Good, Bad, & Ugly
The metagame has settled down a little bit from the most recent OTA so it’s about time we take a look at where the dust has landed on the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!
The Good
Ever since the buff to both Jean Grey and U.S. Agent Ongoing strategies have seen a massive uptick in both performance and usage. This is not a bad thing to occur and helped bring an underused archetype to the top levels of play and performance. Spectrum is the natural finisher for the Ongoing deck, so taking off one point of power slightly lowers things while keeping her effect strong in the game. The slight nerf to Spectrum has not harmed her overall stats, which is good; she is still able to be used and used effectively. Overall, that's a good balance change.
Baron Mordo has long been a card that is pretty useless in the game, and maybe it would be decent if you got him off Trsikellion or by some other form of random generation. While this change doesn’t actively make him more overpowered or better, it's good because it makes him different and gives people more reason to try him out. More time will be needed to see if he will be used much more. His stats have not changed much, but he was in a deck that made it to the Top 4 of the Lamby Open that happened Saturday.
Typically, changes that make cards feel new are not a bad thing when they haven’t seen a lot of play, and I'd much rather them do this than go in circles with other changes or do a “timeout” nerf like they have done in the past that just gets reverted later.
Luke hasn’t been the most dominating effect, but he does act like a barrier to affliction strategies gaining prominence. I don’t think removing one point of power will drop his usage rate that much, and so, just like the spectrum change, it is a decent balance point to make him one less power. Conversely, this acts like a slight buff to Cerebro 3 because it allows them access to Luke as a useful tool to counteract some hate cards against Cerebro. But, more on that in the Cerebro Watch Section.
Werewolf by Night is a beloved card by many SNAP players because he is fun and requires skill to use effectively. So when he was nerfed many months ago, there was a lot of outcry to get him changed back at some point in the future. Well, that change is finally here, and overall, it is a good change. However, WWBN is poorly positioned into a meta-game that goes tall with some combo and lockdown/junk strategies running rampant, so buffing him back to close to his original spot makes a lot of sense. He doesn’t have the potential to run as rampant as people thought he would because of the other decks and cards in the current meta-game. This can be seen by a very slight change in his stats, and some are getting a little worse.
Honestly, it is very possible that while he wasn't played that often pre-OTA, he was better because he could get larger even with just 2 turns to buff him. Either way, the change back to 3-Cost is good and provides more skill-based cards back into a format. I think it will take longer for his potential to be fully realized, and with new cards coming out, he might be in a better position in the future.
The Bad
This change makes sense on paper but feels bad in the game. Also, the explanation again makes things feel like Sentry is getting a nerf because the real offender just can’t be changed, or they haven’t found a change they like yet. So, while this change is not the worst thing to happen, and the stats for Sentry don’t really show that it did a lot of different, it feels overall bad and slightly unneeded. The real offenders in the Annihlus shell are still there, and taking off 4-Power from a card that wasn’t the problem feels like another band-aide, which is becoming a little tiring to see repeatedly.
The Captain America change is a little more meaningful to the Ongoing strategy because it actively buffs all of the ongoing cards around it, effectively becoming a 3-Cost 8-Power card when employed in an Ongoing strategy. However, this change renders him virtually useless unless you go the Ongoing route. Overall, that means that Captain America is generally worse. Instead of being a beloved character that could go in any deck and be used in many strategies, he was pigeonholed into Ongoing strategies, and honestly, he isn’t the best in the slot in those lists either. His post-OTA stats show he is seen a decent bit more overall, but his win rate is much worse. It's not the “buff” that players were hoping for.
The Ugly
For most, this change will be solidly in the ugly category, and for good reason. The change last week to 4-cost warped the metagame around Leech in a pretty unhealthy manner. He saw a massive spike in usage and win rate that was unhealthy from both a competitive perspective and a player-feel perspective. However, time is the great equalizer, and towards the end of the week, Leech becomes less dominant. He was still seen often but had started to drop ranks in win rate when drawn and played. However, now that he has been reverted, we won't be able to tell if his stats will even out. The main reason this is in the ugly category again, though, is just because of the quickness of the revert. While I don’t want to scream conspiracy or anything, and I believe that the developers do a decent job thinking and balancing the game, the change, then quick revert will feel and seem like they just made a big blunder, a blunder that a decent majority of the community thought was a pretty obvious mistake. So, what were they thinking? I am not exactly sure, and again, I'm not crying conspiracy here because I don’t think they are malicious about the change, but it feels ugly overall. Here are his current post-OTA ranks, although these might be misleading because I haven’t seen him since his change.
The Irrelevant
While I would love to say these changes will do much, they haven’t. Leader still isn't played often, and while Grand Master is more appealing, he also doesn’t show that much promise. The rankings and stats also agree that this hasn’t done anything.
Conspiracy
Ok, for those conspiracy theorists out there -Sage. Sage was introduced to the game when Leech was buffed, and as an On Reveal card that you typically want to play on the later turns, it was a prime target to be hit with Leech and essentially rendered useless. Some think that the changes to Leech and the revert back after Sage left spotlights were intentional, especially with the patch notes leaked slightly early, meaning people could make the connection that Sage might be amazing in a leechless world and jump to get her using up resources. However, as the stats show, this is mainly people just thinking the worst since her stats are relatively the same in both a Leech fill and a Leech less game state. She is decent in both meta games. That doesn’t scream like an intentional rope pulling for a possible overpowered card or not.
Cerebro Watch
Probably the biggest and most impact change to the metagame besides the Leech revert was the change of Luke Cage to 3-power. Now, he can fit right back at home into Cerebro 3.
C3
Molwin C3
That is a massive buff to Cerebro 3, and it was on full display during the Lamby Open that happened over the weekend, with Cerebro 3 taking down the whole tournament. Cerebro 3 has a massive amount of tech tools that can be slotted in, so it's possible this isn’t the best list for you, but with so many options, there are many ways to make Cerebro 3 work the way you want it to. With Luke keeping your cards safe from Cerebro hate, it is making waves in the Meta game. Just be careful with those locations.
Conclusion
This latest OTA did not accomplish a lot. The Leech reverts, and Luke are probably the biggest news. Everything else really doesn’t change much, and we are still in the same spot we were post-OTA, without some of the bad feel of Leech games. Overall, maybe that's a good thing. OTA shouldn’t disrupt things heavily; instead, allow a healthy state for new cards to mix things up and actual game patches to change things around. In the comments below, let me know what you thought of this most recent OTA.