Marvel Snap Patch Notes (April 2024): All Updates, Buffs, Nerfs Listed

• Jane Foster Mighty Thor
  
  • [Old] 5/8 - On Reveal: Draw all cards that Cost 0 from your deck.
  • [Change] 5/8 -> 5/9

It's no secret that we think the Asgard-themed deck built around finding and slamming various hammers is a lot of fun, and players seem to agree. It's an archetype that flirts with competitive play fairly often–as this is being written, Beta Ray Bill is on the rise – but struggles to maintain such performance. In fact, we're chalking part of that up to the new Sandman punishing Turn 5 Jane Foster especially well. Adding a bit of Power for those games where you have to prove your Worth the hard way makes sense.

• Jean Grey
  
  • [Old] 3/3 - Ongoing: Players must play their first card here each turn. (if possible)
  • [Change] 3/3 -> 3/4

No, this isn't just because we're all loving X-Men '97 – although that's definitely true! Jean Grey has stood on the edge of a balancing knife for some time now, with an effect that can be frustratingly strong. However, with the metagame seeing a major uptick in big combos like Annihilus and Hela, along with Angela-based decks easily evading the effect's downsides, now seems like a good time to explore pushing a bit more Power into one of the strongest X-Men. Jean's Ongoing can uniquely hurt specific opponents alongside tech cards like Cosmo and Echo, offering players who enjoy a more controlling strategy a new way to play.

• Mantis
  • [Old] 2/2 - On Reveal: If your opponent played any cards here this turn, copy one of them into your hand.
  • [Change] 2/2 -> 1/2

Admittedly, we were quite conservative on the previous functional change to Mantis, going with 2/2 out of concern that the card would become annoying against enemy Venoms and the like. Since those fears proved unfounded, we're restoring Mantis to 1/2.

• Red Hulk
  • [Old] 6/11 - When your opponent ends a turn with unspent Energy, +4 Power. (if in hand or in play)
  • [Change] 6/11 -> 6/9

Red Hulk has been the best 6-Cost in the game since release, and even created upticks in a handful of other options that effectively countered one big play, like Leader and Spectrum. Elements of the strength and its counters were intentional, given the mechanic revealing Red Hulk to your opponent was a novel bit of mechanical space we rarely explore. We expected that to mean Red Hulk's cube gain rate would be much lower when compared to similarly winning cards due to it being very difficult to get the final double, so part of the card's baseline strength was compensation for that downside.

However, Red Hulk's cube gain rate has also been quite strong, leading to today's nerf to level the playing field. In fact, some of us have wondered how many 8-cube games Red Hulk was stealing by "tricking" opponents into countering the big guy, only to lose to a combination of smaller cards!

• Stature
  • [Old] 5/6 - Costs 1 if your opponent discarded a card this game.
  • [Change] 5/6 -> 5/7

Similarly, Stature has proven that one more Power is within reach. This has been an unusual card to monitor, as every now and then, we'll see Stature temporarily vault into our Top 10 cards on internal metrics but never make a prolonged stay. After seeing the cycle often enough, we've chalked it up to the cyclical presence of Mobius M. Mobius in various decks. With Pixie decks that always play Mobius performing well lately, it's fair game to give Stature a small buff in compensation for that vulnerability.

• U.S. Agent (text update)
  • [Old] 2/3 - Ongoing: 4, 5, and 6-Cost cards here have -3 Power.
  • [New]Ongoing: 4, 5, and 6-Cost cards here have -4 Power.

On the flip side, U.S. Agent was released a bit weak. The change to Zabu reducing the number of 4-Cost cards in play, combined with the resurgence of Angela-based swarm decks, probably reduced the potential impact of U.S. Agent. However, the data doesn't indicate that this card is too far off the mark, so we're just improving the effect a little.

General Updates:

Features:

• Cosmetics Shop - a new section in the Shop

• Here, players can find cosmetics (that aren’t Variants) for sale on rotation.

• Players can expect to find Avatars and Emotes available for Gold.

• Bonus Boosters section

• The Fast Upgrade section has been renamed to Bonus Boosters

• Everything works the same as before, except… You get… Wait for it… BONUS BOOSTERS!

• You no longer have to worry about having enough boosters. Just upgrade your cards as you usually would with credits and the missing boosters are included.

• As before, there will be 3 cards available to upgrade every 8 hours.

• New Feature: Card/Location Reaction Wheel

• Tap-and-hold (or click-and-hold on PC) on a Card or Location to bring up the Reaction Wheel to quickly React with an emoji to your opponent!

Audio & Visual Effects:

• The following Cards and Locations now have Visual and Audio Effects:
  • Characters: Agent Coulson, Hazmat, Leader, Legion, Mirage, Patriot and The Hood/Demon
  • Locations: Triskelion and Wakandan Throne Room

Balance Updates: 

We've only got a handful of changes for this patch, but we expect them to be fairly impactful and perhaps even require some follow-up in the OTA next week–time will tell! Let's dive in.

Card Updates:

• Alioth

  • [Old] 6/2 - On Reveal: Destroy all unrevealed enemy cards here.

  • [New] 6/8 - On Reveal: Remove the text from all unrevealed enemy cards here.

Since release, Alioth has been an important but polarizing card in the SNAP metagame. It's been hugely effective in creating more tension on turn 6, but the in-game effect can also be really frustrating. Losing your cards completely, no questions asked is very powerful. We're sensitive to that, so as we monitored Alioth, we've also thought about other ways we could implement the card. With the "turn 6 metagame" fairly settled these days, it felt like the time was ripe to freshen up the purple cloud with a new effect. Our goal here is to keep a fairly similar role but to introduce more meaningful counterplay to the effect. We expect the biggest difference will happen with stuff like Magneto now being able to defeat Alioth either way.

• Lady Deathstrike

  • [Old] 5/4 - On Reveal: Destroy each card here with less Power than this.

  • [New] 5/7 - On Reveal: Destroy each card here with 3 or less Power.

This change looks fairly similar to Sandman, but it's different in some nuanced ways. Lady Deathstrike was built around scaling with Power to provide an appealing goal for players, but that just hasn't worked out. When Deathstrike is good, it's often just because the base effect is useful–and those times are few and far between. Most of the time, the card is simply weak, and investing in buffing it is a trap. We've decided to trade in "the dream" here with the goal of creating a more consistently useful card that players have to fear more meaningfully, and not exclusively in decks trying to do some gimmicks with her.

• Sandman

  • [Old] 5/4 - Ongoing: Players can only play 1 card a turn.

  • [New] 5/7 - On Reveal: Players can only play 1 card next turn.

Like Mobius, Luke Cage, and Professor X, Sandman is the kind of tech card we want to be careful with. If Sandman is too popular, SNAP is just a less fun game due to the permanence of that Ongoing effect, so we deliberately aimed for Sandman to be more niche. However, the low Power necessary for that balance has made it so that Sandman's often too weak to consider playing, even in metagames where the effect would be strong. We're trying a different tact here and switching to a temporary effect that can pack more Power because it doesn't warp the game as much, playing more like a Turn 5 "tech card" than a Turn 4 buildaround.

• Strong Guy

  • [Old] 3/3 - Ongoing: If your hand is empty, +6 Power.

  • [New] 3/3 - Ongoing: +6 Power if your hand has one or fewer cards.

We're loosening the restriction on Strong Guy's Power buff. The last numbers change we made was something of an experiment to see if we thought we could get Strong Guy somewhere, but ultimately combining poorly with both Apocalypse and your normal draw each turn has proven too heavy. Let's see how it goes!

• Zabu

  • [Old] 2/2 - Ongoing: Your 4-Cost cards cost 1 less. (minimum 1)

  • [New] 2/3 - On Reveal: Until the end of next turn, your 4-Cost cards cost 1 less.

We're aware that Zabu is taking a huuuge hit here, but hear us out! In the last year, the game has shifted to revolve more and more around Zabu’s interaction with 4-Cost cards and their matchups. Right now, Zabu is probably at an all-time low, but the impact is still very real, and 4-Cost cards that don't have strong synergy with Zabu are at a disadvantage. We've been analyzing the data to better understand exactly what this has done to the metagame and what we might want to adjust, but Zabu is really clouding those measures. So we've decided to do something unusual here and temporarily rework this card into a state that we believe is weak enough to shift the way 4-Costs perform.

We don't think that White Queen is suddenly good or anything – we expect 4-Costs as a group to get weaker and decks that can still "cheat" using cards like Ravonna, Hope, Wave, etc., to be stronger, as well as 4-Costs that naturally have big stats, like Cull Obsidian. We may account for that a little with subsequent OTAs, but we're also expecting to make a larger set of impactful changes later this year. So this change is really to help us vet that work, and we also don't expect Zabu to remain in this state permanently.

• Pixie (text update)

  • [Old] 2/1 - On Reveal: Shuffle the Costs of all cards in your deck that started there.

  • [New] 2/1 - On Reveal: Shuffle the base Costs of all cards in your deck that started there.

This change makes it more clear which Costs are being shuffled.

• Shadow King (text update)

  • [Old] 2/2 - On Reveal: Set all cards here to their original base Power.

  • [New] 2/2 - On Reveal: Set all cards here to their base Power.

Just a small update to remove the redundant "original" from this card.

Bug Fixes:

Card and Location Logic Fixes in 26.x:

• Fixed an issue that caused the cards destroyed by Yondu to not always be visible to the Yondu player

• Fixed an issue with Cannonball that could cause an exception and Aw Snap to occur

• Players should no longer Aw Snap after White Palace triggers if their opponent’s hand is empty

• Beast’s cost reduction should now properly apply to Nico Minoru

• Fixed an issue that could on rare occasions, cause cards destroyed by Nico Minoru to be shuffled back into the deck and seen as valid targets for Lockjaw

• A duplicated She-Hulk created by Moon Girl being played on Grand Central should show the proper cost reductions

• Inspecting Morph after it’s been turned into another card should now properly show that is was created by Morph

VFX & SFX Fixes in 26.x:

• Kang’s rewind VFX should now be rendering correctly on the button itself

• Darkhawk’s VFX should no longer be disabled when he is forcibly moved

• Knowhere’s VFX should no longer play in its previous position if moved by something like Quake

• Corvus Glaive’s energy VFX should no longer play every turn instead of just once

• Great Portal’s VFX should now adjust position and not always display in the center

• When an opponent discards Swarm’s VFX should be properly positioned

• Cards claimed off the Collection Track should now properly show the card’s asset on the track itself

• Nico Minoru’s VFX should now display properly when she’s initially drawn to hand

• Fixed a positioning issue with Nico Minoru’s destroy card VFX when it targeted a card that didn’t go to the graveyard

• Hope Summers should no longer show +2 when your opponent plays her

• Morbius’ VFX and SFX should no longer fire when the game ends

• The VFX for cards affected by High Evolutionary should no longer be disabled when Starlight Citadel swaps location positions

• Nico Minoru’s VFX should no longer remain on a location if she’s shuffled back into the deck by Attilan

Existing Known Issues Fixed:

• Fixed an issue that caused card sorting to often be reset to the default sort order after tapping on the Cosmetics tab

• Flare Effects in the custom card menu should no longer be inadvertently selected behind some of the other UI

• “Custom Card” now displays on the nameplate when viewed in a match

• Favoriting a custom card as the Unlock Custom Card animation plays should no longer repeat the animation

• Fixed several related issues that caused the Custom Card tutorial to softlock and require a client restart to resolve

• Cards should now render correctly when tilted in the Artist detail view after upgrading

• The “New” label in the Shop should no longer be obscurable by other assets

• Tapping on a card during the Deck Building animation should no longer cause the background to unblur

• The background scrim when canceling a card upgrade from the post-match screen should no longer be missing

• Card Back assets should now render properly in all areas of the game for some devices

• Tapping on the same emote multiple times from the Collection should no longer result in the asset not loading in the preview

• Fixed an issue that caused the Shop button on the navigation bar to become unresponsive on rare occasions

• The pin button should no longer persist on the token shop after you’ve claimed that card, but does not function

• Corrected an issue that would occasionally see the word “Free” on the daily 50 credits icon be changed to a “0”

• The losing player’s avatar in Conquest and Friendly battle should no longer occasionally display as a white box

Additional Fixes in 26.x:

• Fixed an issue that could cause assets to be missing or broken upon initial startup after updating the client

• Fixed an issue that prevented players from using Undo End Turn immediately after their opponent snapped

• Using the Smart Deck Builder should no longer cause custom card lock icons to occasionally appear or disappear from variants

• Addressed a softlock that could occur if a tutorial was triggered while in the Album tab of the Collection

• The string for “Custom Card Unlocked” should now properly line break for all languages where appropriate

• Card Back previews should no longer display quite so high on the screen

• Cleaned up a weird scrolling behavior that could occur at times when accessing the shop using a link from another section

• Fixed a visual issue that could cause the appearance of duplicate cards in a deck if you toggled between variants and base cards in the collection

• The Next button should no longer go missing if you immediately upgrade the card before it has a chance to load in

• Placeholder assets should no longer be briefly visible when rapidly scrolling through Avatars or Card Backs

• Cards in the Collection should now be properly dimmed when added to a deck via the Smart Deck Builder

• Navigation buttons should no longer be visible along the top of the screen when looking at a card’s focused detail view from within the shop

• Hitting End Turn should no longer occasionally fail to end the turn, nor should the button’s VFX turn off randomly

• Superfluous periods should no longer show up when editing a deck name on Android devices

Existing Known PC Issues Fixed:

• [PC] An error should no longer occur when attempting to upgrade a card immediately after using the Make Me a Deck function with it

• [PC] The weekly missions reward UI should no longer be missing its blur effect

• [PC] After frequently removing or adding cards to the deck, the ability to remove a card should no longer become disabled until exiting and re-entering the Deck Edit screen

Additional PC Issues Fixed

• [PC] Pressing ESC during the Custom Card tutorial should no longer cause a softlock

• [PC] Fixed an inconsistency with how Strong Guy’s VFX was displaying on PC compared to mobile

• [PC] The variant label at the top of the screen should now update appropriately when viewing reference tokens from the collection

• [PC] The Smart Deck Builder tutorial should now properly show tooltips

• [PC] Hovering over the outer edge of an Album’s icon should no longer cause it to rapidly alternate between hover states

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