Balance Update: January 15, 2026

Welcome back! We hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season.  Today we’ll be shaving off an extra power from a consistent overperformer, then mostly handing out a lot of buffs!  Let’s get right to it!

 

Merlin

• [Old] 2/3 – At the start of each turn, add an Incantation to your hand.
• [Change] 2/3 > 2/2

Our lone nerf today.  Merlin has been a consistent rate card since its release, often pairing with Werewolf By Night for large point outputs in a compact package.  

That, alongside Merlin’s flexibility including being  a low opportunity cost form of location control has built a robust and versatile two-Cost card that has overperformed just a touch too much for too long.  

We’ll be shaving a Power from Merlin to make him slightly more high opportunity cost to utilize compared to other two-Cost cards.  

 

Fantomex

• [Old] 4/6 – Activate: If you’ve had cards discarded and destroyed, afflict front-row enemy cards at each location with -2 Power.
• [Change] 4/6 > 4/7

Fantomex was a pretty large swing in the deckbuilding cost department – uniquely requiring a hybrid discard/destroy strategy that is not a major incentive that we’ve provided before.  We’ve noted multiple times in the past that we’re still properly gauging the cost to reward ratio on these outside-the-box deckbuilding quests.  Given that Fantomex can hypothetically be a 4/18 we felt that it was a sufficient reward for the ask, but our data still says that Fantomex is falling short for most players.

Given that tuning his deckbuilding cost would in most cases destroy his hybrid identity, we’re choosing to increase his Power to try to nudge folks over the finish line in paying that substantial cost, but we’re continuing to learn about this class of cards and how realistic their expectations are on players.

 

Vulture

• [Old] 1/2 – When this card moves, +3 Power.

• [Change] 1/2 > 1/3

 

Multiple Man

• [Old] 2/3 – When this moves, add a copy to the old location.

• [Change] 2/3 > 2/4

 

Fan Fei

• [Old] 4/4 – Activate: Give your other cards here +1 Power and move them to the right.
• [Change] 4/4 > 4/5

We’re continuing to tweak the Move package given the large vacuum that was created by nerfing Human Torch out of his strength outlier status.

While Vulture is a traditional payoff that we just think needs some love, our buff to Multiple Man is representative that we would like Move to take more forms than just manipulating the largest Power character and otherwise copying it or leveraging its Power in other ways to win multiple locations.  

That’s not to say that we’re extremely confident that 2/4 Multiple Man is sufficient to open up an entire new Move archetype, but we want to keep taking shots slowly to give Move players more tools to express themselves in a variety of ways.

Fan Fei was a card we changed recently and it still hasn’t quite hit the mark, so to continue in that spirit of opening up new cards that people could play and experiment with we’re giving her an additional Power.

 

Clea

• [Old] 1/2 – When this permanently gains Power, add Flames of the Faltine to your hand. (if in hand or in play)

• [Change] 1/2 > 1/3

 

Iron Lad

• [Old] 4/6 – On Reveal: Copy the text of your deck’s top card.
• [Change] 4/6 > 4/7

Clea is another tricky to build around card that requires building a specific deck as well as concise sequencing.  Given that we are slowly increasing the floor of many cards that have fallen by the way side, we’re comfortable giving her an extra power, particularly to help out the release of Shang Chi, Master of the Rings.

Iron Lad is just a card we think is super fun, providing excitement and what we believe to be some healthy variance in the game.  Over time, given the increase in competition at the four-Cost slot we think that Iron Lad can comfortably get an extra Power to remain more competitive with other options available. 

 

Dragon of the Moon

• [Old] 3/2 – On Reveal: Steal 1 Power from even-costed cards in ALL hands.
• [Change] 3/2 > 3/4

Dragon of the Moon is a new release that we also weren’t quite sure how it would land given its unique characteristics.  We missed the mark here a bit, given that you have to put a fair amount of work to break the symmetry on the dragon’s ability and a lack of reliability of how much impact its ability will make on your opponent’s hand.  As a result, we’ll be giving it two additional base Power.

 

Zombie Galacti

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

We’ve updated Zombie Galacti to be more friendly with the inclusion of skills in your deck, allowing him to no longer waste a transformation target if you choose to include some skills to play with!

 

That’s it for today, we hope that you’ve a great start to your 2026 so far.  Happy snapping!