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Hi everyone, and sorry for the title. Because it is clickbait? Not, at all. Because it is real!
Today’s patch was an immense one, even with just four balance changes. Jubilee and America Chavez are functional changes, so I won’t consider them as balance changes for now. Among the cards that did get changed, we have:
Decks with Lockjaw
Decks with Shuri
Decks with Leech
Decks with Leader
- Lockjaw: Now only triggers once per turn.
- Shuri: Now only buffs if the next card is played on the same location as Shuri.
- Leech: Ability will only be active for Turn 6, no matter when you played Leech.
- Leader: Reworked back to something close to its old self. 6/2 – On Reveal: Copy the enemy card(s) with the highest Power played this turn, but on your side.
Obviously, I’m a bit sad to see no buffs included in this balance patch, and I believe it could have created even more chaos. Nevertheless, I am very pleased with these changes. They seem to land perfectly in regard to what the metagame needed. I will keep advocating for Wave following in Shuri and Lockjaw‘s footsteps, but I still think only positive things about the changes we have today.
The two best decks in the format, Shuri Zero and Thanos Lockjaw, should feel much weaker overall. This will open new avenues for other decks to rise and (hopefully) create a new dynamic in the metagame. Particularly, the change to Leech should make counter strategies less oppressive, and more synergistic decks might have more space to exist. Sandman and Wave are still ready to punish them, though. We’ll have the chance to talk about how these two are among the biggest winners of the patch soon. Still, big, impactful, ability-based cards like Galactus and Ultron should have more room to exist with Leech being less of a problem.
Lastly, we have to talk about Leader, and not because the card just became incredibly busted. As a standalone card, I doubt Leader will see play the same way it did back in 2022; however, the new iteration of the card is particularly strong when you can limit the opponent to one card, something much easier to do than making them play on a specific location. Remember Sandman and Wave in the previous paragraph?
This intro kind of told you the entire story already, I guess. I expect Lockjaw Thanos to be a bit weaker, Shuri Zero to adapt and reconsider some of its play patterns, and Sandman and/or Wave to be the next cards the community will be annoyed at.
Let’s dive into how each of these decks will adapt, as well as what the next metagame might look like.
Shuri Zero takes a hit, but it should survive
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While the deck retained the exact same ability to generate points, the change to Shuri will impact two big components of the archetype.
First, Cosmo is now unplayable in the deck because you can’t play Shuri behind it. And because you can’t play Shuri behind Cosmo, you won’t be interested in playing the recipient of Shuri‘s buff behind Cosmo either. Second, since Taskmaster is an On Reveal card, it also cannot be played there. This should solve the debate of whether one should go for Cosmo or Sauron in the build, and it also makes Shuri Zero a Series 4 deck again. More importantly, it makes Armor a much more important card to Shuri Zero‘s game plan because it is now its sole protection against Shang-Chi. Without Cosmo as a possibility, it also means Valkyrie should remain the best counter to the archetype.
The second impacted trait is predictability. Indeed, Shuri now tells the opponent precisely where the next big card will be played. The information about timing still is hidden, and passing on Turn 5 to play She-Hulk on six remains a possibility. But if Shuri Zero has priority, one should be worried about a devastating Shang-Chi or Valkyrie when the opponent reveals their cards. With She-Hulk still in the mix, the deck’s competitiveness should be mostly preserved. Still, this might be the biggest hit to the deck across all the nerfs it received recently.
As you can see in the decklist above, apart from Ebony Maw and Sauron joining the deck, Shuri Zero doesn’t need to adapt a ton in order to remain a consideration. One could play around with other negative Ongoing abilities, such as Typhoid Mary, with Sauron in the deck. Overall, I think Shuri Zero should end up being a Tier 2 (maybe even Tier 3) deck once the metagame gets figured out.
Thanos Lockjaw removes Leech and moves on
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Thanos Lockjaw addict LambySeries already tweeted their take on the deck after the patch. Considering they have more hours on the deck than all the other Marvel Snap players combined, I will trust their judgement and elaborate on it.
First, I do agree Thanos Lockjaw is far from being a bad deck after these changes. The change to Leech is much more important than the change to Lockjaw at the end of the day. If you think about it, the reason we threw all our stones behind Lockjaw at once was to find Leech as early as possible. That card is not included anymore, so problem solved. Now, when we get Lockjaw on Turn 3, our only concern might be on Turn 6 since we can’t play a Stone and a 6-cost. This would lead to not being able to trigger Lockjaw that turn, and only give us access to its ability on Turns 4 and 5. As pointed out in the tweet, Wasp can help in that regard, and we can also use the Time Stone in order to get an extra energy for the problematic final turn.
The Time Stone played on Turn 2 also allows an extra Lockjaw activation with a Stone on Turn 3. This way, we can remove the issue we had on Turn 6 as we triggered Lockjaw three times already, so the location should be full by Turn 5. We can already find various ways to still have Lockjaw triggered three times across three different turns. It is a bit more complicated, but far from impossible to do.
Another point worth noting: We can stick some big cards behind Lockjaw now. Indeed, after you played your cheap card to throw back in the deck, you can drop a big card that will not be cycled. In the end, this change is making Lockjaw much more complex, but not necessarily worse.
Leader has replaced Leech in the deck in this first iteration, and I completely agree with that change. There are plenty of cards we could include in Thanos Lockjaw, such as Iron Man, She-Hulk or Vision. However, even though those are great cards, and even though they have a strong synergy with either Wave or Lockjaw, Leader synergizes with both of them.
Played behind Lockjaw on Turn 6, the card gets cycled and we only get the ability, which seems good. Alongside a Wave on Turn 5, Leader will copy the sole card the opponent is allowed to play. This alone should give flashbacks of its old self – when it was considered the best lockdown card in Marvel Snap if you were ahead going into Turn 6.
Sandman and Wave become Leader’s best friends
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I could have probably posted three or four more lists with either Sandman or Wave alongside Leader in this part of the article, but I think you get the point. Also, I included the tweet by WWlos about their take on Good Cards after the patch; they are the originator of the archetype after all.
So why are Wave and Sandman so good alongside this new Leader? Simply put, Leader now only copies the highest power card the opponent played during their turn, so if we can force them to play only one card, Leader is back to what it was before being nerfed. Fortunately enough for the card, both Wave and Sandman, the best ones for the job, are popular in the current metagame and core cards in some of the best decks in Marvel Snap.
Electro Ramp has been on the rise this season, and it has cemented itself as the most reliable counter to Hit Monkey decks. It also has greatly benefited from the rise of Sera Control after the OTA balance changes. Now with Leader back in the mix, Electro Ramp might be able to make a push for Tier 1 in the near future.
DoomWave and DeathWave are Wave’s most popular archetypes, although the card is also included in many other decks. Electro Ramp, Galactus, Thanos Lockjaw… We should see plenty of Wave until the card is rightfully nerfed at some point. In the same vein as Sandman, Wave makes every card cost four and leads to the opponent often not being able to play multiple cards.
Death and She-Hulk are soft counters to the Wave into Leader pattern. You would give a Death to your opponent, but you keep the other cards for yourself. You can also play Leader yourself as the 4-cost card that turn as that is probably back on the menu as well.
Closing Words
Overall, I would consider Shuri Zero to be the biggest loser among the impacted decks, although I could see Leech‘s removal from Thanos Lockjaw as having much more of an impact than we first imagined. Other than that, you got the point already I’m sure: Decks with Wave and Sandman got the largest part of today’s cake. There are other decks worthy of being looked at, though. Patriot, Dracula Discard, and Thanos Ongoing were good decks before the patch, and they should greatly benefit from less of Shuri Zero and Thanos Lockjaw on their path. Galactus is an interesting one to look at, too, as seeing less of Cosmo could be a great improvement for the Devourer of Worlds.
If I had to pick a deck among those that did not get hit by the balance changes that would be the most worried, it would have to be Sera Control (and explosive combo decks in general). These were already the prey of Electro Ramp and DoomWave, and these two seem to have every reason in the world to be very popular in the weeks to come.
Without any buffs, it is difficult to imagine any new archetypes rising in the near future. I have noticed a few people in the community were buzzing about my Death Bounce archetype, and I appreciate that a ton. This is another deck that could try to run Leader since it already packs the Wave – Death – She-Hulk trio anyway.
To conclude, as I know it is a bit of a fan favorite archetype and always comes back after some balance changes, here is a Mister Negative build. It might be the only deck that can play Leader without Wave or Sandman:
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Thanks for reading this piece. You can join us on Discord or find me on Twitter if you want to discuss it, have any feedback, or just want to hang out and talk about Marvel Snap. Also, I will be casting a pretty big tournament in Switzerland on Saturday, April 22nd; it should be the perfect place to find out what the metagame looks like. You can find all the information here.
Good Game Everyone.
