Hello and welcome back to Burning Questions, a weekly run through topics that are gripping the Marvel Snap community. This week we're talking about the best cards in the game, High Voltage bans, and odd avatars!
1) Which recent season pass card is better, Sam Wilson or Iron Patriot? Do they need to be nerfed?
These cards are basically the consensus top two cards in the game. Immediately upon release, Sam Wilson became one of the top cards in the game, at times the best one. There's a debate between Iron Patriot and Sam Wilson as the best card with most people coming down on the side of Iron Patriot, who leads to clear blowouts and powerful snaps. Sam Wilson, on the other hand, quietly chugged along as a valuable member of nearly every top meta deck and was the star of the recent limited time mode, Sanctum Showdown.
For a while, it looked like Sam was quietly the better card, enjoying higher win and play rates. The change of the shield from 1-Cost to 0-Cost wasn't expected to have much of an impact, but it has (along with wider meta changes). While decks that took advantage of the cost of the shield, those with Cull Obsidian and 1-cost buffers like Marvel Boy and Ka-Zar, weren't a huge part of the meta, the change has led to Sam losing a couple percentage points of play rate, whole Iron Patriot has risen since the OTA as midrange returned to prominence with Hela's downturn. Last week I would have said Sam was sneakily better, but this week I'd hand it to Iron Patriot.
As far as nerfs, anything that makes the cards less exciting would be a mistake. That means I'm opposed to reducing Iron Patriot’s discount. I’d prefer they take away a point of power to make him harder to enable than remove the primary fun of the card. You could also reveal the card he generates to both players or even have it reveal only when it receives a discount. As for Sam, the change to the shield (again, unexpectedly) seems to have been enough to depress his play rate a bit, but he could lose a lot of power and still be excellent at 2-2.
Sam doesn't feel oppressive or unpleasant to play against in the way that most nerf candidates do though, so a change to Iron Patriot is more likely than a change to Sam. Whatever Second Dinner does, expect it to be in line with their philosophy to keep the cards playable so expect a gentle tap if anything.
2) Why was Gambit banned from High Voltage?
Gambit was prevalent in the first version of High Voltage, but was kept in check by Alioth. The second time around he was more of a menace, but was still kept in check by Cosmo or a well placed Red Guardian or Juggernaut onto a Wong lane. I didn't mind it since, like the Guardians in Sanctum Showdown, an underutilized card was seeing some play and I felt like there were better strategies for High Voltage anyway.
Since then Gambit has developed into a ladder menace as well and has really made a name for himself. I'm happy with the ban for a couple of reasons. First, plenty of people were annoyed by him. Second, and more importantly to me, High Voltage needs to be shaken up each time to stay fresh. They should ban a new card or two each time just for that reason alone. So who are the top candidates for a ban in High Voltage version 4? Easy. Iron Patriot and Juggernaut. Be sure to check out my High Voltage guide for more top High Voltage cards!
3) What's your favorite use of Firehair?
I've mostly just been getting more demons. But really the best use is hunting weird clips and interactions, like this epic one via 0fr from KMBest's discord server.
Least absurd new @MARVELSNAP card interaction pic.twitter.com/RbKY7Ty4K7
— KM Best (@KMBestMS) March 18, 2025
4) Q: Is this the end of the monthly season recap, or is there a huge delay?
A: The recaps won't be returning as a result of our publishing situation changing. There's a chance we can bring it back in some form in the future but it's not high on our priority list right now.
-Griffin
Author's note:
The recaps were a fun little treat at the end of the season, so I'm sad to see them go. Their stats weren't the most relevant though, with many being largely irrelevant or misleading. I'd love to see Second Dinner come up with an even better end of season treat that still involves community interaction.
5) Q: The base Arishem Avatar was changed in the most recent patch. Previously it showed Arishem holding the planet, but now it only shows their head. I liked that you got to see more of the card art in the original version of the avatar. Was this change intended?
A: It was indeed an intended change to frame the avatar around the face as we do with our other avatars. I've passed your feedback along to the team that you preferred it the previous way.
Author's note:
Yeah, some of the choices made for framing the avatars are… interesting. Here are some of the weirder ones.
That's it for this week. Come find me on Bluesky (@scosco) or Twitter and let me know what you are playing for High Voltage this time around!