Welcome to Burning Questions, your weekly peek into Marvel Snap's hottest topics! This week, we have another special guest, Heart of the Cards! Be sure to check out Heart of the Cards on YouTube! This week, we're talking about staying positive, the new Season Pass card, and our favorite artists!
1) How do you maintain a positive mental state while trying to climb?
Heart of the Cards’ Answer:
Most of my process to maintain a positive mental state while I climb in Snap comes from my background playing football when I was younger. As a cornerback, you are taught to have short-term memory because it is a position that fails so often that it is impossible to be good if you let one bad rep derail an entire game. I view Marvel Snap the same way: the randomness of both draws and locations lends itself to a lot of variance and unavoidable losses. Because of that, I never harp on the results of a single game because I know if I get caught up in my losses, it will ruin my entire session. Instead, I focus on process over results; instead of getting mad about a game, I ask myself whether I made the right decisions and deckbuilding choices, even if I lost. If I did, there is nothing to be mad about. If I had to give one piece of advice, it would be this: stop fixating on what just happened, build out the process, and have the confidence to say you played well even if you lose.
Scosco's Answer:
One of the most important aspects of maintaining a healthy relationship with Snap and, by extension, not getting tilted when you're trying to climb, is to stop playing when you don't want to play. It may sound simple, but it's actually more complex than it sounds. The game does a lot to keep you playing — dangling some borders or other cosmetics for playing more of an LTGM, using matchmaking to keep your win rate close to 50%, giving weekend rewards for a card you don't even want to play, having a giant “play” button on the main screen — but stopping when you're not having fun or you realize you're just playing to chase a meaningless reward will actually make you play a lot worse. Resist the psychological pressures and take a break, and come back when you’re inspired to climb.
2) What is the best use of Star-Lord, Master of the Sun's extra Energy?
Heart of the Cards’ Answer:
Star-Lord, Master of the Sun, is a bit of a degenerate card. Its primary function is very similar to the Fallen One, where it enables combo decks to stockpile all of their finishers into one huge final play while bypassing the many weaknesses these combos have to both reactive and some proactive tech cards. Because of this, the best place for Star-Lord, Master of the Sun, will be some massive combo deck doing really unfair things. If I had to place a bet, it would likely fall into one of these three areas: Modok and Hela combos, Fin Fang Foom and a second finisher combo, or Man-spider combo decks. All of these combos become really unfair if your opponent doesn’t have an answer, and Star-Lord does a lot to invalidate their counterplay.
Scosco's Answer:
I agree with Heart of the Cards' assessment of the new Star-Lord as a degenerate card. The Modok/Hela stuff going on is a prime example. You can pull it off with just the 11 Energy Star Lord, MotS gives you on Turn 6 if you float some every turn. You can even play Arnim Zola and Fin Fang Foom on turn 7 with 13 Energy. The best way to spend your Energy right now is on an Evolved Hulk. I don't know if High Evolutionary will always be the best home for Star-Lord, but with everyone floating so much Energy, the Hulks are getting huge. With everyone playing Grandmaster and Absorbing Man alongside Star-Lord, players often have enough energy to play the Hulk AND a Fin Fang Foom. Fin Fang Foom is perfect for the meta right now. You should expect him from every opposing deck, and most of the top decks should include him.
3) Who is your favorite commissioned artist in the game?
Heart of the Cards’ Answer:
Peach Momoko is my go-to; she consistently delivers stunning variants at a high volume. But in terms of pure quality, Akram clears everyone, and it’s not even close.
Scosco's Answer:
There are a lot of artists in the game I love with a wide variety of styles, like Vincenzo Riccardi and David Mack, but, like many Snap players, I'll always have a special place in my heart for Peach Momoko’s variants.
Now let's grab some developer Q&As from the ask-the-team channel on the official Marvel Snap Discord!
4) Question:
Do you track any long-term impacts of LTGMs on the playerbase? How do you weigh short-term engagement vs long-term effects such as contributing to player burnout?
Answer:
We do. The short and long-term impacts of LTGMs range from "good" to "very good" depending on the specific variables. HV: OD is the only potential instance we've seen of an LTGM risking churn.
-Glenn
Scosco's Note:
Well, now I'm just wondering why HV: Overdrive was able to drive people away. Either way, it is very unsurprising that LTGMs have a very positive impact and drive engagement. This average hardcore completionist dramatically overestimates the effect of “burnout.” Most players want more options for things to do, and the game was sorely lacking before the introduction of LTGMs.
5) Question:
As we saw there was a buff to all the no ability cards with the 1, 2, 3 drop gaining 1 power, thing also gained 1 power earlier and hulk gained 2.
But what about abomination and wasp? Any plans for a 0/2 or more importantly a 5/10 abomination. I’m assuming the reasons are if wasp becomes a 0/2 then yellow jacket would need to be a 0/3 which could be too good, and if abomination is a 5/10 then Shang would destroy him.
Also on another note is the team planning a 7 no ability drop, and if so, how much power would it have and would it combo with high evo and in what way?
Answer:
We have no plans to buff Wasp; Abomination's got a better shot. Your reasons aren't quite right, though. For Wasp, the difference between 1 and 2 is a lot larger on a card that costs nothing than on cards that cost Energy. It would be disproportionate, while the other buffs were all to better match the curve. For Abomination, the afflict version of the card created by High Evo is strong enough, and the benefit of having a slightly better vanilla doesn't outweigh the meta-impact of unnecessarily buffing it.
We don't have a 7-Cost card "in the queue," but if we did we probably wouldn't say and also wouldn't reveal its function ahead of time. Sorry!
-Glenn
Scosco's Note:
Since High Evo was first released, people have speculated about a potential 7-Cost vanilla. Nowadays, however, it feels like it would be extremely easy to actually play that card out. Getting to the 7-Energy required to play Fin Fang Foom is trivial, even for many non-ramp decks! Zombie Galacti has more problems getting bodies on the board to transform than it does playing out its critical 7. Whatever they eventually decide to do with a 7-Cost vanilla, they'll have to be particularly careful with balancing what its evolved form does. Fin Fang Foom is kind of the perfect character to make a 7, but there are other good candidates for a vanilla 7 like Giant-Man or some old-school Kirby monsters like Moomba or Rommbu.
Thanks for reading! That's it for this week! Be sure to come back next week, when I've got a special surprise planned! And be sure to check out Heart of the Cards on YouTube!