Table of Contents
Welcome back to this week’s Developer Update! This week’s edition comes after the launch of the new Guardians season, a Series 5 card, and a surprise drop of a weekend High Voltage!
If you don’t know if Moondragon is worth Snap Packs or tokens, make sure to check out our Bonus Challenge guide for a post-release review of the card and new decklists!
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: Why doesn’t The Ten Rings get a buff from Victoria Hand? Is it because it technically starts in your deck?
A: Glenn “Yes. It gets added to your deck, then moved to your hand. It’s basically an Infinity Stone that starts in your hand.”
Q: After the no ability cards got buffed, Wasp and Abomination were left out! Any plans for buff them to a 0/2 and 5/10?
A: Glenn “We have no plans to buff Wasp; Abomination’s got a better shot. For Wasp, the difference between 1 and 2 is a lot larger on a card that costs nothing than on cards that cost Energy. It would be disproportionate, while the other buffs were all to better match the curve. For Abomination, the afflict version of the card created by High Evo is strong enough, and the benefit of having a slightly better vanilla doesn’t outweigh the meta-impact of unnecessarily buffing it.”
Q: If Magus is played at an Location with an opposing Echo. Then once actived next turn he takes on the text of an ongoing card would Echo block that ongoing?
A: Glenn “No, he didn’t have an Ongoing when Echo would’ve triggered. He’d have to be played from hand again somehow for that to happen. This is unique from something like Isle of Silence, which would start affecting Magus immediately.”
Q: Why doesn’t Werewolf By Night move when Hulk Buster merges, but he does move with a skill? They both disappear after playing them.
A: Glenn “The difference is that the skill cards don’t ‘become’ something else. So when Werewolf checks whether the card has an On Reveal and was played, both checks get confirmed. Most of the time, Hulkbuster fails the first check because the text of the card in play is what gets checked. Hulkbuster actually will move Werewolf if it merges with a card that has On Reveal, because then it passes that check.
Q: Was Cerebro considered when giving Lin Lie and his sword different Power in the last OTA?
A: Glenn “No, we valued having the best distribution for the card to serve the goal of telling its story, which isn’t particularly compatible with Cerebro in premise.”
Other Questions
Q: Are there plans to add the losing variants from events to the shop? There’s been no news about other variants such as the destroyer variant. Are they gone for good?
A: Griffin “They’re not gone for good. They’ll assuredly pop-up elsewhere eventually but we don’t have exact plans for where and when right now.”
Q: With Black History Month starting, are there any plans to release variants themed around this month?
A: Griffin “Yes! Stay tuned.”
Q: Do you have plans for a 7-Cost no ability card? If so, what kind of ability could it have to tie in with High Evo?
A: Glenn “We don’t have a 7-Cost card ‘in the queue,’ but if we did we probably wouldn’t say and also wouldn’t reveal its function ahead of time. Sorry!””
Q: Did the double xp for splits end?
A: Griffin “Yes, Double Character Mastery Split XP did end with the new season. However, the team will evaluate bringing it back again in the future!”
Q: Does SD provide guidance to content creators in regard to specific cards, decks, archetypes, etc. to promote in order to increase sales/drive revenue? This is quite common in other industries; was just curious if you do the same?
A: Glenn “While we have a content creator program also do some sponsored content, such as video debuts for new cards, we don’t provide specific guidance or targets for creators like that. We just want a cool video from that creator. If they have questions or want some more information, we’re happy to help out of course.”
Q: Have you considered creating a card that reactivates the abilities of cards once they had their text removed by cards like red guardian or cosmic ghost rider?
A: Glenn “No plans on it, but never say never.”
Q: Why isn’t there a better way to deliver webshop bonus rewards? Currently a reward like the free S5 card gets dumped into your collection without any pop-up or notification, which doesn’t feel great.
A: Griffin “We agree, it’s not a great interaction. Currently, it’s a technical limitation that we hope to overcome with more backend work.”
Q: Is your bot tech good enough to have scaling difficulties to create a PVE limited time mode?
A: Glenn “We’ve considered making things in this space, but haven’t found the right compelling spark yet.”
Q: Do you track any long-term impacts of LTGMs on the playerbase? How do you weigh short-term engagement vs long-term effects such as contributing to player burnout ?
A: Glenn “We do. The short and long-term impacts of LTGMs range from ‘good’ to ‘very good’ depending on the specific variables. HV: OD is the only potential instance we’ve seen of an LTGM risking churn.”
Q: Could we ever see an official deck tracker or energy tracker added to the game?
A: Glenn “I’d like to implement an enemy Energy tracker. I would always oppose a deck tracker, as I believe a majority of games using them would make the average player experience slower and less enjoyable.”
Q: Not only the new Star-Lord, but every card in this season seems either too weak or too strong. Which team designed this season, what other season have they handled, and is there any pattern of each team design?
A: Glenn “We have one design team with rotating leads, and one balance team; the exact same people have been making the cards in every season for over a year now. Prior to that, we’ve pretty much just added one designer to the team each year.
CCG design naturally has a range of variation to it, it’s not uncommon to see fluctuations over time.”
Q: Why are we getting high voltage this weekend when it wasn’t mentioned to be happening during the season accountment? Is anything changing with plans for Grand Arena and Sanctum Showdown?
A: Griffin “Nothing is changing with the plans for Grand Arena and Sanctum Showdown later this month. These smaller weekend versions of High Voltage can and will be sprinkled in to seasons for those who wish to participate. They’re meant to be lower-stakes with cosmetic-only rewards so it wasn’t mentioned but I’ll pass along a note to try to include them in season blogs going forward when possible.”
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: If you activate Symbiote Spider-Man and it merges with another activate card that has not activated yet, it cannot then activate its new ability. Is that intended?
A: Glenn “You can only activate a card once per game, and Symbiote Spider-Man has already been activated.”
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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