Marvel Snap December 21, 2023 OTA Card Balance Updates

Marvel Snap’s “Over the Air” hotfixes to cards are now live for December 21, 2023 – no need for a game update! As many as nine cards have been changed as part of a scheduled balancing cycle: Professor X, Werewolf By Night, Black Widow, Martyr, Viper, Ronan the Accuser, Maximus, Gladiator and Punisher has had their power and cost adjusted.

Check out the full OTA update details below!

For our analysis and some decks you can try, check out our analysis article!

December 21st – Balance Updates

We hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season! The Hellfire Gala season is coming to a close, and we hope you’ve enjoyed it. Second Dinner will be breaking for a week as we move into the New Year, and we’ll see you there with a shiny new patch in January. 2023 has been a huge year for SNAP, thanks for joining us on the journey!

Without further ado, the final OTA of the year.

Professor X

Variants

Professor X

Ongoing: Lock down this location. (Cards can’t be added, removed, etc.)

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

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• [Old] 5/3 – Ongoing: Lock down this location. (Cards can’t be added, removed, etc.)
• [Change] 5/3 -> 5/1

It’s all fun and games when you’re curving Warpath into Destroyer… but that’s not really what’s been happening with Professor X lately. As we’ve pushed on the ability to access extra Energy or attack locations without playing directly to them, Xavier has become a centerpiece threat in decks aiming to aggressively restrict the play space within the game. As we discussed when adjusting Galactus many moons ago, that’s a dynamic we want to control carefully.

Professor X decks are especially effective at preying on metagames in flux or certain featured locations. Those are both times when we’d prefer players focus on the excitement of what’s possible vs. insulating themselves from the threat of a locked-down location. For now, we’re addressing that problem with a Power reduction that we hope is stern enough to make players try harder to threaten these kinds of wins.

Werewolf By Night

Variants

Werewolf By Night

After you play a card, move there to gain +2 Power if it has an On Reveal.

Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

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• [Old] 3/3 – After you play an On Reveal card at another location, move there to gain +2 Power.
• [Change] 3/3 -> 4/4

Like Darkhawk, Werewolf By Night offers a few different decks an early source of pressure that’s hard to compete with. Werewolf’s also a card that’s hard to master, requiring players to navigate how to best leave open spaces at their locations in order to maximize Power and the number of locations Werewolf can threaten. That’s strong enough that some Silver Surfer decks have even cut Brood!

When a card’s strength is enough to unseat foundational cards in other archetypes, that’s usually a bit much. We considered many changes but wanted to try and maintain the excitement of leaping ferociously around the board with a meaningful threat. To accomplish that, we’re going to try moving Werewolf up the curve to 4-Cost. This should remove a meaningful amount of Energy and time from the card, and also bring Brood back in from the cold.

Black Widow

Variants

Black Widow

On Reveal: Add a Widow’s Bite to your opponent’s hand.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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• [Old] 2/1 – On Reveal: Add a Widow's Bite to your opponent’s hand.
• [Change] 2/1 -> 3/3

Shifting Widow's Bite to 0/-1 was an effective boost to Black Widow’s strength, and there are decks playing Widow today that we’re happy to see. We’re less happy with how easy and rewarding it is to use Beast or some locations to play Widow multiple times. Getting stuck with a bunch of Widow’s Bites can be fairly frustrating for a lot of decks, so we’re moving to a higher Cost to make that more difficult. This is fairly similar in principle to the change we made a long time ago to Rockslide, shifting a card’s Cost to raise the strength floor but lower the ceiling, and that change worked well!

Martyr

Variants

Martyr

At the end of the game, move to a location that LOSES you the game. (if possible)

Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

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• [Old] 1/4 – At the end of the game, move to a location that LOSES you the game. (if possible)
• [Change] 1/4 -> 1/5

It’s clear that we missed low on Martyr, so we’re coming in with a quick buff here. One of our learnings from Martyr has been better gauging the value of “simple” Power, which has been devalued in many recent metagames. Lower-Cost cards are under a lot of pressure to provide Power in higher-level play. That’s a dynamic we’re going to continue exploring as we develop future content.

Viper

Variants

Viper

On Reveal: One of your other cards here switches sides.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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• [Old] 2/3 – On Reveal: One of your other cards here switches sides.
• [Change] 2/3 -> 3/4

Between Annihilus, Selene, and our changes to Luke Cage, decks focused on gumming up the enemy’s side of locations with bad cards have received a lot of new tools. As the deck gains options, sometimes it’s interesting to look at shifting around the existing pieces to see where the play patterns could change. Viper’s not a problematic card-our goal isn’t a nerf, but a change, and 3/4 is interesting in that regard.

However, our motivations for this change are largely an abundance of caution around Havok. We tried some turn 3/turn 4 Viper + Havok ourselves, and it didn’t impress. But a lot has changed since then: Loki and Elsa are weaker, Luke Cage provides less certain protection for Havok, some then-dominant decks have even disappeared. Because the potential for that combination of plays can be so unfun, we’re making this change to ensure it doesn’t exceed our expectations and warp the metagame. It’s also just a good opportunity to experiment with shifting Viper to a different cost.

Ronan the Accuser

Variants

Ronan the Accuser

Ongoing: +2 Power for each card in your opponent’s hand.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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• [Old] 5/3 – Ongoing: +2 Power for each card in your opponent’s hand.
• [Change] 5/3 -> 5/5

The Accuser has been on our buff list for months, but we waited to pull the trigger for a few reasons. There was some concern about how to best push past archetypes, we were also considering a more significant rework, and eventually buffing Ronan headlong into Loki just didn’t seem right. We decided to stick with something simple for now, adding some Power to create a more meaningful 5-Cost threat.

Maximus

Variants

Maximus

On Reveal: Your opponent draws 2 cards.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

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• [Old] 3/7 – On Reveal: Your opponent draws 2 cards.
• [Change] 3/7 -> 2/6

As an additional support piece for Ronan, we’re delivering a buff to Maximus here. Maximus was one of the early additions to Silver Surfer, providing a lot of Power efficiently. As we’ve continued to release 3-Cost cards, especially Daken and Sebastian Shaw, Maximus has struggled to earn that slot. We were happy to see the release of Blob provide a surge to Maximus, and we’ve decided to capitalize on that momentum and see if Maximus could even play a role in other decks.

Gladiator

Variants

Gladiator

On Reveal: Add a card from your opponent’s deck to their side of this location. If it has less Power, destroy it.

Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

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• [Old] 3/7 – On Reveal: Add a card from your opponent’s deck to their side of this location. If it has less Power, destroy it.
• [Change] 3/7 -> 3/8

This is a very similar change to the one we’re making higher up to Martyr. Gladiator has been more successful than Martyr, but it seems like there’s still room to improve here. In addition to generally improving the card, moving Maximus out of the 3-Cost slot will create a void for some Silver Surfer decks that did want access to a large amount of Power on-demand. That’s an opportunity for Gladiator to flex some muscles.

Punisher

Variants

Punisher

Ongoing: +1 Power for each enemy card here.

Starter Card

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• [Old] 3/2 – Ongoing: +1 Power for each enemy card here.
• [Change] 3/2 -> 3/3

Punisher has been unnecessarily weak for a while. However, as part of the new player experience, we need to be careful about how we adjust the card. For example, a 2-Cost version would necessitate shifting some other piece of early game content to 3-Cost. Even with that restriction, adding a single Power is basically free and should just make the card a more fun game piece.

That’s all for now. We’ll see you in 2024, with a brand new season!