Welcome back to Burning Questions, where we pick at the questions that the community can't stop thinking about. We're discussing the move archetype, weekend missions, and Marvel's best couples this week.
1)
Do you think the Move archetype needs a buff or is it just inherently difficult?
— Chris Turner (@ChristmasTurner) February 9, 2024
There is truth to the idea that the player base hasn't experimented enough with certain cards and combinations. I think the player base in Snap is relatively cautious and conservative, and only a handful of players are trying genuinely novel ideas. This is also a result of the player base being relatively small compared to games like Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering, even though “hidden gems” are more likely in games with many times more cards than Snap and release them hundreds at a time. It is probable that if several top players devoted themselves to mastering traditional move (not decks like the small movers package that has proven powerful), it would perform better statistically and trickle down into the general meta more.
That said, I think the move archetype’s problem isn't that players have yet to crack it. It's that it is inherently a glass cannon. It revolves around multiple multi-card combos. It is also affected more by locations than any archetype except Cerebro. An archetype that can move cards around would be particularly good at handling tricky locations, but the opposite is true. Move needs space and freedom to work. In a format where all locations were ruins, move would be better than it currently is.
Second Dinner has been trickling in slight improvements to the archetype in the form of new cards and buffs. The buff to Dagger was significant, and the cost change to Doctor Strange has been massively underrated. The balance team is still trying to figure out what makes move competitive without being overbearing. It would be easy to buff the archetype by making all combo cards cheaper. The experiment with Hercules at 4-cost and moving Spider-Man 2099 to a 5-cost are small steps towards making higher-cost move cards that can help the archetype. It hasn't been a success yet, but it's a long-term project from the developers. When 2099 was changed, I, like many, assumed it would continue to be about as bad as before, perhaps a smidge better. I spent hundreds of games (and hundreds of snap points) trying to figure out if 2099 was meaningfully better than before.
Lock move
Swan Move
These are the two winningest and most promising 2099 lists I could develop. I learned that 2099 is pretty good with or vs. lockdown decks and that Black Swan is a significant boon to the move archetype (there are several quite good bounce/move lists with her out there).
2099 impressed me, and it's safe to say he is significantly better than before. But here's the problem: These lists are finally consistent enough to “do their thing” and “pop off” with reasonable frequency, but they still often lose even when they do. These lists are good enough to climb pre-infinite or earn some gold tickets, but they're just outclassed by the strongest decks currently in the format. The move archetype would need a significant boost to be highly competitive. However, if some of the current super-powerful decks are brought back to earth or a few cards are rebalanced, there could be space for move in the future without dramatic changes.
2)
Why do you think there's so much frustration at the current Weekly rewards? As F2P, I find them a nice little bonus for cards I've managed to acquire. Do you think the frustration comes from spending cash? What do you think might make the current system less frustrating?
— Neil Found Glory 💊 (@roboninjapirate) February 9, 2024
The answer to this is simple. The rewards were better when they first began. When the first card was released with these new rewards, we got 1000 token missions with Silk. That's a meaningful rebate that can make you consider buying a card you are otherwise on the fence about. For Legion, we got 500, Havok 400, and several cards with a 300 token bonus, while others dipped to 100. Stephen has since told us at Second Dinner that the token rebate was stabilized at 200 because of “a bunch of feedback about how frustrating it was not to be able to plan your token budget for the month,” which is a hilariously paper-thin excuse given their recent decisions that make planning for new cards pretty much impossible.
Free additional resources for playing the game on the weekends should have been such an easy victory. I see people complain about the grindiness and repetitive nature of some weekend missions, but they are meant to be frosting on top of the cake, extra resources we weren't getting before. So, how did Second Dinner fumble such an easy win? You must remember that when weekend missions were introduced, negative sentiment about the game economy was at an all-time high. People were concerned with the transition to a new system, and I think Second Dinner made the poor decision to offer 1000 tokens for the first card, despite knowing it would be “definitely on the high end,” to assuage some of the negative sentiment around the economy. If they knew 1000 wasn't just “on the high end,” but five times what they felt like the economy could bear, they should have been upfront about that. Like everything in this game, people are primarily upset about the weekend missions because the more extensive acquisition system remains flawed. Negative sentiment about rewards, high-cost bundles, and fears about balance changes and nerfs can all be traced back to persistent frustration with the acquisition system.
3) Which couples were snubbed for the Valentine's event?
The first “imbalance patch” event, Power Couples, in celebration of Valentine’s Day, has just wrapped up. It was a fun first event and featured some of the most iconic Marvel couples. But how were they chosen? And which couples were snubbed?
When asked about how the couples were chosen, Glenn Jones said this:
“We liked the idea of Jean/Cyclops/Wolverine as a triangle, but for our first attempt here, we decided to keep things simpler. We also wanted to select a manageable mix in quantity (10 couples) and didn't want to substantially augment already existing strong decks too much (Thor and Jane are already strong enough together).”
I agree that not choosing Thor and Jane was smart. They did a good job choosing cards that had some light synergy or at least could be played in the same deck without boosting already powerful combos or cards that just don't work together. A Wolverine, Cyclops, and Jean Grey throuple would have been hilarious.
Which couples should have been chosen instead of some of the bottom pairs? I wanted to avoid couples with too clear of synergy, just as the team avoided Jane and Thor. That means no Death and Deadpool, Death and Thanos, Cloak and Dagger, and Spectrum and Blue Marvel. A few couples should have been included, though.
Top Snubbed couples
Luke Cage and Jessica Jones
This one is a no-brainer. They're an iconic couple in the comics and one of Marvel’s most important couples. They have also appeared together on screen in several Netflix Marvel series. Plus, they have a bit of soft synergy in that Cage can protect Jessica from Shadow King. They definitely could have worked together in a deck. I'm actually kind of baffled that this pair wasn't included.
Beast and Dazzler
Maybe they're not the best-known couple, which probably worked against them. They have enough soft synergy that they would have been compelling to build with. They're a classic 80s power couple from the very retro-stylish Beauty and the Beast miniseries written by Ann Nocenti. It's peak Nocenti, who has a knack for writing slightly more complex and raw characters than Marvel usually put out at the time (she created Typhoid Mary, Blackheart, Mojo, and Longshot, for example).
Titania and Absorbing Man
This is another one that should have been included, not least because we didn't get any villains! They're a hilarious and compelling pair in the comics. The community would have developed some exciting decks with these two.
Honorable Mentions
- Black Bolt and Medusa
- Colossus and Kitty Pryde
- Crystal and Human Torch
- Daredevil and Elektra
- Spider-Man and Black Cat
- Polaris and Havok
- Dr. Strange and Captain Marvel
- Deadpool and Typhoid Mary
- Kang and Ravonna Rennslayer
- Ant-Man and Wasp
- Caiera and Hulk
- Storm and Black Panther
- Loki and Enchantress
- White Queen and Iron Man
That's it for this week. Hit me up on Twitter if you've got a burning question you want investigated, and head to the comments below to share your opinion!