Burning Questions
Welcome back to Burning Questions, your weekly rundown of Marvel Snap's hottest topics! This week the LTGM Sanctum Showdown returned with some new bans and the OTA handed out a big buff to the new mechanic. Will either be enough to keep the game feeling fresh? Let's find out!
1) Did the OTA revive Zombies?
With big buffs to both Zombie Scarlet Witch and Zombie Giant-Man, along with the introduction of The Hunger via Sanctum Showdown, the Horde mechanic got a major boost. But is it enough? Is it too much?
It's still early, but the buffs feel strong, and we'll learn more about if they're too strong over the course of the next few days. In my opinion, the buffs were not so clearly strong that they'll need to be nerfed in a few weeks and I don't think Zombie Sentry is going to do much to put it over the top. The cards are better, but they don't feel oppressive, at least with what the player-base has cooked up so far. Moreover, there seem to be a pretty healthy variety of ways to build around them. If you want to play a bunch of your new Zombie cards together, I recommend Mysterio/Mockingbird. If you're feeling frisky, you can even squeeze in a clog package!
Zombie Gunk
Giant-Man’s buff makes reusing his ability a lot better. If you get lucky and face an opponent that hasn't packed any interaction, this deck can trample them. It's a pretty all-in deck, but making giant Giant-Men is awfully fun.
Zombie Giants
Speaking of all-in, if you're all in on this mechanic and want to use all four of the new Horde cards, here is a deck that specifically leans into creating giant Hordes to overwhelm your opponent.
Frightful Four
The Horde mechanic is new and there is still a lot of metagame evolution to come. It landed flat at first and feels quite powerful now. However, the usual swings of players refining lists and finding ways to adjust and counter the new decks is yet to happen.
2) How can I beat Sauron and Zoo in Sanctum Showdown?
With the bans to Werewolf by Night and others, there's a new meta in Sanctum Showdown, led by Zoo and Sauron decks.
OctSS - FS Skaar
OctSS - Zoon
Is this a case of “can't beat ‘em, join ‘em” or is there a way to beat these decks? I've been playing quite a bit of Sanctum and I think unique brews can easily stand toe-to-toe with the two dominant decks.
First up is Batroc. He's a beast who can move around and steal wins. Honestly, playing a Batroc deck in Sanctum is pretty skill-intensive, but once you're got the hang of it you've got a good shot against anything.
OctSS - PowerMove
Next, is a different kind of move deck. Human Torch scales out of control and can surprise opponents out of nowhere.
OctSS - Torch
You'll notice I've included Shang Chi in several decks. Shang isn't a great ladder card right now, but he is pretty valuable in Sanctum. I've been getting a ton of value out of Elektra and Killmonger too. Don't sleep on the power of removal in this game mode.
3) I'm tired of reading. Where can I hear you talk about Marvel Snap for a change?
I normally stick to the written word, but I'm making a rare podcast appearance this week! I was invited to be a guest host of the SnapOnThis podcast and we talked all about the recent OTA and all the datamined new cards! Check it out!
Now let's hop over to the official Marvel Snap discord server and take a look at a couple of developer answers!
4) Question:
Three weeks ago or so The Destroyer got changed to 6/18, crawling it's way ever so slightly to that Infinaut statline at 6/20, is there a possibility Infinaut might get a boost in power soon?
Answer:
Infinaut’s still serving a pretty distinct role in the game even relative to its peers, and we tend to reserve buffs for cards that don’t have healthy homes. I don’t personally have any interest in changing Infinaut right now, but we make balance decisions as a group.
-Glenn
Scosco's Note:
I agree that Infinaut is still basically fulfilling his role in the game, but I also think an eventual Infinaut buff is inevitable. Whether it's soon or not is another question, but the natural escalation of power creep means 20 points will no longer be enough upside for Infinaut’s downside. I would hate to see a situation where Infinaut is never played out after skipping a turn and is only used in decks that cheat his power out. We're already pretty close to that situation!
You can follow SuperTechGod’s continuing quest for an Infinaut buff here.
5) Question:
Why are totally innocuous cards like Cull Obsidian and Surtur banned but un-fun combos like Wong Gambit and Absorbing Man are allowed to run the game? This makes absolutely zero logical sense to me.
Answer:
Because Cull and Surtur were much stronger on winrate, cube rate, and popularity than those cards/combos.
-Glenn
ScoSco’s Note:
“Totally innocuous” is a funny way to describe Cull, who I had as one of the top two or three cards in the entire mode last time. He was in basically all of my decks and was a beast even in a meta where Shang Chi was a better card. Surtur was strong last time and would have certainly been out of control this time. These are definitely deserving bans. I am curious if Sanctum is going to get rotating bans in the future or if it will just get an ever-expanding ban list. This mode is tricky because if a single deck separates itself it can really take over, so I agree with the team's more cautious approach.
That's it for this week! Come find me on social media where I post about Snap and comics! Hit the comments and let me know what you think about the new Zombie meta!