Hello, and welcome back to Burning Questions, where we look at the topics consuming the Snap community. This week, we're discussing the newest card, variant art, draft mode, and the nerfs in the recent OTA.
1) What is the best cost to transform into with Sersi?
Sersi dropped on Tuesday, and she has been a really fun card to play, but she comes with a big helping of variance. Let's look at the best costs to transform to mitigate that variance. For example, is it better/safer to go from 1 to 2 or 2 to 3? I divided potential hits into good, bad, and neutral. Remember, this is based on subjective opinions, but I believe it's useful for conceptualizing which cards to play with Sersi.
50% Good - 34% Neutral - 16% Bad
With 28 of the 56 2-Cost cards being good to transform into, 1-Cost into 2-Cost is one of the safest exchanges possible.
34% Good - 31% Neutral - 34% Bad
Out of a whooping 64 3-Cost cards, they are roughly divided equally between good, bad, and neutral. This is generally not a great transformation to do. Sorry, Mr. Sinister. And, of course, Deathlok and Killmonger can be particularly problematic hits.
16% Good - 36% Neutral - 48% Bad
4-Cost cards tend to have especially powerful effects, but not necessarily ones you'd want applied randomly. Out of 44 4-Cost cards, I only identified 7 as clearly good. This is easily the worst transformation on the board, which is somewhat unfortunate given that so many 3-Cost cards make good transformation candidates.
45% Good - 32% Neutral - 24% Bad
Going from 4 to 5 is great. The problem is which 4s to transform into 5s, other than the Void. An early Shang Chi or Enchantress? Jubilee? Shuri?
54% Good - 25% Neutral - 21% Bad
5-Cost to 6-Cost is usually a positive trade. I think 15 out of the 27 6-Cost cards are good to transform into. Destroyer is an awfully big risk, though. Some weird, highly dependent cards like Arnim Zola, Leader, and others make for some exciting gameplay, even if they're not reliably good.
1-Cost into 2-Cost and 4-Cost into 5-Cost are the best transformations available.
The methodology for this was as follows. This is based on transforming something into a new card on turn 6 with Sersi. I sorted each cost into cards that would be especially good to transform into, clearly bad to transform into, and the rest into a neutral category. Think of neutral as neutral/debatable. For the neutral category, I was pretty liberal. If I saw it as debatable whether or not a card would be good or if there was a small high-roll potential with it, but it was generally neutral, I put it into neutral. This also means that these numbers are conservative, as you will still find most of the neutral hits passable. Each cost was treated somewhat differently. For 2-Cost cards, I imagined whether or not it would be clearly good or clearly bad to transform a Squirrel, Spider-Ham, or Iceman into it with Sersi, among other scenarios. For 4-cost cards, I imagined both turning a Broodling into the card or a generic 3-4 card or 3-3 tech card. 4-Cost into 5 is a little tricky because turning a Void or Jubilee into nearly anything is positive, so I envisioned scenarios like changing an Absorbing man, Shang Chi, or White Queen as well. I didn't include 0-Cost cards despite transforming a Widow's bite being generally good, nor did I include 6-costs into Arishem, but that seems like it will usually be unprofitable. If percentages add up to 99 or 101, it's because of rounding.
Sersi is solid, and the number of good hits above supports that. However, for an estimate of her general expected value, a different calculation could be done that estimates the average power gain for transformations from each cost to the next cost. The above is instead intended to find which cards work best with her rather than Sersi's power level. It's possible that, while a high percentage of 4-Costs are bad hits, that's made up for by the size of cards like Cull Obsidian and Crossbones. In general, I think 1-Cost and 4-Cost cards are the best to play alongside Sersi.
2)
I don't know where to ask the burning questions, but I want to know if they are ever going to do something so that it makes some sense to acquire and improve the variants of morph, PF or hulkbuster.
— Jose Augusto (@trillo_20) June 10, 2024
Now that we are finally getting more Mysterio variants whose illusions match the art, the final variants that you can't show off very well in game are Morph, Phoenix Force, and Hulkbuster since they basically become different cards when on the board. I know many people are reluctant to buy variants for these cards because of this. One thing that could be done is to have the variants show what they've become or merged when inspected. Blob already partially has this functionality, and it would be nice for these three to receive similar treatment. Another possibility would be that the cards enlarge for your opponent just before performing their animation, as a card currently does for you when you play it on the board. I'm not sure either solution would be enough to get people excited about showing off their variants, but it would be pretty low on the developer priority list. At the very least, they should find a way to center Phoenix Force more than they currently do. That card has a lot of really cool art, and given its place in Marvel lore, that art should be flashy and noticeable.
3) Who is the best Marvel Snap clip maker?
Sersi. It's Sersi.
“Is she too random?” people ask. Too random for what? Too random to be the premier clip farming card in the game? Check out these hilarious highlights from some of the best clip creators, with the help of Sersi, of course.
"Hey Doey, how are ya liking Sersi?"
— DoeyKat🫰 (@doeythekat) June 12, 2024
Me: Well she's pretty fun. However... pic.twitter.com/LmL4cg6W3g
You can't make this up.
— Guest (@ItsGuestGaming) June 11, 2024
You can't script this kind of stuff.
This was my FIRST Sersi play ever.
I'm dead. pic.twitter.com/AR2cjSrCTM
Ended up playing Sersi in @MARVELSNAP for three hours last night without realizing. You never know what you’re gonna get! 😂 pic.twitter.com/3QDD4Ttcwn
— Joshy (@AskJoshy) June 12, 2024
Sersi for the WIN! How’s Sersi treating you guys? 🤣 pic.twitter.com/TIinBKcqIe
— Abomaste (@jessnapz) June 12, 2024
https://youtube.com/shorts/_Ro8_B7Q9uM?si=YGfll8mwH0cQQ6uN
https://youtube.com/shorts/8qWdUsoi1zg?si=xK70enNnijPF-jg_
https://clips.twitch.tv/ElegantModernPepperKeepo-0zCpWfydJL2-W0Bz
Now let's hop over to the official Marvel Snap discord and find some interesting community questions with answers from the development team.
4) Q: Regarding Draft Mode, what kind of feedback is the team looking for? draft mode is a fairly well established mechanic in other card games and although no two lines of code are the same, i would argue that what players want is the excellent gameplay that already exists in marvel snap just tucked within this existing format.
the announcement mentioned needing time to "snapify" it - what ultimately does the team think needs to be different about this mode in marvel snap vs other games? It was mentioned that draft mode had basically been "in concept" since marvel snap launched and yet it remains there to this day. Why?
A: Draft mode has not been in concept since launch. It is relatively new to our concept pipeline. Previously we had decided not to consider draft as a mode due to its poor performance in other digital CCG and CCG adjacent games. We hope to find a version that will change that and make it fun for a wider audience of players.
As far as feedback, it would be good to understand what makes draft fun for players that enjoy it and what pain points exist in traditional draft for people that do not enjoy it or were afraid to try it.
-Stephen Jarrett, Product Lead
A: To add a design perspective: I don't believe "just draft SNAP cards" is the path to the most fun expression of draft we could do, and that's our target.
While draft is an established concept, there are a lot of details to decide. Consider the below list of fun drafting games, and how many differences there are between them:
* Magic
* Hearthstone Arena
* Runeterra Expeditions
* Shadowverse Arena
* Clash Royale Mega Draft
And that's without including autobattlers or paper games! These games have many design elements supporting draft in ways that might not be obvious to players. As just one example, they feature content division like colors, classes, regions, etc. and/or curate drafts around specific themes. These all path players towards a fun experience, and SNAP doesn't have a clear analog to lean on--that has pros and cons.
I personally love drafting games, so I'm excited to be exploring it for SNAP.
-Glenn Jones, Principal Game Designer
Author's note
The question shows why I'm happy the professional developers are in charge of making new modes. We need something special and new, not just a generic draft mode tacked onto Snap. The answers aren't surprising since the team has been leaving breadcrumbs about their ideas about a potential Draft Mode for a long time. They previously mentioned that a draft mode might be possible if it was made in a unique and “Snappified'' way. This means fast, accessible, and innovative, just like the base game. They've made it clear that the player base for Draft modes in other games is too small and ends up skewing towards content creators and highly competitive gamers in time. The extra time commitment that drafting comes with and the complicated metagame knowledge required to be elite at drafting has always driven suppressed Draft play rates. Those things are also pretty antithetical to Snap's philosophy. Expect something that is quick and snappy, not something that entails a 30-minute drafting round. It will also be something that appeals to casual players. That means it will be something with a design focus on fun with some wackiness sprinkled in. I believe Second Dinner can come up with something cool and unique, but it won't be the same old draft mode that other games have. That is exactly why they have asked what the community considers “core” to the drafting experience. They want to build around the heart of what makes drafting fun while jettisoning some extraneous elements.
5) Q: Why nerf Hela when you said that on your metric, the win rate was pretty balance.
Did you succumb to negative criticism from a minority? Can you explain yourself please?
A: As we've stated in the past and in today's Balance Update, winrate isn't the only metric we use to assess metagame health. Cube rate, play rate, matchup spread, matchmaking bands, individual card metrics, and even upcoming content all play a role, among other factors.
In Hela's case, the combination of creeping play rate over time and a lack of available or upcoming counterplay were the major factors that compelled us to weaken the deck. We weren't thrilled with how more Hela tends to mean more Professor X either, but with him being nerfed we needed to ensure she wouldn't go unchecked.
-Glenn
Author's note
I've long held the minority opinion that Hela is a problem, but a minor one. I think making her 6/2 would have been fine. I do think she needed a change, though, and today's change is the best possible type of change: the card's strength is reduced, but not enough that it won't continue to be powerful enough to see play. This type of change is generally very good at reducing play rate, and Hela's play rate has continued to climb, as Glenn notes. I think this change and the entire OTA balance patch was quite good at making clever changes that are meaningful without making anything unplayable. Let's cross our fingers for all buffs next time!
That's it for this week! To ask your own Burning Question, find me on Twitter or leave it in the comments!