Table of Contents
Welcome back to this week’s Developer Update! This week’s edition comes after the launch of the new season, the new Series 5 card Colonel America, and Series 4 card Zombie Power Man! If you don’t know if the new cards are worth Snap Packs or tokens, make sure to check out our Bonus Challenge guide for a post-release review of the cards 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: Was the team concerned about the potential for toxic decks using Zombie Power Man and Viper?
A: Glenn “It didn’t seem good, and it’s pretty inconsistent, but we’ll keep an eye on it.”
Q: Was it intended or a happy accident that Kitty Pryde works well with Zombie decks since shes one of the only heroes not to turn in the original zombie universe?
A: Glenn “Happy accident”
Q: Why make Zombi Galacti 7 Cost? Why not the usual 6 Cost or even an 8 Cost?
A: Glenn “It was too strong at 6, and too weak at 8.”
Q: High Evo was once buffed because players never actually played the card itself in a deck. Has the same concept been considered for Arishem to make the card worth playing for 7 energy?
A: Glenn “We buff cards when they and/or a deck they serve are underperforming. For High Evo, the High Evo deck was weak and underplayed, and High Evo’s individual rate contributed to that problem, so that made him a good target for the buff.
Low popularity hasn’t been a problem for Arishem decks, so there’s clearly no incentive to buff the deck. As to why we wouldn’t buff it for individual performance, High Evo could be fairly easily budged to ‘playable.’ Arishem is different!
* The amount of stats you need to make a card worth ever paying 7 Energy to play is a lot.
* Once a card has that many stats, the focus becomes finding ways to play it that *don’t* cost 7 Energy. We’re not very interested in the best Arishem deck being a Sersi deck that doesn’t play him.
Generally speaking, we do want every card’s utility to tie to being in play at least a little bit. But having a couple exceptions to heuristics like that can be healthy and fun too, if chosen with care.”
Q: With Human Torch now a 3-Cost card, is it about time for Task Master to return to a 5-Cost?
A: Glenn “I think so”
Q: Have you considered letting Negasonic trigger “once for each player” instead of once per game? So you can use Negasonic for your own triggers?
A: Glenn “We have, but we prefer sticking with one direction. That said, we did at one point consider making that direction just the player, but Kid Omega has sort of filled that space.”
Q: White Widow, Doom 2099, Spider-Man 2099, and Clea — are these four cards currently underutilized?
A: Glenn “Doom’s had some moments, and we’re interested if Headpool and Clea will find a solid home, but the other two cards aren’t very popular, no.”
Q: Why does Mister Sinister copy his power to his clone, but Sentinel always gives you a base Power card?
A: Glenn “It’s the story they’re telling. Sinister is making a duplicate of himself good enough to trick his enemies. Sentinels are mass-produced to specification in factories.”
Other Questions
Q: Why does the game have so many ways to destroy cards and relatively so few ways to protect them?
A: Glenn “Because the ones that do protect them do so fairly broadly. We don’t need a lot of different Armors and Cosmos and Caieras because the ones we have cover most of the bases well. And our goal with these cards isn’t to make it possible to ignore destruction completely, but to make the matchups have give and take.”
Q: Why isn’t there a card that can make an extra zombie hoard? Was it deemed too strong?
A: Glenn “When debuting a new mechanic, I prefer not to subvert it instantly—you want to lean into its core strengths and truths, not push toward the edges of the space immediately. For example, we didn’t put Jocasta or a “multi-activator” in the first season with activate, either, even though its design space we’re willing to consider.”
Q: Are more “special” variants ever going to enter the Collector’s Vault like old bundle variants?
A: Griffin “They’ll be made available in different way in the future. A decision on when and where hasn’t been made on that yet.”
Q: Were there any zombie characters that you wanted to use, but ultimately got cut?
A: Glenn “There are always characters we drop. One thing we debated was whether we wanted to try and emphasize any of the ‘good guys’ on the Zombie timeline more, for example.”
Q: When will the Alliance rewards be sent out for the bug compensation?
A: Griffin “Later this month.”
Q: Will the Arnim Zola on the webshop be avalible for players elsewhere? Some players can’t buy from the webshop in their country.
A: Griffin “The specific Arnim Zola Variant will be available at a later point in the game.
The purpose of the exclusive rewards is to encourage purchases on the Web Shop where app store fees don’t apply.
We’ve passed along the feedback that code redemptions would be appreciated if they were elsewhere on the web site as well.”
Q: Why does the team keep supporting Destroy and Discard decks when they are already the top decks in the game?
A: Glenn “Neither Discard nor Destroy have been the best deck for several months. The current metagame is actually among the most diverse we’ve ever had, as far as tier 1 strategies go.
However, Discard and Destroy are both core mechanics of the game, like On Reveal and Ongoing. We expect they will always have one or more playable variations, the same way Magic has red aggro and blue control, or Hearthstone Druid Ramp, etc. And we’ll similarly release cards for those decks to use over time.”
Q: Why do some new cards have animations (Zombie Power Man), but others don’t (Zombie Scarlet Witch). Why doesn’t Witch have at least a hover animation?
A: Glenn “We want delightful animations, but all of our VFX are also built to be informative and helpful without veering into unnecessary. We tend to use hover animation more often on cards that care more significantly about where you put them–Cap has an Ongoing effect that buffs other units there, Power Man cares about winning the location, Scarlet Witch will change it.”
Q: How do you feel about having more cards each month in a design standpoint? Is it more difficult now?
A: Glenn “It’s literally more work, and more average difficulty, but well within our range. We didn’t make these changes until we had the resources for it; we’ve added 3 staff game designers since I joined, in addition to playtesters.”
Q: Is it more difficult to find characters that fit the theme now, with however many cards you make a month?
A: Glenn “Nuanced difference, but I’d say finding themes with enough characters is a little trickier.”
Q: What cards this season were your favorites to make?
A: Glenn “It was a uniquely challenging season to try and capture the vibes of existing characters as zombies. I don’t have a particular favorite child, but I imagine I’ll build more decks with Zombie Power Man and Zombie Mister Fantastic than the others.”
Q: Will the team use Discord Quests again in the future?
A: Griffin “The Discord Quests are a new thing for Discord and we were testing it out. Perhaps we’ll do it again, I haven’t heard either way.”
Q: What are your thoughts on new players not having accessible ways to get key cards for major decks? Like Discard, for example, needs Khonshu, Proxima Midnight, and Corvus Glaive for a 15,000 token cost.
A: Glenn “There’s a difference between being able to build with an archetype and being able to optimize it. New players in any CCG need to be able to build enjoyable versions of key archetypes, and there are a lot of reasonable S3-centric options in Snap that players can work on upgrading as they play.
Series 1-3 were initially and deliberately designed to support a range of gameplay, and new cards are positioned to enhance and expand upon that foundation.”
Q: With such positive feedback on giving an extra Series 5 pack on the webshop, do you have plans to keep doing this?
A: Griffin “Yes, we do have plans to continue using Snap Packs as rewards in a variety of ways. Exactly when and where are always being discussed.”
Q: Have you ever changed the season theme after you started work on it within your 6 month planning window?
A: Glenn “Nope… Actually, technically we had some different things in mind for F4 when we initially concepted it, but it shifted to more tightly align with the film, so that’s pretty close.
Q: Was the increase in weekend missions rewards only temporary?
A: Griffin “Just for last season. The team are evaluating changes for the future.”
Q: For the first time my vault had no repeats of the same character, and it seems to have happened to multiple people not just me. Are repeats less likely now?
A: Griffin “Yes! That’s correct.”
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!
It was a quiet week for questions last week, so nothing to share this edition. Be sure to share any of your questions in the comments if you can’t use the discord yourself!
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!
More Content