Hello and welcome back to Burning Questions where we try to answer pressing questions in the world of Marvel Snap. This week, we're talking about hitting a plateau, Doctor Octopus, and the Diner!
1) I feel like I've hit a wall. How do I continue to improve as a player?
It can be frustrating to feel like you're plateauing as a player. Maybe your MMR has finally caught up to your true skill level after months of goofing off post-infinite. Maybe you consistently make it into the 90s but can't quite break through to infinite as easily as you'd like. Maybe the game feels more difficult these days. Whatever the reason, here are some strategies to help you get out of your ‘skill rut.’
Play a new deck style
Many players have decks that are in their comfort zone and tend to stick to them. It can be daunting to spread your wings when immediately faced with a cube or Snap Points dip. But if your goal really is to improve, take a longer-term mindset and push through the growing pains. Here are a few decks that can help you improve the game.
Good cards decks
‘Good cards’ has come to mean decks made up cards that have good stats to cost ratios, strong individual effects (power, tech, or disruption), and rely far less on deck wide synergy or multi-card combinations. Playing with this type of deck can maximize your ability to interact with your opponent, make turn-by-turn decisions, and win tight games. If this is already your comfort zone style, then go the other way and try out some Mr. Negative, Living Tribunal, or Galactus Ramp to have the opposite experience and learn to leverage snapping and retreating maximally.
Prio lover
Play a deck that fights hard for priority. This means playing high-power, low-cost cards early and priority payoff cards later (Juggernaut, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Juggernaut, Cosmo, etc.). If you have never played a deck that fights for priority, it will help you with various game dynamics and in-game skills, like assessing the probable output range of your opponent's deck and deducing your opponent's plan.
Prio throwers
The opposite of a priority-grabbing deck, a priority-throwing deck tries to throw priority to use deck cards to invalidate the opposing deck's actions. Sera control isn't the strongest deck from a win rate perspective, but you should still take it out for a spin because it can help you improve as a player in the long run. Don't worry about wins and losses as much as you worry about getting better.
Meticulous Sequencing deck
Decks requiring cards to be played in specific ways to get the most out of them have a steep learning curve. A lot of people don't play them for this specific reason. You'll lose a lot more than you win at first. Bounce and classic move decks are fun and rewarding to master.
Try a “system”
Another thing you can do if you feel like you've hit a wall is to spend a season on a strict system that removes some decision-making, allowing you to assess and improve your other skills.
A system that Lamby mentioned on his podcast once is always to retreat immediately when your opponent Snaps first and always retreat if you Snap and your opponent Snaps right back. Try this because it develops your retreating discipline and removes the temptation to stay in games that you trick yourself into thinking you might win or the subconscious desire to see the outcome.
As a fun challenge, Dera has made self-imposed rules that he has to Snap turn 1 every game until he reaches infinite or can't retreat at all. If you play a season like this, it will help you see the game differently and force you to ‘play to your outs,’ i.e., seek out the hard-to-find play lines that give you a small chance to win when you otherwise have none.
Using a system like this temporarily may hurt your win or cube rates (but maybe not!), but, like exercising with ankle weights, they're useful training systems that can help you leap afterward. They will help you see snapping and retreating in new ways and teach you much about your relationship to the game.
Take care of the mental side
Plateauing can often be the result of your mentality. Take breaks from the game if you need to. As anyone who has intensively studied a foreign language can tell you, a short break, rather than making you rusty or causing your skills to decay, can allow you to come back with a fresh approach. Try a different game—maybe even a different card game or strategy game. Or go for a hike. Anxiety inhibits your ability to improve and learn new skills.
The main thing is, try something different. The worst that can happen is better than nothing happening.
2) How can I deal with Doctor Octopus?
Doctor Octopus is currently wreaking havoc on the metagame. Whether it's Arishem or Clog decks, Doctor Octopus is seemingly everywhere, with a 21.77% play rate over the last 7 days. Arishem allowing him to be played a turn earlier makes him more dangerous, but Doctor Octopus has long been a powerful, underutilized control card. Other than trying to anticipate and play around him, here's how to cope with him.
Movement cards
Doctor Octopus was never a strong force in the metagame, where movement cards were seeing massive play for a reason. If a Doctor Octopus pulls Vision or Jeff, their Octopus goes from frightening to actively helpful. You can then move that power across the board while allowing you to play into the lane they were attempting to clog. One of the very best cards against Doctor Octopus is Nocturne. Not only can she move out of a lane she gets pulled into, but Doctor Octopus decks often rely on Magik to fully execute their strategy. Jeff's play rate has plummeted recently for various reasons, but if you have a deck slot, he's still very valuable. Even a card like Captain Marvel can help eke out a win. Whether you play the newest iteration of the Angela/Thena/Small movers deck or you sprinkle a couple moving options into your deck, it can help a lot against Doc Ock.
Play decks for which sequencing is less vital
Decks like Discard, Destroy, and Silver Surfer care a lot about the order in which cards are played in. Doctor Octopus wrecks this sequencing in an attempt to diminish the potential output of your deck. Cards especially vulnerable to tech cards like Shang Chi, Enchantress, Shadow King, Rogue, and Red Guardian will be targeted after they are pulled from your hand, so bear that in mind.
Play more Shang Chi, Armor, Cosmo, and Kitty Pryde
Who isn't playing Shang Chi already? In any Doc Ock heavy meta you should have him, but you should also be aware that part of his function is to strip the Shang from your hand early so that they can play big cards later. Armor and Cosmo can help protect them from a post-Doc Shang if you're playing giant cards. Other cards can help in certain decks as well, like Goose, USAgent, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Spider-Ham, Iceman, and Kitty Pryde. Previously, lockdown decks and clog decks could outrace and outclass Doctor Octopus, but with Arishem providing additional energy, you want lower-cost solutions to the Octopus conundrum.
3) What's the best way to play Deadpool's Diner? I keep running out of Bubs!
Many people were frustrated when their first experience was playing one or two matches in Deadpool's Diner and being unable to play again because they were out of cubes.
The initial hump with the Diner is pretty painful, but once you start to make progress, it gets a little bit easier. As you unlock higher stakes table to play at, you need to be careful not to risk being bounced back down to zero and unable to play anymore until you have some Bubs regenerate.
My advice is:
- Play a couple of tables below the highest table you can play at. This will give you a buffer to lose without being locked out. The requirements to play at each table are far lower than the max bet at that table. Grind the tables you can afford for a while to build your stack.
- Plan out your play time. I'll often hop onto the highest table I can if I know I only have time for a few games or I will be stopping for the day soon. This allows you to take bigger risks, which can also mean bigger gains.
- Think of turn 3 as a major inflection point. Consider retreating before the first auto-Snap on turn 4 if your hand is suboptimal or your opponent has a solid advantage.
Let's hop over to the official Marvel Snap discord server in the ask-the-team channel and look at some interesting questions and responses.
4) Q: Why do you need to Regen Bub at the Cereal level?
I've seen a lot of feedback about people talking about being knocked out of being able to play from the beginning and that takes away from one of snaps greatest quality of being a card game you don't have to wait/pay to play and the 80 bubs seem low enough to be similar to proving grounds that it wouldn't get you the rewards immediately from just that but would allow you to play to get back to that point. I am curious on why you need to wait to play the lowest level.
A: Totally understand your viewpoint on that. The goal of lowering the Bub requirement on the Cereal Table is so you can have fun and just play just like you're saying. If you're already at 40k, the wait to get 8 Bubs shouldn't be long at all and should allow you to play much more frequently based on your Bub Regen amounts.
Just like Proving Grounds, learning how to play the mode is key. We feel that wagering Bubs and feeling the impact of the auto-Snaps each turn (albeit for low Bub amounts) is important.
Another factor is that while we're able to lower the Bub amounts for the Cereal Table via a server update, turning off Bubs altogether on a Table would take a larger update to Diner that would require a Patch.
Keep the Diner feedback coming! We're glad you're enjoying it and we'll continue to adjust it based on your feedback.
-Griffin
Author's note:
This was clearly the biggest issue with the rollout of the Diner. After playing a few times the system becomes clear, but the many who lost all their Bubs in the first or second tomatch were a lot less likely to give the mode a fair shake and come back to it. It is great that Second Dinner responded to feedback and lowered the buy-in, but the lowest table should either:
- Have free entry, even with 0 Bubs
- Not allow a bet that sets the bettor below the minimum required to play
Unfortunately, there's no second chance to make a first impression, and many people soured on Deadpool's Diner after the initial unpleasant experience.
5) Q: I’ve watched multiple content creators(whilst I was time gated and couldn’t play) paying gold to progress far ahead in DPD and mostly facing bots which made their climb to Cassandra Nova so trivial that it’s hard to not receive it as pay to win.
So I’m curious why you decided to put bots in this event?
A: The nature of any event that slices matchmaking requires some protection against inordinately long queue times of several minutes or more. In the first couple days, the higher queues are going to be lower population and trigger it more, but that should decrease as the event continues.
Gold wasn't required for this--many players have climbed to the top level without spending any and there are ~1.5 weeks to go. Even for those that have, it's also a resource earnable from play. I'd push back on your criteria for "pay to win" as the mode requires no spend, offers unique rewards, and includes a new card that usually requires Tokens or Spotlight Cache Keys.
"Pay to collect faster?" That's more fair--but also fundamental to almost every CCG and F2P mobile title.
-Glenn
Author's note:
I get that something needs to be done to protect against inordinate queue times, but perhaps the top players can wait a longer before being fed a bit than players lower down? The mode becoming a bot farming simulator for those in the leaderboard has been a letdown. To concentrate players into the same tables, perhaps the Maximum Effort table should open only on the second week. Or there could just be fewer tables if there aren't enough players to pair human vs. human often enough.
Also “pay to collect faster” may be fundamental to most ccgs but the fact that it was a card that counters the vastly most played card at the time the Diner launched made that more of a pain point that it otherwise might have been.
That's it for this week! Join in on the conversation in the comments and come find me on Twitter!