It’s that time of the month again, friends. The mid-month update to card battler Marvel Snap (Free) has arrived, and as I am still in deep on this game I’m going to subject all of you to my continued obsession. In some ways this update is more interesting for what it doesn’t do than what it does, but there’s still a lot to talk about with it. There are some balance changes, some new features, and the return of a heroine who was dramatically taken from us a couple of months ago. Remember: in the Marvel Universe, no one is ever gone for very long.
So let’s start with that. Several weeks back, Kitty Pryde was added to the game. Due to a number of bugs, she was quickly removed pending some fixes. Well, she’ll be back with us this week, and everyone who has been playing the game will get a basic version of her card. Those who already had her should have already gotten a fairly nice bit of compensation. And as for new players? Well, you’ll find her in Series 5 for the time being. Her ability has changed. Her previous form allowed the player to return her to their hand and add +2 Power. Her current form sees her returning to your hand at the start of each turn, gaining +2 Power each time. For but a single point of Cost, that seems pretty strong. I guess we’ll see how things go from here.
Before we head far into the weeds on the balance adjustments, let’s talk about what else is in this update. There are now more cosmetic customization options for your decks. Before you could just pick the card back you wanted, but now you can associate avatars and titles to each deck. That way you can have your Rock avatar and title ready to go with your Korg/Rockslide/Debris deck without looking gauche when you swap back to your Sera Control one. Next, Ranked Mode. When you move up a Tier you’ll only get three bonus levels instead of five now, but getting a Rank Up now requires only seven Cubes instead of ten. That means if both players snap, someone’s ranking up and someone’s ranking down. Spicy!
Okay, time for those balance changes. Honestly, it’s not a lot this time. That makes sense, as it seems that the meta is quite varied and lively at the moment. Still, nerfs and buffs are as inevitable as Thanos, so there are a few to look at here. Let’s start with the buff, and there is only one. Crystal apparently is not a popular card. Will this buff help? I guess we’ll see. Her stats stay the same, but her ability changes from giving the player a new hand of three cards when played in the middle to simply causing each player to draw one card when she is played anywhere. Well, it might work.
On to the nerfs. Wave players, you knew this was coming. Stats stay the same, but the wording on her card has been changed such that all cards will cost 4 until the end of the next turn. Practically, this means that Death, She-Hulk, and others will cost 4 to play no matter what else is going on. RIP Death Wave decks. Death is getting a tiny buff as compensation for this, going from being a 9-Cost 12-Power card to an 8-Cost 12-Power card. The only other card change this time is an adjustment to the text on White Queen to make it very clear what her ability does.
Next, let’s look at which cards are moving pools. Moving from Series 5 to Series 4 are Master Mold, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and Nimrod from last month’s Days of Future Past event. Hopping from Series 4 to Series 3 are Sentry, Silver Surfer, Dazzler, Shadow King, Sauron, and Ghost. It was expected that this time we would see Darkhawk and Knull move to the common Series 3 pool, but Second Dinner has decided that they’ll be staying in Series 4 for now. That’s fair. Darkhawk and Knull are probably both too powerful in their current forms to be unleashed on the masses, and I imagine the developers are trying to figure out how to balance them right before doing so.
There are a bunch of bug fixes rounding things out here, but we’ll draw a line under things here. It’s good to see Kitty Pryde back, a few decks have been completely blown out of the water by that Wave nerf, and it’s now open season on Silver Surfer. Not bad all around. We’ll have to see how things shake out with the overall meta, and we’ll have an updated deck guide for you in a couple of weeks as usual.