Balance Updates: December 4, 2025

Hello! We hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.  Today is going to be a big one – we’ll be taking an iconic Move outlier down a peg or two, as well as addressing a powerful lock piece combo deck that’s been steadily picking up steam.  Additionally we’ll be doing the usual fare of a few small buffs to cards that can use it, and then we’re rounding out by making Spider-Man Noir much easier to play with.  

Let’s get to it!

 

Human Torch

• [Old] 3/3 – When this moves, double its Power. 
• [Change] 3/3 > 3/2

So, this is a large nerf.  Human Torch and Move are tricky.  Move is a difficult deck to play, but it consistently over performs at the highest levels of play due to the amount of points and agency that it gives its pilots.  Human Torch specifically is a very difficult card to balance, being capable of some of the largest point outputs in Marvel Snap.  

Our original intention with the Vulture and Human Torch Cost swap was to make it considerably harder to go wild with the card due to its increased clunkiness.  While that is true to some extent, it isn’t totally clear that it was even a net nerf as it lost a natural predator in Killmonger.

It is clear that Human Torch as a 3/3 is an outlier in the game, and as we’ve stated before we would love to live in a world where the strength of the Move archetype was better widely allocated amongst the cards in the deck.  Move has also been strong throughout the Arachnid Anarchy season, having picked up another powerful piece in Spider-Punk.

For those reasons we’ll be making a large nerf to Human Torch now in the interest of making Move a healthier archetype in the long term.

We debated going to 4/3 or even 4/4 as an additional step to make it more difficult to move Torch repeatedly, but we ultimately felt we weren’t confident that 4/4 would even be a sufficient nerf given how sensitive “Doubling” is to Power changes.  For now we’re going to make the large change to Human Torch to get a sense of what the lower limit of his strength is.

As we’ve said many times when it comes to the Move archetype, we’ll keep monitoring it and try to get it into the most fun spot that it can be.  Ideally, this change will help Move become less homogeneous and rely on a variety of Move payoffs rather than relying so much on Human Torch as its primary points piece.  

 

War Machine

• [Old] 4/6 – Ongoing: Nothing can stop you from playing cards anywhere.
• [Change] 4/6 > 5/9

War Machine/Storm/Legion decks have been tearing it up for the better part of two months now.  We recently made a change to Storm with the hope that it would contribute meaningfully to lowering the deck’s play numbers, but a small change wasn’t sufficient to do so.

By nerfing War Machine to 5 cost, our goal is to meaningfully move the needle on those play numbers and encourage less lock-out gameplay that can be frustrating for many players.

In the future we might revisit War Machine alongside a rework to Storm.  We’ve long felt that such a popular character shouldn’t be promoting such a frustrating play pattern, similar to Spider-Man in the past.  That said, we haven’t landed on a design that we love for Storm yet, so we’ll be adjusting War Machine in the short term.

 

Morgan le Fay

• [Old] 4/7 – On Reveal: Return all your discarded and destroyed cards to hand with +3 Power. 
• [Change] 4/7 > 3/4

Morgan is a unique and compelling build around that offers a new spin on our classic discard and destroy archetypes.  While her payoff is strong, it can be very difficult to achieve all the steps necessary to realize her potential in a six turn game – enabling her with discard or destroy cards, playing Morgan, and finally deploying your hand of powered up cards.

In a similar vein to several build-arounds we’ve buffed in the past, we’ll be lowering her Cost to make weaving in all these steps more achievable.  

As we’ll be seeing shortly here with Spider-Man Noir, we’ll be more vigilant on how large an ask it is of our players to try to enable these tricky deckbuilding puzzle pay off cards.

 

Elsa Bloodstone

• [Old] 3/4 – Each card you play to fill your side of a location gains +2 Power.
• [Change] 3/4 > 3/5

 

Sword Master

• [Old] 3/6 –  On Reveal: Discard an odd-costed card from your hand.
• [Change] 3/6 > 3/7

 

Helicarrier

• [Old] 6/10 – When you discard this, fill your hand with random cards.
• [Change] 6/10 > 6/12

 

Dormammu

• [Old] 7/12 – Game Start: Begin a Summoning Ritual. (Add step 1 to hand.)
• [Change] 7/12 > 7/13

Before we get to Noir though, a few buffs.  A few things to call out, while Elsa Bloodstone has been performing poorly for some time, we thought she might be a touch risky to buff when the Zombie season was at the height of its powers and popularity.  Now that the Horde deck has been fully fleshed out and settled into its current win rate, we feel comfortable with buffing Elsa even if she injects that deck with slightly more power.

Sword Master has been one of the weakest discard enablers for some time, so we figured it finally appropriate to give it an extra point, particularly with its friend Weapon H soon on the horizon.  

Helicarrier and Dormammu are just a few more expensive cards we think can handle the extra power.  As we’ve been for some time now, we’ll keep looking for opportunities to higher Cost cards to buff.

 

Spider-Man Noir

• [Old] 4/6 – On Reveal: If your other cards in play cost exactly 8 total, add the top card of your deck here. Set its Power to 8. (0/8)
• [New] 4/4 – On Reveal: Set the top card of your deck’s Power to 8. If your other cards in play cost exactly 8 total, add it here.

We’re reworking Spider-Man Noir by dramatically improving its floor.  Now even if you do fail in achieving his quest, he’ll still be setting the Power of the top of your deck.  

A couple things here.

We missed the mark on how difficult his quest was to achieve.  As we alluded to previously with Morgan, this has happened a few times recently, and we’ll be taking a harder look at where we can incur some risk on making deckbuilding quests easier to achieve while still maintaining that those cards have exciting textboxes and payoffs.

We also wanted to make sure that our adjustment stayed true to his original vision as a build-around – we didn’t want to dramatically change the card’s incentives.  It was and is one of Noir’s goals that you play with different cards than something like Jubilee – rather than trying to achieve the most expensive or powerful option from the top of your deck, we want you to choose different inclusions, cards like Mr. Sinister, Brood, or Iron Man.  

Now even if you aren’t able to achieve the 8 other total costs, if you happen to spike one of aforementioned cards with a Power buff, Noir can still have an exciting impact on the game.

We aren’t quite sure whether this change will be sufficient, but it should be a big learning moment for both us and the players, and will help us get a better sense of where we should oscillate a card’s floor and ceiling.  

We hope you had a wonderful and safe holiday.  That’s it for today, happy Snapping!

 

Balance Updates: November 20, 2025

Hello! We’ve got another pretty short and sweet OTA we wanted to get in ahead of the holidays.

Things are still looking good in the Snap metagame, but as usual we want to land a few adjustments on taking outliers down a peg and improving the power of some fringe options.  In particular, today we’ll be taking a couple shots at making more expensive cards a little stronger.  Let’s get to it!

 

Sparky

• [Old] 2/1 – Activate: Give your card that last moved +3 Power and move it back to its previous location.
• [New] 2/2 – Activate: Give your card that last moved +2 Power and move it back to its previous location.

Our largest metagame balance change today.  Sparky has been a mainstay in Move since his release and we’ll be adjusting how he distributes his points to weaken his interaction with Human Torch. That said, we are still unlikely to be totally satisfied with the end state of Human Torch and Move after this adjustment.  

As we noted when we Energy swapped Vulture and Human Torch, the road to getting Move into an ideal balance spot was going to be a bumpy one, and it will still likely remain true that too much of Move’s strength is allocated in Human Torch.  We would like to continue moving towards a reality where Move decks are less homogenous and can function as go really big decks or be about mass-moving to realize synergies with cards like Hydra-Stomper.

Regardless, we think this is another step in the right direction and we’ll keep monitoring the performance of the Move archetype.

 

Storm

• [Old] 3/2 – On Reveal: Flood this location. Next turn is the last turn cards can be played here.
• [Change] 3/2 > 3/1

War Machine/Storm decks have been slowly creeping up in play rate and win rate for a little over a month now, and we feel it is time to knock them down a peg.

When it comes to strategies like these, we typically want to weaken the portions of the deck that are the least fun to play against, and it’s no surprise that Storm’s ability to lock your opponent out of playing cards is the most frustrating part of the deck for most folks.

We’re taking a small step here with lowering Storm’s Power to try to curb the deck’s win rate.  We’ll see how that shakes things out, for now we think that’s sufficient to keep the deck in a healthy play range.

 

Zombie Galacti

• [Old] 7/4 – Game Start: Choose 6 other cards in your deck. On Reveal: Transform those cards into copies of this
• [Change] 7/4 > 7/5

We missed quite low on Zombie Galacti – it is a card that is extremely sensitive to balance knobs, as each point of Power can represent up to 7 additional Power in the most extreme cases.  

We felt it correct to start a little more conservative with this design – which we feel is exciting and asks a novel question of the player base, but simultaneously could produce a homogenous experience if we shipped the card too strong.  It is our expectation that even one Power should make this card dramatically stronger and we’ll see if it lands in the spot of being a compelling build-around after the buff.

 

Orka

• [Old] 6/11 – Ongoing: +5 Power if this is your only card here.

• [New] 6/11 – Ongoing: +7 Power if this is your only card here.

 

Odin

• [Old] 6/8 -On Reveal: Repeat the On Reveal abilities of your other cards here.

• [Change] 6/8 > 6/9

 

Wave

• [Old] 3/5 – On Reveal: All cards cost a maximum of 4 until the end of next turn.
• [Change] 3/5 > 3/6

Continuing our mini-theme of buffing expensive cards, here are some more buffs to underplayed 6 Costs and Wave to enable them, ahead of Hydro-Man’s release.  

We’re always keeping an eye on how aggressively decks are pushing down their curves, a common theme in card games, and we broadly want to encourage that as much diversity in our game’s Costs are viable as possible, particularly when Marvel Snap games are so short. We’ll stay on the lookout for similar cards that could use some help.

 

White Queen

• [Old] 3/4 – On Reveal: Copy the card that costs the most from your opponent’s hand into your hand.
• [Change] 3/4 > 3/5

Rounding out a quick set of changes, here’s a buff to a fan-favorite that can handle the extra point of Power.  She might even nicely benefit from some of those other 6 Cost-changes…

That’s it for today.  Enjoy your Thanksgiving holidays, and happy Snapping! 

 

Balance Updates: November 6, 2025

Hey folks, today is a bit of a short one since our schedule necessitated a back-to-back OTA.  Like we’ve been noting over the last few OTAs, the metagame is generally in a good spot in Marvel Snap! As a result, we’re not too keen on making huge shifts, but we’ve still got a few adjustments to make today, including reworks to Debrii and Fan Fei.  

Additionally, we’re once again taking a tech card that’s performing well down a peg, as well as giving some buffs to a few other underplayed cards.

Let’s jump right in!

 

Debrii

• [Old] 3/3 – On Reveal: Add a Rock to each other location, for both players.
• [New] 3/7 – On Reveal: Add a Rock to each other location.

Probably our largest change today – this rework to Debrii removes her baseline Clog capabilities, relegating that strategy to involve specific combo interactions with other cards.

Debrii, and Clog as a general topic, is a tricky thing in our game.  Space and managing your space at locations is a core strategic component of what makes Marvel Snap.  As a result, the means to interact with that space is a unique part of Marvel Snap’s identity as a CCG and is something that we do want to encourage as a novelty to players.  

Simultaneously, it is, naturally, fun to play with your cards. Managing the tightrope of how much to encourage or manage Clog is quite a tricky problem.

It is also easy to notice at this point that Debrii and similar Clog cards are semi-permanent additions on various Game Mode’s Ban list – and for good reason, we don’t want taking away your opponent’s ability to play to be a core part of those game experiences.

It is not our intention to remove Clog as an archetype in its entirety, but this is a firm step towards making Clog a more high investment strategy with Debrii requiring cards like Viper or being part of combos with cards like Annihilus to realize the Clog gameplay that was relatively low opportunity cost before.

In an ideal world, Debrii now, who has a rather large Power for her Cost, could also be considered in some niche Patriot or Strange Supreme strategies as a means to leverage the amount of numbers and material she generates.

It isn’t clear that this is the final step in updating Debrii, but we do think this shift represents a better long term plan for Debrii in Marvel Snap and especially in our alternate game modes.

 

Misery

• [Old] 4/9 – On Reveal: Repeat the On Reveal abilities of your other cards here, then destroy them.
• [Change] 4/9 > 4/8

Misery is one of the trickier cards to balance appropriately in Marvel Snap.  It is consistently one of the strongest performing cards amongst the most experienced players but tends to underperform when played by newer players or in less tuned strategies.  Our philosophy is typically to make decisions based on maximizing the fun for the most amount of our players possible.  

That said, Misery is so strong at high levels that we do feel it appropriate to take action against her given the upcoming Golden Gauntlet tournament.  

While we did nerf Misery in some capacity with a rework to Debrii, weakening their clog combo, the strongest Misery decks are Victoria Hand decks not even featuring Debrii.  As a result, we did not think this was a sufficient competitive change and feel it appropriate to remove a Power from Misery to weaken her when she’s at her strongest.

 

Cosmic Ghost Rider

• [Old] 5/7 –  On Reveal: Remove the text from front-row enemy cards here.
• [Change] 5/7 > 5/6

In line with many of our recent tech shifts, we think that Cosmic Ghost Rider can be sufficiently strong after removing a Power.  

As it stands Cosmic Ghost Rider, Enchantress, and Iron Man (as well as Cannonball in recent times) carry a huge share of the played 5 Cost cards, and we’d like to take more action to shift incentives away from tech being the most played 5 Cost cards.  

We’ll continue to keep an eye on Enchantress as well as look for opportunities to buff other 5 Cost cards.

 

Vision

• [Old] 5/8 – You can move this each turn.
• [Change] 5/8 > 5/9

The First Ghost Rider

• [Old] 2/6 – On Reveal: Discard the lowest-Power card from your hand. Remove that card’s Power from this.
• [Change] 2/6 > 2/7

M’Baku

• [Old] 1/2 – At the end of the game, this jumps from your deck to your lowest-Power location. (that isn’t full)
• [Change] 1/2 > 1/3

Here is a selection of buffs of underplayed cards, and Vision is exactly a candidate for weaker 5 Cost that we felt could use a little love.  

 

Fan Fei

• [Old] 4/7- Activate: Move your other cards here to the right.
• [New] 4/4 – Activate: Your other cards here get +1 Power.  Move them to the right.

Fan Fei is another rework this week.  On raw numbers, this doesn’t appear to be much of a buff, but naturally when you include that Fan Fei is growing other Move cards, most notably Human Torch, this felt like a fun direction to give Fan Fei some additional strength and utility.  Fan Fei is an under utilized mass mover, and we recognize the difficulty of leveraging more expensive Activate cards, so this felt like a worthy experiment to run.

Hydra Stomper

• [Old] 3/2 – Ongoing: +1 Power for each time one of your cards moved this game.
• [Change] 3/2 > 3/3

Speaking of experiments, this is probably the largest one on the buff front.  Hydra Stomper isn’t exactly a weak card, but it doesn’t see very much play.  The majority of strong Move decks are more about scaling Human Torch, sometimes using Living Tribunal, to overwhelm your opponent.

In an ideal world we would have a strong secondary Move archetype that is more about “mass move,” perhaps leveraging some of the tools in Spider Punk Season.  We think Hydra Stomper is a fun and important piece of the puzzle that hasn’t been quite strong enough to encourage folks to build decks outside of that Human Torch template, and so we’re taking a shot at buffing it today.  As noted a few months back when we swapped the Cost of Human Torch and Vulture, the journey to getting Move into the most fun spot is a slow and tricky one, and we’ll continue to be willing to revert and make adjustments as appropriate.  

That’s all for today, we’ll be back again in two weeks.  Until then, happy Snapping!