OTA Balance Update Analysis and Decks – May 11, 2023: Venom Looking Kind of Hot All of a Sudden?

With only one more of those weekly changes left in this trial period, the whole community is buzzing every Thursday around the decisions Second Dinner made. Some of them love it, others don’t really see how it can be impactful. Still others are mad about it, like myself, because they had a bet with some friends that either Darkhawk or Zabu would be impacted to reduce the strength of the Rock package, and they didn’t think it would be Rockslide taking the hit!

In the end, no matter which team you are on regarding the impact of these weekly mini-changes, you have to love the simple fact that they exist and keep us excited every Thursday. So what is in store this week?

Overall, it is hard to see these changes be incredibly impactful. Rockslide losing a power should still keep Darkhawk in the discussion as one of the best win conditions in the game, especially with Enchantress also losing a power. Looking at buffs, Drax gained some guaranteed power, but still remains in the [4/8] discussion alongside Jessica Jones and behind cards like Rescue and Sentry.

The last one is pretty interesting to look at; Venom does have a few synergies to explore, and it tends to be the Destroy card left behind – mostly because of its low power. With an extra two power, Venom takes the trophy of the most intriguing card this week, and probably the one we want to take the closest look at.

Of course, there will always be a party pooper or two who are going to bring Armor back into their deck and ruin the fun of trying to build around Deadpool or Nimrod. Let’s try to put this thought on the side for now and explore what this new OTA card balance update brings to Marvel Snap.

There will always be time to counter the meta tomorrow…

You can keep playing Darkhawk and Enchantress

The nerfs to Rockslide and Enchantress are what I call psychological nerfs. What I mean by that is that the biggest impact from these nerfs will be our perception of these cards and not so much about their true power.

Variants

Enchantress

On Reveal: Remove the abilities from all Ongoing cards at this location.

Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Enchantress

Enchantress, in particular, did not get nerfed today, it got adjusted to a more acceptable buff. Indeed, if two weeks ago we all discovered Enchantress was gaining a power, nobody would have been outraged and said the card was too weak this way. As such, for all of you thinking Enchantress is not good anymore, ask yourself the situations where Enchantress as a [4/5] is much worse than a [4/6].

Against any Ongoing based deck, Enchantress remains a premium card, and it was already considered a counter as a [4/4]. Even if the card was a [4/3], Enchantress would not lose her ability to completely dismantle Patriot or remain one of Darkhawk‘s and Devil Dinosaur‘s best annihilators. If those decks were the reason you were running Enchantress, the card is probably still one of the best 4-cost cards in the game.

Against decks not running any worthy target, one could consider today’s change a nerf. Indeed, the loss of a power could be a handicap. However, Enchantress without any good target was still worse than White Queen, Iron Lad, Jessica Jones, and other commonly used 4-cost cards. In the end, Enchantress has barely changed with this adjustment while still remaining a better card than what it was two week ago.

Variants

Rockslide

On Reveal: Shuffle 2 Rocks into your opponent’s deck.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Rockslide

Looking at Rockslide now, that power loss is a real one since the card doesn’t have a way to artificially increase its value like Enchantress does. The card has a base power, and it could be a considered a +4 to Darkhawk (the main reason why the card is played in the first place). Before the nerf, Rockslide and Darkhawk together would amount to 16 total power at [4/6] and a [4/10]. With the nerf, the eight energy invested now rewards us with 15 total power.

In reality, neither 16 nor 15 power were truly impressive for a combined cost of eight energy. When you think Doctor Doom is 15 power on its own for six energy, you might struggle to see what the big deal about Darkhawk is. Well, the true power comes from Zabu, which reduces the combined cost to six and suddenly makes Darkhawk an impressive card.

Similar to Enchantress, then, if you look at the worst case scenario, this power loss probably tilts the balance towards thinking it isn’t worth running the card anymore. However, if you keep the best case scenario in mind, it’s difficult to argue against running them in your deck.

The current dominant deck in the game feels like a good starting point to assess if those cards are feeling much worse. Considering the deck is the only one breaking the 0.5 cube average barrier right now, we would still have a Tier 1 deck on our hands – even if its performances decreased by 10%. If the first few hours after the patch are any indication, it seems like most players agree with that assessment as the deck still seems to be quite popular.

Stature

Created by den

, updated 16 days ago

0

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

4x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

2x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.3

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Otherwise, if you believe the Darkhawk package isn’t worth it anymore, you can still abuse Zabu with some other 4-cost cards in the game. There are still plenty of strong ones. Please, keep Enchantress for now.

Highroll Lad

Created by den

, updated 16 days ago

0

2x Collection Level 1-14

2x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

2x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

3x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.7

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.7

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Abusing Venom’s new power

I already said so in a previous piece about a balance patch: buffs to unused cards are the most difficult ones to quickly judge. Indeed, we have no recent examples in mind of what the card can do. As such, we have to either dig through old archetypes using the card, or try to fit it into currently competitive archetypes to see if it works. This is precisely why my approach regarding those cards is to have several decks ready and just see if anything feels good while playing.

Variants

Venom

On Reveal: Destroy your other cards at this location. Add their Power to this card.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Venom

So let’s cut the long speech right here and take a look at decks worth exploring with a [3/3] Venom!

First up, a basic Deadpool deck since it’s been one of Venom‘s homes for a while now.

Deadpool

Created by den

, updated 16 days ago

3

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.1

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.1

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Then, we have a DeathWave variant using Taskmaster, which you can pair with Death or She-Hulk if needed. Venom is just another Destroy ability in the deck.

Test Wave

Created by den

, updated 16 days ago

0

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

6x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

3.2

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Galactus has proven to be a better deck when played early in the game. Maybe Venom can push the Nimrod variant back to some sort of relevancy.

Turn six Galactus

Created by den

, updated 16 days ago

1

5x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

2x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

3x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

1x Series 4 Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 4)

1x Series 5 Ultra Rare – Collection Level 486+ (Pool 5)

3.4

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

2.6

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

This one might make no sense. The concept is to use either Sera to be able to play Venom and Taskmaster together on Turn 6 or have Invisible Woman to play Taskmaster on Turn 5 unrevealed and then play Venom on Turn 6 for it to be copied.

Combo Venom

Created by den

, updated 16 days ago

1

4x Collection Level 18-214 (Pool 1)

1x Collection Level 222-474 (Pool 2)

7x Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

2.5

Cost

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

3.3

Power

0-
1
2
3
4
5+

Closing Words

Variants

Drax

On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +2 Power.

Collection Level 486+ (Pool 3)

view card details Start a deck Decks with Drax

I didn’t feel the need to go over Drax as the card didn’t truly feel like a buff rather than a shift of one of its power points. Still, even if six is higher than five, it still does not make Drax any more appealing if you are not triggering its On Reveal ability. I have a similar feeling regarding Rockslide and Enchantress, although these cards did get a bit worse than they were. Considering neither of them were played solely for their power (and both have strong synergies in the current metagame), I see both Rockslide and Enchantress retaining a competitive status for now.

The big shakeup, if there has to be one, should come from Venom‘s buff. Obviously, Armor and Cosmo are still solid cards that can come back at any time if the Destroy synergy becomes too prevalent. Nevertheless, this is usually how bigger changes begin to unfold. An expected interaction happens, but once Armor and Cosmo are back in the fray, we don’t necessarily know which decks will include those cards or which decks will emerge as counters.

As such, I hope this last buff manages to have some sort of impact on the metagame, whatever it might be. Ever since the OTA patches have started, Marvel Snap has felt much more dynamic and, as a result, much more interesting to play. It is not official whether we will have the big monthly patch next week or on the 23rd, but I hope we get to keep this more challenging environment until then. I have no doubt the bigger balance changes will impact the metagame considering the developers will be able to adjust more than some numbers.

Until then, here’s hoping this balance patch brings similar results to the one two weeks ago rather than the slightly disappointing one last week. Hopefully we can observe those changes soon enough, and we’ll let you know all about it in our upcoming pieces.

As usual, feel free to join us on Discord where you can chat with the Marvel Snap Zone community. You can also find me on Twitter for decks and biased opinions about Marvel Snap.

Good Game Everyone.