It never fails: Shaun drops a new deck building guide for Marvel Snap (Free), and a new balance patch hits the next day. It’s just the rules of the universe, my friends. This is one of the OTA (over-the-air) updates that comes a couple times a month, and as such it really just adjusts some values on a handful of cards. That said, Marvel Snap is a game where value adjustments can result in some big changes to how it plays. Let’s have a look and see what’s in this one, along with a little analysis.
I think this time we’ll look at nerfs first. Lady Deathstrike got a pretty successful change last month, and she’s been showing up more and more as a result. It seems that she’s actually become a little too successful, so she’s getting some power shaved off. She goes from 5-Cost 7-Power to 5-Cost 6-Power, with no changes to her ability. Since her ability is a big part of why she’s popular, I imagine she’ll be fine even with this power loss.
Darkhawk’s last nerf bumped him up to 5-Cost, and that still apparently hasn’t been enough to stop him. That means he’s going to take a hit elsewhere, and indeed he does in this patch. Fortunately, his ability remains untouched. He goes from 5-Cost 4-Power to 5-Cost 3-Power, and this is another balance change I don’t see hurting the character too much. I imagine we’ll all still be eating plenty of rocks.
Okay, all buffs from here. The first one is a bit of give-and-take, but I think it’s a good one for the card in question. Leech’s ability change a little while back saw him lose some popularity, and it’s not hard to see why. He now only hits On Reveal cards, and doing that on the fifth turn just isn’t the world-beater it used to be. With that in mind, Leech is moving from 5-Cost 3-Power to 4-Cost 2-Power, which makes him a lot easier to get out on an earlier turn if you want.
Psylocke and Sauron can join hands this time around, as both are seeing previous nerfs rolled back. Psylocke is a 2-Cost 2-Power card once more, no longer having to get by with just 1-Power. Sauron also gains a point of Power back, going from 3-Cost 2-Power to 3-Cost 3-Power. A good deal for both, and one that might see Sauron making a comeback. Psylocke never really left, but I don’t mind her being a bit stronger.
There’s no question of the fact that Klaw can be a tricky card to make use of. He’s 5-Cost 4-Power with an Ongoing ability that adds Power to the location to the right of him. Before this update, the amount of Power he added was +6. Now, he adds +8. Will this get people who weren’t using him before to give him a shot? I suppose we’ll see, but I imagine he’ll still mainly be passed over in favor of other more versatile 5-Cost cards.
The big buff in this update, and the one with the highest potential to blow up in Second Dinner’s face, is for Ultron. I can understand the thinking behind it. He’s a big bad that used to get a lot of play, but he has fallen way off over time for various reasons. I suspect that is going to change now. While before he summoned Drones to fill out every location, each of which was 1-Cost 1-Power, he now sends out some improved 1-Cost 2-Power models. These can still be Patriot and Kazar buffed up, so you’re looking at up to four additional points of Power per location compared to before. They’re still vulnerable to things that destroy 1-Cost cards, but this is a big move and I’ll be interested to see the results.
That’s it for this OTA update to Marvel Snap. What do you think of these changes? Will they affect any of your decks? Are you thinking of giving any of the buffed cards a shot? Let us know in the comments below!