Marvel Snap March 21, 2024 OTA Card Balance Updates

Marvel Snap’s “Over the Air” hotfixes to cards are now live for March 21, 2024 – no need for a game update! Ten cards have been changed as part of a scheduled balancing cycle. Captain Marvel and Warlock have been buffed, while Apocalypse, Psylocke, and Thanos have been nerfed. Most of the Guardians of the Galaxy have been changed.

Check out the full OTA update details below!

Marvel Snap Balance OTA Analysis and Decks to Play: The Mighty Have Fallen

March 21th, 2024 – Balance Updates

Hope you enjoyed the AvX event this month! We’re rolling back those changes today, and debuting our next OTA. This week has plenty of changes, but our primary balance concerns are restricted to weakening the Thanos and Discard decks that have been dominating the metagame for a couple of weeks. Other than that, we’re just distributing buffs to a handful of cards that could use a little help-including the beloved Guardians of the Galaxy.

Captain Marvel

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

Captain Marvel at 4/5 proved to be one of our strongest cards last year, but times have changed. The deck Captain Marvel most strongly supported has been substantially weaker in the new metagame, and at 4/4 Captain Marvel hasn’t seen the level of play we’d like. Given we think the metagame can tolerate the stronger card once again, we’re excited to try this buff and hope it can stick long-term for one of our most exciting cards and characters.

Apocalypse

• [Old] 6/8 – When you discard this, put it back with +4 Power.
• [Change] 6/8 -> 6/6

Discard decks have moved from the middle to the top of the metagame over the last month, fueled by some strong and exciting new releases. We want Discard to be a great deck, but it’s been just a hair too strong. Apocalypse is the single best-performing card in the dedicated Discard archetype, so we’re taking away a little bit of its base Power. We considered reducing the triggered buff ability instead, but when possible we prefer to push strength into the “dreams” of our cards, and Apocalypse has an exciting one to grow.

Mind Stone

• [Old] 1/1 – On Reveal: Draw 2 1-Cost cards from your deck.
• [Change] 1/1 -> 2/1

Thanos has become a bit of a problem for the metagame. When we adjusted Time Stone, we briefly mentioned that the design of Thanos can be constraining. Specifically, the versatility of the Stones give the deck a lot of room to maneuver and adapt to whatever the metagame becomes. In all cases however, the strongest Stone in the deck has consistently been the Mind Stone. We considered removing its second draw, but ultimately that’s a very appealing part of the card. So for now, we’re taking the unusual approach of making it a 2-Cost card. We don’t think this is likely to fully solve the “Thanos problem,” but hopefully it meaningfully addresses the archetype while we investigate a wider range of solutions.

Psylocke

• [Old] 2/2 – On Reveal: Next turn, you get +1 Energy.
• [Change] 2/2 -> 2/1

We buffed Psylocke many months ago, and since then the card has enjoyed a range of interesting homes. In recent months, Psylocke’s use has become restricted to almost exactly Thanos, where its performance is surprisingly among the strongest cards in the deck. Given we’re looking for some ways to shave strength away from Thanos in the current metagame, that makes reverting Psylocke’s buff a logical step, albeit a small one.

Adam Warlock

• [Old] 5/4 – After each turn, draw a card if you’re winning here.
• [Change] 5/4 -> 5/5

As previously discussed, we made the last change to Adam Warlock with an abundance of caution. Since then, we’ve seen it was a very minor improvement for a small number of decks, so we’re going to push on a little bit more. We believe the design could go to 5/6 fairly easily, but one of the archetypes we’re interested in here is Cerebro-5, which can be a difficult deck to serve. So we’re trying the smaller buff to see how that goes. None of this is to say that we won’t pursue other Costs or a more dramatic rework later, but for now we’re going to try nudging things more softly.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Most of the Guardians of the Galaxy have struggled to keep pace with even the early Series metagames, as their risky abilities don’t offer quite enough compared to alternatives. In addition to boosting their total Power potential, we’re taking the opportunity to try lining their buffs up on the same Power gained, rather than having different combinations of Power for each card.

Rocket Racсoon

• [Old] 1/2 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +2 Power.
• [New] 1/1 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +4 Power.

Star-Lord

• [Old] 2/2 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +3 Power.
• [New] 2/2 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +4 Power.

Groot

• [Old] 3/4 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +2 Power.
• [New] 3/3 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +4 Power.

Drax

• [Old] 4/6 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +2 Power.
• [New] 4/5 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +4 Power.

Gamora

• [Old] 5/7 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +5 Power.
• [New] 5/8 – On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +4 Power.

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That’s all for this week. Until next time, happy snapping!