Hello and welcome back to Burning Questions, your weekly romp through Marvel Snaps hottest topics! This week we're talking about some troublesome Norse gods!
1)Did they kill Hela?
| Date | Cost | Power | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-03-13 |
6
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6
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On Reveal: For each different Cost among them, resurrect a card you discarded to a random location.
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| 2025-01-17 |
6
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9
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Curr: On Reveal: For each different Cost among them, resurrect a card you discarded to a random location.
Prev: On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded to random locations
with -3 Power.
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| 2024-10-14 |
6
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7
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Curr: On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded to random locations
with -3 Power.
Prev: On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded to random locations
with -2 Power.
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| 2024-10-10 |
6
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6
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Curr: On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded to random locations
with -2 Power.
Prev: On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded to random locations
with -3 Power.
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| 2024-09-26 |
6
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7
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Curr: On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded to random locations
with -3 Power.
Prev: On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded to random locations
with -2 Power.
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| 2024-07-12 |
6
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6
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On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded to random locations
with -2 Power.
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| 2024-06-16 |
6
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6
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Curr: On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded to random locations
with -2 Power.
Prev: On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded to random locations.
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| 2023-12-05 |
6
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6
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Curr: On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded to random locations.
Prev: On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded from your hand to random locations.
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| 2023-01-31 |
6
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6
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Curr: On Reveal: Resurrect all cards you discarded from your hand to random locations.
Prev: On Reveal: Play all cards you discarded from your hand to random locations.
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Released
2022-05-24
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6 | 6 | On Reveal: Play all cards you discarded from your hand to random locations. |
I believe the Queen of Hel has survived. The overall effect on the deck is pretty gentle. Between Hela, Swordmaster, and Hellcow, the deck lost 5 points of power. This would be a big hit to many decks, but it doesn't make up for the extra potential 12 power that moving Skaar to 7-Cost enabled. Black Cat is trickier. For Hela to have that reliable 10 power in the discard pool, without having to use an activator, was one of the more powerful aspects of the deck. However, this change frees Hela up to play something else at the 4 spot and makes it so that Jubilee doesn't overlap. Sometimes this is better and sometimes worse.
2-Cost Black Cat is also very appealing to play out on turn 2 now and makes Adam Warlock a bit of a more interesting proposition over Thunderbolt Ross. The Black Cat change is perhaps a small hit to the deck, but it's closer to a side-grade than a strict nerf. Hela is certainly better than it was before the Skaar change and is still a viable deck. Whether or not the slight reduction in power makes it feel less oppressive remains to be seen.
2) What are the implications of the Loki change?
| Date | Cost | Power | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-03-13 |
1
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2
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On Reveal: Replace your deck with your opponent's starting deck. Give those cards -1 Cost.
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| 2024-10-14 |
2
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2
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Curr: On Reveal: Replace your deck with your opponent's starting deck. Give those cards -1 Cost.
Prev: On Reveal: Replace your deck with your opponent's starting deck. Give them -1 Cost and draw a card.
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| 2024-09-26 |
3
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5
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Curr: On Reveal: Replace your deck with your opponent's starting deck. Give them -1 Cost and draw a card.
Prev: On Reveal: Replace your deck with your opponent's starting deck. Give those cards -1 Cost.
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| 2024-08-29 |
2
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2
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Curr: On Reveal: Replace your deck with your opponent's starting deck. Give those cards -1 Cost.
Prev: On Reveal: Replace your deck with your opponent's starting deck. Give them -1 Cost and draw a card.
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| 2024-08-01 |
3
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5
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Curr: On Reveal: Replace your deck with your opponent's starting deck. Give them -1 Cost and draw a card.
Prev: On Reveal: Transform your hand into cards from your opponent's starting deck and give them -1 Cost.
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| 2024-01-09 |
4
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5
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Curr: On Reveal: Transform your hand into cards from your opponent's starting deck and give them -1 Cost.
Prev: On Reveal: Replace your hand with cards from your opponent's starting deck. Give them -1 cost.
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| 2023-10-26 |
4
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5
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On Reveal: Replace your hand with cards from your opponent's starting deck. Give them -1 cost.
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Released
2023-09-05
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3 | 5 | On Reveal: Replace your hand with cards from your opponent's starting deck. Give them -1 cost. |
| 2023-08-08 |
3
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5
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On Reveal: Replace your hand with cards from your opponent's starting deck. Give them -1 cost.
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| 2023-07-12 |
3
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4
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Curr: On Reveal: Replace your hand with cards from your opponent's starting deck. Give them -1 cost.
Prev: Never gonna let you down.
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| 2023-06-13 |
1
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1
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Never gonna let you down.
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| 2022-12-10 |
0
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0
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On Reveal: Swap hands with your opponent
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The early returns on the Loki change are showing sky-high play rates, especially in Conquest. Are people just experimenting with a newly buffed old favorite or is Loki a meta staple that's here to stay?
Some people are playing Loki in Arishem, of course, but I'm skeptical if he improves that deck much and if that's his true best home. The reason Loki is likely to have staying power, and may even demand a reversion, is the role it can now play as a fail case in so many decks. He's a perfect 1-Cost card to throw into Wiccan decks and any decks that plays a lot of tech cards.
He's even worth a spot in decks like Mr. Negative for those games when you don't draw what you need. Loki is especially powerful in Conquest mode where you can bring a deck that plays Loki, card generation, and tech cards to grind out most opponents by having an advantage in enough games over time. Loki as the most generically good 1-drop is likely to define this meta game.
3) Are inanimate objects “characters?”
Yes! In the last patch “card” changed to “character” in a few places. Gwenpool’s text is an example. This is part of the process of integrating a new card type, “skills,” like the spells that Agamotto lets you cast. To differentiate the two types of cards, most of our existing cards are now “characters” including inanimate objects! We have a surprising amount of these things in Snap. Here is a list of the inanimate objects in Snap (though they sometimes get possessed by demon spirits), all of which are now “characters.” Robots and stuff are not included, since they're explicitly animate, though Hulkbuster and SP//dr are borderline.
4) Q: Was doom really jumping off the charts that much to warrant another nerf? I can’t say I’ve seen him played much at all to be honest. Now he feels dead and will definitely see way less play. Unless that was your intention all along?
A: Doom 2099 was one of the strongest cards for the last few weeks by no small margin. The goal of most nerfs is to create a reduction in winrate and/or playrate, so we do expect that to happen here. However, our goal is also to keep cards we have to weaken competitive as often as possible, and Doom 2099 is no exception. If we overshot that mark, time will tell and we can make a correction the other way.
-Glenn
Author's note
While Doom 2099 wasn't exactly terrorizing the meta, I do think the card was just inherently too strong. It put out too much power for too little commitment. While that may not have been a major problem in this particular meta game, it would have been eventually. One of their stated reasons for the nerf was its power level relative to other 4-Cost cards. This definitely brings it closer in line. For the record, the card is powerful and playable, but now it needs to be in a deck that really suits it.
5) Q: Do you think it's a concern that no season pass card seems to release in a balanced state? There seems to be a definite pattern of season pass cards being nerfed the season after their release, and wondering if the team can comment on why that is. Are they purposely left in the game in an overturned state to bolster season pass sales?
A: I see this narrative from time to time, but I don’t think it really lines up with reality.
Starting with the January 2024 SP, we’ve buffed (I think) almost exactly as many SP cards as we’ve nerfed?
* Buffs: Black Swan, Gilgamesh, Symbiote Spider-Man
* Nerfs: Agent Venom, Surtur, Sam Wilson
It’s possible I’m off there, going from memory. Skaar kind of interestingly counts both ways, since he released weak and we buffed him via card releases, leading to a nerf almost a year later.
These 7 cases out of the last 14 mean that we’re batting roughly 25% over, 25% under, and 50% about right. That’s not ideal—we do hope to target better than that—but it’s also not particularly disappointing.
As I’ve discussed many times in the past, we lean into strength for all our cards, Season Passes included. Releasing cards that are too weak to play can wind up looking a lot like releasing no card at all, which isn’t any fun at all, and we’d rather miss high than low to avoid a boring release.
Author's note
People tend to remember what’s memorable and ignore the rest.
That's it for this week! Come find me on Bluesky (@scosco) and head to the comments to share your opinion about the latest OTA balance changes!