Burning Questions
Whew, it's been a busy time in Marvel Snap! We got 6 new cards (eventually!), OTAs in consecutive weeks, interesting patch news, and a second Golden Gauntlet tournament set for this weekend!
1) Should I get Hellion and Mercury?
We got a surprise when Hellion and Mercury were immediately available to players who hadn't updated their game. A simple neglected date change in the older version that was changed properly in the new version put Second Dinner between a rock and a hard place. They made the decision to release the new cards to everyone and they are currently available in the Seasonal Series 4 Snap Packs! We were all blindsided by their release, so we didn't have time to evaluate them, theory-craft with, and plan whether or not to get them. So, are they worth 3000 tokens or taking a stab at grabbing from the Snap Packs?
Safetyblade GKO
I've been playing a lot of this list from Safetyblade and I've been loving both cards. Hellion allows for so many clever late-game plays and Mercury is as deadly as expected with Cannonball. I'm a little worried that the Cannonball/Mercury interaction is going to grab the attention of the balance team, and that if they're decoupled in some later OTA that Mercury's value will drop. Her one move per game has felt underrated as opponents don't seem to expect it and there's some utility as a tech against opposing move cards, but the Cannonball combo is the reason to get the card.
Extreme Move
Scamelot
2) Is it a good idea to sell a second new card in the Super Premium Season Pass?
The latest datamines uncovered plans to replace the variant in the Super Premium Season Pass with an additional new card! (note: this is not confirmed by Second Dinner, details like price aren't confirmed either)
Is this a good thing? Responses to this news were swift and emotional with players landing on either side of the argument. My argument in favor looks something like this:
If you just don't want additional cards added to the game, that's an understandable perspective—it can feel overwhelming at times. For me personally, I'd be happy with a LOT more cards. This is for two reasons. First, I'm happy to pay for any card I am excited by. Second, I'm content to pass on cards that I'm not interested in.
These are not true for everyone. Some people have a set amount they can pay into the game, if at all. Others highly value collection completeness, even if they're not going to use all of the cards.
However, the new economy is more generous than the last. This is especially true for high spenders and players who are already collection complete. The game has never been cheaper for a player who already has everything. It's easy to see why that might be something Second Dinner would feel they need to contend with in order to stay viable long-term. You need your most committed audience to spend.
As we move into a Golden Gauntlet-led era of the game, Second Dinner is finally leaning into their committed audience. Just personally again, I've long wanted more ways to pay into the game and actually get value out. I pass on most bundles and cosmetics because they simply don't interest me or provide a very questionable level of value. An additional $10 to get a series 4 card one month early is clear value and easily worth it to me.
The benefit to Second Dinner is in attracting more investment from whales and competitive players, but the downside is damage done to free-to-play and low spenders. I don't want to understate this, but I feel that this too is mitigated by the new economy. There are so many cards now, especially series 4 cards, that passing on a few temporarily will become more commonplace.
Waiting an additional thirty days to play around with whatever card is in the Super Premium Season Pass is far less likely to leave you feeling left out when there are more cards and you always have something new to tinker with. The card will presumably become available in Snap Packs the following month and players are routinely going to plan their resources in such a way that waiting for a series 4 card is normal. Overall, I'm very excited about this initiative, despite my worries about community pushback. It's a great step for the game and more content equals more fun!
3) What cards are underplayed?
I was really happy to see Supergiant get a buff. I've long felt that she was seeing less play than she should because few players had taken the time to experiment with her. Marvel Snap doesn't always reward experimentation—you could easily tank your rank trying to get a middling card like Supergiant to work and learn its okay patterns. I'm glad when buffs can act as signposts to get players to experiment with forgotten cards. Here are a few more cards that I think are underplayed and are worth more experimentation. These cards can absolutely be a part of winning decks right now, but have very low appearance rates (past 7 days/past 30 days).
King Eitri (1.51%/1.24%)
Sersi (1.33%/1.22%)
Kahhori (1.64%/1.38%)
Laufey (1.71%/4.21%) (who still doesn't have any variants!)
Now let's hop over to the official Marvel Snap discord and grab a couple of developer questions and answers.
4) Q: Do Devs know the MCU movie plot before its release for designing cards? When designing cards, do you have access to additional movie information to guide the design?
A: Our partners at Marvel are excellent at helping us design content that will best complement the seasons from time to time. Some tie-ins moreso than others, for various reasons.
-Glenn
Author's note:
Before the release of Deadpool vs. Wolverine there were elements added to the game that clearly showed Second Dinner had been given information about the movie in advance. This is a commonplace corporate synergy strategy. I recall having a major twist in Agatha All Along spoiled for me by a Funko Pop! Lego leaks regularly reveal hidden information about upcoming movies. It will be very fun to go see Fantastic Four: First Steps and suss out what Second Dinner already knew about! As a huge Fantastic Four fan, I'm super excited for this movie!
5) Q: I don't want to ask "did you change the bots" because that's been asked and answered "no" many times. My question is, is there any way for me as a player to approximate WHY I'm not matching with any bots?
For example, my plan this season was to hit the 90's as fast as possible because we have two LTM's plus conquest coming up. I hit the 80's yesterday morning and didn't play much until this morning. in the 70's i hit bots probably every 3-5 matches which is the same experience i have every season. However, now that I'm in the 80's there are, legitimately, zero bots. i have played a ton this morning, won a ton and lost a ton, and gained zero net cubes because of it. it's less than two days after the start of the new season and I've never experienced a drought this soon after season reset.
What should I chalk this up to? More players trying to climb early like me? More active players in my region than usual? Something based on my CL?
Does the dev team think player reliance on bots to climb reliably pre-infinite is something that needs to be addressed, or is it impossible to address based on how the game is made?
A: The simple answer is that players who are harder to match fairly do get more bots--that's the purpose of the fallback bot, to maintain fun queue times. And that's why that bot tries to win, because we want those players to still have a meaningful climb to Infinite that presents challenges.
However, we also did not design the season journey for players with the assumption that climbing to Infinite two days after the season reset was a default goal. By all means, go for it! But it's far from the average experience for players who make Infinite each season, and we don't use bots (or anything else) to actively support the "turbo" approach to making Infinite.
-Glenn
Author's note:
Making it to infinite in just a few days is an unrealistic goal for some players. It's meant to be a season-long goal, so you shouldn't feel bad if it's not something you can accomplish in a single week. It's also a waste of time to try and figure out why the bot matchmaking works the way it does. I've seen theories that climbing super early helps you hit more. This is just confirmation bias.
The types of players that are grinding hard at the beginning of the season will tend to be players to play a lot! Bots exist for one reason only: to alleviate queue times. I feel like it's more likely that recent apparent changes in bot behavior and appearance are due to changes in player numbers after “the blip” resulting in unexpected knock on effects.
That's all for this week! Let me know what you think of all of the new cards we got this week! Which ones did you grab?