Table of Contents
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: what’s up with that Storm nerf, is Kang still getting a rework, where in the world is Ben Brode, 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 Series 5 card Toxin! If you don’t know if this card is worth Spotlight Caches, make sure to check out our weekly Spotlight Cache guide, as well as our 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: Will Thanos ever recieve a big change, or will he forever be a gimmick card like Kang?
A: Glenn “Neither Thanos nor Kang is forever remaining a gimmick card, but they are both challenging cards to adjust and we’d like to take the time to get them right.”
Q: Task Master hasn’t performed very well since his nerf to 6-Cost. If he can’t be reverted, can you tell us what the combo was you were worried about?
A: Glenn “Our internal deck combined a number of strong cards, but it was Taskmaster copying Human Torch/Dagger in a Bounce shell that convinced us to make a move. While we agree the ding has hit Taskmaster hard, we haven’t seen anything convincing us the 5-Cost version wouldn’t be problematic in this way.”
Q: Can you explain how you landed on this version of Zabu? And is this version performing well to you?
A: Glenn “The 2/3 was too weak. 1/1 with Activate was too strong. Can’t say for sure on the new version yet, but I’m optimistic and we have some other cards coming that work well with Zabu.”
Q: Is the High Evolutionary buff you once mentioned still on the table?
A: Glenn “The changes we were referring to are in the hopper, but notably High Evo was one of the best decks in the game this season, for a time.”
Q: Are you aware there changes to Storm and Shadow King severely hurt Cerebro 2?
A: Glenn “We have stated as such—it’s not a constraint we can justify living under in order to best balance the game. Various Cerebro decks will rise and fall over time, that’s just a necessary concession to having live balance at the frequency and impact that we do.”
Q: Have you considered making War Machine work symmetrically for both players when played? It’s tough to see adjacent cards like Storm take a nerf when they aren’t the problem.
A: Glenn “Not really, symmetrical War Machine is just a pretty weak and unappealing card.
I’ll admit, this is a particularly curious case of advocacy to me. If you agree lockdown decks need a nerf–which seems to be the case–Storm’s clearly not ‘adjacent’ to the problematic gameplay. War Machine hedges against some cards and locations while having appealing combinations with Ebony Maw and Infinaut, Legion has always been an exciting card, but Storm’s fairly single-minded in what she brings to games of SNAP.”
Q: Is the Storm-Legion combo too difficult to change or prevent?
A: Glenn “I am not really sure what you’re asking.
If you’re asking about something like Legion says ‘On Reveal: Replace each other location with this one, unless it’s Flooding’ we wouldn’t do that because it’s not a functional or sensible approach to general game balance, but it’s not technically prohibitive.
We can make lots of changes, but we value maintaining the individual identity of cards fairly highly. If someone thought Storm was cool, we don’t want to delete the card they initially liked and replace it with something totally different. We do draw a line between balance and reworks on that front. Plus, it’s easier to rebalance up and down than redesign back and forth, both on us and on players.”
Q: Based on your last answer, Storm was changed to a 4-Cost and is agreed to be unplayable now. Does this change not go against your view that you don’t want to replace cards people enjoy?
A: Glenn “Balance is one part of what people find cool–it’s not the only part. If it was, no one would play bad cards, but thousands of people do that every day. It remains to be seen how much this adjustment costs Storm (the general consensus notwithstanding), but as I stated in the quote–we can always make the same card better or worse by adjusting its balance, that’s what live balance is for.
But you can’t really make a different card more or less different. When we change a card, that’s much more like taking something away. It’s also usually a one-way trip, because our threshold for redesigning a card is high and usually includes confidence we won’t want to revert, such as America Chavez.”
Q: Since Agent Venom hasn’t been nerfed yet, can you officially say that you won’t nerf an active Season Pass card?
A: Glenn “While the Agent Venom deck is strong—I think it’s fair to say it’s the best deck—there are other top-tier decks that don’t use Agent Venom, and plenty of competitive decks without him just below that tier.
Being the best doesn’t equate to needing a nerf. Its winrate, cuberate, and play rate are all currently within our tolerances for its performance. It also has bad matchups.
The deck is relatively new, and it isn’t our policy to stamp out new things as soon as they become strong. We like to give players a chance to adapt and explore.
It’s fairly unlikely for us to nerf Season Pass cards during their season, but that’s not because it’s some kind of rule. It’s because our responsible thresholds for nerfs require time and effort—at least two weeks, usually more. Buffs are easier, because no one tends to be upset about their card getting better.
If the circumstances are extraordinary we’ll certainly act, but that’s become much more rare since we updated our developmental balance practices last December. In fact, since then we’ve needed to buff more Season Pass cards than we’ve needed to nerf.”
Q: Kang and Daredevil are similar cards, but Daredevil saw a buff and Kang remains untouched. Is there a lack of data for Kang, or have you tried changes internally they haven’t worked? And do you see these two cards as similar?
A: Glenn “We have every intention of reworking Kang, and I believe we have said as much. However, reworking a card is more significant work than a simple balance tweak. We have tried and discarded multiple Kangs.
I think Daredevil and Kang are somewhat similar, but have enough meaningful points of differentiation.”
Q: Can you share with us the discarded Kang ideas?
A: Glenn “No, or at least not right now.”
Q: How does the team feel about Cerebro? Could a change be made to make those decks more consistent?
A: Glenn “Cerebro is a card that really exists for players to find the deck(s) available, making it a unique challenge within the game. As a design group, maintaining a consistent core for Cerebro isn’t compatible with our balance approach.”
Other Questions
Q: Have you considered unlinking card upgrading with card acquisition?
A: Glenn “This is the core loop of our game, so I wouldn’t expect to see them separated.”
Q: Why was High Voltage so much easier to unlock rewards than in Deadpool’s Diner?
A: Glenn “We’re experimenting with a number of variations across our game modes to learn different things about each and what works best where. How long they’re live is part of that, too.”
Q: “Reset” is not a reduction but “set” is. Is that language too similar?
A: Glenn ” ‘set’ isn’t a reduction by definition—it’s the application of a modifier to change a value, which can also result in an increase. ‘Reset’ means to remove that kind of modifier (along with directional Power buffs or debuffs).
It’s debatable if that connection is a bug or a feature, but we’ve currently chosen the latter.”
Q: Instead of a OTA change bi-weekly, have you considered changing cards making smaller changes more often? Like adding a power or removing one here or there?
A: Glenn “We already balance the game at a much higher frequency than anyone else. It’s not practical or more useful to increase that speed, in part because we’d be planning changes with no ability to measure the results of the most recent ones. We do also believe there are costs to confusing players, stressing our own tech and process, etc.”
Q: Where is Ben Brode? He used to make appearances in in discord or community games like “Wheel of Snap” before, but has since disappeared.
A: Griffin “As a co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Second Dinner, Ben wears a lot of hats and has a lot of responsibility. Since MARVEL SNAP has launched, the Second Dinner team has grown and hired some incredibly talented people to expand and specialize in our capabilities.
For example, I was brought along as Community Manager to do much of what you’re describing in terms of speaking on behalf of the team and engaging with players. As for your opinions on the state of the game in comparison to Ben’s public engagement, I think that’s much more correlation than causation.
Ben also wants me to pass along the message that he loves you and is currently hard at work on the most ridiculous dev update video to date!
Keep the feedback coming and we’ll all be here to listen. If you’d like to see more SD team members out and about participating in community content, let us know where!”
Q: Can you get the same variant each time a Collector’s Vault appears? If I skip buying a Magik variant, will that variajt be able to re-appear next week?
A: Glenn “Your next Collector’s Vault will not include any repeats from the last one. In your example, that Magik Variant will not be in your next CV but it could be in the one after that.”
Q: Many months ago when Zabu was nerfed, you stated you wanted to Study the strength of 4-Costs across the board without his discount. Are there results of this study you have learned and can share?
A: Glenn “There are some things, but can’t spill the beans just yet though”
Q: When it comes to nerfing combos, where do you draw the line between “we have given the players tools to deal with x, we aren’t going to nerf x “ and “despite having the tools to counter x we need to tone down x”?
A: Glenn “It’s actually pretty straightforward. When ‘x’ is exceeding the metrics we set for its tolerance, we always look for changes that directly weaken it. When x is within those thresholds but performing very well, we look for ways to blunt its strength a touch.
One of our general goals is that we want a player who is frustrated by a deck to have the ability to improve their matchup on their own, if it’s important to them to do so. When we know they can’t, we’ll often prioritize designing a card that lets them.”
Q: SD claims to not want decks that are frustrating to play against, and nerfs so many archetypes into the ground, yet Wong/Gambit/Whatever is still untouched? Storm Legion was annoying but easy to play around, but combos like this still exist untouched.
A: Glenn “It’s common for players to reduce our positions to a binary, but this is rarely the actual scenario. We don’t want to eliminate any of our decks or gameplay, but we do want them to fluctuate in strength and impact. Some decks, like lockdown or clog, it’s more important to ensure experience that flux because their strength is harder to oppose.
The Storm/WarMachine/Legion deck was better than any Wong deck has ever been. I’m glad it wasn’t troubling you, but some players and/or decks were struggling.
As for how we let Wong-Gambit exist, as I said above: we want lots of stuff to exist. This deck is inconsistent, easily answered, and can be very exciting. Glass cannons tend to be pretty fun things to have around—it’s when they won’t shatter or never miss that they become dangerous.”
Q: Is it true that when a card is causing problems, the team is more likely to change a lower-series card instead of a higher-series card, even if the lower-series card isn’t the main issue?
A: Glenn “First off, I have to point out that we *did* nerf War Machine first.
As for the question, I’m honestly not sure the observed premise—that we nerf a lot more 1/2/3 cards for metagame reasons—is true. I’m not going to spend time tallying it, but if a content creator wants to I’ll happily watch the breakdown! We just don’t track balance that way.
I can speak to some factors that might lead to it happening:
* There are a lot more lower-Series cards than higher-Series ones and they’re more available, so decent chance for it to shake out that way when we’re adjusting a deck.
* The methodology and design team was different prior to release. Applying new learnings to old content is more likely to create change.
* Changing older cards can create a more significant “freshening” effect, because they’ve been the same for a much longer time.
* Because S4/S5 cards are our primary content, we want them to be exciting and succeed. This requires a willingness to be bold with them, as well as look for changes when they aren’t performant (as we did with War Machine).
* We have tons of data for lower-Series cards, and newer cards (or recently changed ones) have meaningfully less data. So we can make more confident changes to older cards.
* Conversely, we’ve more recently tested the new/changed card at a variety of rates, so we also know more stuff that won’t work.
* Players dislike having a new toy nerfed, so we want to have a threshold for putting them through that.
* Sometimes, a recently released or changed card might seem too strong, but it just takes time for players to adapt.
* What players believe to be the problem/solution isn’t always valid, nor does it always align with what we’re trying to achieve in gameplay.”
Q: When it comes to nerfing cards or combos, how often does the short meta game influence changes? Players can easily tech against Storm, but they don’t have room for that tech card when they have to tech against Agent Venom decks. Is it a goal to revert these changes then the meta evolves later?
A: Glenn “We are always balancing for the metagame we have. We don’t consider it ‘a goal’ to revert a card, but we don’t mind doing it, either.
Our approach to identifying balance changes focuses on the poles of the metagame, so cards with middling performance are less likely to be addressed with a balance change. Assuming a card like Storm is in decline, that card just as viable for a buff as any other, generally speaking.”
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: When can previous Season Pass cards be made more available? When are Series Drops coming?
A: The team doesn’t share future spotlight schedules officially, but datamines give a small glimpse into the next month or two. A Series Drop is officially scheduled for mid-november, but no official word on what cards will be dropping into which series.
Q: Can Professor X be changed to clarify swapping sides versus moving?
A: Glenn “I don’t currently see a reason to deviate from our default. Professor X doesn’t refer to sides; he refers to the location, as many other cards do. ‘Here’ and ‘this location’ are synonyms in our game, as you see on cards like Kraven. When sides matter, we specify that: Ant-Man, Doc Ock, etc.
The previous Professor X stopped swaps because we changed him to do that. It wasn’t his original function, but felt correct for the ability ‘Lock down this location.'”
Q: Why doesn’t Symbiote Spider Man work with Scarlet Spider (or other activate cards)?
A: Glenn has answered a similar question about getting an extra activate trigger on Araña with SSM. Using that same logic, it is likely in the same vein. SSM has already activated, so it can’t get another one. I will continue to seek a more direct answer though. Here is Glenn’s quote I referred to:
Glenn “No. 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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