With the latest OTA and patch, there were very few changes—but that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to talk about them! So, for every recent change, let’s look at the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
The Good
Custom Cards
The most recent patch fulfilled one of the custom card features that a lot of people were looking forward to being able to transfer any split combination from any variant of a character to another. For example, I can now use my god-split Venom— Blue Krackle and Gold Background— on any of his variants. This is just unilaterally a great feature to have in the game.
Custom Borders
Custom borders are another great addition to the game. When it was initially released, many players responded that it seemed expensive since each border is per character rather than applicable to all your cards. But, honestly, as a purely cosmetic and completely voluntary feature? I think it is fine for them to price them that way. This game still needs to make money, and I would much rather see them do so with in-game cosmetics that no one is forced to get rather than by trying to monetize the card acquisition further. There’s still some Bad to talk about… but we’ll get to it later in the article.
U.S. Agent
Poor U.S Agent. I wrote the preview for this card, and even I was down on him, like most players, when he was released. He was a tricky card to evaluate, and because the initial response was so negative it’s likely that few players spent Spotlight keys to get him. Most, if not all, of the data for U.S. Agent, comes from (the likely small) selection of players that either chase full collections or just wanted to pull for Jeff the Baby Land Shark. However, even the developers mentioned that he was not as far off the mark as we thought— looking at the data compiled by that slice of players before the OTA, USAgent had a similar win rate and cube rate as the Red Hulk! After a welcome slight change to this underutilized card, he’s currently in one of the best-performing decks post-OTA.
SpecAgent
Jean Grey, Stature, Jane Foster
All three of these cards received a slight 1-power buff, which should be relegated to the irrelevant section given my past articles on the subject. However, all three deserved the buff, and all three have slightly benefitted from it! The best part of these changes is reminding people who own these cards that they exist and renewing experimentation with decks centered on those cards.
The Bad
Red Hulk
The main reason I’ve put this in The Bad is that it's a little late for the change. This Nerf mainly feels a week behind the metagame— which makes a lot of sense given the schedule that the developers stick to. But he wasn’t that big of a problem the week leading to the change— and I suspect the Nerf wasn’t as needed as some people think. Many of the stats related to Red Hulk are because he released as both an extremely popular card and splashable card: like Blob before him, he’s a really big card you can play on turn 6, meaning you need to plan to win one other lane. However, Red Hulk was never as egregious as the Blob (especially in Thanos), and metagames often adjust around new powerful patterns. Changing a card in a fast-moving game like Snap only a few weeks after its release feels like a poor kneejerk decision; let the card breathe a little more, and let more and more players adjust to how things go. Also, other cards get released, which can further change things rapidly, so waiting for more changes to help shape Red Hulk’s impact might have been preferable.
The Ugly
Mantis
This card is not good, sadly. It wasn’t good after the first change, and it isn’t good after this change. At 2-cost, it had to compete with the other 2-cost cards that generate cards, and now, at 1-cost, it has to compete with the other 1-cost card generators like Agent 13 and Maria Hill. stated previously after her last change— “the inconsistencies of Mantis will mean that she is the card left behind once again. Just using the argument that she could get such a card is not a good enough argument, and I would rather have her with a little more power to mitigate the potential downside of pulling nothing or a dud of a card.” This holds even now; the only saving grace is that Mantis is a Series 1 card, which means that in the early parts of the game, she can function and provide fun gameplay by stealing cards you’ve never played. From a competitive standpoint, however, this change will not do anything and has not done anything— Mantis remains at the bottom of the ranks for play rate, win rate, and cube rate.
Card Changes (or Lack, Thereof)
The most recent patch contained zero card changes, which many players poorly received. Is this a bad thing? Not exactly. They don’t always need to be changing cards around, and I have long said the game needs a bug patch more than a balance patch. Sadly, this was neither. There were some minor bugs fixed, but this patch was mainly a cosmetic one, adding new features for players to customize cards and a new way for Second Dinner to monetize cosmetics within the game. The game is still buggy for many players, and, while the meta is technically diverse, it has some toxic elements within it that a 1-power boost to underplayed cards won’t fix. To clarify, because toxic can be subjective, the metagame is currently full of effects that essentially don’t let players “play” the game, like Professor X, Mill, Loki stealing cards, etc. This might not be frustrating to you but they still can be for a lot of players. Diversity should also be considered with an asterisk; most of the decks in the upper portion of the format do similar things, with minor differences in how they are used.
Furthermore, while it is great that they are actively changing cards that over or underperform, like Red Hulk and U.S. Agent, respectively, how those changes interact with Snap’s card acquisition can provide a really ugly feel-bad moment for players. The changes themselves are fine— but it’s something to consider.
Other Added Features
Added features are great— they add something new and exciting for players to engage with. However, when those features are purely cosmetic, feelings can start to sour without improving the actual gameplay. The last two patches featured such changes: new content was cosmetic, monetization features for the game were added, and players were offered more avenues to spend more. Meanwhile, card acquisition still feels bad for much of the player base, and there are still no new game modes. The list goes on, and the community is becoming more and more frustrated with minor and inconsequential additions that don’t address core problems.
Cerebro Watch
The main Cerebro decks didn't receive any new tools, but we have some spicy additions to some of the fringe Cerebro lists. C7 has mainly emerged in the wake of the Stature buff. With both her and her partner card, Black Bolt, at 7 power, the deck has a new package to play with, and it’s provided some great fun and experimentation.
C7
There are several different versions of C7 floating around, so I would mix and match to find whatever suits you. I like sticking Ebony Maw behind Invisible Woman for some surprising power at the end of the game or even using her to protect your Cerebro from the likes of Red Guardian or Rogue. Fellow Cerebro enjoyers, let me know what you come up with!
Conclusion
This was a short and sweet OTA and patch— it added some content to the game overall but didn’t change how the meta has moved. It is nice that the majority of the balance changes were buffs, but there still could have been more done to bring some underplayed cards back into play. But that’s how I feel— Let me know what you think of this last OTA, and patch it down in the comments below!