Table of Contents
Welcome back to this week’s Developer Update! Here’s a round up of this week’s Marvel Snap news:
- This week’s edition comes after the launch of the new Series 5 card Kahhori. If you don’t know if Kahhori is worth Spotlight Caches, make sure to check out our Bonus Challenge guide for a post-release review of the card and new decklists!
- The latest OTA Card Balance Update! If you haven’t seen what was changed with the balance update, be sure to check out the official patch notes and our analysis.
- Snap Packs has been confirmed to be arriving on April 29, 2025 with the patch! Check out the Developer Q&A Interview to see an updated summary of the system.
Answers and questions may be slightly rephrased for more clarity and ease of reading. This week’s topics will be divided into Card Specific Questions, Other Questions, and Questions From You!
See all individual questions and answers updated in real time!
Card Specific Questions
Q: Would you consider Mjolnir buffing OG Captain America and Stormbreaker to buff both Thor and Bill?
A: Glenn “No, I’ve explicitly said that’s not going to happen. The cards are game pieces first and foremost, we can’t hold all gameplay decisions to the standard of matching comic book lore. That way lies madness!”
Q: I find the text of Soul Stone confusing. “For each of your full locations, give one of your cards there +2 Power.” Let’s say I have all 3 locations filled. Will I get:
1. +6 on 1 random card;
2. + 2 on 3 random cards;
3. + 2 on 1 card from each location?
A: Glenn “The third one”
Q: Why was MODOK nerfed but not Bullseye?
A: Glenn “The Bullseye deck isn’t a majority of Morbius+MODOK decks, nor were Bullseye or Daken the top cards in their own deck. MODOK and Morbius were both head and shoulders above the rest, and the more conventional list was more popular and slightly stronger.”
Other Questions
Q: How would you rank each cost on how hard it is to design around? (Not including 7+ and 0 cost)
A: Glenn “(Easiest) 2<4<3<1<5<6 (Hardest)
I don’t find 1s very hard, because they cost so little that you can usually find a good enough twist to make them interesting, even if they don’t necessarily turn out strong, because the opportunity cost is low. King Eitri and Agony are good examples.
3 is the hardest of the ‘top half’ because there’s just a ton of competition and powerful things to do for 1 more or 1 less Energy, and the stat blocks are still tight even though Energy Cost is starting to really matter.”
Q: What makes a character sharing a mantle (Miles, Robin Reyes, ect) worthy of being its own card instead of just a variant of an existing character?
A: Glenn “Early in SNAP, there wasn’t much distinction made here. We’ve been continuing to develop that as the game grows, and reserving more distinct identities for future variant releases.
We don’t currently have any plans to ‘undo’ past variants that might overlap these decisions, as players made good faith decisions to acquire those variants for those cards. We haven’t ruled out potentially duplicating them for a new identity, such as making the McFarlane Symbiote variant an option for Symbiote Spider-Man, but for now we’re still deciding how often we want to do this kind of thing and what the rules are for it.”
Q: Is it possible to have cards with text like “on reveal: give your ongoing cards here another ongoing ability”?
A: Glenn “Technically yes, though some UI elements aren’t well-suited to it (primarily the text display).”
Q: Are you happy with cards like Mjolnir and Stormbreaker being classified as “characters”? Or are you changing that in the future?
A: Glenn “We’re pretty happy with character. We have talked about diversifying further into ‘item’ or something similar, but for now we’re going to let them sit while we tackle some other elements. We didn’t want creep the scope of debuting one new card type into debuting two.
I don’t immediately recall the brainstorming list, but a big challenge was that even many of the more generic words, like ‘unit’ and such, still didn’t apply well to items, and ‘character’ was much more evocative about the primary cards we wanted to reference.”
Q: What will happen to people who don’t update when the Snap Packs go live? And what will happen to the Hydra Stomper week spotlight variants?
A: Griffn “We’ll for forcing an update two days after the patch launch. So there WILL technically be 48 hours where you can use the old Spotlight Cache system for Hydra Stomper.
We’ll share those details of what the temporary Spotlight Cache cards and Variants will be for that week soon.”
Q: With Snap Packs bonus rewards, will they have dupe protection? Or is it possible to get a “god pack” that has 3 cards in it?
A: Glenn “It’s possible!”
Q: With Snap Packs, how can you target a specific card you want?
A: Griffin “You can pull it from a Snap Pack or wait for it to appear in the rotating daily card you can pin.”
Q: Will we know the rates of pulling each bonus rewards for Snap Packs?
A: Griffin “The rates will be in the game and we’ll also share them alongside the final blog before launch.”
Q: In the Snap Pack video, you stated we would be seeing more Series 4 cards. Will these all be limited to limited time game modes?
A: Glenn “Some Series 4 cards will be only available to start as rewards from limited time game modes but the following season they’ll be moved into the Seasonal Series 4 Snap Pack. Others will be available from Seasonal Series 4 Snap Packs right from the start of the season.
We don’t have plans to have Series 4 cards as the weekly Spotlight card right now.”
Q: How often can we open Snap Packs?
A: Griffin “No limit! Until you’re out of available cards in each pool.”
Q: Will daily collectibles like credits and the Galactus roll be still avalible alongside daily tokens?
A: Griffin “Those will still exist. The only caveat is the Galactus free roll in the Webshop. The Webshop itself will be undergoing some major changes as we continue with our publishing transition. As we learn more about the details and timing around that, we’ll let you know.”
Q: Will the extra card pulls from packs have dupe protection against cards you already have, including the one you just pulled?
A: Griffin “Yes!”
Q: In the eventual case of a “god roll” where you get multiple extra cards from a single pack, would these extra cards have the chance of being the same card, thereby nullifying one of the bonus rewards?
A: Griffin “They should all be unowned cards. No duplicates.”
Q: If you are collection complete, but open a snap pack and roll a bonus cards, is it converted to tokens?
A: Griffin “Yes, you will get an amount of Tokens in place of that card.”
Q: Can I get Eson and Agamotto from Snap Packs if I pull for them right after updating?
A: Griffin “For sure. Keep in mind the season doesn’t end until May 6.”
Q: What do you think about a card that pulls an opponents card to your side of the board?
A: Glenn “The design space for fun cards there is just really small. If it works the turn you play it, then it’s incredibly powerful, and if it doesn’t then it winds up a lot weaker but still fairly frustrating. We prefer to lean into things like Viper that can be forecasted, or locations that give fair warning and affect both players.”
Q: Locations like F.E.A.S.T. that say “ALL players” instead of “both players” have me wondering… will there be co-op or potential 2v2 Snap games in the future?
A: Glenn “It’s just a shorter word and locations are space-hungry. Not saying we’d never make such a mode, just that our grammar isn’t indicative in either direction. We have playtested some 2v2 variants, but that’s all I’m saying!”
Q: Is there a challenge in finding a way to bring spotlight variants back in a different way?
A: Griffin “It’s less about challenges and more about prioritization. The team has been focused on other things like getting Snap Packs out to players.”
Q: Are there any thoughts about ensuring OTAs aren’t boring?
A: Glenn “We want there to be a range of impacts with OTAs—constant upheaval can be exhausting, infrequent can be dull.
Card reworks and even some small functional changes, while doable, are a more significant effort. And when they’re ready, we ship them ASAP, which means we won’t have any ready on short notice if an OTA looks a little light.”
Questions From You!
Each week, I ask readers of the weekly dev update to leave their questions down in the comment section. That way we can ask those questions on your behalf, or let you know the answers if those questions have been asked before! I read each comment you leave, so I will be adding this section at the end of each week’s edition to highlight your questions that you asked last week!
Q: Will we be able to buy Spotlight Variants with tokens?
A: Spotlight variants will not have a place to purchase them when Snap Packs release. Later on, devs will create a new way to obtain them, be it with Tokens or another method.
Keep Your Questions and Feedback Coming!
That’s all for this week’s update! Be sure to check back here at Marvel Snap Zone for next week’s update! If you enjoyed the amount of content in this edition, make sure to keep asking your questions to the developers by submitting it in their official Discord in the “#ask-the-team” channel. If you have questions and don’t use Discord, leave your questions for the developers in the comment section here, and I will make sure your question has been answered by the devs!
If you have feedback or changes you would like to see with these weekly updates, also let us know in the comment section!
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