Targeting the OTA
Welcome to Target the OTA, where we rate the latest balance patch and cook up some stuff for the new meta! This week's OTA is a shocker! R.I.P. to anyone who says the team doesn't take big swings in OTAs anymore! This one kind of has it all. We got changes targeting the current meta tyrant (End of Turn decks), a change-up to an entire archetype (Move), and a welcome buff for one old card and one new card.
Just as Kate Bishop has the arrows in her quiver, Second Dinner has OTA balance changes as their balance arsenal. I'll give each change a rating from 0 to 4 arrows and a final overall rating as well. Did Second Dinner hit the target with this OTA or did they miss the mark?
Off the Deep End
Mister Fantastic has been an auto-inclusion in every deck I've built since he released, even ones that have no specific synergy with him. Clearly, he was too strong. My worry here is that 3/4 may prove to be a really harsh nerf. Second Dinner is usually quite successful in nerfing cards gently enough that they're still appealing, but turn 3 just feels late for his effect.
Still, he should have two places to thrive: Hand Buff decks and Wiccan decks. Hand Buff, with or without Silver Surfer, can usually benefit from either of his effects quite well. Wiccan decks that are looking for extra power output may have been handed the perfect 3-drop. It's possible that a sequence of Surge into Mr. Fantastic might still be strong enough to fit into just about any deck.
Buff Surfer
Surge gets hit at the same time as Mr. Fantastic, but gets the gentler nerf. I think dropping to 2/1 is meaningful, but she should still be able to see play. It also opens up Ravonna synergy.
RavoGoing
Critics will say Havok took a hit for Invisible Woman, but it's justified. Invisible Woman turbocharged Havok and placed him at the very top of the metagame. He was harder to interact with than Sunspot and required less to pull off than Thena. If you're worried about his place in non-Invisible Woman decks, he's still the same power after one trigger as before. This nerf is specifically targeted to limit his size when he goes off multiple times.
I know there were some devotees of Ghost out there, but they were few and far between. Classic Invisible Woman does most of what she did better anyway. This rework is important for a couple of reasons. First, it gives us a counter to End-of-Turn decks both faster and more accessible than a new card release would. Second, it shows that the balance team is open to this type of wholesale ability change and can do them in OTAs! Now manifesting a Mantis rework.
C5-ever
Bust a Move
This is a wild set of changes that needs to be taken together. I guess it's not quite accurate to give this 4/4 Kate's arrows, but I don't have a shocked arrow or a thinking arrow to give. My first instinct is that it's really clever. Essentially, they've swapped Vulture and Torch and made the scaler the 1-Cost and the doubler the 3-Cost. Doubling is such a powerful effect that it does make sense to me that it should be the harder one to achieve.
Both cards are still powerful and reward heavy investment, they just make it so the move decks can't be used (by those skilled enough) to create unbeatable towers. I definitely don't think the deck got any easier to pilot! It's a nerf, but I think the full impact of this is going to take some time and a lot of games to discover.
Topaz is a card that has a fun and unique ability. I see no reason she can't have a premium stat line—this is the exact type of card that should get one. This, plus the change below, are a bit of incentive to try to work with move despite the Torch/Vulture swap above.
New Move
Critics will call this straight power creep. To that I say: good! Once upon a time, 2-Cost cards were among the weakest in the game. Several killer season pass cards and other releases later and that's been corrected. One side effect of that is that the “vanilla” stat line of 2/3 was no longer enough for some cards to fight their way into decks. I've always loved the idea of Dr. Strange outside of move decks as a cheeky little Shang dodger, and now we can try it in earnest. Time for 2/4 Jeff, Quake, and Scarlet Witch, right?
New Wing
Something Old, Something New
White Tiger once created 7-Power Tigers before they were buffed up to 8. In past patch notes, the team noted the need to protect the early pool metagame. In this case, I say “Protect them from what? Having too much fun?” They'll breeze through that stage and enjoy the journey. Now we can all enjoy splashing massive Tigers all around the board.
I don't think Terrax was doing all that badly, it's just that the deck he fit into wasn't strong enough in the current metagame. But the reason I love this change is that it's fun! 3/4 Terrax is notably better at his job and makes it so prio-snatching Darkhawk decks can more easily do their thing.
Prio Hawk
Final Rating - 3/4 Arrows
This is a heck of an OTA. What’s holding it back from a perfect score is it doesn't address Juggernaut (admittedly, a personal favorite, but he could be 3/2), Cannonball (still love him back at 5/7), or Agatha (make her full random again). We got a mix of buffs and nerfs with some truly wild changes of the type we've rarely seen. The Torch/Vulture swap is going to be fascinating and I'm looking forward to the new move decks. Making Ghost into a meta-dependent tech card essentially gives anyone who owns it a free new card and breathes life into a character that was just featured in a pretty good movie. Altogether, that makes this is one of the more exciting OTAs in recent memory.
That's it for this time! Come back after the next OTA for the hottest analysis and more decks! Come find me on social media, where I post about Snap and comics!