Marvel Snap Balance Patch Analysis and Decks to Play: Just Play Points?

I am usually very positive about OTAs and balance patches because I love dynamic games and trying to solve new environments. This time, however, I am going to be a little pessimistic because this patch is a little different from others we’ve had in the past.

First, we didn’t get the usual heads up about the changes, which means I didn’t have time to properly think about their impact. I only discovered the patch a few moments before writing these lines. With that said, I hope it won’t impact my analysis or the quality of decks I’ll be sharing in this piece.

On top of that, I honestly dislike most of these changes. I feel like they all push towards a similar direction: Marvel Snap wants you to play for points.

I know a lot of players don’t like disruptive patterns. In the end, most of us play card games to pull off that incredible combo and score a big win. We joined for the fireworks more than the one-or-two-cubes-per-game grind.

However, I really don’t think the Alioth and Sandman changes are good. I think they’ll only lead to the cards seeing even less play. This is an important nuance: there won’t necessarily be less disruption, only less diversity in how we do it. I could also include Zabu in this mix since the card was mostly helping Shang-Chi, Enchantress, and other such cards see more play lately (rather than pushing entire decks around 4-Cost cards).

The goal of this patch feels more like “Play Mobius M. Mobius and Hope Summers in all your decks” than anything else. Lady Deathstrike is intriguing and easily the best part about this balance update. But, even if I could see how the card will single-handedly win a location against a Silver Surfer deck, I can just as well imagine its limited use against Hela, Loki, Thanos, Move, Destroy…

In reality, the only reason we are even discussing Lady Deathstrike is because it is now a seven power card and thus can help with our points total. That is what this patch is all about: your points total.

The Exact Same Meta

Balance updates are typically aimed at bringing more diversity into the game, helping the archetypes in distress with some extra power, or creating new synergies to explore. With this patch, I don’t see anything worth exploring, which is my main reason for disliking the update as a whole.

• Alioth doesn’t look like a card I want to work for anymore. It still requires priority to work, except now it loses to any card with more than eight power. Sure, it can still serve to counter a key card like Hela or Onslaught, but the old Alioth did that as well. I only see less possibilities with this change, no new avenues to explore.
  
• Zabu is now only a card you should consider if you do not have Hope Summers in your collection and want to play two 4-Costs on Turn 6. Otherwise, this is just a closed door.
  
• Sandman lost its synergy with Electro, which probably kills the Ramp archetype since the game has way too many flexible decks to afford playing only one card per turn. This change also likely makes the card much less appealing in the Hela Ramp deck since Corvus Glaive into Sandman doesn’t hold much value anymore. You could consider running Sandman in a fast-paced deck as a way to block your opponent from being flexible down the line, but playing Mobius M. Mobius feels both easier and more effective.
  
• Lady Deathstrike is kind of the same card as it was, although it’s probably stronger now because it adds seven points to your lane instead of four. Still, apart from being a Dracula (and sometimes Wong) killer, the card isn’t much different. You will play it in Destroy as a way to remove Mobius M. Mobius from blocking Death, but that was already its purpose as a [5/4].
  
• Strong Guy now works with Apocalypse! Just like Daken did, or Lady Sif, or Gambit… We don’t have a shortage of solid 3-Costs to explore in Discard, so I don’t see why this needed to happen. Really, this change feels more like an easier trigger condition for KaZoo and Pool 1/2 players. It is great that they are also accounted for in these updates, but that doesn’t make the update great.

Since the last OTA, the meta has been mostly focused around developing points. You either do it flexibly by leveraging the Angela package in a Loki, Bounce, Move, Shuri, or even Sera deck, or you take the other, more rigid route with decks like Hela, Living Tribunal, Phoenix Force, and Thanos.

Looking at the update, I really can’t figure out how the situation will be any different after the update.

Marvel Retreat

The reason I dislike these changes so much is that it reduces the amount of cards we can build our strategies around. Without Zabu, all the decks that were based on the 2-Cost card are now unplayable, and anybody who enjoyed them needs to find something else instead. This wouldn’t be a problem if the patch opened new archetypes to explore instead (hence why I’m always in favor of buffs rather than nerfs), but it didn’t.

I’m not denying that Zabu was a very powerful card, but it also represented a reason to play many cards as well. Without it, Lockjaw is now dead and buried, Ms. Marvel probably is too, Lockdown is gone, the list goes on and on.

The same assessment could be made about Alioth. It was a big weapon for decks that could leverage priority and counteract their opponent on the last turn, such as Iron Patriot and KaZoo. I do think the [6/8] Alioth has its merits, and it could even still be used in a similar fashion. Still, these decks will lose to point slams more often.

So what do we do when we have fewer choices to pick from? We just pick the same thing as everybody else, and that makes the meta feel stale pretty quick.

I already touched on the good decks in the previous section, and it’s a great thing we have a lot of those currently. The not so good thing is that they almost all work the same way.

• Rigid, follow your game plan kind of decks: Hela, Phoenix Force, Destroy, Discard, Shuri
• Flexible, cheat energy kind of decks: Loki, Silver Surfer, Thanos, Move, Bounce
• Disruptive, try to limit your opponent kind of decks: Galactus, Zemo Mill.

These are the big categories that fit all the current archetypes in Marvel Snap, and I probably forgot a few in there. My point when looking at the list is that every single one of these decks tells you by Turn 3, sometimes Turn 4, whether you should stay in the game or not. Past that point, you know if you have your important setup card and if your opponent has theirs. Here’s what I mean:

Hela plays Corvus Glaive and general discards; Phoenix Force destroys Multiple Man or Human Torch; Destroy plays Deadpool; Discard if they discarded Apocalypse or played either Morbius or Dracula; Shuri if they started to grow Kitty Pryde or played Shuri.

The same applies for the flexible decks, except they almost all follow the same pattern with Hope Summers and another anchor card, typically Angela. Silver Surfer and Thanos operate a little differently, but it’s still very simple to know if your opponent has a great hand or an average one.

The disruptive decks are the sneakier ones, but they have fewer late game options available. As such, they need to be faster off the gate to perform. Now you know that you can lose priority and just slam a ton of points on the last turn to play against these decks because Alioth isn’t a threat anymore.

With fewer options available to include in our decks, reading the opponent’s strategy becomes much easier. This isn’t a problem per se. Actually, most card games look for this because it rewards those who are able to learn the ins and outs of the game.

However, Marvel Snap functions differently. It rewards you for raising the stakes at the right time and knowing when you should move on to the next game. The easier this decision is to make, the less interesting Marvel Snap gets. I feel this patch took a step in the wrong direction.

Best Decks

Thanks for allowing me to rant about the update. But you opened this article to get ideas, not complaints, so here we go!

I just discussed how the next meta might turn into a war of quick Snaps and Retreats with just a fraction of games going the distance. In that context, I believe the decks that are able to reveal the least information about themselves (or gather the most information about their opponent) will do best. Indeed, they should be able to obfuscate their Snap a little better than other lists, or at least have more information to decide if it is time to Retreat when the stakes are about to get higher.

Silver Surfer

Created by den

, updated 20 days ago

0

1x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

3x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

3x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

2.8

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Silver Surfer has two big upsides going into this update. First, the 3-Cost pool is stacked with powerful cards such as Mobius M. Mobius and Hope Summers. The deck also has a build with a lot of disruption added into it, which should help you figure out your opponent’s strategy or deny it altogether. Plus, apart from Okoye on Turn 2, playing Hope Summers or Mobius M. Mobius on Turn 3 doesn’t reveal much about your archetype to your opponent. They might even think you’re playing Loki if they saw Cable the previous turn.

Move Control

Created by den

, updated 20 days ago

0

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

4x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

2.9

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Move doesn’t care about hiding its archetype because it doesn’t tell you much about where it will have points by the end of the game. Sure, showing Kitty Pryde, Angela, and Elsa Bloodstone early on definitely tips your opponent off on your potential for this game, but the ability to reposition a lot of your cards is huge in an information-based war.

Also, Move has the ability to include some Control tools like Shang-Chi and Enchantress to counteract certain strategies. These two slots are obviously flexible, and they should be used to surprise your opponent and win the high stakes games. I could see Mobius M. Mobius, Shadow King, or even Quake making the cut.

Destroy

Created by den

, updated 20 days ago

0

3x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

2x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

In a meta where you want to Snap as early as possible and hope to keep your opponent in the game, Destroy has to be among the best archetypes to play. Indeed, it is one of the few decks that is able to Snap on Turn 1, which is basically forcing your opponent to play for two cubes or give you one without even knowing what they are up against.

Phoenix Force could also push for a similar strategy, but it is weaker to certain locations and requires several cards to Snap early. You only really need Deadpool to pull the trigger with Destroy.

Closing Words

There are plenty of decks you could play after the update; the meta featured a lot of good archetypes heading into the patch. Unless you were playing Alioth or Zabu, you could reasonably play the exact same deck and barely even notice a difference. Don’t forget your strengths as a player, and remember your comfort will always be one of the biggest factors in finding success with a list.

I hope this breakdown wasn’t too much of a bummer to read. I try to be positive, and I’m usually super excited about these balance updates. This one just didn’t feel good to me at all. There are tons of Marvel Snap updates to come in the near future, though, so I’m sure I’ll have plenty of opportunities to say how much I like the game then.

Also, I could be completely wrong about my analysis of the patch. If you liked these changes, don’t let me kill your excitement. Instead, share your views in the comment section, on the Marvel Snap Zone community Discord, or tag my Twitter page to let me know about your opinions.

Good Game Everyone.