection level 500

But it doesn't stop them from turning on the drip and beating you with the stick after that once they have you on longterm retention.

It's for that reason that I would hesitate calling snap the mobile game of the year personally.

It could be, it might be, but it's also greedy and nasty in a way that LOR never was.

https://youtu.be/tm9v3NBFQNc

I know personally for me Darken saga pt2 in Lor was when I realized how low impact the new sets were.

Essentially you have the Champs who are meta defining and then you have the bulk aka everything else.

When before if a new mechanic came out it was actually game defining like invoke.

So thats fair I don't think LOR went down hill as fast Mogwai says but I think he's right about the ultimate outcome.

That being said, snap is new ans already has issues of its own.

I think killmonger and leader are problematic cards. There are a lot of really interesting and snowbally one drops that get invalidated by killmonger.

Likewise a lot of interesting six drops get invalidated by leader so that constrains the valid play space and deck building space and play styles. 

So yeah my take LOR is a bit over the hill but Snap isn't this perfect amazing card game and has a lot of proving to do still.

Yeah so about a quarter way through pool 2 just hit vibranium.

Not gonna bother posting the list because there's a lot of unnecessary card elitism around Marvel snap right now.

Just know that you move stuff you get value, always play right early because everything moves to the left.

Read the cards that say move add them to the deck, then add pay off cards, and maximize your flex slots etc.

Truthfully I have never had an easier time climbing in any card game than marvel snap, minimal time investment maximum returns.

Easy peasy.

In marvel snap your exact card selection and decks matter a whole lot less then the snap mechanic.

You run away for 1 cube and go all in for 8.

This determines more than anything your ability to ladder efficiently.

I got to Plat with Swarm and I got to diamond with Dino.

But just as easily you could go Odin.

There are no "good cards" in snap just good poker players.

Fairly exciting Ebony Maw was my first grab 1 mana 7 power.

Very strong for Dino decks you force extra resources out of your opponent while if you draw him late game he just makes your t Rex bigger.

Pool 2 is very important for movement archetypes, destruction archetypes, and discard.

While Pool 1 you're kinda forced into Swarm, Dino, or Odin.

So yeah looking forward to Marvel Snap getting a little more diverse and complicated as my collection expands.

Only been playing for 2 days with starter cards and was just cleaning up.

Ranking is easy when you can back out of games you know you'll lose and double down on games you know you'll win.

You'll fly through ranked even when you're new to the game with this deck.

Ftp 4 the win

If you play her on a full location, she's a 3/7. Cap will be a 3/3 giving you an extra 4 power. So in theory they're equal, but cap doesn't need anyone around to get his bonus, he gets it no matter what. And if he's played alone, he's bigger than Rahne.

Though she can do bounce shenennigans. But I think that's the only time she's better?

When I unlock my final card. (Which is iceman because the game hated me), until I unlock my first pool 3 card, will I be matched against pool 3 players with my pool 2 cards?