April 25th – Balance Updates

Welcome back! We’ll be resuming our “OTA, Patch, OTA, Off” cadence after this week, assuming future patches continue to land as scheduled. We’re largely happy with the metagame at the moment, so today’s changes aim to weaken one threat in particular while distributing a handful of buffs to more fringe cards.

 

  • 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!

 

  • U.S. Agent
    • [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 released a bit on the weak side. 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.

 

  • 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 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.

 

  • 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.

 

  • 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 for the card becoming annoying against enemy Venoms and the like. Since those fears proved unfounded, we’re restoring Mantis to 1/2.

 

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

Last but not least, the Mighty Thor! 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 especially well. Adding a bit of Power for those games where you have to prove your Worth the hard way makes sense.

 

 

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

Patch Notes – April 10, 2024

PLEASE NOTE: If you haven’t updated your game yet, get the latest in the App Store!

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:

  • Leader
  • Legion
  • Mirage
  • Hazmat
  • Patriot
  • Agent Coulson
  • The Hood/Demon
  • Wakandan Throne Room
  • Triskelion

 

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.

 

  • 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.

 

  • 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 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.

 

  • 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.

 

  • 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!

 

  • 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.

 

  • 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.

 

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 cancelling 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 had 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 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 were 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

April 4th – Balance Updates

We’ve got a solid handful of high-impact changes to the metagame coming between this OTA and our next patch, pull out your cauldrons–it’s time to brew!

 

  • Thanos
    • [Old] 6/10 – At the start of the game, shuffle the six Infinity Stones into your deck.
    • [New] 6/10 – Starts in your opening hand and shuffles the six Infinity Stones into your deck.

Given the consistent and dominant performance of Thanos, additional changes were inevitable. This is the first stage of a larger range of adjustments we’re going to make to the Thanos and Infinity Stones package. Our goal is to focus more heavily on the Mad Titan, with the expectation that narrowing the overall flexibility of Thanos decks will reduce how often these decks take heavy advantage of powerful new cards aimed at other strategies. This may be a more damaging change than you expect to the current builds, as Thanos has almost always claimed the highest winrate in the game when not drawn.

 

  • Time Stone
    • [Old] 1/1 – On Reveal: Draw a card and give it -1 Cost.
    • [New] 1/1 – On Reveal: Give Thanos -1 Cost next turn. Draw a card.

We are pursuing changes to more than one of the Stones, but because we’re not ready to execute on those just yet we’re taking an even heavier hand with the Time Stone for now. Our last change also did very little to the actual winrate of the card, and we’d rather not miss again. It’s possible we’ll return some strength in the future as other Stones change, though we intend to keep the focus on Thanos as discussed above.

 

  • Miek
    • [Old] 1/1 – When you discard a card, this gains +1 Power and can move next turn.
    • [Change] 1/1 -> 1/0

We adjusted Apocalypse slightly in the last patch to tone down Discard decks a little, and it had the desired effect on Apocalypse. However, Miek has since surged out in front on the back of a previous adjustment, and has by far the best winrate in these decks now. That’s especially concerning for a 1-Cost card, because we measure winrate when drawn and turn 1 is the least common turn on which to draw a card (ignoring Limbo). This kind of performance in spite of theoretically being much less effective to draw on turns 4, 5, and 6 is a strong indicator we should remove some Power or increase the Cost, and we prefer the former.

 

  • Crossbones
    • [Old] 4/8 – You can only play this at locations where you are winning
    • [Change] 4/8 -> 4/10

There’s been a lot of debate around which downside is stronger or weaker between Crossbones and Cull Obsidian–we’ve decided to let you all settle it in the streets. Either way this is probably Cull’s game to lose, just because there are multiple good decks where Cull already shines, but it’ll be fun finding out. Plus, we’d like to add a little bit more support for Skaar.

 

  • Sabretooth
    • [Old] 3/4 – When this is destroyed, return it to your hand. It costs 0.
    • [Change] 3/4 -> 3/5

Many are saying “3/5 is the new 3/4,” and they may be onto something. We’ve been fairly happy with how many of these 3/5s are working out, and we expect to make more changes over time to balance out the range of Power among our lower-Cost cards as the game grows deeper. Sabretooth is fairly analogous to Black Swan as a “vanilla” card with no effect unless you lean into it during deckbuilding, but Destroy-based decks are also very competitive when it comes to exactly which 12 cards make the cut.

 

  • Angela
    • [Old] 2/2 – After you play a card here, +1 Power.
    • [New] 2/0 – After you play a card here, +2 Power.

Angela’s back! The metagame has shifted to create more space for the “small ball” decks that leaned heavily on Angela to scale for late Power, so we’re adjusting in kind. Will this be enough to return decks like Silky Smoove to the metagame, or do they need more help? Time will tell.

 

  • Baxter Building
    • [Old] Whoever is winning this location gets +3 Power at the others.
    • [Change] +3 -> +4

Do you get it? Yeah, you get it.

 

 

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

New Season: Thunderbolts

Thanos was right. Or maybe you consider Dr. Doom just a normal capitalist do-gooder? Look, we get it… The Green Goblin was just an adult being pestered by unruly teens. This season we celebrate what some might call “Villains,” but others might just say they are simply misunderstood.

 

 

SEASON PASS

Can this former leader of the Masters of Evil, write a new chapter for himself? True to his character, Baron Zemo’s ability allows him to recruit more characters to your team!

NEW CHARACTER: BARON ZEMO

On Reveal: Recruit the lowest-Cost card from your opponent’s deck to your side of this location.

 

SEASON REWARDS

 

 

NEW CHARACTERS!

Launching alongside Baron Zemo are fellow Thunderbolts alumni and antiheroes. Certainly, they would never do anything to hurt us… right?

SERIES 5

When your opponent ends a turn with unspent Energy, +4 Power. (if in hand or in play)

SERIES 5

Ongoing: 4, 5, and 6-Cost cards here have -3 Power.

SERIES 5

On Reveal: Afflict the lowest-Power enemy card here with -2 Power and remove its text.

SERIES 5

On Reveal: Add a Widow’s Kiss to your opponent’s side of this location. 

 

Ongoing: This has -4 Power. Disable this ability if your side of this location is full.

SERIES 5

On Reveal: Add a random 6-Cost card to your hand. Give it -2 Cost and -3 Power.

 

 

So, when can you expect new cards?

You can expect new cards to be released weekly – starting with last month’s Season Pass Card, Hope Summers, releasing as a Series 5 card on April 2nd.

  • April 2nd: Hope Summers – Series 5 Release
  • April 2nd: Red Hulk – Series 5 Release
  • April 9th: U.S. Agent – Series 5 Release
  • April 16th: Red Guardian – Series 5 Release
  • April 23rd: White Widow – Series 5 Release
  • April 30th: Valentina- Series 5 Release

New Series 4 and Series 5 cards appear in the Spotlight Cache and the Token Shop. As you level up your Collection Level, Spotlight Caches become available for you to unlock a Series 4, Series 5 card, Spotlight Variants, or more.

 

 

SPOTLIGHT CACHES!

April 2nd:

  • Red Hulk
  • Sebastian Shaw
  • Echo

April 9th:

  • U. S. Agent
  • Jeff the Baby Land Shark
  • Mirage

April 16th:

  • Red Guardian
  • High Evolutionary
  • Lady Deathstrike

April 23rd:

  • White Widow
  • Snowguard
  • Nico Minoru

April 30th:

  • Valentina
  • Blob
  • Knull

 

 

BRAND NEW LOCATIONS

  • Castle Zemo: The first card you play here switches sides.

  • Thunderbolts Tower: After turn 5, give all cards here -2 Power.

 

 

BRAND NEW ALBUMS

Get all new Avatars, Variants, and Emotes by completing three new albums!

This month, we’re releasing three new albums with a little something for everyone. Collect them all to unlock new ways to show off to your opponents!

Step into the alternate universe, with Villains from 3099 on April 12th.

  • Collect 3: Sandman Avatar
  • Collect 6: 2000 Credits
  • Collect 9: 3099 Cardback
  • Collect 12: Sandman Salty Emote

Don’t miss the 3099 Shop Takeover on April 12th and 13th to help fill out your collection!

New 3099 variants include:

  • Arnim Zola
  • Killmonger
  • Klaw
  • Sandman
  • Shocker

Are your eyes always pointed up at the sky? Here comes a cosmic Dan Hipp album on April 19th.

  • Collect 2: Captain Marvel Avatar
  • Collect 4: 1000 Tokens
  • Collect 6: Captain Marvel Variant
  • Collect 8: Captain Marvel Shrug Emote

We can all get excited about this one! A new Kim Jacinto album drops May 3rd!

  • Collect 3: Moon Knight Avatar
  • Collect 6: Spotlight Cache Key
  • Collect 9: Moon Knight Variant
  • Collect 12: Moon Knight Emote

Don’t miss the Kim Jacinto Takeover on May 3rd and 4th to grab these awesome new variants!

Check it out to see the brand new Nightcrawler Kim Jacinto variant!

 

 

TWITCH DROPS


Watch your favorite MARVEL SNAP Twitch streamers to earn Boosters, Credits, and a sweet Mystery Variant! Drops will be available from April 19th-26th. Don’t miss out!

  • Watch 2 hours to earn: 65 Random Boosters
  • Watch 4 hours to earn: 350 Credits
  • Watch 6 hours to earn: Mystery Variant

Head over to marvelsnap.com/twitchdrops to link your accounts today.

 

 

These new heroes are all trying their best, but they’ll need your help to make the right choices. Can’t wait to see what new decks you come up with. SNAP you later!

March 21st – Balance Updates

Hope you enjoyed the AvX event this month! We’re rolling back those changes today, and debuting our next OTA. This week has plenty of changes, but our primary balance concerns are restricted to weakening the Thanos and Discard decks that have been dominating the metagame for a couple of weeks. Other than that, we’re just distributing buffs to a handful of cards that could use a little help–including the beloved Guardians of the Galaxy.

 

  • Captain Marvel
    • [Old] 4/4 – At the end of the game, move to a location that wins you the game. (if possible)
    • [Change] 4/4 -> 4/5

Captain Marvel at 4/5 proved to be one of our strongest cards last year, but times have changed. The deck Captain Marvel most strongly supported has been substantially weaker in the new metagame, and at 4/4 Captain Marvel hasn’t seen the level of play we’d like. Given we think the metagame can tolerate the stronger card once again, we’re excited to try this buff and hope it can stick long-term for one of our most exciting cards and characters.

 

  • Apocalypse
    • [Old] 6/8 – When you discard this, put it back with +4 Power.
    • [Change] 6/8 -> 6/6

Discard decks have moved from the middle to the top of the metagame over the last month, fueled by some strong and exciting new releases. We want Discard to be a great deck, but it’s been just a hair too strong. Apocalypse is the single best-performing card in the dedicated Discard archetype, so we’re taking away a little bit of its base Power. We considered reducing the triggered buff ability instead, but when possible we prefer to push strength into the “dreams” of our cards, and Apocalypse has an exciting one to grow.

 

  • Mind Stone
    • [Old] 1/1 – On Reveal: Draw 2 1-Cost cards from your deck.
    • [Change] 1/1 -> 2/1

Thanos has become a bit of a problem for the metagame. When we adjusted Time Stone, we briefly mentioned that the design of Thanos can be constraining. Specifically, the versatility of the Stones give the deck a lot of room to maneuver and adapt to whatever the metagame becomes. In all cases however, the strongest Stone in the deck has consistently been the Mind Stone. We considered removing its second draw, but ultimately that’s a very appealing part of the card. So for now, we’re taking the unusual approach of making it a 2-Cost card. We don’t think this is likely to fully solve the “Thanos problem,” but hopefully it meaningfully addresses the archetype while we investigate a wider range of solutions.

 

  • Psylocke
    • [Old] 2/2 – On Reveal: Next turn, you get +1 Energy.
    • [Change] 2/2 -> 2/1

We buffed Psylocke many months ago, and since then the card has enjoyed a range of interesting homes. In recent months, Psylocke’s use has become restricted to almost exactly Thanos, where its performance is surprisingly among the strongest cards in the deck. Given we’re looking for some ways to shave strength away from Thanos in the current metagame, that makes reverting Psylocke’s buff a logical step, albeit a small one.

 

  • Adam Warlock
    • [Old] 5/4 – After each turn, draw a card if you’re winning here.
    • [Change] 5/4 -> 5/5

As previously discussed, we made the last change to Adam Warlock with an abundance of caution. Since then, we’ve seen it was a very minor improvement for a small number of decks, so we’re going to push on a little bit more. We believe the design could go to 5/6 fairly easily, but one of the archetypes we’re interested in here is Cerebro-5, which can be a difficult deck to serve. So we’re trying the smaller buff to see how that goes. None of this is to say that we won’t pursue other Costs or a more dramatic rework later, but for now we’re going to try nudging things more softly.

 

Guardians of the Galaxy

 

Most of the Guardians of the Galaxy have struggled to keep pace with even the early Series metagames, as their risky abilities don’t offer quite enough compared to alternatives. In addition to boosting their total Power potential, we’re taking the opportunity to try lining their buffs up on the same Power gained, rather than having different combinations of Power for each card.

 

  • Rocket Racoon
    • [Old] 1/2 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +2 Power.
    • [New] 1/1 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +4 Power.

 

  • Star-Lord
    • [Old] 2/2 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +3 Power.
    • [New] 2/2 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +4 Power.

 

  • Groot
    • [Old] 3/4 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +2 Power.
    • [New] 3/3 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +4 Power.

 

  • Drax
    • [Old] 4/6 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +2 Power.
    • [New] 4/5 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +4 Power.

 

  • Gamora
    • [Old] 5/7 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +5 Power.
    • [New] 5/8 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +4 Power.

 

 

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

April Brand New Albums

BRAND NEW ALBUMS

Get all new Avatars, Variants, and Emotes by completing three new albums!

This month, we’re releasing three hot new albums with a little something for everyone. Each album has exclusive new content to help you flex your accomplishments in game!

Feeling mystical? Break out your Tarot variants on March 12th.
  • Collect 3: 155 x Random Boosters
  • Collect 6: 1 x Spotlight Cache Key
  • Collect 9: Tarot Card Back
  • Collect 12: Professor X Thinking Emote

Do you wear your sunglasses at night? You’ll enjoy this Midnight Suns album on March 12th.
  • Collect 2: Doctor Strange Avatar
  • Collect 4: 2000 Credits
  • Collect 6: Premium Mystery Variant
  • Collect 8: Doctor Strange Emote

We’re all excited for this one. Max Grecke lovers get their own album on March 20th!
  • Collect 3: Iceman Max Grecke Avatar
  • Collect 6: 2000 Collectors Tokens
  • Collect 9: Iceman Max Grecke Variant
  • Collect 12: Thor Confident Emote

New Season: Avengers vs. X-Men

This season, we’re tackling the age-old debate that has divided scholars, destroyed friendships, and puzzled the internet for years. No, not whether pineapple belongs on pizza (it does). We’re talking about a showdown more epic than the endless “Gif” vs. “Jif” pronunciation war (It’s Gif). That’s right, it’s time for the Avengers vs. the X-Men! Are you Team Avengers or Team X-Men? This season will put your allegiances to the test. The future of all mutants, and possibly even the world, revolves around our biggest season yet.

 

 

SEASON PASS

We now introduce Hope Summers, the first child born after M-Day, the Mutant Messiah. She could either be the savior the X-Men need or the uncontrollable host of Phoenix that the Avengers fear.

NEW CHARACTER: HOPE SUMMERS

After you play a card here, you get +1 Energy next turn.

 

 

SEASON REWARDS

Not to be left out of the fight, Cyclops is entering the battle as our newest Emote!

 

 

NEW CHARACTERS!

Each week this month, we’ll be sending extra forces into the battle, starting with Pixie who launches alongside Hope Summers!

SERIES 5

On Reveal: Shuffle the Costs of all cards in your deck that started there.

SERIES 5

Costs 1 less for each of your cards in play that didn’t start in your deck.

SERIES 5

On Reveal: Move the highest-Power enemy card here away. If you can’t, destroy it with a Rock.

SERIES 5

On Reveal: Until the end of next turn, nothing can stop you from playing cards anywhere.

 

So, when can you expect new cards?

You can expect new cards to be released weekly – starting with last month’s Season Pass Card, Black Swan, releasing as a Series 5 card on March 5th.

  • March 5th: Black Swan – Series 5 Release
  • March 5th: Pixie – Series 5 Release
  • March 12th: Mockingbird – Series 5 Release
  • March 19th: Cannonball – Series 5 Release
  • March 26th: War Machine – Series 5 Release

New Series 4 and Series 5 cards appear in the Spotlight Cache and the Token Shop. As you level up your Collection Level, Spotlight Caches become available for you to unlock a Series 4, Series 5 card, Spotlight Variants, or more.

 

 

SPOTLIGHT CACHES!

March 5th:

  • Pixie
  • Mobius M. Mobius
  • Spider-Ham

March 12th:

  • Mockingbird
  • GhostSpider
  • Man-Thing

March 19th:

  • Cannonball
  • Kitty Pryde
  • Ms.Marvel

March 26th:

  • War Machine
  • Silk
  • Silver Samurai

 

 

BRAND NEW LOCATIONS

  • Krakoa: Your first play here adds its Power to the top of your deck.

  • Utopia: 3 and 4-Cost cards cost 1 less.

 

 

BRAND NEW ALBUMS

Get all new Avatars, Variants, and Emotes by completing three new albums!

This month, we’re releasing three hot new albums with a little something for everyone. Each album has exclusive new content to help you flex your accomplishments in game!

Feeling mystical? Break out your Tarot variants on March 12th.
  • Collect 3: 155 x Random Boosters
  • Collect 6: 1 x Spotlight Cache Key
  • Collect 9: Tarot Card Back
  • Collect 12: Professor X Thinking Emote

Do you wear your sunglasses at night? You’ll enjoy this Midnight Suns album on March 12th.
  • Collect 2: Doctor Strange Avatar
  • Collect 4: 2000 Credits
  • Collect 6: Premium Mystery Variant
  • Collect 8: Doctor Strange Emote

We’re all excited for this one. Max Grecke lovers get their own album on March 20th!
  • Collect 3: Iceman Max Grecke Avatar
  • Collect 6: 2000 Collectors Tokens
  • Collect 9: Iceman Max Grecke Variant
  • Collect 12: Thor Confident Emote

 

 

BRAND NEW VARIANTS

There are 30+ New Art Variants coming to the game this season – including 4 brand-new Max Grecke variants debuting in this month’s shop takeover!

Shop Takeover: Max Grecke – March 20th and 21st

  • Debrii
  • Galactus
  • Scarlet Witch
  • Killmonger
  • Black Widow
  • Mister Fantastic
  • Human Torch
  • Invisible Woman
  • The Thing
  • Silver Surfer
  • Hulk
  • Ironheart
  • Carnage
  • Bishop
  • Black Panther
  • Blue Marvel
  • Wolverine
  • Dr. Doom
  • Deadpool
  • Captain America
  • Thor
  • Vision
  • Sera

 

 

TWITCH DROPS

Watch your favorite MARVEL SNAP Twitch streamers to earn Boosters, Credits, and a sweet Mystery Variant! Drops will be available from March 19th-26th. Don’t miss out!

  • Watch 2 hours to earn: 65 Random Boosters
  • Watch 4 hours to earn: 350 Credits
  • Watch 6 hours to earn: Mystery Variant

Head over to marvelsnap.com/twitchdrops to link your accounts today.

 

 

We know you’re going to have a lot of fun building around these new cards, but will they test your allegiances? Can’t wait to see what decks you build in the wild. Have fun!

Patch Notes – Mar 12, 2024

PLEASE NOTE: If you haven’t updated your game yet, get the latest in the App Store!

GENERAL UPDATES

FEATURES

  • Graveyard
    • Did you look away for a second when your opponent played Turn 1 Yondu?
    • Don’t you wish you could see what card was destroyed?
    • Now you can!
    • While in a match, tap your Player Avatar which can be found in the top left corner of the screen. A menu with your emotes will appear.
    • At the bottom of that menu, tap on the word Destroyed or Discarded to see cards that have been Destroyed… Or, you guessed it, Discarded! This also works if you tap on your opponent’s Player Avatar.
      • Note that cards like Wolverine, Sabertooth, and Deadpool won’t appear here – they’ve been destroyed, but they are not destroyed. Healing factor, what are you going to do?
  • Undo End Turn
    • As long as your opponent hasn’t ended their turn, you can go back to the staging step.
  • Custom Border
    • Custom Border allows you to combine your favorite owned variant art, any border rarity, and a finish/flare combo you own for that variant to make the most stylish card.
    • Custom Border appears at the top of your Card Variant list. Add them to your deck and set them as your Favorite to add to future decks easily.
    • Complete three total Infinity Splits to unlock the Custom Border feature. After that, any Card with at least 1 Infinity Split has the feature available.
    • Stay tuned for more updates to this feature in the future!
  • Gold Pass
    • Looking for some extra gold throughout the season?
    • Purchasing a Gold Pass will give an initial recharge of gold and then additional amount of Gold every day for the next 30 days.

 

ART & VISUAL EFFECTS

  • Several older cards now have VFX:
    • Deadpool
    • Psylocke
    • Legion
    • Darkhawk
    • Moon Girl

 

AUDIO

  • Several older cards now have sound effects:
    • Deadpool
    • Psylocke
    • Legion
    • Darkhawk
    • Moon Girl
  • Several older cards now also have voice-over dialogue:
    • Deadpool
    • Moon Girl

 

BALANCE UPDATES

CARD UPDATES

  • Elsa Bloodstone
    • [Old] 2/3 – After you play a card here, give it +2 Power if your side is full.
    • [New] 3/3 – Each card you play to fill your side of a location gains +2 Power.

 

Similar to our notes around Luke Cage last month, we’ve decided we took the wrong tactic with Elsa Bloodstone. Our rebalance to keep this effect local aimed to maintain Elsa’s strength as a 2-Cost build-around, but the numbers necessary to make that work don’t line up with our goals. So we’re shifting Elsa up in Cost to 3/3 and widening the effect to all locations once again.

We’re also restoring the previous functionality, so that Elsa applies the Power buff before On Reveals resolve, rather than after. We’ve decided to accept that both versions have some potential to be confusing, but the original execution seems to have more clearly lined up with players’ expectations and existing content than our revision. Elsa will once more be able to buff cards like Beast (and unable to buff Brood).

 

  • Miek
    • [Old] After each turn, if you discarded one or more cards, gain that much Power and move.
    • [New] When you discard a card, this gains +1 Power and can move next turn.

 

The general direction of Miek was on the right track, but our execution fell short. In particular, interactions with Invisible Woman, Dracula, and Black Cat crossed our bar for frustrating and non-intuitive for many players. Miek still gains just as much Power, counting cards discarded one at a time or in bulk, but that Power will now be added immediately. We’ve also removed the randomization from Miek’s move, giving players the option to make a move during the following turn if any cards were discarded. Overall, it should be a sizable buff to the bug.

 

  • Mantis
    • [Old] 2/3 – On Reveal: If your opponent played any cards here this turn, draw a card from their deck.
    • [New] 2/2 – On Reveal: If your opponent played any cards here this turn, copy one of them into your hand.

 

Our efforts to differentiate low-Cost card generation have mostly gone well, but Mantis and Cable both came up quite short. We’ve waited to adjust them further, because ultimately we felt Mantis simply needed a rework in order to find a functional home. This design shifts Mantis’s thievery from the deck to copying cards at a location. That can be a lot more powerful if you time it right, because the copy will retain any buffs–Venom in particular comes to mind as a very powerful card to copy! We’ll keep an eye on the strength of this effect to ensure it finds the right balance point.

 

  • Cable
    • [Old] 3/4 – On Reveal: Draw a card from your opponent’s deck.
    • [Change] 3/4 -> 2/3

 

With Mantis changing to no longer copy from the deck, that creates room for Cable to move back down to 2-Cost, with a buff from his original 2/2 to boot.

 

  • Time Stone
    • [Old] On Reveal: +1 Energy next turn. Draw a card.
    • [New] On Reveal: Draw a card and give it -1 Cost.

 

Thanos has proven that combining the “toolbox” abilities of the Infinity Stones with a potent set of endgame cards consistently creates a powerful deck. After “Blob winter” we started looking more closely into exactly how the deck ticks and which parts of it are concerning. Time Stone really stood out as a warping presence in the deck with its ability to often capitalize on strong 5 and 6-Cost plays. We’ve decided to weaken that angle considerably in the interest of future-facing metagame diversity, so that Thanos isn’t the default best way to ramp out those kinds of cards.

This change is expected to do some damage to Thanos, but the last few seasons were very good for the Mad Titan so a little break isn’t so bad. Once we see how this change affects Thanos decks, we’ll look for the right spot to add back some of the strength we took away in previous balance patches. Perhaps Soul Stone took the heat for Time Stone too early?

 

  • M’Baku
    • [Old] 1/2 – If this is in your deck at the end of the game, it jumps to a location.
    • [New] 1/2 – At the end of the game, this jumps from your deck to your lowest-Power location. (that isn’t full)

 

M’Baku has always been more meme than dream, which is a fine position for some cards to maintain–it’s pretty fun to watch M’Baku do the thing. However, it’s been clear for a while that M’Baku’s strength was languishing. We decided to give the jump trigger the same targeting effect seen on Proxima Midnight, aiming for a location where you’re more likely to need help. There will always be corner-cases with cards triggering in the endgame, such as Dracula and Captain Marvel, but we believe this is overall a positive. However, M’Baku may be found drinking at the Bar with No Name a bit more often.

 

  • Yondu
    • [Old] 1/2 – On Reveal: Destroy the top card of your opponent’s deck.
    • [New] 1/2 – On Reveal: Destroy the lowest-Cost card in your opponent’s deck.

 

Back in the old days, Yondu was a frequent player in Destroy decks thanks to this trigger helping to discount Death while powering up Knull and providing some information. However, recent competition has almost universally left Yondu on the outside looking in as players grow their collection to include stronger synergy elements. This small change aims to give Yondu some new potential to function with cards like Cable and others in the near future that aim to steal cards from your opponent’s deck, improving the quality of cards stolen by destroying the “duds” ahead of time. Given the existing effect was already insufficient for Knull to notice, this potential outweighed that consideration.

 

  • Leech
  • [Old] 5/3 – At the start of turn 6, remove all abilities from cards in your opponent’s hand.
  • [New] 5/3 – On Reveal: Remove the text from each card with an On Reveal ability in your opponent’s hand.

 

We’re aware that Leech is among the least beloved cards in SNAP on any given week. However, Leech has served an important role for over a year, ensuring that there was some meaningful check for the various shenanigans players could get up to during the endgame. In that time, we’ve also made a concerted effort to design more specific disruption at better rates, such as Echo, Mobius M. Mobius, Shadow King, Caiera, Supergiant, and even a few more cards you’ll see very soon. Thanks to those additions, we’re ready to try restricting Leech to affect a narrower band of cards. We’d like to make sure Leech continues to play some kind of a role, so we chose to affect one of the bands he most consistently targeted already–On Reveal cards like Shang Chi and Legion that tended to steal the game on the final turn.

 

LOCATION UPDATES

As we add new locations to the game, periodically we need to review them to evaluate the total impact they’re having on the metagame. After conducting that review, we’ve increased the rarity of several locations, which means you’ll see them slightly less. Our motivations for doing so primarily centered around reducing how often locations add extra cards to the game, as well as balancing for locations that boost specific archetypes, like Destroy. Those locations are:

  • Camp Lehigh
  • Collapsed Mine
  • Great Portal
  • Hotel Inferno
  • Shuri’s Lab
  • Lamentis-1
  • Noor Dimension
  • Rickety Bridge
  • Superflow
  • The Abbey
  • Valley of the Hand

 

We’ve also lined up all of our locations with cards that trigger “After the turn” to use the exact same window. This inconsistency previously made a variety of outcomes unpredictable even while resolving locations from left to right. The affected locations that were previously triggering “late” are:

  • Asgard
  • Attilan
  • Bifrost
  • Collapsed mine
  • Eternity Range
  • Gamma Lab
  • Grand Central
  • Hala
  • Klyntar
  • Los Diablos
  • Murderworld
  • Oscorp Tower
  • Rickety Bridge
  • Strange Academy
  • TVA
  • X-Mansion

 

NOTE: While this shift makes the entirety of the game more consistent, it is a meaningful functional change for cards that gain Power after the turn, such as Sunspot. This is because our default trigger order is locations -> cards, so Sunspot’s Power gain won’t help you win Asgard anymore, for example.

It’s a potential consideration for us to reverse that trigger order, and we’re investigating it internally. That would be a large change, because we’d make it for every trigger, to maintain consistency.

Last but not least, we’ve mined Subterranea a little bit and reduced the number of Rocks it shuffles into your deck from 5 to 4.

 

Bug Fixes

Card Logic Fixes in 25.x

  • Addressed an issue that was causing turn timers to be reduced even when Agatha was no longer in their hand
  • Fixed an issue where Omega Red wouldn’t recheck power values after the game ended
  • Absorbing Man should now properly copy Nico Minoru’s current spell rather than her original ability text

VFX & SFX Fixes in 25.x

  • Supergiant’s VFX should no longer be active when their ability has been disabled
  • Nico Minoru’s VFX should no longer play incorrectly when she’s returned to hand and then replayed
  • Fixed an issue that caused Nico Minoru’s spell VFX to scale incorrectly when she’s returned to hand
  • X-23 should no longer show VFX for +2 energy granted
  • Echo’s VFX should no longer activate when hovering your own Ongoing cards over her location
  • Cosmo’s VFX should update appropriately if Cosmo moves to a different location
  • Fixed an issue where Djinn’s granted by Noor Dimension when played would see their SFX fail

Other Fixes in 25.x

  • Resolved an issue that was causing the Collection tab to show cards in a single file column when going from Albums to the Cards tab
  • Album rewards claimed in a previous client version should no longer appear claimable in the new client version
  • Fixed a UI issue that would cause the “Hold to Confirm” text to persist on screen when equipping Cosmetic selections to all decks
  • Corrected the text string for Daily Offer Shop refresh timer to no longer say “Mission Refill”
  • Addressed a number of Localization issues for Daily Login Bonus UI across all languages
  • Cleaned up some font sizing discrepancies in the Albums UI
  • The “Make me a Deck” icon should no longer clip through and be visible on the Favorites tab of the Collection
  • The Mystery Series 3 item in the token shop should now correctly display it’s title and description in its detail view

Existing Known Issues Fixed

  • After upgrading the client, players may see Albums display as unavailable or locked, this can be resolved by relaunching the app
  • Spider-Ham’s VFX can occasionally cause an Aw Snap to occur
  • The text string for the Mystery S3 card in the Token Shop isn’t localized for all languages
  • Some visual artifacts may occur when upgrading cards in post-match
  • The edit deck button collider when selecting a deck isn’t large enough making the right side not responsive
  • Occasionally cards drawn from the Mind Stone will flicker briefly in hand
  • Spotlight Cache preview assets are occasionally failing to load on the main menu carousel
  • The infinity split prompt extends out of frame in Japanese
  • The currently selected deck may not always be the deck in focus when opening Deck Selection

Known Issues List

New Known Issues for Existing Features and Content in 25.x

  • Nico’s VFX can show incorrectly for her opponent when she’s returned to hand and replayed
  • Kang’s rewind VFX aren’t rendering correctly on the button itself
  • Darkhawk’s VFX are disabled when he is forcibly moved
  • Darkhawk’s Tribute variant gets his wings clipped when the card is split
  • Knowhere’s VFX plays in its previous position if moved by something like Quake
  • Corvus Glaive’s energy VFX plays every turn instead of just once
  • Great Portal’s VFX always display in the center even if the location is on one of the sides
  • When an opponent discards Swarm the VFX display in the top left corner of the screen
  • Cards claimed off the Collection Track will show the Collector’s Cache/Reserve view instead of the card detail view if tapped
  • Card Sorting is often reset to the default sort order after tapping on the Cosmetics tab
  • The time to claim items off of the collection track has increased, especially noticeable at higher collection levels

New Feature Known Issues

  • Flare Effects in the custom card menu can be inadvertently selected behind some of the other UI
  • “Custom Card” doesn’t display on the nameplate when viewed in a match
  • Favoriting a custom card as the Unlock Custom Card animation plays will repeat the animation
  • During the custom card tutorial players can click on a deck in the background through other UI elementsand this can cause a soft lock
  • When tapping on the Effects tab many of the UI elements will briefly flicker
  • On rare occasions the Custom Card tutorial may soft lock and require a client restart to resolve

New PC Known Issues

  • Occasionally the End Turn VFX won’t display
  • An error can occur when attempting to upgrade a card immediately after using the Make Me a Deck function with it

Existing Known Issues

  • Set As Favorite not responsive when claiming Album emote rewards
  • Album reward quantities can sometimes display behind the reward asset
  • The option to undo all actions won’t display if you tap on the button as a card is still animating into position on the board
  • The VFX for a card being upgradable may not be visible upon receiving or purchasing enough credits to upgrade them
  • The location backgrounds will occasionally be blank when Legion is played on Sinister London
  • Card details are still visible when converted to Tokens from the Spotlight Cache
  • Cards may render incorrectly when tilted in the Artist detail view after upgrading
  • Cards destroyed by Yondu may not always be visible to the Yondu player
  • The emote and information panels may not be fully rendered properly
  • The “New” label in the Shop can be occasionally obscured by other assets
  • Tapping on a card during the Deck Building animation can cause the background to unblur
  • Seasonal Music may stop playing when changing languages through Settings
  • Missing background scrim when cancelling a card upgrade from the post-match screen
  • A Pig created by Spider-Ham targeting an evolved High Evolutionary card is not considered as having no ability text by things such as Washington D.C.
  • Card Back assets may not render properly in all areas of the game for some devices
  • The dropshadow of the title asset on the Cosmetics screen may be misaligned
  • Shop elements can be interacted with in the background of the Fast Upgrade UI
  • The “Show” text of the Collection search filter is sometimes vertically misaligned
  • After buying a card from the Token Shop, the other timers may briefly show an incorrect timer
  • On rare occasions when using the Smart Deck feature the cards won’t render properly and be invisible in the Deck Editor view
  • Tapping on the same emote multiple times from the Collection will result in the asset not loading in the preview
  • After tapping on the Clone button on the drop-down menu of a Deck, that drop-down isn’t closed
  • Player’s can’t play to Super Skrull’s location when an opposing Jean Grey is in play elsewhere
  • The transition is abrupt and the screen flickers when opting to go view a deck created by the Smart Deck builder from the Collection Track
  • The “Nevermind” button will return you to the collection screen rather than the card detail view when opting to not make a deck with smart deck builder
  • There’s a superfluous tab indicator on the new emotes panel that isn’t accessible
  • Emote assets blink into existence when viewing Album rewards
  • Clicking on the “Go To Deck” button after using the Smart Deck builder can briefly display the main menu before transitioning properly to deck edit
  • Previewing the Infinity border of a variant in the shop and then tapping the purchase button without completing the purchase will prevent previewing other rarities until closing and reopening the card detail view
  • The arrows for scrolling between rarity previews don’t grey out when there are no more options in either direction
  • An On Reveal card played before Wong will see an icon in the card detail view that implies it’s affected by Wong when it hasn’t been
  • Card ability text overlaps the upgrade text when upgrading during post-match
  • Symbiote VFX for cards being merged by Klyntar flicker briefly as each card is merged
  • Nico Minoru’s VFX aren’t displaying properly when she’s initially drawn to hand
  • On very rare occasions the Shop button on the navigation bar may become unresponsive (restarting the app should correct this)
  • The string for “Nowhere to Play” extends outside of the UI panel in Japanese
  • If you have the S3 claim reward confirmation up at the time that the card timer rolls over, the UI is no longer closable
  • Attempting to claim multiple rewards from the Collection Level track simultaneously can result in an error occurring
  • The flare icon for some infinity split cards is occasionally missing its asset and displaying as a white block
  • Occasional Z-fighting can be seen when card reveals and VFX occur while the player information panels are open
  • Distorted SFX can occur when scrolling through the CLTR after upgrading a card
  • Living Tribunal’s VFX can repeat if played with certain other cards
  • Card flare effects aren’t playing to full effect
  • Hulks generated by Gamma Lab show VFX for High Evolutionary but do not receive the updated ability.
  • VFX associated with High Evolutionary’s evolved cards can occasionally persist after the card or location has been destroyed
  • The pin button persists on the token shop after you’ve claimed that card but does not function
  • Evolved Shocker’s VFX initially target nothing
  • [Conquest] Occasionally the exclusive card progress bar doesn’t update appropriately until you’ve switched screens
  • Missions may not visually update properly when on the missions screen as the timer rolls over
  • Hard restarting your app in the middle of a Fast Upgrade can cause an error to occur after you’ve restarted necessitating another restart to fix
  • SFX do not play when retreating on turn 1
  • It can be hard to add or delete letters in the deck name on Android.
  • Mysterio’s token doesn’t update appropriately in all views when a using a variant.
  • Cards in the Fast Upgrade section occasionally show the incorrect art.
  • Quantum Realm doesn’t reduce the power of cards that have their cost and power swapped.
  • Series 3 Token shop may show duplicate items before it’s rolled through each card..
  • If you own all Series 4 and 5 cards as well as all Ultimate variants then the token shop will become inaccessible for Series 3 cards as well
  • Logging out and attempting to sign in via a different method can result in a hang on the Assembling splash
  • When Scarlet Witch or Reality Stone changes a location to Project Pegasus or Tinkerer’s Workshop, this location can trigger two turns.
  • Corners of cards can appear cut off when tilted during the card detail view
  • A long delay can occur an indestructible card such as colossus is played on Murderworld
  • Infinity Stone card descriptions overlap the art assets in Korean
  • Upgrade button not greyed out when the player doesn’t have enough credits
  • [Conquest] Repeatedly tapping on screen as you exit Conquest may cause the UI to break and require a restart to fix
  • If a player immediately restarts the app after fast upgrading a card they may see the upgrade rollback
  • Mission packs don’t refresh if you’re looking at them (need to change screens to see them update)
  • The favorites icon may unintentionally be highlighted when equipping new cosmetics
  • The “Set as Favorite” UI can become misaligned when swapping between languages
  • The 20th deck can occasionally be partially obscured by the UI when scrolling through
  • Occasionally the word “Free” on the daily 50 credits icon can change to a “0”
  • The “Claimed” banner on the season pass may be misaligned for some levels
  • The carousel banners for Weekend Missions occasionally show incorrectly as “Season Missions”
  • The dropdown menu doesn’t move with the deck list as the player scrolls
  • The losing player’s avatar in Conquest and Friendly battle will occasionally display incorrectly at match end

PC Specific Known Issues

  • [PC] Mission progression toast messages can appear in and obscure parts of the Conquest UI
  • [PC] It can be difficult to preview the Spotlight Cache cards from the carousel due to the buttons being too small
  • [PC] Toggling between the Deck Edit and Cosmetics tabs of the Collection can result in the Favorites button being incorrectly highlighted
  • [PC] Multiple tabs can be highlighted at once if using a touchscreen device
  • [PC] The “Never Seen Before” UI can overlap the Retreat UI in Friendly Battles
  • [PC] The background assets of the Conquest UI can briefly disappear when transitioning between UI
  • [PC] Some UI artifacting can occur at different PC resolutions
  • [PC] After toggling between portrait and landscape mode the player is occassionally brought to the Collection screen instead of the Main Menu
  • [PC] The season missions tab isn’t properly highlighted when accessing the missions UI from the Main Menu
  • [PC] Hovering over the emojis in card detail view while in a match highlights the base emoji as well
  • [PC] The main menu may flicker briefly when returning to it from other screens
  • [PC] The “Swap this Variant into All Decks” UI modal doesn’t always close appropriately
  • [PC] The weekly missions reward UI is missing its blur effect
  • [PC] Using Fast Upgrade from the Shop can cause some minor but strange UI layering issues with the collection screen
  • [PC] Mousewheel scrolling doesn’t work in the gaps between avatars in the Avatar selection screen
  • [PC] The loading splash screen briefly displays on screen when completing a purchase from the shop
  • [PC] Assets may layer or display oddly at the top of the Collection Track for players who have not unlocked Spotlight Caches
  • [PC] The red notification pip may be missing from the Collection Level tab when there are rewards to claim
  • [PC] Some cards viewed from the Albums UI are missing their series label
  • [PC] After frequently removing or adding cards to deck, the ability to remove a card may become disabled until exiting and re-entering the Deck Edit screen

 

 

February 29th, 2024 – Balance Updates

We’ve enjoyed a diverse metagame in February, with every week featuring more than ten decks above a 50% winrate but none of those decks crossing any of our balance thresholds. That’s actually kind of incredible, as we expect ebb and flow across those numbers to occur naturally. Other card games might stand pat here as long as they could, but we manage MARVEL SNAP a little differently. We believe a core part of our fun is solving a metagame that’s on the move every week and exploring revisions to existing cards. That means we’ll pursue change for its own sake occasionally, and this week is such a case.

 

  • Adam Warlock
    • [Old] 2/0 – After each turn, draw a card if you’re winning here.
    • [Change] 2/0 -> 5/4

 

Whenever we’re developing an OTA, we always check in on cards that have been languishing, which has included Adam Warlock for quite some time. We want every card to succeed somewhere, but Adam Warlock is a special case given how powerful the character is creatively. And make no mistake, this effect is very powerful–drawing a card is one of the strongest things you can do in SNAP, as decks are only 12 cards. Consequently, the card is designed to make that fairly difficult to do.

We’ve considered reworking Adam Warlock, but like Spider-Man 2099 last time, we’re going to try something else first. As a 2-Cost card Adam needs to be dramatically more limited, because even 1 Power could help draw multiple cards. As a 5/4, you have to jump through more hoops to accomplish that. That said, drawing one card is a fair bit easier, as Adam carries a chunk of Power to compete for the location. That’s why we’re staying conservative on Power here–the effect isn’t one we want to make commonplace for a lot of decks, especially given it can fuel combo decks. But if you want to work for it, there are cards to be drawn, and maybe this is enough to get it done.

 

  • Darkhawk
    • [Old] 4/0 – Ongoing: +2 Power for each card in your opponent’s deck.
    • [Change] 4/0 -> 5/4

 

This change has been in and out of our builds for several months now, as Darkhawk has consistently flirted with individual performance rates at the top of the metagame and fueled multiple decks to similar heights. We resolved to wait and see what happened after Blob and, well, it looks basically the same. Darkhawk has spent a long time at the top of the mountain as an individual card, so we’re making this change to freshen the landscape. There’s every chance we’ll revert this down the road, in a different metagame.

We do also recognize that Zabu is a huge part of Darkhawk’s strength, of course. But it’s not all on Zabu, and there are other decks with the cat that are fun and healthy. Let’s see what Zabu looks like with a new best friend in March.

 

  • Forge
    • [Old] 1/1 – On Reveal: Give the next card you play +2 Power.
    • [Change] 1/1 -> 2/2

 

Funny enough, this is the exact Forge change we started internally all those months ago. It’s been a wild ride, but Forge is a great case study in what we like about OTA balancing–things can ebb and flow. For the last few months, Forge has been a lynchpin card for multiple decks and (more importantly) really dwarfing the influence of other 1-Cost cards. In fact, Forge has appeared among the top five most-played of all cards in the game some weeks! It’s been a bit much, so we’re dialing Forge down to reduce that impact. We expect to improve a few more 1-Cost cards to compensate for this loss in the near future.

 

  • Ant-Man
    • [Old] 1/1 – Ongoing: If your side of this location is full, +3 Power.
    • [New] 1/1 – Ongoing: If your side of this location is full, +4 Power.

 

And we’re starting with this one! Ant-Man’s one of our favorite cards, playing well for new players while maintaining some longer-term use thanks to Spectrum and Ka-Zar, among others. Given the inherent disadvantages of being a 1-Cost card, putting a little extra Power into Ant-Man’s conditional shouldn’t shake things up too much but is a meaningful amount of additional strength.

 

  • America Chavez
    • [Old] 2/3 – On Reveal: Give the top card of your deck +2 Power.
    • [Change] 2/3 -> 1/2

 

As we’re sending Forge to 2-Cost, it made sense to swap America Chavez down to 1-Cost. These effects are similar enough to seem like they overlap, but America has proven slightly too weak at 2-Cost while Forge was very strong at 1-Cost. Both changes together should leave us with two reasonably healthy cards.

 

  • Lockjaw
    • [Old] 3/2 – After you play a card here, swap it with a card in your deck. (once per turn)
    • [Change] 3/2 -> 4/5

 

Hela and variations on Thanos have both been leaning heavily on Lockjaw lately, and while the decks are fair on performance the card is a bit of an outlier. Lockjaw is fairly clearly a design risk, as a card that “cheats” Energy and kind of draws cards. However, Lockjaw is also a blast to play with! We’ve tried to maintain a good balance around the effect, but in the last few months it’s been a growing concern that even affected future design work. Moving Lockjaw up to 4-Cost takes away an entire turn of swaps, which is a big loss but reins in the raw potential quite a bit. We’re compensating that with a healthy amount of extra Power.

 

  • Sword Master
    • [Old] 3/6 – On Reveal: Discard a card from your hand.
    • [Change] 3/6 -> 3/7

 

It’s fairly clear that our “simpler” discard enablers struggle to remain competitive, as we’ve made many strong options in recent seasons. However, even in smaller collections Sword Master is struggling to become a reliable option, which is indicative that the card could improve. This buff makes Sword Master a more reasonable substitute or a complementary card in Discard decks looking for robust amounts of Power.

 

  • Vulture
    • [Old] 3/3 – When this card moves, +5 Power.
    • [New] 3/3 – When this card moves, +6 Power.

 

This increase to Vulture’s move ability is another instance of an ongoing trend we’re enjoying, which is adding a little bit of strength to some older cards that have narrowed as the game grows. There was a time when playing Vulture was nearly synonymous with playing a Move deck, but that hasn’t been the case for a while now. With Shang-Chi now eliminating cards with 10 or more Power, single-move Vultures are also safe at 9 Power, which is a nice bonus for players trying to set up something like Heimdall.

 

 

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

MARVEL SNAP x The Streamer Awards 2024

Proud Sponsor of the 2024 Streamer Awards

Support The Streamer Awards – Get a Mystery Variant, 200 Credits, and a Title in MARVEL SNAP!

 

Join us for an exciting celebration at The Streamer Awards 2024. Co-hosted by QTCinderella and Pokimane, this awards show is a major highlight in the world of live streaming – You don’t want to miss it!

As a proud sponsor of the 2024 Streamer Awards, MARVEL SNAP is thrilled to offer awesome rewards for supporters of The Streamer Awards. Any viewers who purchase or gift a sub to the official channel during the event will unlock a special bundle in MARVEL SNAP!

 

How to get a code:

  • Tune into The Streamer Awards at twitch.tv/qtcinderella
  • From February 17th, at 3:00 PM PST until the end of the show, purchase or gift a subscription of any Tier on QTCinderella’s channel to unlock a code.
  • For more information visit: https://thestreamerawards.com/home

 

What does the code contain?

  • I’m an Influencer Title
  • 200 Credits
  • Mystery Variant

 

How to Redeem Your Code:

Visit our redemption portal after you receive a code from Twitch: marvelsnap.com/redeemcode

Your Snap ID can be found at the bottom of your settings page in MARVEL SNAP and can be revealed by tapping on it. Once it is revealed, you can tap on it again to copy it to your clipboard. Snap ID is generated based on your in-game name. Please be sure to have your name entered before acquiring your ID.

Link to FAQ: https://thestreamerawards.com/faq

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