Hello and welcome back to Burning Questions where we try to investigate the questions that the Snap community is preoccupied with. This week we talk about Wiccan's best uses, exclusive emotes, and game balance!
1) What is the best way to play Wiccan? Is he worth it?
I don't think the deck-building puzzle of Wiccan is quite solved yet. Any card that doesn't have an obvious 12-card deck and encourages experimentation is going to have lower initial statistics. So far, Wiccan decks that curve out into Loki have been strong. Also, decks that follow a pattern of several 1-Drops, Domino, and Marvel Boy have promise as well. I think Wiccan has found 3 potentially powerful landing spots already:
Pixie
The strength of Pixie decks has always stemmed from their cube equity. Your opponent doesn't know just how crazy your hand might be. Pixie decks benefit from Wiccan because he increases the ceiling on that craziness. Though if this becomes prominent in the meta, smarter opponents will just retreat following a turn 2 Pixie and a turn 4 successful Wiccan. Still, people don't retreat from Negative decks that play Jane Foster on 5 as much as they should, so your mileage may vary depending on your MMR pocket.
Sera
Sera control hasn't been strong enough to compete recently. I'm reasonably certain that Wiccan makes the deck better, but 'better' is a relative term. Wiccan allows you to potentially react to more of your opponent's plays with similar breadth as old Zabu/Sera decks were able to. I think this is likely to be a deck that can win some infinity tickets in conquest.
Bounce
Like many decks, Bounce relies on an explosive last turn. What makes bounce powerful (and fun!) is that that power is hidden in your hand and can be played out in unpredictable places in unpredictable quantities. Wiccan assists with this sleight of hand by increasing the potential combos available to you on the last turn. Ideally, you exceed what your opponent guessed your maximum output would be by enough to win the match. Aside from the last turn, Wiccan helps bounce by making turn 5 less awkward since a bounce deck would almost always like to bounce more on that turn than it is able. Wiccan versions of bounce can also leverage cards like Gwenpool and Werewolf by Night far more successfully than non-Wiccan versions.
Though I've had some luck with one or the other, most of the decks playing Quicksilver and Domino have felt like weaker versions of glass cannon decks we already have. Though they definitely lead to some super fun combos—and I'll never stand in the way of someone just trying to get off some fun combos. You can hit some silly energy totals with some of the Wiccan combo decks.
Everyone always asks the same question about any new card. Will Wiccan prove to be "worth it." He's already been worth my resources as a deck-building puzzle—something I value highly in this game. But will he be a necessary card to have in your collection to stay competitive? Probably not. But he is fun, powerful, and still not fully explored. That's easily worth caches or tokens to me, but if your primary goal is to avoid feeling like you're missing the cards you need to stay competitive, then you can skip Wiccan if he doesn't especially appeal to you.
2) Will the emotes or other cosmetics that can be won through Leagues ever be obtainable elsewhere?
I've heard a lot of anxiety about the “Juicy Jeff” emote potentially being exclusive to those who grind to place in the top three of the upcoming “Jeff League” that is currently scheduled for August 22nd-24th.
Personally, I always try to take the approach that all cosmetics are optional and players should try to happily live without the ones they don't obtain for whatever reason. However, given the unhealthy play patterns that Leagues foster and the intensive play time they require to make it into the top 3, I think releasing highly desirable cosmetics exclusively through Leagues is a mistake that will engender a great deal of animosity from the player base. So will these emotes be otherwise obtainable?
Back in April Stephen said this in the official Discord:
“Emotes are exclusive to where they appear. Album, Bundle, and Season Pass emotes will not appear in the cosmetic shop.”
Now, the team could have changed their minds since then, but it does seem like their goal, both for their internal data tracking and player cosmetic value sentiment, is to keep limited items exclusive. There are a few exceptions like Spotlight variants, but even from the beginning they used words like “not for a very long time” about those.
I hope Second Dinner decides to keep League rewards small, generic, and increases the number of competitors that receive the top rewards. Borders make a perfect reward for leagues, as do mystery variants. I don't think leagues are a particularly healthy or engaging mode, but if they do come back, I hope the rewards structure is modified.
3) What is your absolute favorite thing about Marvel Snap?
This answer will be different for everyone, but I imagine a lot of players would mention the Marvel IP, the dynamic gameplay, or the wonderful art.
But, for me, the answer is clear. The constant card changes and the work that the balance team does. They keep the game fresh and interesting. OTAs are my absolute favorite days in Snap. The ability to breathe fresh air into existing cards is something I always dreamed about as a long-time paper TCG player. I think the balance changes are almost always great and they've executed some masterful changes and full reworks. My favorites have probably been the Spider-Man rework, Magik’s change to 3 cost, and the Klaw buff. Even this week's changes, which weren't exactly my favorite, are based on sound logic. Nocturne had become a near-default 3-Cost card and hitting Thena the way they did was the gentlest possible way to hit that card. I'm aware that not everyone is as much of a fan of the constant tinkering as I am, but it's my absolute favorite aspect of Marvel Snap.
Now let's jump over to the official Marvel Snap discord and see how the development team is answering community questions!
4) Q: So Darkhawk and Cassandra naturally counter Thanos and Arishem, and ask those players to answer them through tech cards or just going bigger. This is fair and a commonality with the game's idea of checks and balances. but its a bit harder when counter cards more so naturally counter a deck and require hard tech rather than reads or playing around the card to deal with them.
I usually don't mind counter cards at all, because when playing zoo vs destroy for instance it's possible to play around killmonger by holding your 1 drops or losing prio or using tech (like Caeira).
My post IS NOT a complaint about Cassandra / Darkhawk OP at all, but a question about the nature of the interaction. Arishem is a powerful deck and rightfully needs an answer like Darkhawk and Cass. but when weaker decks (like Thanos) get hit due to this sort of interaction it feels more apparent. Do you mind explaining how you see this sort of interaction from a dev perspective?
A: You’ve generally covered it—it’s a common dynamic, commonly referred to as “splash damage” or similar in design parlance. One of the upsides of a live service game is that we can account and adjust for these dynamics. For example, we nerfed Apocalypse when discard was overperforming based on the context of that metagame—now that it’s not, we reverted it. That flexibility ensures the game stays fun and healthy.
However, our goal is always first and foremost just to make cool cards. We didn’t make Cass to target Arishem; in fact, we lifted the design from a different card entirely for her. But it made sense for her, and the proximity to Arishem was a feature, not a bug, because we do like cards to have meaningful counterplay available.
-Glenn
Author's note:
There's a common misconception that Second Dinner makes cards and then designs counters to those cards shortly afterwards. Given what we know about the design process and schedule, this is incredibly unlikely. I think they do try to design ways to breathe new life into underplayed cards (like Quicksilver and Domino with Wiccan), but more in a general “this might be fun” way than some attempt to control the metagame. Second Dinner has been pretty consistent that they just design towards fun and interesting. They rely on OTAs for actual balance. They have explicitly said in the past that designing direct counters is an inefficient way to balance the game.
5) Q: Will we see a tech card that prevents the opponent from gaining extra energy (kinda like MMM)? The game desperately needs one.
A: I'd say this is a "when" not an "if”
-Glenn
Author's note:
As opposed to direct counters like was discussed in question #4, Second Dinner does design blanket counter cards. Other examples include Mobius M Mobius and the upcoming move-counter, Scream. I do think there is a misunderstanding of these cards as well, though. Rather than making some mechanic unplayable, they actually open future design space. You can print a lot more interesting cost-reduction cards if you have Mobius as a safety valve. Scream means the team can confidently print all of the cool movement cards we're getting over the next couple of months without worrying about them completely taking over the game.
That's it for this week! Come follow me on Twitter for deck lists and comic lore posts! Join in on the conversation in the comments!