Table of Contents
Welcome back to this week’s Developer Update! This week’s edition comes after the launch of the new Series 5 card Jocasta and the latest run of High Voltage! If you don’t know if Jocasta 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 Mobius have a similar design like stardust where it can’t lower Cost in both sides?
A: Glenn “The actual effects are very different which changes how and why they might be played in a general sense.
Stardust uses being applicable to both sides to affect a wider range of cards, such as preventing Debrii or Sentry, but of course primarily slams the door on enemy strategies that put cards into play. While Mobius can harshly impact some decks, like Negative, he isn’t as impactful as Stardust, so the effect has been made stronger in other ways.”
Q: Once Enchantress became a 5-cost card, she felt like a weaker version of Ghost Rider”]. The only scenario where Enchantress might be better is if she can disable ongoing cards in positions 3 and 4, which is mostly insignificant. Any interest to make them more distinct from other
A: Glenn “The higher-Cost a card is, the stronger its effect often is and the more likely it is to wind up in slot 3 or 4, as the game has progressed in the interim. I think you’re really undervaluing this functionality of Enchantress–Cosmic Ghost Rider isn’t hitting nearly as many Iron Man, Onslaught, Cerebro, etc. I don’t think the cards specifically need more distinction from one another.”
Q: Is it intended that Khonshu views a Professor X location as a valid revive location, blocking the card from returning?
A: Glenn “This is a bug, it’s already under review.”
Q: Is a turn 4 Supergiant meant to guarantee an effective Alioth on turn 6 with no avaliable counterplay?
A: Glenn “A turn 4 Supergiant will lock turn 5 cards face down and leave them vulnerable to a turn 6 Alioth with or without priority, yes—that’s the aggregate function of the cards working in concert.
Having cards that bend the rules of engagement and force players to adapt or improvise is fundamental to all CCGs. Every skill isn’t supposed to be equally or even similarly tested in every game—variety is the goal, and the defaults provide context for that variety. You could argue Juggernaut detracts from the skill of solving where to place your cards, for example, but that factor is why he’s additive to the game space.”
Q: Is is correct that Super Adaptoid can take an use an activate text and use it, even if the opposing card already used its activate?
A: Glenn “Correct.”
Q: Why ban Mystique in HV?
A: Glenn “We’ll be exploring changes to the banned lists as we bring back game modes, to keep them refreshing over time. Mystique is a powerful piece of a certain class of combo strategies, so it can shift the metagame to try the mode without her.”
Q: Why doesn’t Hulkling target cards that Cost more than 6?
A: Glenn “He’s a 6-Cost card, so it’s more straightforward for sure. But cards that cost more than 6 feature a mix of Cost reduction–very strong–and start of game effects–very unsatisfying to hit–and the pool is small enough to make both of those a problem.”
Q: If you banned Mystique from HV, why not Ancient One as well?
A: Glenn “Being similar to a banned card doesn’t necessarily mean a card should be banned. Decks that used Mystique before experimenting with Ancient One might make them more novel to build, play with, and play against than in previous versions of HV.
The purpose of the banned list is to curate the game experience, not rigidly define the kinds of cards that are allowed.”
Q: Why was Jim Hammond banned in HV as a brand new card? Was he bugged?
A: Glenn “Hammond wouldn’t work intuitively with the game mode’s unique Energy setup, so we removed him this time around.”
Q: Does Jocasta give you the ability to create 6+ Cost activate cards now?
A: Glenn “Probably not. It’s just a large opportunity cost to require Jocasta or ramp, and the payoff would likely have to be powerful on a scale that might not be fun or interesting. I imagine we’ll make at least one, though.”
Q: Will Shadow King reset “hoard” buffs? Or are they more like Ongoing buffs?
A: Glenn “They’re Power buffs, Shadow King works.”
Q: Isn’t zombie Scarlett witch just the original Angela but at 3/2?
A: Glenn “Well, no. Beyond her different stats, she also puts Power at a different (random) location than the one she’s building and takes up two slots to do so, plus hooks into other Horde cards.”
Q: The images of The Hunger in the new season announcement make it look like a 1/0 character card with the on reveal of Horde +3. However, the Sanctum Showdown section says it’s a skill card. Can you clarify what type of card it is?
A: Glenn “It’s a skill. Not sure where that was graphic pulled from, I’ll check in on it.”
Q: If you create a horde and it gets eaten by strange. Will it create another horde if you play a season card with horde? Because if that happens then strange is a massive scaler.
A: Glenn “That’s the function. Strange has always been a massive scaler!”
Q: Have you guys playtested with both the headpool variant and the super premium card to see how much confusion it would probably cause for the player running both?
A: Glenn “Yep. We think the logos differentiate enough, though in an ideal world we’d probably have withheld the variant. We were just too stoked for the movie!”
Other Questions
Q: Has the team considered expanding the list of repeating locations with more avalible to add to the pool? This way there are different locations we see more often.
A: Glenn “The pool does grow as we add locations. We have our own criteria for what’s a suitable hot location, and we combine that with what the audience has over time indicated they enjoy playing on more often. The locations we tend to repeat are just the most popular.”
Q: Why were alliance rewards so harshly nerfed without warning?
A: Griffin “After the team investigated, they discovered that the Alliance Rewards were not configured correctly and defaulted to an older version. This configuration issue only applied to this week and next week’s Alliance Rewards. Since it’ll be unlikely we can get a fix in before next week, our plan is to reward all Alliances and their players the full intended rewards for both weeks via Inbox. We’ll be sure to let you know when that delivery occurs later this month.”
Q: Will alliance rewards go back to the previous 80k points instead of 120k in 2 weeks? What about the current grind to 120k?
A: Griffin “Yes, they should go back to what they were before: 80k.
Whatever you earn for the next two weeks will be a bonus on top of the delivered full rewards.”
Q: What would cause this disconnect between your response and the response support agents have been giving? They claim this was an intentional update made to make rewards more meaningful.
A: Griffin “They were just trying to help and made an assumption that the changes were intentional. It happens.”
Q: Is it possible for the team to have a “throwback” mode that uses old versions of cards?
A: Glenn “Not really. We don’t support multiple versions of cards in the client, and changing each one there and back would be incredibly onerous. I also don’t think it would be much fun, honestly–if I were going to use that kind of effort, I’d put it into make something new and exciting, not something old.”
Q: Are there any plans to expand the “hoard” design space?
A: Glenn “Maybe? Certainly we think these cards are enough to stand it up on their own, and many of them don’t require additional Horde cards to work in other strategies. Sentry doesn’t need us to keep making Vipers to be worth making either—Snap as a game system makes good use of “parasitic” design space.”
Q: Does the “hoard” mechanic make Shadow King and Shang-Chi to polarizing to play against?
A: Glenn “We definitely factored that into our testing; Horde’s flexibility actually made it great against Shang in my personal experience playing Horde decks.”
Q: Why was Stark Industries not removed from the HV location pool since there is no turn 4?
A: Glenn “Likely just an oversight in reviewing the newer locations. We’ll get it corrected and I’ll review our process for implementing new locations.”
Q: Galactus was initially only playable if generated by a random card. Could we ever see new cards released only as a generateable card?
A: Glenn “We’ve thought about it, but it’s an equal amount of effort to make such a card as one we would give to players, and there are more benefits to us and players to do that. I foresee that kind of space being explored mostly through designs like Kate Bishop, where the specific outputs are variable.”
Q: Is the team using Reddit for feedback, and are they considering leveraging the platform to get information out in places other than Discord?
A: Griffin “Personally, I’m there on a regular basis reading feedback. I know many other teammates are reading posts there as well and threads get passed around.
When it comes to direct communications like an AMA, I’d prefer it occur in a place where we can control and moderate. It creates a safer environment for our team.
The amount of hate, toxicity, and even personal attacks calling out members of our team by name on Reddit is quite disgusting. I don’t see us on those channels in an official capacity any time soon unless the level of moderation and rule enforcement changes.”
Q: If a player is gifted a premium season pass code, will they get the new webshop bonuses too?
A: Griffin “Yes, a Premium Season Pass code should reward the Web Shop Bonus.”
Q: Was “hoard” considered to have its own Power scaling that couldn’t be reset by Shadow King?
A: Glenn “We did briefly consider it, but we don’t really want to require players to understand another ‘version’ of Power. We already arguably have 3.5 that matter: modified Power (Deadpool), Ongoing Power (Devil Dinosaur), and conditional Ongoing Power (Cerebro). Quantum Realm just gets to exist because it’s fairly innocuous and I haven’t had cause to change it.
I don’t think base scaling would necessarily be too strong–after all, very few things even limit normal scaling. It’s the confusion that’s not worthwhile.”
Q: How does “hoard” work if you bounce and create new ones, like with Zombie Giant-Man?
A: Glenn “Zombie Giant-Man will only look for the biggest Zombie Horde. If there’s a tie, he picks one.
If you have multiple Zombie Hordes, Horde buffs each of them.”
Q: if I have an unrevealed horde on board, do horde effects try to buff it or do they create a new one?
A: Glenn “The Horde mechanic will increase the Power of an unrevealed Zombie Horde if one is in play, revealed or unrevealed.”
Q: With Zombie Galacti being an unplayable 7-Cost card without support, has snap reached a critical mass of Cost reduction that makes 7-Cost cards become trivial?
A: Glenn “I wouldn’t say trivial, but certainly we think if you want to dedicate effort to playing a 7-Cost card, it’s achievable often enough to be worthwhile.”
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: Catching up and building your collection is a slow grind. Can we expect a series drop or other catch-up mechanic besides the newly announced calendar?
A: The team has recently stated they have no series drop planned at this time. Other measures are actively being put in place like Snap Pack login rewards and Snap Packs for buying on the webshop directly.
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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