Marvel Snap April 6, 2023 OTA Card Balance Updates: Red Skull and Sunspot Nerfed, Shadow King and Sentry Buffed

Marvel Snap can now apply hotfixes to the game without a major patch once again! This is the second one of its kind since the rebalancing of Zabu and Silver Surfer. The update to four cards is now live already – check out the full details below, as well as an announcement regarding the future of Marvel Snap’s balance. Next patch is confirmed to be April 18th (along with a nerf to Shuri), and there will be weekly card balance updates!

Summary:

• Red Skull – 5/13 -> 5/12
• Sunspot – 1/1 -> 1/0
• Shadow King – 4/3 -> 3/3
• Sentry – 4/8, -8 Power Void -> 4/10, -10 Power Void
• Shuri will be getting an ability change in the next patch on April 18th, which cannot be made with a hotfix

For those unaware, “OTA” stands for “over the air” and refers to a hotfix change we’re making to content outside of our usual semi-monthly patch schedule. This week, we’re making four changes in an ongoing effort to encourage a more diverse spread of decks and individual cards being played. To set expectations, this patch won’t cure all the metagame’s ills, but it should represent an improvement until our next, action-packed patch.

Red Skull

Variants

Red Skull

Ongoing: Enemy cards at this location have +1 Power.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Red Skull

5/13 -> 5/12
Ongoing: Enemy cards at this location have +1 Power.

As our previous patch notes discussed, we last adjusted Red Skull to weaken specifically his interactions with Shuri and Taskmaster. Our goal was to keep his strength otherwise flat or even slightly improved and see how things settled once we’d softened Thanos’s grip on the metagame. We know many players disagreed with that approach, and we’re weighing that feedback as we continue to debate internally how “aggressive” our balance updates should be.

In this case, things settled into an improved metagame, but with decks based around Shuri and Taskmaster still too strong for our liking. We recognize Shuri is clearly the true offender here, and we have a balance change for Shuri ready. However, that change to Shuri needs a patch to be implemented–we can’t make it via OTA. So this is an interim adjustment to weaken the Shuri deck just a bit more. We do expect Shuri to remain viable after this Red Skull tweak, but we don’t want to drastically nerf multiple “innocent” cards when we have an incoming nerf to Shuri herself.

Once that change to Shuri is live, will we revert this or previous Red Skull changes? Maybe, but we’re going to give that some time because we’d rather ensure a larger shift in the metagame.

Sunspot

Variants

Sunspot

At the end of each turn, gain +1 Power for each unspent Energy.

Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Sunspot

1/1 -> 1/0
At the end of each turn, gain +1 Power for each unspent Energy.

Sunspot is one of the most heavily-played cards in the game. The why is obvious: he’s strong, he’s in Series 2, and he has powerful synergies with other cards like She-Hulk and Infinaut. The opportunity cost for having him in your deck is also very low, since you only have to have 1 spare Energy on any turn to unlock his strength floor, and the ceiling can be very high.

All of this adds up to a solid criteria for a minor nerf, creating space for less-played cards to compete more often for slots in decks. We were curious if nerfing She-Hulk would have any impact on Sunspot, but truthfully we didn’t expect any change and assumed we’d be making this adjustment sooner rather than later. We did evaluate some other changes to Sunspot, but for Series 2 cards we want to retain the elegance of the original design, just a touch weaker. As a default card in both Shuri and Thanos, this change does impact those decks a bit more than others, too.

Shadow King

Variants

Shadow King

On Reveal: Set all cards here to their original base Power.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Shadow King

4/3 -> 3/3
On Reveal: Set all cards here to their original base Power.

Shadow King’s whole purpose is to fight back against exactly the kind of thing that Shuri’s doing, but this card simply released too weak to be a consideration for most decks. We recognize his status as a Series 4 card that’s used to answer powerful decks, rather than fuel them, might limit his potential to impact the metagame. However, we’re happy to just give him this boost and see where things land from there.

Sentry

Variants

Sentry

You can’t play this at the right location. On Reveal: Add a -10 Power Void to the right location.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Sentry

4/8 – You can’t play this at the right location. On Reveal: Add a -8 Power Void to the right location.
->
4/10 – You can’t play this at the right location. On Reveal: Add a -10 Power Void to the right location.

Sentry’s a card that just hasn’t found a great home yet. While these number changes aren’t an obviously impactful buff, it does increase the potential reward for running Sentry and the potential damage donating your Void with Viper can do. This is just a change we’ve been interested to try out, so we’re making it here.