It’s been a few weeks since we've discussed the Good, Bad, and Ugly aspects of all the changes that have been made, so we have a lot to cover. Let’s get to it.
The Good
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Professor X has been the bane of many people's existence for the past two years. His unique effect rendered certain strategies mute, and his pairings with different cards led to many forced checkmate-style endings in which the opponent had no possible recourse. This led to massive player annoyance, and Professor X's usage was almost 30%, which is the highest. So what does this change do? Well, his buff to 2 power immediately removes his synergy with Ravonna Renslayer, which means he no longer has easy access to being played a turn early or just costing 4 energy. It’s possible that removing this synergy would be enough to keep his usage down, but they also went one step further. Instead of locking down the location, making it so only Jeff The Baby Land Shark could get in, he now allows any card to move in or out of the location he is played on. Also, cards can switch sides, and the Professor himself can move.
Previously, these were not the case. That is a massive change to the functionality of his ability. Do you fear Annihilus? Playing Prof X to the rightmost lane no longer keeps the Void on the opponent's side. Are you playing Silk? She is free to jump into a prof X lane at her whim. The fundamental change to this card acts like a nerf because instead of being the hardest lock in the game, Prof X is now a softer lock. I can’t add tokens, but can move my Nightcrawler or Nocturne. The lane he is on is just a little more accessible than before. Overall, this has resulted in much less use from the good Professor, dropping nearly 15 ranks in usage. However, due to the nerf and his buddy Cannonball being nerfed, he has a lot more surprise factor than before. So his win rate, according to our stats, is higher than before. While that may seem odd, it isn’t unheard of, and loosening his grip on the metagame while still keeping him playable and not overbearing is good overall.
I have been in the camp that Cannonball was not the issue. He is like the cherry to the cake or a match to the powder keg. He is in a vacuum, which isn’t the problem, but combining his effect with other effects and abilities in Snap just got him in too much trouble, for good reason. His pre-OTA stats were pretty high, especially in the categories of win when drawn and win when played.
So receiving a slight nerf of just one power isn’t a bad decision. It also helps the developers see what Cannonball is like in a meta-game where his number one partner, Professor X, no longer has synergy with him. I don’t know about you, but accidentally Cannonballing their biggest card into my locked-down lane I was winning just doesn’t seem like the most optimal play. Overall, it’s a good nerf that hasn’t taken away his usefulness. Just change the cards he partners with.
While this is a nerf that deals a heavy hand to at least the most budget version of Hela, it is not without reason. The main point of this nerf is to create a valve that the developers can tweak whenever they want to keep Hela in check. Hence, the addition of the minus 2 power to cards that she brought back. If this is too much, they can change it to minus 1 power. Or if it was too little, go to minus 3.
Since this is after the patch, it was not too little, and Hela, while still around, is seeing a lot less play. The new version also adds a slight wrinkle to the deck because players now have to decide if they want to add Luke Cage to their Hela decks, eliminating a bit of inconsistency but still keeping the full power of any card that is brought back. Overall, this has been a good change for the game. I still see Hela occasionally; her stats are not as abysmal as you would think.
A slight buff and less randomness make this a good change. Randomness is ok, but not all the time. Stegron previously had two instances of randomness. A random card moves to a random location. With this change, one of those was removed. It’s still a random card, but at least you know where that card is going. That allows players to make more precise decisions throughout a game, and the one extra power is an absolute bonus.
I’m lumping these together because while Zoo has always been a deck that’s been floating around, these two buffs have helped put it solidly into a tier 2 deck that is pretty playable at a high level and good against most things in the format. The main issue that Zoo will always have is it loses to tech cards like Killmonger, Red Guardian, and Enchantress. While there is counterplay to these cards, the threat of them is real, keeping Zoo from hitting the numbers it wanted to be competitive.
Now, with Gilgamesh getting a nice buff and Shanna being even more appealing to play, some of that is mitigated by Zoo's ability to produce high stats either in burst fashion or just by using the new tools that have opposed up over the last few months. Here are the relative stats for both cards pre- and post-OTA, and a couple of solid zoo options, depending on what pool you are in. For most people who are not collection complete or have a low collection level, Zoo is a great deck to start playing and is now even more competitive in the current format.
While many of the reactions to this initially were that Angela was dead, this is just not the case. Is she more reasonable as a 2-cost scaler? Is she worse than others? Not really. It’s possible to still Get her up to 8 or 9 power if you want to, and for only 2 costs, that isn’t that bad. Also, this is slightly helpful against her biggest enemy, Shadow King, since she will Still Remain at her 3 base power instead of 0.
Some are going to groan about this buff, but realistically, it is a good buff. While some hate Alioth, others understand that his ability is useful and playing for priority is an important skill to have in Marvel Snap. Will this mean you see more Alioth? Yes, but also, he takes up the entire then 6, and with the meta leaning heavily on cost reduction and multi-card turns, you are giving up a lot by just playing one card. Either way, he has found some new space and is better positioned to help some of the Odin combo strategies that have started to pop up more often since Namora's release.
While this change seems like Black Knight is catching a stray bullet for Hela, this is just a good change to make sure that there is still interaction possible between the blade and the opponent. Instead of an indestructible card before, it was probably a little bit too much.
Bad
This is an interesting change because it is only a nerf if two turns have passed with unused energy. If zero turns, this is a buff, regardless of whether Red Hulk is in the Shang-Chi range. If one turn passes, it is the same as before. If two turns pass, it’s only a 1 power difference. Now he gets worse the more turns pass, but, honestly, if he gets at least 2 turns, he is already a sizable threat. Anything else is probably just extra, and due to the lack of activity on your opponent's side, you probably will win regardless of Red Hulk.
So why the small nerf? Well, his stats seem pretty reasonable, and they even state in the notes that it isn’t too far ahead, so it seems odd. Many players were even confused by the first Nerf as something that was just a week late, so getting another Nerf is even more odd. Either way, it’s an odd change, not one that has made much impact. There are other issues floating around that, from a player's perspective, could be more pressing than returning to a card that’s already been changed.
While it was fun for a day to see everyone trying to move with the changes to several move cards in the last balance change, that was very short-lived. Most of the changes did not positively affect move as much. Such as the change to 1-cost that Kingpin experienced. While his effect is still the same, he can now come down earlier and be used in different turns combined with the several cards that move opponents' cards.
In theory, this sounds nice. But with the cards that can move opponents' cards, none is less than 3 cost, and two are only used on their respective cost turn correlation, so just getting Kingpin down early isn’t that helpful. At most, you’ll get 1 instance of use, making him pretty much a 1-cost 4 power card, which, having a requirement that you play other cards in specific, is not that great of a payoff. His stats also suggest that this change didn’t do much, and he probably still isn’t going to see play as a small effect 1-cost.
This one could also have been moved to the irrelevant section since it isn’t a big change. Furthermore, it’s a little awkward. There are other cards in the format that require maybe a little bit more commitment but give a way better payoff. Competing with cards like Mockingbird and Sasquatch as cheap power is hard, and having the same power out as a Demon doesn’t help. The two previously mentioned cards pack a big punch even when played at their base cost. Miles at 6 Power still is bad if played as a 4-cost card. However, this is still a buff, so it’s not a bad change.
So they make these massive changes to Thanos and his stones to make the deck and card more about actually Playing Thanos, but with High Evolutionary, they give him 2 power, and he still isn’t something I’d want to play on turn 4. It’s probably better to skip the turn altogether instead of playing him to the board. But it’s not all bad. 2 power buffs are nice, and we have some possible cerebro 6 ideas that have resulted. Either way, this change is not a good one at the end of the day, but it is not the worst they could have done.
Ugly
This card definitely has some die-hard fans, and while he has seen a lot more play recently, he still is as awkward as they come. Furthermore, the move change made recently has hindered Hercules from being the powerhouse for a move that people want him to be. Moving him to 3-cost doesn’t change these things. Playing him on turn 3 means the cards you’ve played before him probably won’t be moved, so you’ll probably need to play him later with a planned move already that requires the specific combination in hand or on board. That’s not incredibly consistent. Not being able to play him and then move cards in the same turn like Jeff or Nocturne or even playing Cloak then playing him and moving cards since the move change doesn’t allow this interaction hindering Hercules's performance.
It’s not exactly the buff that people wanted. He is better, but the move change and the awkwardness of the move enablers, combined with his global ability to work for you and your opponent, make him anemic at best. Previously, if I had priority, I could make sure Hercules triggers for me because my moves would technically happen first. Now, my opponent moves their Jeff, and regardless of priority, they get to steal my Hercules trigger. These small things make Hercules a fun card, but this was not the buff Hercules enjoyers had hoped for.
Irrelevant
While these are still buffs, that is a good thing. The small 1 power change for these cards is mostly irrelevant to the game. However, these cards increase the power out of any deck just slightly.
Datamined Bonus Goodies!
We are pretty thorough here at Snap.Fan, here are some updates for some of the new cards coming out.
We have been able to determine that Copycat will reveal to everyone the card that she affects. This will be interesting information for both players because it means everyone will know what card is on the bottom of the deck and won’t be drawn that game. However, it also tells everyone that there is a copycat in hand and what its text is.
Also, Symbiote Spiderman appears to merge the text and stats of that card and reactivate on reveals. This is the same functionality as Phoenix Force.
Cerebro Watch
The main cerebro decks didn’t receive many cards, but we can access some new tools and brews.
Cerebro 6
This is a cook. It’s probably not that good, but it could lead to some hilarious and fun gameplay. If you’re in the 90s trying to get infinite, probably don’t give it a shot, but take it to Conquest, or if you want to mess around, I’d say go for it!
Cerebro 2
With Professor X being at 2 power, he fits right into a possible Cerebro 2 deck. This version is a little heavy on the lockdown control aspects, using Storm, Negasonic, and Prof X to keep your opponent's power controlled while you can buff the soft-locked lanes or move power into a lane with a Nightcrawler.
Cerebro 3
Captain America probably doesn’t get a spot in Cerebro 3 because it means you can’t run Bast simultaneously. But since he is at three-power, it’s possible you can run him in your Cerebro lane. He also is a little helpful for those times you don’t actually draw Cerebro to help buff your other ongoing cards.
Conclusion
There have been a lot of changes throughout this long season, some good and some bad. Ever since June 13th, when we got the first set in this article, Those changes to the meta tyrants of Professor X and Cannonball and Hela dramatically changed things a few weeks ago, but the most recent changes haven’t done a lot of change. Honestly, that is ok. The changes this month have made the meta pretty diverse, with many different options to play and compete. However, because there haven’t been a lot of changes, the meta has stayed relatively the same, with the new cards not making the biggest impact. Arishem might change things, but probably not. Let me know what you’ve thought of all the balance changes in the comments!