Balance Update: April 30, 2026

Hey folks, today is going to be a large shake up. We’ve had three major headliners that the community has long voiced concerns about. We’re going to be taking action against all three today in an effort to improve metagame diversity, particularly amongst high-energy cards in Snap. While the raw win rates of these cards haven’t proven problematic enough for us to take immediate action, their high and sustained win rates for as long as they have has nudged us towards action.

This isn’t typically how we’d like to balance cards, but we do want to be receptive to community sentiment, and there has been consistent feedback that players aren’t having as much fun as they could. That necessitates action.

 

Shou-Lao the Undying

• [Old] 5/6 – On Reveal: Give the last character you played +3 Power for each turn you played 2 or more cards.
• [New] 5/8 – On Reveal: Give the last character you played +2 Power for each turn you played 2 or more cards.

 

Star-Lord, Master of the Sun

• [Old] 5/8 – On Reveal: Next turn, you get +1 Energy for each turn you’ve ended with unspent Energy. This gains that much Power.
• [New] 5/7 – On Reveal: Next turn, you get +1 Energy for each turn you’ve ended with unspent Energy.

 

Fin Fang Foom

• [Old] 7/10 – On Reveal: Gain the Power of front-row enemy cards here.
• [New] 7/12 – On Reveal: Gain the Power of a front-row enemy card here.

We’ll start from the top. This Shou-Lao change might appear modest. Our goal with this change is to reduce Shou-Lao’s ability to multiplicatively scale with other power buffing cards. This should dramatically reduce Shou-Lao’s ceiling, helping to reduce cascading scaling across multiple card interactions while still keeping it a strong payoff with investment.

Our previous Star-Lord nerf to 5 Energy got his win rate into a space that we were happy with. That said, his play rate has still been high enough that we don’t feel comfortable long-term. Similar to Shou-Lao, we’re making this change to reduce Star-Lord’s total effectiveness when copied by removing his ability to gain additional power. This should allow Star-Lord to retain his fantasy of generating a massive amount of Energy, but now players will have to put in far more effort into actually generating enough points to get over the finish line from that large burst of Energy.

In that vein, it will be a little bit more difficult to simply play Fin Fang Foom and expect him to win his location every time. Now that Fin Fang Foom doesn’t affect the entire front-row, we expect him to be a much less reliable card for solo-ing locations, as well as allowing more room in the metagame for players to play different top-end Energy cards when they’re ramping or considering other interactions with cards like Stryfe.

 

Agony

• [Old] 1/3 – After you play a card here, merge this into it.
• [Change] 1/3 > 1/2

Unfortunately, Agony has been a difficult card to balance precisely because of its ability to multiplicatively scale other cards. It has been a very strong card for some time, and we believe it will be blocking to the future of cards who buff other cards. As a result, we’re moving Agony back down to 2 Power.

 

Invisible Woman First Steps

• [Old] 3/3 – Activate: This turn, your End of Turn abilities happen twice.
• [New] 3/3 – Activate: This turn your End of Turn abilities repeat.

This is a subtle text change alongside other functional changes to eliminate the ability to exponentially scale doubling effects with Wong, Onslaught, etc. Now these cards will produce an additional instance of whichever effect their ability targets instead of allowing them to compound and keep doubling. In most use cases these effects will not change, but it allows us to better control their potential for absurd ceilings that can quickly shoot far past the point outputs of any other type of effects in the game.

You can find the full list of cards affected by this change at the bottom of the article.

 

Captain Marvel

• [Old] 4/5 – At the end of the game, move to a location that wins you the game. (If possible)
• [Change] 4/5 > 4/6

 

Maria Hill

• [Old] 1/2 – Add a random 2-Cost card to your hand.
• [Change] 1/2 > 1/3

 

Martyr

• [Old] 1/5 – At the end of the game, move to a location that LOSES you the game. (If possible)
• [Change] 1/5 > 1/6

Some small number changes to cards that can support it. Notably, with Captain Marvel and Martyr, these are a few instances where we felt the card could pick up a 6th Power, if folks might be interested in playing them with Shadowlands Daredevil.

 

Archangel, Horseman of Death

• [Old] 2/3 – Objective: Your cards are destroyed 4 times. Resurrect one here with +4 Power.
• [New] 2/4 – Objective: Your cards are destroyed 4 times. Resurrect one here with +5 Power.

Finally, a fairly large buff to Archangel. While this card has the ability to put out really large numbers for its Energy Cost, it is asking a fairly unique thing from Destroy players that often doesn’t line up with the primary gameplan or the way the deck is built. We hope that this potential for such an efficient 2-Cost card can nudge folks to try him out more.

We expect a large shake up to the metagame as a result of these changes. Have fun and happy Snapping!

 

List of cards and locations affected by “Repeat” change:

• Joaquin Torres Falcon II
• Ultron Mind Stone
• Invisible Woman First Steps
• Onslaught
• Wong

Locations:

• Kamar-Taj
• Onslaught’s Citadel