Developer Update for the Week of March 23, 2024: Cannonball Edition (25+ Questions)!

Hello all! Welcome back to this week’s breakdown of what’s happening over on the Marvel Snap official Discord! This week, we get answers to questions such as: why didn’t Hela get a nerf, how many more Series Drops will we get, will Discard ever get a counter card, 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 card Cannonball! If you don’t know if this card is worth a Spotlight Cache, make sure to check out our weekly Spotlight guide, as well as our Cannonball Bonus Challenge guide!

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!

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: Even though Morph is one of the OG X-Men, did he not get the X-Men boost because he changes into a new card?
A: Glenn “Correct, that’s why we didn’t team him up here. We didn’t really ever consider another option; we just don’t have the ability to communicate an implementation that would retain the buff.”

Q: Since January, Thanos has seen 6 new cards that synergize with his deck well. How does the team view this?
A: Glenn “Thanos is very versatile, with a wide range of synergy hooks. Generally we want to print good cards, and Thanos can make use of many different kinds of cards. We do like Thanos being a deck—he’s cool—but he’s also easily overserved.”

Q: Could you ever see yourself limiting Thanos with effects like “if your deck only has even cost cards, do this” or “if your deck has no 3 or 4 cost cards, do that”?
A: Glenn “Sure, that’s space we imagine using.”

Q: Was there any thought of giving Cannonball the Coal rock variant due to him being a former coal miner?
A: Addison “I have no idea if this was ever discussed, but I can assure you that now that QA knows about this we’ll be pushing for more canonical rock representation for Cannonball and any other cards with mineral-based backstories going forward! (I’ll take any excuse I can to advocate for the creation and use of more rock variants, I also have limited power in this space so consider my advocacy as just a slight step above meaningless 😛 )”

Q: Besides how harsh old Spider-Man’s ability was on a character who is supposed to be fun, was a one sided soft lockdown too powerful to exist in some form?
A: Glenn “It wasn’t literally too strong–the card was never a top performer–but it also wasn’t very fun. We didn’t think we’d miss it, and haven’t.”

Q: Do you believe that Psylocke is the highest power contributor in the Thanos archetype? Or are series 3 cards the first target to weaken an archetype, because you don’t want to hurt the sales numbers for series 4/5 cards?
A: Glenn “Psylocke’s win equity in Thanos (the amount that drawing a card contributes to winning the game) is higher than most of the Stones and many ‘big’ cards. It’s also a card that sees the vast majority of its play in Thanos decks specifically, while many of the bigger contributors are popular in other decks. Those make it a pretty clear candidate for a nerf if the goal is to weaken Thanos without hurting other decks, which was the goal.

We don’t 100% ignore Series in adjusting cards, but it’s an infrequent factor. In those cases, the motivation tends to be on adjusting the player experience across many groups. For a hyperbolic example, if we only nerfed Series 5 cards, players in the Series 1&2 metagame would basically live in an unchanging metagame–that’s not great. We want them to experience the flux of a changing metagame because a) it’s fun, and b) it gets them used to endgame balance updates.”

Q: Does the team believe that Thanos’s design (and the stones’ design, as an extension of that) is inherently problematic for the game going forward?
A: Glenn “I might not go so far as to say ‘inherently problematic,’ but Thanos does provide us with a unique challenge due to his flexibility and strength. When we wrote the notes for Time Stone, we were worried it was a slightly too harsh a blow, as Thanos decks at that time played a lot more expensive cards and losing access to the Energy would hurt that a lot. Demonstrating part of the challenge, Thanos adapted in such a way that the Time Stone change stopped being much of a nerf at all.”

Q: While the Psylocke nerf is understandable, was she considered to be a 3/3 or 3/4 so she remains playable in decks besides Thanos?
A: Glenn “It’s a fine thought. At higher numbers, Psylocke starts overlapping cards like Hope, Electro, Wave, Sera, etc. which is arguable more damaging to her, but at a minimum makes her less unique. I am certain this isn’t the last change to Psylocke, for what it’s worth.”

Q: Why was Apocalypse nerfed but Hela goes untouched?
A: Glenn “Because our balance adjustments are almost exclusively based on the performance of each deck within the metagame, and the Apocalypse Discard deck was the second strongest deck around with a pretty wide gap, while the Hela deck isn’t among the strongest decks (though it is viable).”

Other Questions

Q: Could we ever customize the signed cards to allow the signature of Sam Jackson to be moved to a different Nick Fury variant?
A: Stephen “Its possible at some point in the future.  We would need a lot more signatures in the game before it would be worth prioritizing it tech wise”

Q: Any plans to add a tracker that let’s you see what S3 cards have cycled through then shop already?
A: Stephen “We have no plans to add a tracker for the shop cycles at this time”

Q: When will we see another series drop?
A: Stephen “We will do 1-2 more series drops this year but we haven’t scheduled when or what cards yet”

Q: Could we ever see additional ways to spend boosters aside from needing credits?
A: Stephen “We are not currently planning an alternative way to spend boosters.  Its possible at some point in the future but there is nothing in the roadmap right now”

Q: Why are most 6-Cost cards villians?
A: Glenn “It’s largely a symptom of that dynamic. Cards that feel like they appropriately capture villains tend to merit larger effects and thus Costs to capture them, while heroes should feel fun to squad up.”

Q: Why aren’t you responding to all the questions being asked, especially more simple questions?
A: Stephen “We are humans too.  Our day job is making the game and we respond on Discord and Twitter in our spare time.  If you feel we aren’t responding, then I disagree with you.”

Q: Is there a limit to the amount of changes you will make in an OTA or patch?
A: Glenn “We have a general cap of 10 changes, just because the volume can be difficult to track. We do also separately want a mix of high and low impact changes, to create a wider range of exploration for players without upending the metagame every time.”

Q: Why aren’t you printing more ongoing cards?
A: Glenn “Ongoing design space is just more shallow and vulnerable to counterplay.”

Q: Was there ever a discussion about adding more player choice to decide how a cards ability work? Like players can choose to “flip” cards such as Iron Fist/Heimdall to choose the direction of their ability.
A: Glenn “As part of SNAP’s drive to be very accessible, we’ve reduced effects like that with multiple elements of player agency. It’s baked into choosing which location to play at, generally.”

Q: How much does a given card’s win rate impact its likelihood to receive nerf/buff attention?
A: Glenn “Quite a bit, it’s a primary evaluation.”

Q: If a deck has a high play rate, but not necessarily a high win rate, is that a factor you could nerf for?
A: Glenn “We have play rate thresholds we consider concerning, and if a deck were to cross them we would look at whether to adjust it. However, it is very unusual for a deck to only have a very high play rate without issues on other metrics.”

Q: Any way we could see the Avengers and X-Men buffs stay permanent?
A: Glenn “No, we won’t keep the AvX event buffs permanently. However, we may explore more buffs and different durations in the future.”

Q: Do you measure the differences in when a player plays only one deck type vs swapping between multiple decks in a day?
A: Glenn “No, we think charting your own course is a big part of the appeal in our genre. Our job is to craft excellent options to choose from.”

Q: Have you tested the “On Reveal: Draw a card” mechanic? If so, how did it go?
A: Glenn “Our system already offers so much improved access to cards in your deck that other games cover with card drawing effects.

Compare SNAP to Magic, where decks are 60 cards and you can play 4 copies of any card. ‘Draw a card’ in SNAP is a lot more like ‘Draw 5 nonland cards’in Magic, because the specific card access you’re granted is so huge. To use Magic again, you’re ~63% to draw a card with 4 copies of it in 6 turns, but in SNAP you’re 75% to draw any specific card. Plus you never draw a useless land and never get ‘manascrewed’ out of playing a card you draw (though the occasional location will get you).

We haven’t tested many draw designs (we tried a few, with Crystal) in part because offering that kind of access just isn’t something we’re interested in doing. Our game already has so little variance that decreasing it is only worth our while if it creates more interesting gameplay. So I wouldn’t expect to see ‘On Reveal: Draw a card’ anytime soon, but things like ‘When you [do a tricky thing], draw a card’ aren’t totally off the table.”

Q: Why don’t we have a card that specifically blocks opponent’s discards, like Armor blocks destroy?
A: Glenn “Generally, we avoid pure ‘hate’ cards because it’s hard to justify playing them in the first place. Discard is a uniquely tricky mechanic to mine this way, as opposed to Cosmo, Armor, Kingpin, Enchantress, etc. which all have some ways to get synergy you can play in your deck regardless of what your opponent is doing.

When one is strong enough, they also risk ruining the experience for another player. For example, Mobius M. Mobius serves a useful role we wanted, but I do consider it a bummer that it splash damages decks like Mister Negative alongside being a tech card vs. Sera.”

Q: Do cards have a character limit for abilities?
A: Glenn “Yes, though the number of lines is technically the real limiter. We don’t want to use 4 lines for a card.”

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:I play Werewolf By Night and a On Reveal card afterward. If said On Reveal card is destroyed, Werewolf jumps. If said On Reveal card is transformed into a non-On Reveal card (e.g. a Demon via Nico) Werewolf does not jump. Is this intended?
A: Glenn (Using Iceman as an example for the On Reveal) “Werewolf doesn’t trigger at all until it’s his ‘turn.’ When Iceman reveals, Werewolf has seen nothing. Then after his On Reveal resolves, the first card in line–Nico–see that it’s time for her to trigger, and she turns him into Demon. Then Werewolf sees it’s his time, and checks–nope, that’s a Demon, it doesn’t have an On Reveal.

The ‘long way’ to imagine these triggers might be ‘After you play a card from your hand and resolve the card effects triggered ahead of Werewolf, check if that card has an On Reveal ability. If it does, [effect].'”

Q: If Blob cannot be moved, does Cannonball automatically destroy him if Blob has the highest power at the enemy location? Even if other locations may be open?
A: Correct, you can see an example of this in the developer season reveal from a couple of weeks ago.

Q: How are awarded boosters weighted, and are they different on custom cards?
A: My apologies, I made a mistake and missed that the card has to be at infinity border status for the bonus to be activate. It used to function that a card at uncommon border status would get the boosters, but that changed. Here is Stephen’s answers on the subject:

Stephen “If you have less than 50 boosters on your infinity card then it will get 2x weight.  If you have over 50 boosters on your infinity card then it gets 1x weight… The system looks at the card you are playing in your deck when determining weights… Custom cards are treated like infinity border cards for booster selection after each match”

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!