Hello and welcome back to Burning Questions, where we explore the prominent topics of the week in Marvel Snap. This week we're talking about draft mode, preemptive nerfs, and Conquest variants!
1) What is “core” to draft formats?
In the last development roadmap the developers asked for input on what was most important to include in a potential new draft mode.
“We’d love to hear your thoughts about what is “core” to draft, any fun draft format ideas, and your hopes and dreams for what Draft Mode looks like in MARVEL SNAP!”
Core skills
The skill expression in ladder or conquest games comes from knowing where and when to play your cards, predicting your opponent's plays, and correctly sequencing everything. Draft comes with its own set of skills. In my mind, the following should be core skills in any draft mode.
Card selection - Draft Mode should reward those that can evaluate and choose the cards that will work best. This means identifying the strongest cards, but also choosing cards that fit with what you've already picked. Being able to draft towards a cohesive deck and identify the odds of completing your synergy tree are core to draft.
Drafting vs an opponent - Being able to out draft your opponent (or opponents) is a lot of the fun of draft formats. Being able to “hate draft” or undercut an opponent's strategy or just simply seeing a drafting path better than your opponent can make a draft mode feel dynamic.
Playing with what you have - Making do with decks that aren't as synergistic as a constructed ladder deck is also a big part of the appeal of draft mode. Other than his obvious power level, I think part of what made Arishem appealing to many players is the chance to flex this skill.
Ideas
There are numerous ways a draft mode can be organized. I think it's a pretty safe bet that Second Dinner isn't just going to make a simple system that mimics Marvel Snap Draftanator.
Here are a few concepts they could incorporate:
Pick ban - This is a style of drafting in which you choose cards to remove from the drafting pool in addition to choosing cards to add to your deck. This can be implemented in a variety of ways, but here's one example of how this could work: You and your opponent take turns choosing a card to add to your deck and adding a card to the ban list so that no one can use it. Alternatively players could ban two or three cards before drafting begins. Pick ban can enhance the feeling of variety in a draft format.
Extra energy - Will a pile of 12 drafted cards be powerful enough? I think people don't take into account that Second Dinner can manipulate the new mode in any way they'd like. They could start both players out with +1 energy each turn, just like Arishem. They could have the energy cap increase by +2 each turn. Second Dinner is unlikely to feel constrained when their goal is to make a mode that is fun.
2 of each cost - The designers of draft most can also introduce deck restrictions. They could force each player to have 2 of each cost. They could have temporary or seasonal deck requirements. Through testing they can discover what will make a mode the most fun.
I encourage everyone to share your ideas in the comments or directly to Second Dinner so that we can give Second Dinner an idea of what we most want from draft mode!
2) Why was Beast changed?
Beast was changed in the latest OTA balance patch from 2/2 to 3/5. The following rationale was given for the change via the patch notes.
“While it's true that Bounce decks have been very strong lately, that's only part of why we're making this update. We have some upcoming new cards and changes to existing ones that will impact Beast's strength, and we determined the most appropriate solution was to return to "big Beast" and move it back up the curve to 3-Cost.”
I have a few issues with this. First, allowing players to discover new, potentially powerful combos seems far preferable to preemptively changing a card like Beast. The next card releasing that would have strong synergy with Beast is Silver Sable. I think Silver Sable is going to have a hard time seeing play outside of bounce decks and Second Dinner has made a once exciting card far less appealing now. However, I think it's more likely Beast was changed to head off bounce/move decks becoming extremely powerful with the addition of cards like Araña and Madame Web. While I do think these decks were likely to become very powerful, it seems odd that specifically move decks are never allowed to enjoy their time at the top of the meta as other decks are. Beast could easily have been changed in the next OTA if it was warranted. Furthermore, this smacks as a way to ensure that upcoming card Toxin will be able to find a niche. Constantly favoring new cards over existing ones isn't a recipe to bolster consumer confidence. I'd have preferred Toxin be balanced appropriately than see Beast changed to accommodate him. While I think it's likely that this change will feel necessary in the long run and that Beast will still see play, it is disappointing that complex and interesting decks that reward decision making and skill seem to be preemptively chopped down rather than allowing players to explore and enjoy them for themselves. I bet the internal play testers had a blast brewing with this version of Beast–we won’t get that same chance. I am usually a pretty big fan of the balance team's changes and philosophy, but this one is a miss.
3) What are your favorite Conquest shop variants?
I'm a big fan of next month’s Doctor Octopus Conquest shop variant. I'll definitely be grinding to get that one as soon as I can.
Here are my top three Conquest shop variants! (I'm sure there will be no controversy about this! Feel free to roast me in the comments!)
I love this Sinister variant. It looks especially good in gold and the animation is top tier.
Psylocke is blessed with a lot of great variants, but this is the one I use. Peach Momoko captures grace and menace at once.
Maria Wolf is one of the best artists in the game and this is one of the best variants in the game. Period.
Now let's bounce over to the official Marvel Snap discord to harvest some community questions and developer answers.
4) Q: As an amateur and aspiring game designer I’m left puzzled by a Hulkling design choice.
Based off the interaction with Arishem, I’d assume a Hulkling Thanos would not give stones but would start in opening hand. Now that being said, when there are already possibilities of “bad hits” in the random roll, why take away another potential one? What makes it different from something like Destroyer? Or if it’s because of Thanos being “blank text” is that not a desirable possible outcome when something is random?
I’m also left puzzled because, to me, it seems similar to a previous situation with Mockingbird where the common ask of making her “ignore the infinity stones” didn’t work because that was a bandaid fix. Is this not the case with Hulkling? What about the next time we find ourselves with a detrimental 6-Cost card. Should Hulkling also not roll that?
A: A different but similar decision we made was how to treat Agatha for Nick Fury vs. Valentina. For Fury, hitting Agatha would happen a lot, and usually lose you the game. For Valentina, it happens less often, it’s actually pretty good, and it delighted playtesters.
Is that inconsistent? Yes, definitely. Is it more fun this way? Also yes. So we let the Rule of Cool win the day.
-Glenn
Author's note:
Rule or cool should absolutely be the standard. Too many game developers sap the charm out of their game by striving for a machinelike level of internal logic. Sentiments like “if a vanilla 3-Cost card provides 4 power, then all cards with positive abilities should have less power,” or “if card A can generate X, then so should card B,” are misguided. Obviously there needs to be a certain level of consistency to make the game comprehensible, but as long as a design falls within a reasonable range of player expectation, the goal should always be to choose the more entertaining and enjoyable design.
The same goes for lore-based constraints. Sure it's cool when characters that work well in the comics work well together in the game and the designers generally do a great job of matching characters abilities to card abilities. But these should be secondary to exploring interesting design space.
5) Q: Why change Taskmaster now instead of waiting when the future card(s) release that make him problematic as a 5-Cost? It seems odd to me to hamstring a card that doesn't see that much play (at least from my experience) now instead of when it'd actually be an issue.
A: This is the last OTA before some of those cards will release. As stated in the notes, even then we're usually happy to "let it ride" but in this case that didn't seem like the best way to go.
-Glenn
Author's note:
A lot of people were left scratching their heads when they saw the change to Taskmaster. Undoubtedly, this change is to get ahead of shenanigans that can be done with move cards like Human Torch and Dagger alongside Madame Web and Araña as well as potentially crazy combinations with Symbiote Spider-Man. While I have no doubt being able to play Human Torch and Taskmaster together on turn 6 was going to lead to some incredible numbers, that certainly sounds like the type of play pattern it would be fun to explore for ourselves, even if temporarily. Was there some awesome Symbiote Spider-Man combo with a 1-Cost card like Deadpool or Human Torch that we'll never get to experience? Making huge, awesome Taskmasters sounds like a pretty rad couple of weeks.
Loki was given an extra two weeks to rule the meta before finally being changed again this week. Arishem has been dealt with pretty gently. Cards like Alioth, Professor X, and Shuri had longer than a single OTA’s worth of time to oppress the meta. I don't see why these specific cards and decks were handled ahead of time when much else is given a longer leash. Surely there were counters in the form of Shang Chi, Killmonger, and Shadow King. I just fundamentally disagree with the balance team's philosophy on the changes to Beast and Taskmaster.
That's it for this week! Come find me on Twitter and be sure to weigh in on the OTA in the comments!