No preamble today, let’s dive right into the updates!

• Loki
  • [Old] 4/5 – On Reveal: Transform your hand into cards from your opponent’s starting deck and give them -1 Cost.
  • [New] 3/5 – On Reveal: Replace your deck with your opponent’s starting deck. Give those cards -1 Cost and draw a card.

It took a few shots to land Loki in the right spot, but the goal had been accomplished. However, as time has passed, our preference for using Loki as a buildaround for decks that generate extra cards has shifted. It’s proven too stifling to cards like Snowguard and Agent Coulson, who can’t really stand on their own anywhere, as well as future designs we’ve worked on internally.

Given Loki’s recent resurgence alongside Arishem, it felt like the right time to try capturing that fantasy without diminishing those other cards. We don’t want to “banish Loki from Asgard” with this change, so we’re erring stronger to avoid that. If we need to come back for a buff or nerf, or if this rework doesn’t succeed for other reasons, we’ll consider something else.

• Leech
  • [Old] 5/5 – On Reveal: Remove the text from cards with On Reveal abilities in your opponent’s hand.
  • [New] 4/4 – On Reveal: Remove the text from 6-Cost cards in your opponent’s hand.

This has been a tricky card for us to land where we want it. The last change proved we had enough overlap from other effects to avoid leaning on Leech as an all-purpose answer. However, the function has primarily been a tool for letting decks brute force their strongest stuff through defenses, rather than answering otherwise overpowering strategies.

We’re going to try narrowing it further and targeting a more specific scope of threats. We’re also going to aim weak, in case we’re underestimating the effect, to give most honest folk a break from getting Leeched.

• Doctor Octopus
  • [Old] 5/10 – On Reveal: Pull 4 cards from your opponent’s hand to their side of this location.
  • [New] 4/8 – On Reveal: Pull the lowest-Power card from your opponent’s hand to their side of this location.

The good Doctor had settled into a career as a niche player in the SNAP metagame for quite a while, until Arishem showed up. While Arishem is enabling more aggressive Ock plays, the true lesson has been that when Ock is seeing a lot of play . . . that can get fairly frustrating. Given we find ourselves in a spot where we have a card we kind of don’t want people playing in volume, that makes it a solid candidate for a rework. Our goal here isn’t specifically a nerf, but rather to continue capturing the fantasy of the card with an implementation that’s more fun and will be a healthier addition to the metagame.

Plus, 4/8 is a pretty great statline for creative reasons.

• Widow’s Kiss (White Widow)
  • [Old] 0/0 – Ongoing: This has -4 Power. Disable this ability if your side of this location is full.
  • [New] 0/0 – Ongoing: This has -3 Power. Disable this ability if your side of this location is full.

Enough time has passed for White Widow to see the breadth of the card’s impact, and it’s showing up more often than we aimed for, and in a wider variety of decks. The strength doesn’t feel especially far off, so this small tweak down on the effect should help balance things out.

• Blob
  • [Old] 6/0 – On Reveal: Merge cards from your deck into this until it gains 15 or more Power.
  • [New] 6/0 – On Reveal: Merge cards from your deck into this until it gains 13 or more Power.

One of the winningest cards in Arishem decks has continued to be Blob. The specifics of that gameplay aren’t very satisfying, because Blob tends to wind up fairly close to a 6/17 or better without a drawback in these decks. Our goal with Blob is to encourage some meaningful deckbuilding differences or charge a steeper price for the strength, so that’s not working out. Turning the knob down will weaken Blob in Arishem while leaving some strength to build around in 12-card decks.

• War Machine
  • [Old] 4/6 – On Reveal: Until the end of next turn, nothing can stop you from playing cards anywhere.
  • [Change] 4/6 -> 4/7

War Machine hasn’t found a consistent home, indicating there’s room to add extra Power. A larger contributor to the low play rate may be our revision to Professor X leaving players without enough incentive to find a slot for War Machine, but either way this buff carries fairly little risk.

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

We took some Power away from Apocalypse a while ago, when Discard had reached perhaps the peak of its all-time strength. Since then the metagame has continued to evolve, and Discard has slid backwards. This won’t fully reverse the trend, but it’s a solid step and we’d like to monitor the results before making additional updates.

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

Welcome back to another OTA! Arishem’s release was a huge shake-up to the meta, and we’ve been excited to see all the hype around the card! While his play rate has been unprecedented, his overall win rate hasn’t been out of line. Moreover, playing against Arishem decks creates much more varied experiences game-to-game due to the inherent randomness he injects into decks. Cassandra Nova releasing soon should also give players another great tool against Arishem decks, so for now we’re instead pulling back on some of his most impactful synergy pieces in an attempt to broaden the diversity of Arishem strategies.

• Blob
  • [Old] 6/0 – On Reveal: Merge cards from your deck into this until it gains 15 or more Power. Ongoing: Can’t be moved.
  • [New] 6/0 – On Reveal: Merge cards from your deck into this until it gains 15 or more Power.

While Blob not moving hasn’t been a large part of his strength, having an Ongoing ability has been. Unlike other decks, Arishem lists have enough cards to fuel two Blobs, and we’ve seen Mystique take full advantage of this by copying Blob’s text as an Ongoing card.. We’ve been looking to simplify this card since its last change, so this seemed like the perfect time to do so.

• Mockingbird
  • [Old] 5/9 – Costs 1 less for each of your cards in play that didn’t start in your deck.
  • [Change] 5/9 -> 6/10

Mockingbird has been hovering around the top of the meta ever since her release, and the combination of Arishem both providing cards that didn’t start in your deck and encouraging the use of Agent Coulson and friends has pushed her over the line. We still expect Mockingbird to play a big role with these new numbers, but to require a more substantial investment to use.

• Hydra Bob
  • [Old] 1/4 – After each turn, this moves if a player Snapped.
  • [Change] 1/4 -> 1/5

Hydra Bob, on the other hand, hasn’t made much of a splash. He’s been doing alright in games where he’s played, but his risky play style hasn’t been very popular. We think he has room to be a bit more decisive in the high stakes games he encourages, so we’re adding a Power here to help his final location matter more and ensure he’s a solid addition to players’ collections.

• Ravonna Renslayer
  • [Old] 2/3 – Ongoing: Your cards with 1 or less Power cost 1 less. (minimum 1)
  • [Change] 2/3 -> 2/2

Time and again Ravonna has been a strong piece of decks that incidentally want some low-base Power cards. Her ubiquity has also made it difficult to balance cards as she can turn reducing their Power into a buff. We’re dinging her in an attempt to make building around Ravonna a little bit more of a commitment.

• Viper
  • [Old] 3/5 – On Reveal: One of your other cards here switches sides.
  • [New] 3/5 – On Reveal: One of your other cards here with the lowest Power switches sides.

Viper demands a more specific game state to do her thing than other cards that junk up the opponent’s board, so we’re making this quality-of-life change to help her more consistently hit her intended target later in the game and against opposing junk strategies.

• Sauron
  • [Old] 3/3 – On Reveal: Remove the abilities from all Ongoing cards in your hand and deck.
  • [Change] 3/3 -> 3/4

While Sauron decks utilizing Shuri and Red Skull have continued to have some success since their dominance in the game’s early days, they haven’t gained many new options while other decks have diversified their game plans. In order to keep this deck an accessible and viable option for players who are still building up to larger collections, we figured this (not so) friendly green dinosaur could use a small boost.

• Werewolf By Night
  • [Old] 3/1 – After you play a card, move there to gain +2 Power if it has an On Reveal.
  • [Change] 3/1 -> 3/2

After his former dominance, we played it safe when we reduced Werewolf By Night’s Cost from 4 to 3 because it provides more opportunities to scale up his Power. He hasn’t performed very well since that change though, so we’re giving him a bit more Power to help him out.

• Hit-Monkey
  • [Old] 3/2 – On Reveal: Gain +2 Power for each other card you played this turn.
  • [Change] 3/2 -> 3/3

Hit-Monkey has been struggling for a bit now. We’ve been conservative with this card because his playstyle is difficult to interact with, but we’re taking another shot at hitting the sweet spot.

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

Lastly, Lockjaw has had trouble keeping a spot in decks since his move to 4-Cost, and his previous home in Jane Foster decks full of hammers hasn’t seen much play as of late. Given all that, we’re excited to try bringing back Lockjaw’s ability to swap out a flurry of cards at the same time, and see whether we can return the classic combo in a good spot.

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

June 27th – Balance Updates

Our last OTA provided a huge shake-up to the metagame, and since then we’ve been thrilled to see a diverse range of decks contesting the top of the metagame. One card in particular has been too successful, however, so we’re taking it down a notch and improving a handful of others in the hopes they find firmer footing.

• Angela
  • [Old] 2/0 – After you play a card here, +2 Power.
  • [New] 2/3 – After you play a card here, +1 Power.

Once more, we’ve seen Angela decks rise to claim a huge share of the metagame. On some weeks, Angela decks managed to exceed 20% of all games played while being the best deck, which is well above our threshold for health. If the decks were dissimilar that would be one thing, but over time these decks have largely homogenized to use the same core of cards with a handful of differences and the occasional small combo, like Annihilus/Sentry or Darkhawk and the rest. We’re trying a more generous nerf than last time, since we do like these decks existing but not at this level, and Angela is the biggest culprit in pushing them to share similar cards like Kitty, Jeff, and Nocturne.

• Hercules
  • [Old] 4/7 – The first time another card moves here each turn, move it to another location.
  • [Change] 4/7 -> 3/4

The change we made to how move resolves a few weeks ago didn’t have as dramatic an effect on Move decks as we expected–even Phoenix Force had some very good performances. However, a handful of cards did get meaningfully worse as a result of the change, and we’re going to improve some of them this week. Hercules was the biggest negative change, so we’ve decided to go ahead and give the 3-Cost version a chance to compensate. Players seemed enthusiastic about this idea when Hercules first released, so we hope you enjoy trying it out.

• Kingpin
  • [Old] 2/3 – When an enemy card moves here, afflict it with -2 Power.
  • [Change] 2/3 -> 1/2

Kingpin also took a big hit with the change to move, so we’re going to see if a more efficient Cost will improve this card’s performance. Landing earlier should make it easier to slide Kingpin into curves for decks trying to play a lot of 3 and 5-Cost cards that move enemy cards.

• Miles Morales
  • [Old] 4/5 – If a card moved last turn, this costs 1.
  • [Change] 4/5 -> 4/6

The last of our move buffs goes to Miles Morales. Nothing too fancy here–it just seems like there’s room to add a Power to the card. This does disrupt a movement-based Cerebro-5 deck we’ve seen from time to time, but that deck hasn’t been very popular and we’d like to see if Miles could find more homes than that.

• High Evolutionary
  • [Old] 4/4 – At the start of the game, unlock the potential of your cards with no abilities.
  • [Change] 4/4 -> 4/6

High Evolutionary decks have slid from their once-prominent peak. We don’t expect this buff to fix that, but it’s a place we’re happy to add some Power given there’s room to do so and the deck could use a little help. We’re also looking at other changes that will positively impact this archetype, so stay tuned.

• Nick Fury
  • [Old] 4/5 – On Reveal: Add 3 random 6-Cost cards to your hand.
  • [Change] 4/5 -> 4/6

Nick has been an underplayed card for a while, and has room to gain Power without being disruptive. Plus, 6 Power for 6-Costs is elegant. Long-term, we’re optimistic about finding a few more reasons to consider Nick over the current default options for filling one’s hands with cards.

• Alioth
  • [Old] 6/8 – On Reveal: Remove the text from all unrevealed enemy cards here.
  • [Change] 6/8 -> 6/10

Last but not least, Alioth is getting a Power buff to improve its performance. We were conservative with the last adjustment to this card because we knew players would rather see no Alioth than too much at the time, but we liked 6/10 as the healthier number long-term. With some Odin-based strategies showing up again, the time feels ripe to help Alioth be a versatile 6-Cost answer to endgame threats.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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