OTA 05/23
If we leak it once, why not do it twice? Welcome back to leaked OTAs with BEWD. I am glad to be your host on this fine day. We will be going through the balance updates that are expected to come to Marvel Snap on 05/23. How do I know what is going to happen on 05/23 on 05/21? I have tricks and stuff, ya know? Anyway, here are the expected upcoming balance updates. Check back if there are any changes.
Summary
Captain America
- [Old] 3/3 – Ongoing: Your other cards here have +1 Power.
- [New] 3/2 – Ongoing: Your other Ongoing cards here have +2 Power.
As you may have seen in various social media discussions, we’ve been reluctant to buff Captain America. The reasons for that aren’t necessarily obvious, but they include keeping the early game simple and maintaining existing tutorials. However, this change we eventually arrived at shouldn’t threaten either of those. While Spectrum is a strong deck on the competitive side, the Spectrum deck performs worse for newer players with smaller collections. This should be a tidy buff to that archetype for early Series play.
Author's Notes:
We have been waiting for you Cap. Welcome to relevancy! Well, maybe. I am glad this change finally came through. Such as iconic character deserves viability in a Marvel-based game, and I am glad the developers have pushed over the hump of being so protective of the early game experience. In terms of how viable and relevant Captain America is yet to be seen. You could put him in the popular Jean Grey Ongoing decks and kick Punisher to the curb.
Spectrum
- [Old] 6/7 – On Reveal: Give your Ongoing cards +2 Power.
- [Change] 6/7 -> 6/6
Of course, the Cap change is a pretty decent buff to existing strong Spectrum decks too. We want these decks to hold a spot in the metagame, so we’ve given it a lot of rope while waiting to see if cards like Enchantress would be enough to fight back. However, the deck has remained a top performer and approached levels that would require a rebalance–that made the Cap buff above more dangerous, so this is a small compensatory nerf to keep things in balance.
Author's Notes:
The developers expect the buff on Captain America to be significant for the Ongoing Spectrum decks. It is nice that they had foresight on this and nerfed Spectrum a power point. If it isn't as strong as they expect it to be, they can always give her the point back. The future will be telling of Spectrum's fate.
Luke Cage
- [Old] 3/4 – Ongoing: Your cards can’t have their Power reduced.
- [Change] 3/4 -> 3/3
One of the best cards in the top Spectrum decks, Luke Cage does extra work by also hampering afflict decks a bit, making it harder for them to contend for the metagame crown. A slightly weaker Luke Cage is good for these decks, and also paves the way to slot Luke into successful Cerebro shells once more.
Author's Notes:
What a journey Luke Cage has been on during his Marvel Snap existence take a look at his change history.
| Date | Cost | Power | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
2026-09-03 | ▼ 2 | 2 | Now: Ongoing: Your front-row cards can't have their Power reduced. Was: Ongoing: Your cards can't have their Power reduced. |
2026-09-01 | ▲ 3 | 2 | Now: Ongoing: Your cards can't have their Power reduced. Was: Ongoing: Your front-row cards can't have their Power reduced. |
2026-07-17 | ▼ 2 | 2 | Now: Ongoing: Your front-row cards can't have their Power reduced. Was: Ongoing: Your cards can't have their Power reduced. |
2025-01-17 | 3 | ▼ 2 | Ongoing: Your cards can't have their Power reduced. |
2024-05-23 | 3 | ▼ 3 | Ongoing: Your cards can't have their Power reduced. |
2024-03-21 | 3 | 4 | Now: Ongoing: Your cards can't have their Power reduced. Was: Ongoing: Your cards can't have
their Power reduced.
AvX: Locations with 3 Avengers have +3 Power. |
2024-03-14 | 3 | 4 | Now: Ongoing: Your cards can't have
their Power reduced.
AvX: Locations with 3 Avengers have +3 Power. Was: Ongoing: Your cards can't have their Power reduced. |
2024-02-01 | ▲ 3 | ▲ 4 | Now: Ongoing: Your cards can't have their Power reduced. Was: Ongoing: Your cards here can't have their Power reduced. |
2023-12-05 | 2 | ▲ 3 | Now: Ongoing: Your cards here can't have their Power reduced. Was: Ongoing: Your cards can't have their Power reduced. |
2023-05-04 | 2 | ▲ 2 | Ongoing: Your cards can't have their Power reduced. |
Released 2022-11-29 | 2 | 1 | Ongoing: Your cards can't have their Power reduced. |
2022-05-24 | 2 | 1 | Ongoing: Your cards can't have their Power reduced. |
This change seems to stem from the recent U.S. Agent change, which might have made the combo a bit stronger. It will be interesting to see Luke Cage in C3, but this change won't hurt Cage's viability too much overall.
Baron Mordo
- [Old] 2/3 – On Reveal: Your opponent draws a card. Set its Cost to 6.
- [New] 2/3 – On Reveal: The top card of your opponent’s deck costs 6 until turn 6.
Baron Mordo has long been one of the weakest cards in Marvel Snap, often functioning as a worse Yondu for players in that the drawback could mean your opponent just gets a free card. This tweak to the original design maintains the disruptive intent, but makes sure the effect is more strictly negative for your opponent.
Author's Notes:
Wait, Baron Mordo exists? I felt like any change to Baron Mordo would be positive, but I am still scratching my head. Hopefully, it can positively impact this card's completely atrocious stats.
Grand Master
- [Old] 2/0 – On Reveal: Move one of your other On Reveal cards here to the middle location. Its ability happens again.
- [Change] 2/0 -> 2/2
This is a significant but fairly straightforward change to a card beloved by many players that’s failed to find a role in the metagame. While we often aim cards high on release, Grand Master was a unique case where we felt our testing was unlikely to identify the best possible thing to do with the card–it’s just got so many potential applications. It turns out that we were too conservative, so we’re trying out a sizable buff.
Author's Notes:
Are we preparing for the rise of Grand Master? We potentially could be. Previously, Grand Master was strictly a greedy card to play within a decklist. Giving Grand Master 2-Power alleviates the power distribution on the board to a certain extent, allowing you to get the pop-off you are looking for in the middle location while at least leaving 2-Power left in the Grand Master lane. If Grand Master is to rise in viability, it will be on the back of the next card we will be discussing.
Werewolf By Night
- [Old] 4/4 – After you play a card, move there to gain +2 Power if it has an On Reveal
- [Change] 4/4 -> 3/1
Werewolf By Night is a card we’ve been reticent to let live at 3-Cost, as the sheer amount of leaping can get out of hand fast. That said, in the months since its original release we’ve also seen a lot of strong and successful experimentation among 3-Costs, and Werewolf seems a lot more fair in today’s world than it did upon release. Plus, being able to start with a small amount of Power is more evocative of the werewolf canon we want the card to communicate (starting weak, becoming a monster).
Author's Notes:
The adjustment that we expected for Werewolf initially has finally come to fruition. The community rallied around the idea of Werewolf By Night being a 3-Cost with 1-Power prior to his change to 4-Cost. Unfortunately, moving Werewolf to 4-Cost put him on the back burner for quite a while. Werewolf By Night was sporting a Won In Deck stat of 51.54% which is not too hot. Werewolf By Night at 3-Cost, along with Grand Master, could see the return of Bounce back into the meta. This is a space to keep an eye on.
Leader
- [Old] 6/2 – On Reveal: Copy the enemy card(s) with the highest Power played this turn, but on your side.
- [Change] 6/2 -> 6/3
Probably not a lot of Leaders on the balance bingo cards at home, but this card has been languishing of late. We were hopeful that Leader’s stocks would rise with the release of Red Hulk, as that made Leader a clean answer to one of the best 6-Cost cards in the game, but that’s not what wound up happening. This buff isn’t likely to move the needle in a big way, and we wouldn’t want to–Leader’s not a card players enjoy seeing too often. Even so, there’s enough room to improve that we feel confident a point of Power will be a small, but helpful, bump.
Author's Notes:
I thought Leader was experiencing a renaissance with the introduction to Blink, but apparently not to the extent the developers were happy with. The best deck lists for Leader are ramp-style lists, so hopefully, he will make the cut in more of these types of lists. I don't think people play the Leader for his stats because they want to win two lanes before using him, but any buffs are welcome. Well, most...
Leech
- [Old] 4/2 – On Reveal: Remove the text from cards with On Reveal abilities in your opponent’s hand.
- [Change] 4/2 -> 5/5
Speaking of unexpected outcomes, we’ve decided to take Leech back to 5-Cost. Our primary Leech target with the initial move to 4-Cost was Annihilus, though we did see value in strengthening one of the few answers to a handful of other powerful endgame threats. However, Annihilus wasn’t substantially affected by the increased presence of Leech, and the winrate for Leech itself grew higher than we’d hope to see against other strategies, narrowing the range of competitive viability with the game. Of course, we’ve also heard the public discontent around leaning this hard on Leech as a valve within the metagame, and we’ve determined we don’t want this card bearing that kind of weight. That said, 5/3 was just not really playable, so we’re giving back some more Power in an effort to keep Leech meaningful.
Author's Notes:
The previous buff to Leech was not welcomed by most of the community. Leech has put On Reveals in Marvel Snap jail for a week, and although Leech at 4-Cost was rough, I think we still have a lingering issue that needs to be addressed. Hela and Cannonball were cited as the reasons for the Leech change to 4-Cost. So now what? We have the Junk response that we will discuss below, but what about these other cards that were supposed to have Leech as their release valve? I don't have issues with 4-Cost Leech, Hela, and Cannonball, but their reasonings have to be consistent.
Sentry
- [Old] 4/10 – You can’t play this at the right location. On Reveal: Add a -8 Power Void to the right location.
- [Change] 4/10 -> 4/8
- Change: 4/-10 -> 4/-8
We have determined it’s necessary to weaken the Annihilus shell in the interest of metagame health, and this adjustment is in pursuit of that goal. We’d hoped to avoid it entirely–Sentry at 10 Power is a more interesting card, especially with stuff like Skarr. To that end we’ve explored potential revisions to Annihilus instead, but weren’t able to find a change we could stand on confidently in time for this OTA. We may revisit Sentry later if that work proves more fruitful, but for now we’re just reducing some of the bite that combo packs by reverting Sentry to its original stats.
Author's Notes:
Junk has been apparent in the meta since late last year, and it was time for a slight tuning. This might be a little excessive of a change just to hit Sentry for 4 less Power, but as we have seen with the Leech change, they can adjust balances quickly regarding cost and power points. We will see what the fallout of this change is for Junk, but it is a peg down for Junk.
Are we happy with these balance updates? Let me know in the comments!