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By now you have heard the news, the king is dead. Galactus has been re-worked and there is no longer anything to fear. The new Galactus adds a new restriction to achieve the same effect and this does change how we need to look at the card and adds a lot of risk to playing the card. Does it mean Galactus is now unplayable?
Galactus Update Overview
Decks with Galactus
- [Old] 6/2 – On Reveal: If this is your only card here, destroy all other locations.
- [New] 6/7 – On Reveal: If you’re winning this location and this is your only card here, destroy all other locations.
Here’s what the developers said about the change in the patch notes:
Galactus is a card we’ve kept a close eye on since release. His ability warps the game, changing the goal for both players from claiming two locations to waging war around cards that “counter” him/his finishers and priority. We don’t mind mixing things up a bit from time to time in that regard, but Galactus’s play rate was moving past the thresholds we set to determine both competitive diversity and also how frequently the game gets reduced to that state. Because Galactus is inherently counterable, we waited to see if the metagame could sort itself out, but it hasn’t. Galactus’s popularity has increased, his winrate has only grown, and many players don’t even enjoy beating him–these are problems worth solving.
The original design for Galactus is difficult to rebalance, because it has essentially one value we can adjust: Power. However, lower Power can mean that Galactus always loses priority, making post-Galactus counters like Shang-Chi or Enchantress difficult to play. Meanwhile, increases may let you beat these cards more naturally, especially Professor X. Either way, it’s still all about the counters. We considered making him the first true 7-Cost card, but that was just less fun and weaker with the same issues. We also considered full redesigns for Galactus but didn’t find anything that cleared our bar, which is very high.
Ultimately, we decided to make Power a functional way for us to tune Galactus, which led us to this additional “winning” restriction. Caring about winning this way lets players contest Galactus within the core fun of SNAP–using Power to challenge for locations. Relying exclusively on counters is frustrating because neither player has much control over their appearance, but every deck should have the ability to muster 7 Power. We expect he’ll be stronger in decks that play him on turn 6 after Hobgoblin or Nimrod, but worse in the stronger, more popular Galactus archetypes. If this change proves too much or too little, it’s also given us the ability to tune him further via OTA and find the healthiest spot.
The New Weakness
The change was made to add an additional weakness to the card. We could see this as Second Dinner giving themselves another way to balance the card. Previously, the only way outside of an entire redesign was to lower the power of Galactus. This did little against the popular Galactus strategies (some would say it buffed some strategies) and left the card in an awkward spot.
If players did not have a counter, they lost often with a lot of decks. The deck was particularly well placed in recent metagames as counter cards were less prevalent or required guesswork to be successful. We could debate endlessly if the change was needed but the context of the metagame and what is actually being played was only resulting in Galactus being stronger at all levels.
The solution is to make the power a more relevant part of the card by adding the restriction If you’re winning this location. This is a significant change, even if some games would play out exactly the same, its a huge restriction. If you Wave on turn 3 into Galactus, your opponent doesn’t need to play a specific counter, they need to play a card bigger than 7 power. Hulk is now one of the best counters to Galactus, but even Maximus would stop the effect.
This makes where and when you play Galactus much more restricted. Decks don’t need a specific counter, they just need to play towards some good 5 and 6 energy cards which would naturally counter Galactus or put lots of power on the empty lanes. You will still lose to Galactus but they have added a really significant restriction with this change. This is almost as much of a change as the fabled Leader adjustment, but not quite – as there is a very clear way to adjust the decks in which I will guide through today!
How to Rebuild Galactus
This next section is a journey through 4 theorycrafted decks for the new Galactus. They are modifications to successful Galactus decks but the goal is to help you think about how to rebuild with the card going forward.
The Goblins
Is Galactus now a dead card? Well maybe not. There are circumstances where 7 power (over 300% increase) improves the card significantly. Hobgoblin is on of these circumstances. Hobgoblin adds -8 power to the lane, so your opponent is no longer overcoming 7 power on turn 6, they have to put out 15 power with the remaining slots.
If we can combine this with Green Goblin we can make it even harder for your opponent. That would leave 2 (if not less if you play Goblins on lanes they committed too) spots to over come the deficit. This is a buff to Galactus in this deck and the version below.
There is 1 card which may look out of place which we will get to. So now this Destroyer version of Galactus can more reliably hit the Turn 6 junk and play Galactus gameplan alongside the already ok plan of Destroyer or Venom and Carnage on Nimrod.
Daredevil
Decks with Daredevil
Another card which we should be leaning on more with new Galactus builds is Daredevil. The ability to see the committed play of our opponent on 5 should inform our Galactus play consistently (note the word committed, Kang does not show committed plays and ends up trapping many players into bad play).
To avoid this deck being too one dimensional, we add in Professor X. This gives us two ways to lock a lane and potentially steal games. Professor X also acts as Shang-Chi protection if you do end up with a big Galactus lane.
We do however still need strong alternate lines to go to and Destroyer, Shuri and Taskmaster can be very strong alternative play lines. This leads us back to the version below which aims to Galactus but has many ways you can combine the cards to reduce Death or buff Knull for turn 6 plays which win the game alongside the still very fun buff Nimrod and Destroyer.
Iron Fist & Shuri
Decks with Iron Fist
Decks with Shuri
What about that card which is in strangely included into the first two lists and was once the meme version of Galactus. Iron Fist could be the way we add back consistency to the archetype. The once meme line of Iron Fist into Spider-Man returns here to lock the lane and clear yourself for a Turn 6 Galactus.
However, the real reason for including the card is because we are no longer running Shang-Chi. As we can no longer ‘throw’ priority to run the effect, many popular Galactus builds have a slot that used to be your counter play card. Now you just need to focus on winning and we can replace Shang-Chi with Shuri. This gives us two ways to use Iron Fist. Turn 5 Shuri into Iron Fist may seem telegraphed, but it adds a 14 power Galactus to the lane. This could be enough alone if your opponent is not expecting it. These are never plan A but show how the change gives us different options.
One big problem with the new restriction is the significant amount of extra counter to a Turn 4 Galactus. Wave into Galactus now has exponentially more counter play opportunities due. So, we play Jeff the Baby Land Shark (use Nightcrawler instead if you are missing him) to try and fake out the lane we are committing to.
What if I miss on Iron Fist? Well, Shuri into Galactus is still 16 power now due to the buff…..
Howard the Duck & Iron Lad
Decks with Howard the Duck
This final version is expensive, but adds in Howard the Duck. We also play Iron Lad for the surprise Galactus plan.
Armor is included here as your Turn 6 Shang-Chi protection as we may need to be ready for it with this build, but it should be tested without this card as their may not be as much hostility out these for some time.
SafetyBlade
Final Thoughts
Galactus is significantly altered. Is it worse? Yes it is. There are now more hoops to jump through. However, how many of these requirements we have to do consistently is unclear and is meta dependent. The card was getting better as the meta evolved and players improved. It is possible we just need to adjust and the meta allows Galactus to continue it’s reign of dominance.
Time will tell, but hopefully as shown above, there are still plenty of ways to explore with this card. What are your thoughts on the balance change? Any directions we have missed? Let us know in the comments below.
Good luck, have fun, Stay Safe and Kneel Before Galactus!
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