Table of Contents
Hello all! Welcome back to this week’s breakdown of what’s happening over on the Marvel Snap official Discord! We took a break last week since the developers closed the Q/A channel for the holidays. This week, we get answers to will there be a MMR reset, will Spotlight variants be available again in the future, will regular patches and OTA’s resume after the holidays, and more! If you want to stay up to date with what’s coming and what answers developers have for the community, make sure to check back here each week!
This week’s edition comes after the launch new cards Caiera and Skaar! We get 2 cards this week from both the new Season Pass and this week’s Spotlight Cache! For tips the new cards, we have guides available for both Caiera and Skaar. If you don’t know if Caiera is worth a Spotlight Key, check out our weekly Spotlight Cache guide!
Answers and questions may be slightly rephrased for more clarity and ease of reading. This weeks topics will be divided into Card Specific questions and Other questions.
Remember, you can check out our new Marvel Snap Developer Tracker to see all questions and answers in real time! Topics can also be searched, filtered, and sorted.
Card Specific Questions
Q: Why did you nerf Viper right after players bought Havok, when their combo is a big reason players wanted Havok?
A: Glenn “Generally, our intent for a change of this nature is always to either work it into an advance update, as we did with Kitty Pryde before Elsa, or wait and see if we have an OTA in close proximity. In this case, our last chance for the former turned out to be 11/2, because the holidays required some schedule shifts design didn’t expect and we needed to cut an OTA after the fact.”
Q: It seems like Ms. Marvel is just a better Omega Red. Am I missing something or is he just weaker?
A: Glenn “Nope, he’s a little too weak and we’ll adjust him at some point.”
Q: What other options did you try for Werewolf By Night before deciding on 4/4?
A: Glenn “We tried out a fair bit of stuff. Our top other candidates were:
1. 3/1 +2
2. 3/3 +1
3. 3/1 +3 but once per turn
When we do need to nerf, we like looking for changes that might recontextualize the card’s role while also accomplishing our goal. So the first two were bummers because they didn’t do that, they were just clear downgrades. We also weren’t certain #1 would be sufficient–it was debatably stronger than 3/2 due to Shang-Chi–and worried #2 might be too harsh. Pure downside change and might not work, not ideal combos.
#3 accomplished our goal of adding new context to the card. It diminished the rewards for going ham with Beast and made the card a lot easier to understand. Werewolf is one of the most skill-intensive cards to play both with and against, so we did like that.
Ultimately, the reason we went with 4/4 instead is that preserving multiple jumps better matched the original fantasy and excitement of the card, and similarly added new context to where it might work best and how well. It also preserved our OTA knobs a little better moving forward; #3 isn’t quite as flexible on that count.”
Q: When you made the Professor X nerf, did you skip 2 power so he wouldn’t synergize with the Cerebro 2 Lockout deck? Or was it more about just lowering his play more?
A: Glenn “Not really. We were stuck between Ravonna and Cerebro either way as potentially worrying considerations, so we just went with the harsher nerf that didn’t risk buffing an existing deck. We weren’t looking to do the minimum damage to Professor X this time around, he’s taking a timeout.”
Q: You’ve stated the Viper nerf was in part due to precautions for her combo with Havok during the holidays. With the holidays over, could that nerf ever be reverted?
A: Glenn “We’re certainly open to moving Viper back to 2-Cost in the future.”
Q: Does Grandmaster require moving the card to actually reactivate it? Or will it still reactivate even if mid is full?
A: KentErik “The move is required for it to activate. If mid is full, no activation. If mid has room, but Cosmo is there, it’ll move but no activation”
Q: How do you feel about Super Skrull?
A: Glenn “Super Skrull is in a good spot right now as far as I’m concerned. He can be very powerful, but he can also be very weak or countered efficiently.”
Q: If we move a card from location A to Hercules on location (B), will the card only move to location C? Or is there a possibility that the card will return to position A?
A: Glenn “It can return to its previous location.”
Q: Can Hercules only move 1 card per turn, or can 1 card only be moved once per turn?
A: KentErik “Hercules can only move one card each turn, the first one to move to his location.”
Q: Just out of curiosity, is there a reason that Bill’s Stormbreaker is a 0/1 while Mjolnir is a 0/0? Is it a gameplay reason, a flavor one, or a mix of the two?
A: Glenn ” https://tenor.com/view/stormbreaker-jealous-jealousy-thor-thor-love-and-thunder-gif-26534940
There’s upside to adding a clear visual differentiator between the cards, as they’re a little similar, but mostly flavor.”
Q: Do you have to play a 10+ power card for Skaar to discount? Or does lockjaw count?
A: Glenn “Skaar counts your cards in play, their origin isn’t relevant to him.”
Q: Why does Caiera effect all locations? After the changes on Luke Cage and Elsa, isn’t this going in the opposite direction?
A: Glenn “Caiera is a 3-Cost card. Our changes to Luke and Elsa were clear that the previous designs had proven problematic for a 2-Cost card.
In fact, we’ve publicly acknowledged that the alternatives we considered to the Elsa and Luke changes were leaving their effects alone and increasing their Cost and Power.”
Q: What happens if you have Hercules on the board, and he gets moved with other cards by Heimdall?
A: Glenn “Hercules will trigger. If he’s in slot 1, he’ll move whichever card is in slot 2. If he’s in any other slot, he’ll move the slot 1 card. This is because Heimdall moves everyone all at once, so the “earliest” other mover is the same regardless of Hercules’s order in that move.”
Q: If you discard 2 cards (with hellcow) while Miek is on the board, will he jump twice and gain 2 power?
A: Glenn “No, he’ll jump once and get 2 Power.”
Other Questions
Q: Will Spotlight variants ever be available in the future?
A: Stephen “Maybe. We are still discussing how to do it in a way that is fair to folks who earned them in their featured week.”
Q: Will the Jim Lee Magneto variant be added to the regular shop for players who didn’t get the free reward?
A: Stephen “Yes he will be added to the regular shop pool after Winterverse”
Q: What is one of the funniest things to happen to a card during development?
A: Glenn “We somewhat recently playtested a card that filled your board with random cards. Some of the outcomes were simply hysterical—I think I cried laughing during one of the games. Card was a cursed problem, though. (Which means it can’t be developed into a functional game piece. I expect we’ll never make that effect.)”
Q: Is there any plans to address the new player experience? It isn’t difficult to hit infinite during Series 1 and 2, and post infinite you get matched against players with full collections.
A: Stephen “We are planning to change the infinite rank experience for low CL players to maintain some CL banding. We recognize the current experience which is setup to try to keep the leaderboard purity in place is not the best for new players or the health of the game.”
Q: Could you make a card that “un-reveals” a card, meaning Alioth could target it, or it could reveal again?
A: Glenn “Probably more of a ‘when’ than an ‘if’ for me, but not a certainty. It’s fairly weird.”
Q: Are there any plans to allow players to favorite multiple variants, and the game randomly pick between variants each game?
A: Chris “It’s something we’ve discussed, there is a desire to do something of a similar flavor but nothing set in stone yet”
Q: With the next patch set for 1/9, will the regular cadence of patch -> ota -> nothing -> ota resume with the next patch?
A: Glenn “That’s the current plan, but it may change as we review our process for the new year.”
Q: When making multiple nerfs in a short time that all impact the same archetype, do you consider how that effects the curve of those decks? Junk decks for example just lost their 2-drops (Viper and Black Widow) and now have a ton of 3-drops.
A: Glenn “Yep, we consider them. A deck built around gumming up your opponent’s ability to play isn’t one we want to feature a robust curve though, either.”
Q: Is there any concern that buffing Punisher by 1 power hurts the new player education experience? Since other 3-Cost cards used to all offer the same 6-Power output previously?
A: Glenn “Not really. This is a fairly small and imperceptible difference to the vast majority of players, educationally speaking. Even if they did, this lesson gets unlearned in endgame play anyway, as synergy and interaction even more heavily outweigh single points of Power.”
Q: How are Snap Points effected by MMR during each season’s reset?
A: Glenn “Your Snap Point reset is based on your MMR, and your MMR is a hard number to raise or lower for anyone who has been playing for more than a few seasons. Most players’ skill plateaus at that point, raising very gradually over time.”
Q: Was it your intention to revive a surge in Shuri decks with Skaar?
A: Glenn “For Planet Hulk season we are deliberately seeking to create gameplay worthy of the angry green giant, not puny Banner. We like to keep metagames on the move.”
Q: What comes first, the season theme, or the new cards?
A: Glenn “Theme”
Q: Would you ever create an effect that makes the game have a turn 8?
A: Glenn “Probably not; 7 is already a lot.”
Q: Is it a new standard for every Spotlight Cache to have a new card now, even on Season Pass days?
A: Glenn “Yep”
Q: Are you planning to make new multiple cards for one week, as in two new cards for one spotlight cache week?
A: Glenn “Currently, we’re only making an extra card for the first week of each season, to give that week’s Spotlight Cache a new card.”
Q: You previously changed Magik so there can’t be surprise a turn 7 in a match because it was unfair. Why is it fair for players to be able to surprise cancel Limbo on turn 6?
A: Glenn “It’s different because the presence of Limbo makes the potential obvious and you can make decisions based on its presence and what you or your opponent may do. Playing every game with the threat of a potential Magik on turn 6 is very different.”
Q: Have you considered doing a soft MMR reset?
A: Glenn “We already do an MMR normalization each season.”
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:Why was Variant Rush killed off, when the feature was so popular?The only reason I have seen offered is to “reduce hoarding”, but this seems like a weak argument, considering that the Spotlight system almost requires it.
A: For variant rush hoarding, players would stop opening regular reserves for months (having zero engagement with reserves or their contents) in order to gain every variant. Spotlight keys are every 10th reserve, and allow you to engage with reserves still. Spotlights also offer a weekly rotation to pick from, opposed to an event that may not happen for months at a time. Glenn has stated they expect players to hoard spotlights to an extent, which is one reason they made keys to make it easier to keep track of your stash.
Q: Do you know there is a stray pixel on Man-Thing’s card? It is to the top-right, just beyond the actual card, and just floats there.
A: This has been posted to the “support-bug” channel, thanks for your report! You can also use the in game report feature (in the settings) to let them know directly from the game!
Q: Why don’t you add a function to the game to view which cards are destroyed and discarded?
A: KentErik “it is something we definitely want! it’s in the queue, unclear when we’ll get to get it in 🙂”
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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