Marvel Snap balance has been a contentious topic of conversation ever since the game first came out. There is usually a certain card or a certain deck archetype that has such an iron grip over the metagame that a round of nerfs is the only way to restore balance. Unfortunately, patches in Marvel Snap had previously only been every four weeks, meaning a long wait for those struggling to climb the ranked ladder in the quest to reach infinite.
Thankfully, Second Dinner has announced that weekly balance patches will be coming to the game in order to provide constant updates to cards. These Change -s can be completed OTA (over the air) and are hotfixes dissimilar to the larger patch notes that will still be coming to the game every four weeks. So, let's take a look at everything you need to know about weekly updates coming to Marvel Snap in the future.
Table of Contents
Marvel Snap Weekly Update Latest Changes
Just below we'll be tracking all the weekly updates and balance Changes as they happen. Sometimes is a lot of info, so we've placed all the pertinent info into a handy drop-down menu.
"We’re locking in the changes below with both the release of Mobius M. Mobius and next week’s patch on the horizon, so we’re making fewer reactionary changes to what’s happening live. We do have one solid nerf aimed at the resurgent Devourer of Worlds, but the rest of these adjustments are maneuvering a few game pieces into the right places for other upcoming content."
- [Old] 6/7 – On Reveal: If you’re winning this location and this is your only card here, destroy all other locations.
- [Change] 6/7 -> 6/5
We expected Alioth to find a fast home in Galactus decks, which wasn’t a problem in and of itself. Exciting new cards shouldn’t hit the cutting room floor because existing cards might like them too much, especially if that card is Galactus–the whole reason we reworked him was to give us a knob that could rein him in. Given his metrics spiked well outside our acceptable range for over a week, we’re taking a harder line with this change than usual based on the impact we need. We liked Galactus right where he was before Alioth, so that’s our target range for his performance.
- [Old] 1/2 – When this returns to your hand, +1 Power. Returns at the start of each turn.
- [Change] 1/2 -> 1/0
Kitty has been places. She’s seen things. And it’s been a fun ride! Kitty was an integral player in the metagame’s best deck at least four different times, and each of those decks was meaningfully distinct from the rest. That’s a pretty rare feat, and speaks to her raw strength as a card that both eats excess Energy and has cool mini-combos, like Angela and Hulkbuster. However, as we continue to make similar synergies, we want other cards to get their opportunities to compete with Kitty. This change is a little preemptive, as we expect Kitty would be too strong in October without it, and we’ll likely continue to explore different executions of Kitty for a future patch.
- [Old] 2/1 – On Reveal: Next turn, you get +1 Energy.
- [Change] 2/1 -> 2/2
We’ve had this change internally for a while, but we wanted to wait and see how the dust settled on some of the live decks that play with Energy ramp and Cost reduction. We hope Psylocke can eventually join the Electro/Magik/Wave crowd as another common way to push for big plays. Ideally she maintains a distinct identity from those options as a 2-Cost card that offers different curves and deck design opportunities.
- [Old] 1/1 – On Reveal: Add a 1-Power Squirrel to each other location.
- [Change] 1/1 -> 1/2
Like Mysterio and Shanna, Squirrel Girl’s total power has been on the low side for how much space she takes up among your locations. She’s largely been confined to supporting early Ka-Zar decks for new players and Death-based decks in competitive play. We’re glad to have her continue on in both of those roles, but she’s a fun and appealing enough card to give a little bit more Power to see if she can find more homes. She’s been acting pretty spooky since this change, though–you should be careful walking through Central Park next month.
Snowguard Hawk
- [Old] 2/3 – On Reveal: Ignore all location abilities until the end of next turn (or the game).
- [Change] 2/3 -> 3/3
Snowguard Bear
- [Old] 2/3 – On Reveal: Trigger the effect of this location.
- [Change] 2/3 -> 3/4
We’re happy that Snowguard’s rework brought her in from the cold. However, the bulk of her strength has proven to be in concert with Loki and The Collector, where the extra cards she generates are the primary reward and the auroras are secondary. We don’t mind that much–the auroras are situational themselves–but they don’t need to be so efficient in that case, either. The Bear is gaining more Power because his effect has proven by far the weaker of the two.
This change is the first of a larger series of adjustments you’ll see go live in next week’s patch, as we shift the Cost and Power of several small cards that add cards to your hand to get a more diverse spread of enticing options for different goals and playstyles.
Today, we are burdened with glorious purpose. It’s been a wild start to the season for MARVEL SNAP, with Loki leaping into the metagame and setting it spinning. While we know Loki decks have been everywhere - they’re one of the most popular archetypes in the history of the game - the actual performance of these decks has not been hyper-concerning, as the metagame rapidly shifted to favor linear strategies that could dodge their own cards well.
Today’s OTA will seek to push a few other cards into the limelight while shaving some strength away from decks based on the trickster god himself.
- [Old] 2/2 – When a card enters your hand from anywhere (except your deck), +1 Power.
- [Change] 2/2 -> 2/0
Taneleer Tivan, better known by the above moniker, has become the primary Power carry in virtually every Loki-based deck. We’re sure he’ll still fill that role well with this change, but this should help other decks build boards that at least threaten to compete with him. It’s a ding to his use in other decks, but that was already pretty low, and Loki will ensure he always has one or more homes available. This change also makes him more vulnerable to a few counters, such as…
- [Old] 3/3 – On Reveal: Set all cards here to their original base Power.
- [Change] 3/3 -> 2/3
The recent surge in Shuri and The Collector has been good news for Shadow King, who is seeing play despite being relatively inefficient and occasionally reliant on revealing last. We decided to take a similar approach here to what we did successfully for Luke Cage and Invisible Woman, boosting his base rate to a level that players can justify playing in a wider range of strategies than Silver Surfer and Cerebro. We expect this will also relieve some of the pressure on Shang-Chi by diversifying the ways in which players can counter huge amounts of Power.
- [Old] 3/4 – On Reveal: Discard the highest-cost card from your hand.
- [Change] 3/4 -> 3/5
Lady Sif is one of those cards that’s always been solid and had a home in a couple specific decks, most obviously Apocalypse, Hela, and Agatha. However, her individual performance hasn’t been stellar, and when a lynchpin card for so many decks isn’t doing well, we like to poke at that a bit. We don’t feel this will upend the metagame or anything, but pushing some medium-performance decks towards some time under the sun is one of the things we like to do via OTA, so let’s try it out here.
- [Old] 2/2 – On Reveal: Transform the leftmost card in your opponent’s hand into a Pig, keeping its Power and Cost.
- [Change] 2/2 -> 1/1
We suspected the change in last week’s patch might be damaging to Spider-Ham’s usage, but we weren’t sure–probably something like 65% sure, but that’s a fair amount of doubt. Given we had an OTA coming just one week later, we decided to launch the patch with his 2/2 stats, then buff to 1/1 if that week indicated he needed the help. It did, so here we are.
- [Old] 3/7 – If you end the turn with this in your hand, discard it.
- [Change] 3/7 -> 4/9
Black Cat’s been one of our weaker-performing cards for a long time. That might not be something we can fix with an OTA, but we’ve played with this version enough ourselves to at least be interested in seeing what develops, especially with a couple future cards forthcoming. Yes, this makes you more likely to discard her than play her, but the only decks interested in Black Cat were already assuming you’d be doing that. Increasing her Power makes that a better perk, and the number 9 is especially apt for the feline femme fatale.
- Old - 6/5 - On Reveal: Add a 4-Power DoomBot to each other location.
- Change - DoomBot: 6/4 -> 6/5
- Old - 5/8 - On Reveal: Replace each other location with this one.
- Change - 5/8 -> 5/7
- Old - 4/5 - At the end of the game, move to a location that wins you the game. (if possible)
- Change - 4/5 -> 4/4
- Old - 5/3 - On Reveal: Destroy each card here with less Power than this.
- Change - 5/3 -> 5/4
- Old - 4/5 - On Reveal: Shuffle 2 Rocks into your opponent's deck.
- Change - 4/5 -> 3/3
This week is likely an 'off-week' so don't expect to see any OTA changes this week.
Forge
-
[Old] 2/1 - On Reveal: Give the next card you play +2 Power.
-
[Change] …next card you play +2 Power. ->...next card you play +3 Power.
Many cards make great use of Forge’s effect, but he’s not quite powerful enough to be competitive at the moment. Given how many potential combos he has, we’re hopeful that a buff to Forge will have a really positive effect on meta diversity by enabling many new deck variations to be viable. Even though we’ve only increased his effect by 1 Power, cards like Deadpool, Multiple Man, and Brood can quickly multiply this increase to much greater effect.
Shanna
-
[Old] 4/4 - On Reveal: Add a random 1-Cost card to each location.
-
[Change] 4/4 -> 3/2
When we originally designed Shanna, we made her a 4-Cost to synergize with her companions Ka-Zar and Zabu. Even after a Power buff a few months ago, she hasn’t really found success so we’re going to try a different approach and push her down to 3-Cost. A Cost reduction should afford her more deckbuilding flexibility, and make her a more viable turn 6 play to add Power to each location.
Crystal
-
[Old] 4/4 - On Reveal: Each player draws a card.
-
[Change] 4/4 -> 3/3
Crystal has consistently been one of our weakest cards since day 1. We’re very cautious about pushing Crystal’s Power as SNAP’s small deck sizes make each card draw matter a lot more. However, we want to give every card a chance to at least see some play, so we’re giving Crystal a push with a Cost reduction to 3. This should allow her to at least be a consideration in Surfer, and maybe even help a Ronan deck out.
Bounce Nerfs
Let's begin by addressing the Beast/Falcon in the room. It's no secret that Bounce has been one of the top decks in the metagame for the last few weeks. We actually feel Bounce is the undisputed best deck, because its matchup spread has a startlingly high number of ~60% matchups and many of its cards top win percentage charts when not drawn, indicating the deck is winning with a variety of card combinations. The skill edge the deck offers, possibly the largest in the game, also means that edge can increase for the most practiced Bounce players. So, we're going to hit the deck firmly. Furthermore, the strongest shell in the deck is relatively transferable–you don't need to be playing the Beast/Falcon game to have a very strong deck. That means we're going to target cards that get shared across other versions of the archetype.
Kitty Pryde
- [Old] 1/0 - When this returns to your hand, +2 Power. Returns at the start of each turn.
- [Change] 1/0, +2 on return -> 1/2, +1 on return
Kitty is the best-performing card in all Bounce decks, so she's an ideal candidate to target. Her strength has even warped how other decks approach the matchup, pushing combinations like Invisible Woman and Killmonger into the metagame. This adjustment will lower her ceiling substantially–we see Kitty pretty commonly making it to 8 Power, and in that scenario she'd now have only 6. That's definitely a nerf, but the change does raise her floor, adding Power or saving you Energy when drawn on turn 5 or 6.
Hit-Monkey
- [Old] 2/0 - On Reveal: Gain +2 Power for each other card you played this turn.
- [Change] 2/0 -> 3/2
The next strongest card in Bounce has been Hit-Monkey, so we're tagging a nerf onto him as well. We're adding an Energy to Hit-Monkey for a few reasons. The first is just to weaken him–very often, you'd spend that Energy to play a 1-Cost on the last turn, which would itself have 2 or more Power in addition to the buff it gave Hit-Monkey, so this is just taking that away. It also makes him much less efficient to play early in the game, mostly eliminating the early Hit-Monkey you Beast back for more value later on. We chose this execution rather than something weirder like -2 Power or buffing +1 Power but adding some base Power because it's more elegant.
Spider-Ham
- [Old] 1/1 - On Reveal: Transform the highest-cost card in your opponent's hand into a Pig, keeping its Power and Cost.
- [Change] 1/1 -> 2/2
Spider-Ham's been a generically strong card in a few decks, so it might surprise you to see it lumped in with Bounce here. However, that's the deck where it's seen the most play, and it's also been the third strongest card in that deck. It has a number of reasonable replacements, so this is our smallest change to Bounce, but we have other motivations for changing the card. We're unhappy with the extent of the damage Spider-Ham has done to a few archetypes revolving around cool high-Cost cards, like She-Hulk, Death, and especially Apocalypse. We'll have a future adjustment down the road to Spider-Ham's behavior that directly addresses that, but for now we're just going to make him a little less efficient and see how much that reduces his play rate.
All right, now that Bounce is out of the way, let's move into more exciting territory–buffs!
Phoenix Force
- [Old] 5/6 - On Reveal: Revive one of your destroyed cards and merge with it. That card can move each turn.
- [Change] 5/6 -> 4/5.
It's relatively unusual for us to make a change to a Season Pass card so soon, but Phoenix decks have been a lot weaker than we wanted overall. That may be due to the complexity of its deckbuilding in part, but another reason is that we made a relatively late buff to Phoenix, moving it from 5/5 to 5/6. Unfortunately, that ultimately introduced more weakness than strength to the Multiple Man plan by making him vulnerable to Shang-Chi, which has been seeing plenty of play as a primary answer to Lockjaw locations and Evolved Hulk specifically. This change should heat Phoenix up for players in a big way and return Multiple Man to that sweet spot at 8 Power. If it's a little too much gas, we'll look at cooling her down but keeping the Cost at 4.
Ghost-Spider
- [Old] 2/3 - On Reveal: The last card you played moves here.
- [Change] 2/3 -> 1/2
We were a little gun-shy on the strength of some of our recent Move cards, as the deck can be really potent in addition to occasionally melting brains over the sheer number of possible moves you can make. Ghost-Spider was one of those cards, and having seen the dust settle we've decided to push her efficiency a bit. Other than Human Torch, Move isn't a deck historically vulnerable to Killmonger, so this change should ultimately net Power for Move players. It also makes her a more interesting potential companion for Phoenix, letting players curve Shuri into Phoenix + Ghost-Spider efficiently.
Living Tribunal
- [Old] 6/6 - Ongoing: Split your total Power evenly among all locations.
- [Change] 6/6 -> 6/9
Living Tribunal has successfully spun up a fringe deck that pushes loads of Power, but that deck could use a little lift. That 3 Power would be a huge buff to most cards, but for Living Tribunal it plays a lot more like 1 Power. This change does open Living Tribunal up to Shang-Chi, but his effect being active from any location helps him stay nimble against that threat. If this buff doesn't get him where he wants to go, we'll be back.
Magik
- [Old] 5/3 - You can't play this on turn 6. On Reveal: Change this location to 'Limbo'.
- [Change] 5/3 -> 3/2
Ever since the nerf that knocked Magik from her perch defining the metagame into its deepest recesses, we've been looking for a safe time to reintroduce her at a more aggressive rate, since her fantasy and impact on the game are both interesting. This Season seemed ideal to do that, with a hot new variant hitting the streets via the Season Pass. We're actually going to make a small behavior change to Magik in our next patch, restoring her to being playable on turn 6, but disabling just her On Reveal in that case. We're debuting this stat change a little early to celebrate her time as a member of the Phoenix Five in the appropriate season.
The Great Web
After each turn, move one card to the Web for a random player.
- [Change] We're making this location appear less frequently.
Much like Miles Morales himself, players have been getting roped into a larger conflict than they may have bargained for with The Great Web. We think the location is pretty interesting and especially enjoy how it factors different cards and archetypes in unique ways, but we're sensitive to the frustration being a little higher than we expected. We have a variety of location rarities, and Great Web was one of our most common. We're changing it up to be one of our more rare locations, using the tier second only to the likes of Ego and Worldship.
That's all for this week! We'll be back on 8/3 with your next regularly scheduled OTA update.
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!
There's no Weekly OTA update this week, as we've just had the latest patch released on Tuesday.
- [Old] 4/3 – On Reveal: Your opponent can’t play cards at this location next turn.
- [New] 5/4 – On Reveal: Your opponent can’t play cards at this location next turn.
Spider-Man performs very well in multiple decks like High Evolutionary lockdown and Galactus. We want to avoid these kinds of playstyles being too powerful as they are frustrating to play against, so we’ve decided to adjust Spider-Man to limit his play in combos like Spider-Man into Professor X. While this does put him at the same Cost as his lockdown peer Professor X, we think that their effects are distinct enough that they can both sit at 5-Cost.
- [Old] 2/2 – On Reveal: Return your other cards at this location to your hand. They cost 1 less.
- [New] 3/4 – On Reveal: Return your other cards at this location to your hand. They cost 1 less.
Bounce decks with cards like Kitty Pryde, Bast, and Hit-Monkey have been performing very well lately. Beast in particular stood out to us as a very powerful enabler in the deck. We want Beast’s effect to take more investment to get returns, so we’re adjusting him to be a 3-Cost card. This also helps give Falcon more room to spread his wings, as he often felt like a worse Beast without the cost reduction effect.
- [Old] 1/-2 – On Reveal: Add a Demon to your hand.
- [New] 1/-3 – On Reveal: Add a Demon to your hand.
Many decks are able to take great advantage of the cheap 6-Power Demon while neutralizing The Hood’s negative Power. We’re making a small nerf to The Hood’s Power to make him more punishing to play if you’re unable to counteract his base Power. Notably, this is actually a buff to Viper decks that hand The Hood over to the opponent to deal with.
- [Old] 3/1 – On Reveal: Steal an Ongoing ability from a random enemy card at this location.
- [New] 3/2 – On Reveal: Steal an Ongoing ability from a random enemy card at this location.
In a similar vein to our Enchantress buffs, Rogue is a card we’d expect to see more of to counteract powerful Ongoing effects. While it’s not surprising that Enchantress is more popular with her higher base Power, more universal coverage, and synergy with cards like Zabu and Lizard, we were surprised to see that Rogue performs poorly even in Silver Surfer decks. We’re giving her a small bump in Power to help her be a more viable tool to counter Ongoing cards.
Medusa
- [Old] 2/2 – On Reveal: If this is at the middle location, +2 Power.
- [New] 2/2 – On Reveal: If this is at the middle location, +3 Power.
Players move past many of the starter cards pretty quickly, but most of them make a comeback in a variety of later archetypes. For example, Quicksilver was in a Lockjaw deck for a while, Iron Man sees play in Thanos Ongoing and Mr. Negative, and just recently High Evolutionary brought back all the vanilla cards. Medusa however stands out as a card that sees virtually no play anywhere beyond the early stages of SNAP. Even though she’s consistently a 2/4 currently, her restriction makes her weaker than she may seem. We’re giving her a buff to allow her to better compete with other options at the 2-Cost slot.
- [Old] 5/8 – On Reveal: Your opponent must discard the lowest-Cost card in their hand.
- [New] 5/7 – On Reveal: Your opponent must discard the lowest-Cost card in their hand.
This one wasn’t on any of our bingo cards to start the year, but here we are. Black Bolt ascended to the top of our individual card leaderboards a couple weeks ago, and has remained there unchallenged ever since, with a frankly shocking average number of cubes won per game when drawn. However, his discard effect makes him the sort of card we don’t want topping that list. Furthermore, the deck he was fueling has also been quietly outperforming the field by a margin as high as Shuri or Thanos in their prime. While its game plan may feel more fair, it also has almost no bad matchups. Since the metagame hasn’t shifted to effectively contest this deck, we’ve decided Black Bolt’s day in the sun is over.
- [Old] 5/7: Costs 1 if your opponent discarded a card from their hand this game.
- [New] 5/6: Costs 1 if your opponent discarded a card from their hand this game.
Uh, ditto? We have seen the numbers on the Black Bolt/Stature deck soften a little bit since our Wave change, which has been most impactful by turning a good matchup into a bad one. However, it’s still clearly the best deck, and our playtesting for some future decks also indicated that this change would be merited down the line. So, we’re making it now in order to ensure we see this deck fall from its lofty perch.
- [Old] 3/4 – After ANY card is played here, destroy this card AND that card.
- [New] 3/5 – After ANY card is played here, destroy this card AND that card.
We hemmed and hawed a bit over whether to release Negasonic as 3/4 or 3/5 to start, and since then the data’s made it clear that we were too cautious. This change won’t make a huge difference–she often doesn’t wind up contributing her own Power to a location–but it does let her take the lead in some spots where she might previously have merely drawn, forcing your opponent to commit a card there to take it back. We did briefly debate exploring what she might look like as a 2-Cost card, but ultimately decided that might make her a little too strong as a counter to our weakest 6-Cost cards, the ones that only contest a single location.
- [Old] 2/2 – Ongoing: Cards you play here are not revealed until the game ends.
- [New] 2/3 – Ongoing: Cards you play here are not revealed until the game ends.
The majority of Invisible Woman’s play has been supporting the combo lines in Hela decks and acting as a pseudo-Cosmo to protect Ongoing-based buff decks from being single-handedly defeated by Enchantress. We believe she has the potential to be an interesting occasional player in some other decks, and this stat buff may provide her with that opportunity. We did consider the potential impact to Cerebro-2 specifically, but we’ve given that deck a couple of recent buffs and expect it may benefit from more down the line. Plus, there’s always Cerebro-3.
LOCATION CHANGES
After some internal discussion of our goals for the location pool, we’ve decided to continue adjusting some of our most restrictive locations. There are meaningful gameplay and deckbuilding benefits to having these locations, but there are also diminishing returns to having many such locations that restrict play so harshly and similarly, especially two or more appearing in the same game. So, rather than further reducing the frequency with which these locations appear, we’ve decided to thin the ranks. As of today, we’ve temporarily removed the following three locations from the game:
- Plunder Castle
- Milano
- Sandbar
We’re taking them back to design, where we’ll be finding brand new effects to implement for each one. Once those are playtested and approved, we’ll reintroduce them to the game. We’re not 100% sure what that will look like yet, but you can expect to see them return in the next few months.
THE FUTURE OF OTA CHANGES
This last month has been a lot of fun for the design team! The metagame has featured a diverse spread of interesting decks, even given the recent dominance of Black Bolt/Stature. We’ve appreciated the community’s positive reaction to our OTA balance philosophy as well as the changes themselves.
With the conclusion of this May trial, we’ve decided to continue making regular OTA updates to the game, at a slightly less frequent cadence. Rather than making balance changes on all three of the weeks between patches, we’ll be taking the week in the middle off. There are two primary contributing factors to this decision: 1) putting together these updates on tight deadlines was a bit more stressful than we’d like each week, and 2) having two OTA weeks in a row always meant we got little to no insight from the first week when locking in changes for the second.
To illustrate the cadence, it’ll look like this:
- Patch week (usually Tuesday)
- OTA week (Thursday)
- Off week
- OTA week (Thursday)
- Patch week (usually Tuesday)
- OTA week (Thursday)
The problem with High Evolutionary is now fixed.
"A new patch is available to download! After downloading the new update, please make sure to restart your game. High Evolutionary should be available in your Token Shop immediately! Thanks for all your patience. We’re sending 300 Gold to all players to apologize for the delay. (Reminder: Inbox rewards are sent in a queue and will be sent to your account in the order that you restarted your game. It might take a bit to show up!)"
In the event you've not heard, High Evolutionary was delayed due to issues with the game.
If you're wondering if the OTA update this week will fix the issue, then don't count on it.
Still, we'll hopefully get some more OTA updates to cards this week, regardless. So stay tuned for more news in the next 24 hours.
As per the May 2023 Patch Notes:
"This is a light week relative to the excitement of recent patches. The metagame as April ended featured a diverse metagame with healthy win rates and cube gain rates, and only a couple small popularity outliers. We’ll have more news for you soon on the future of our OTA balance patches, but today is mostly just a couple card reworks."
Could some changes to the OTA weekly updates be coming?
Drax:
[Old Stats]
- Cost: 4
- Power: 5
- If your opponent played a card here this turn, +3 Power.
[New Stats]
- Cost: 4
- Power: 6
- On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +2 Power.
[Old Stats]
- Cost: 4
- Power: 6
- On Reveal: On Reveal: Shuffle 2 Rocks into your opponent's deck.
[New Stats]
- Cost: 4
- Power: 5
- On Reveal: On Reveal: Shuffle 2 Rocks into your opponent's deck.
[Old Stats]
- Cost: 4
- Power: 6
- On Reveal: Remove the abilities from all Ongoing cards at this location.
[New Stats]
- Cost: 4
- Power: 5
- On Reveal: Remove the abilities from all Ongoing cards at this location.
[Old Stats]
- Cost: 3
- Power: 1
- On Reveal: Destroy your other cards at this location. Add their Power to this card.
[New Stats]
- Cost: 3
- Power: 3
- On Reveal: Destroy your other cards at this location. Add their Power to this card.
Orka:
[Old Stats]
- Cost: 6
- Power: 9
- Ongoing: +5 Power if this is your only card here.
[New Stats]
- Cost: 6
- Power: 11
- On Reveal: +5 Power if this is your only card here.
[Old Stats]
- Cost: 2
- Power: 1
- Ongoing: When a card enters your hand from anywhere (except your deck), +1 Power.
[New Stats]
- Cost: 2
- Power: 2
- On Reveal: When a card enters your hand from anywhere (except your deck), +1 Power.
[Old Stats]
- Cost: 2
- Power: 2
- Ongoing: Your cards can’t have their Power reduced.
[New Stats]
- Cost: 2
- Power: 2
- Ongoing: Your cards can’t have their Power reduced.
Here's a look at the latest OTA balance update which went live today:
Shanna:
[Old Stats]
- Cost: 4
- Power: 2
- On Reveal: Add a random 1-Cost card to each location.
[New Stats]
- Cost: 4
- Power: 4
- On Reveal: Add a random 1-Cost card to each location.
[Old Stats]
- Cost: 5
- Power: 5
- Ongoing: Players can only play 1 card a turn.
[New Stats]
- Cost: 5
- Power: 3
- Ongoing: Players can only play 1 card a turn.
[Old Stats]
- Cost: 2
- Power: 5
- Ongoing: -3 Power if your opponent has 4 cards here.
[New Stats]
- Cost: 2
- Power: 5
- Ongoing: -4 power if your opponent has 4 cards here.
[Old Stats]
- Cost: 4
- Power: 4
- On Reveal: Remove the abilities from all Ongoing cards at this location.
[New Stats]
- Cost: 4
- Power: 6
- On Reveal: Remove the abilities from all Ongoing cards at this location.
- Shuri:
- [Previous] 4/2 – On Reveal: Double the Power of the next card you play.
- [Update] 4/2 – On Reveal: If you play your next card here, double its Power.
Developer Comments: We considered a number of changes to Shuri, but they all tended to ruin her current decks. Some even theoretically risked making a new monster with different parts–that’s not a great risk to run when balancing a problematically strong card. The change we’re making today may seem small and subtle, but we expect it to be impactful and retain the same flow of play for her existing decks, which is a consistent goal in our balance philosophy. This nerf removes Cosmo’s protective capacity for her target, makes single-card answers like Valkyrie easier to aim, and indirectly buffs lane control elements like Professor X. We’re taking a risk here in that this nerf could leave Shuri still a strength outlier–if so, we’ll react quickly.
- Leech:
- [Previous] 5/3 – On Reveal: Remove the abilities from all cards in your opponent’s hand.
- [Update] 5/3 – At the start of turn 6, remove all abilities from cards in your opponent’s hand.
Developer Comments: It’s never been our goal for Leech to be a heavily-played card, and we understand that’s been a frustration lately. When it’s happening, it usually means a finisher is generically strong against pure Power (like Leech-Leader) and/or a deck can play Leech earlier than turn 5 too often (like Lockjaw-Thanos). We’ve tried in the past to weaken the stronger cards in those decks, but it’s been a balance and design obstacle. Thus, we’ve decided to remove the “early Leech” from the equation. Leech is designed to counter some powerful endgame cards and combinations from a unique angle without any setup, which is important to have around in the event those decks begin to overperform. This change should let him fulfill that role when necessary without ever making him a foundational piece of the metagame.
- Lockjaw:
- [Previous] 3/2 – After you play a card here, swap it with a card in your deck.
- [Update] 3/2 – After you play a card here, swap it with a card in your deck. (once per turn)
Developer Comments: Lockjaw’s a fun and exciting card, but each trigger of this good boy basically draws a card and “generates” up to 6 Energy at random. That’s a lot of variance to have in multiple competitive decks! As we add cards, new and improved ways to sidestep Lockjaw’s risks will also become available. Since we believe the most powerful and frustrating use of Lockjaw is triggering him multiple times in a turn, often with a snap along the way, we’re changing that. Limiting Lockjaw to one swap each turn forces the player to develop their board without letting them sprint ahead or spring a late surprise. This will make Lockjaw simpler to play against and less potent in decks incidentally playing lots of cheap cards, like Thanos.
- [Previous] 6/9 – You always draw this card on turn 6, and not before
- [Update] 6/9 – Starts on the bottom of your deck. Draw this on turn 6.
Developer Comments: Previously, if you were about to draw America Chavez, you would just draw your next card instead. This means that over the course of the game, she’s a lot more likely to be the top card of your deck. Thus far this has been largely unimportant outside of Yondu, but it does restrict our ability to print cards that interact with the top of your deck. We expect this update to have little impact on America Chavez’s functionality overall.
- Jubilee:
- [Previous] 4/1 – On Reveal: Add a card from your deck to this location.
- [Update] 4/1 – On Reveal: Add the top card of your deck to this location.
Developer Comments: Some of our players may remember a time where Jubilee had this ability! Back then, Jubilee would often be a 4/10 as she’d pull America Chavez very consistently. We decided at the time to change Jubilee’s effect instead of America Chavez’s, as the former was a much simpler change to communicate. However, we’re looking to design cards that interact with the top of your deck in the future, so we’re bringing this design back too! We expect this update to have little impact on Jubilee for the time being.
- Leader:
- [Previous] 6/7 – On Reveal: Copy all cards your opponent played to the location right of here, but on your side.
- [Update] 6/2 – On Reveal: Copy the enemy card(s) with the highest Power played this turn, but on your side.
Developer Comments: We were clearly too harsh on Leader with his previous nerf, and we’re dismayed that action became a go-to example for how ruinous a nerf can be. Our balance philosophy is to preserve as much playability as we reasonably can when weakening cards, and we didn’t succeed here previously. With this change, we’re aiming to bring his strength back up to a playable spot for a 6-Cost card, but still avoid the oppressive impact his original form had. We have erred on the cautious side with his Power for now because some previous defenses against the original Leader, such as playing weaker cards before a strong one, no longer apply.
5/13 -> 5/12
Ongoing: Enemy cards at this location have +1 Power.
"As our previous patch notes discussed, we last adjusted Red Skull to weaken specifically his interactions with Shuri and Taskmaster. Our goal was to keep his strength otherwise flat or even slightly improved and see how things settled once we’d softened Thanos’s grip on the metagame. We know many players disagreed with that approach, and we’re weighing that feedback as we continue to debate internally how “aggressive” our balance updates should be.
In this case, things settled into an improved metagame, but with decks based around Shuri and Taskmaster still too strong for our liking. We recognize Shuri is clearly the true offender here, and we have a balance change for Shuri ready. However, that change to Shuri needs a patch to be implemented–we can’t make it via OTA. So this is an interim adjustment to weaken the Shuri deck just a bit more. We do expect Shuri to remain viable after this Red Skull tweak, but we don’t want to drastically nerf multiple “innocent” cards when we have an incoming nerf to Shuri herself.
Once that change to Shuri is live, will we revert this or previous Red Skull changes? Maybe, but we’re going to give that some time because we’d rather ensure a larger shift in the metagame."
1/1 -> 1/0
At the end of each turn, gain +1 Power for each unspent Energy.
"Sunspot is one of the most heavily-played cards in the game. The why is obvious: he’s strong, he’s in Series 2, and he has powerful synergies with other cards like She-Hulk and Infinaut. The opportunity cost for having him in your deck is also very low, since you only have to have 1 spare Energy on any turn to unlock his strength floor, and the ceiling can be very high.
All of this adds up to a solid criteria for a minor nerf, creating space for less-played cards to compete more often for slots in decks. We were curious if nerfing She-Hulk would have any impact on Sunspot, but truthfully we didn’t expect any change and assumed we’d be making this adjustment sooner rather than later. We did evaluate some other changes to Sunspot, but for Series 2 cards we want to retain the elegance of the original design, just a touch weaker. As a default card in both Shuri and Thanos, this change does impact those decks a bit more than others, too."
4/3 -> 3/3
On Reveal: Set all cards here to their original base Power.
"Shadow King’s whole purpose is to fight back against exactly the kind of thing that Shuri’s doing, but this card simply released too weak to be a consideration for most decks. We recognize his status as a Series 4 card that’s used to answer powerful decks, rather than fuel them, might limit his potential to impact the metagame. However, we’re happy to just give him this boost and see where things land from there."
4/8 - You can't play this at the right location.
On Reveal: Add a -8 Power Void to the right location.
->
4/10 - You can't play this at the right location.
On Reveal: Add a -10 Power Void to the right location.
"Sentry’s a card that just hasn’t found a great home yet. While these number changes aren’t an obviously impactful buff, it does increase the potential reward for running Sentry and the potential damage donating your Void with Viper can do. This is just a change we’ve been interested to try out, so we’re making it here."
Marvel Snap Weekly Updates Explained
Second Dinner did an excellent job explaining exactly what will be happening during each round of weekly updates. We'll break down everything they had to say about the topic here.
What Kind Of Changes Will Be Made?
Second Dinner states their OTA tool can make "changes to be numbers-only." This means full-scale ability changes will not happen until the larger monthly patch. Only stat increases or decreases will be occurring each week (until the OTA tool is updated).
Will Cards Be Buffed Or Nerfed?
Both! Second Dinner has stated that they want to prioritize buffing cards and only nerf cards "when it’s deemed necessary." In fact, the team went on to confirm that they're "going to guarantee at least one buff in each of these updates." Hopefully, this means a lot of currently unplayable cards will be given the chance to shine.
How Many Cards Will Be Changed Each Week?
Second Dinner has stated that 2-4 cards each will be changed on average. This is dissimilar to the monthly patches, where changes can be made at Second Dinner's discretion, depending on the state of the game.
What Cards Will Be Changed?
Second Dinner has a list of buffs and nerfs that they are working through and are prioritizing those cards first. Additionally, the cards chosen may not have an impact now but will have become stronger alongside new cards and new locations.
Why Don't Second Dinner Make These Changes Now?
Too many changes at once would send the meta into a flurry, and it would never have a chance to settle. The team also stated that it lets them "lightly freshen the metagame periodically, rather than shake it all up at once and then watch things settle into a new state of stasis."
How Long Will Weekly Updates Persist?
Second Dinner has stated that they have a trial period scheduled for May. Depending on how that goes, they may continue with weekly updates moving forward.
When Is The Next Marvel Snap Weekly Update
Update: Second Dinner has changed the cadence of Marvel Snap Weekly updates, with the team now releasing 2 OTA updates a month, rather than 3. To illustrate the monthly cadence, it’ll look like this moving forward:
• Patch week (usually Tuesday)
• OTA week (Thursday)
• Off week
• OTA week (Thursday)
• Patch week (usually Tuesday)
The Marvel Snap weekly update will occur every week on Thursdays.
Second Dinner gave a brief explanation as to why their team favors Thursdays, but ultimately, it's just a day that works best for them. For a more detailed explanation, check out the quote Second Dinner provided below:
"Thursdays are just a good day to slide into the rest of our schedule and ensure our QA team has enough time to verify these updates. It also avoids stepping on new card releases or hot/featured locations."
And that's everything you need to know about weekly updates in Marvel Snap!
For more Marvel Snap news, be sure to check out our dedicated section or take a look at some of our Guides & Tutorials just below:
MAJOR NEWS - Patch Notes | Weekly Balance Updates | Series Drop Schedule
FUTURE UPDATES - Next Season Pass Leaks | Marvel Snap Roadmap | Upcoming Bundles
BIG BADS & CARD POOLS -
Best Galactus Decks | Best Thanos Decks | Best Kang Decks | Best High Evolutionary Decks | What Are Card Pools | Pool 5 Cards | Pool 4 Cards | Pool 3 Cards | All Marvel Snap Cards List
BEST DECKS -
Best Marvel Snap Decks | How To Get Infinite Rank In Marvel Snap Fast | Best Beginner Decks | Best Discard Decks | Best Move Decks | Strongest Cards To Use
GAME GUIDES -
Does Marvel Snap Have Codes | Featured & Hot Locations Explained | Who Reveals First | Progression and Levelling Guide | What Is the Snap | How To Get Titles | Why You Can't Trade Cards | How To Get, Use and Spend Gold | How Do Ties Work | How To Get Collector's Tokens | How Collector's Reserves Work | How To Change Card Backs | When To Snap & Retreat |How To Change Name | How To Win A Location With Only 1 Card | How To Get Credits Fast | How to Battle Friends | Marvel Snap Variants Explained | Ultimate Variants Explained | How to Get All Variant Cards
BUYING GUIDES -
Best Cards To Get From Token Shop | Is Marvel Snap Premium Season Pass Worth It | Is The Marvel Snap Pro Bundle Worth Buying | Are Fast Upgrades Worth Buying | Is Marvel Snap Pay To Win
TECH GUIDES
Can You Play Marvel Snap On Console | Is Marvel Snap Coming To Nintendo Switch | Can You Play Marvel Snap On Steam Deck | How To Link Your Account
