Hello and welcome back to Burning Questions, a weekly look at the hottest topics in Marvel Snap. This week we got the wildest OTA we've ever had and Second Dinner commented about Series drops.
1) What should I play in the new low-tech meta?
The tech-pocalypse has arrived. Most of the prominent so-called tech cards in Snap were hit hard in the recent OTA. It's a fundamental shift in how the game will be played, but expect most of these changes to be temporary. Greed and Power are the name of the game. Take advantage of this meta while it's here by playing decks suited for the new environment.
Decks To Please Our New Robot Overlords
Robo-Era Peni & Frankie
Robo-Era EoT
Robo-Era Techy Surfer
Robo-Era Surtur Hunter
Robo-Era Big Hawk
Robo-Era Destruct-y Discard
Robo-Era Clog
2) Did Second Dinner promise Series Drops?
Social media has been up in arms about series drops again, following an official response under the new official card preview video done by KMBest.
From there, several people claimed that this was a reversal. Second Dinner had promised Series Drops soon and was going back on their promise. Second Dinner's Community Manager Griffin Bennett claimed this was the consistent position from the beginning.
So who was right here? Let's go through what actually happened.
First, on April 9th, Marvel Snap released a video in which Matt Ricchetti, Senior Director of Product answered questions from creators about Snap Packs. Ninaisnoob asked specifically about Snap Packs. Here is a transcription of the relevant portion of that interview:
Nina: How does the new system affect the Series Drops we've all become accustomed to?
Matt Ricchetti: Yeah, I think with, with Series Drops, we, you know, we want to see where the dust settles with Snap Packs because Series Drops, I think are designed to help people get more cards, you know, and also more cheaply because you're moving them down in Series and our cards are priced by Series, effectively. So Snap Packs is going to be doing a lot of the same work. We may, you know, we may need to use Series Drops as a complementary system to further accelerate card acquisition, especially for players who, again, are lapsed or further behind in on the curve of getting to the meta. We want everybody to get to the meta. I think it's good for everyone. It's good for players, it's good for snap as a long term service, right. We want as many people who are playing with the newest cards as possible. The matchmaking is better. Everybody's having more fun. You know, we did recently make a change where we doubled the drop rate of Series 3 cards coming out of the Collector's Reserves, so it's important to kind of keep that in mind as a complement. That was something we could do quickly and and early, but that's another part of the overall kind of changes we're making. This isn't the end, this Snap Packs release that we have here. This is the beginning of a new system that's very flexible and that we can build off of.
Scosco’s Note:
So, that's not exactly a direct answer, but it's a pretty strongly implied ‘no.’ He's saying that Snap Packs will make Series Drops unnecessary since they're achieving a similar goal. He doesn't slam the door on Series Drops, however, and Nina doesn't let him off the hook:
Nina: So we're… we'll still be getting serious drops. Possibly.
Matt: Possibly, yeah. I think we want to make sure that we're accomplishing the same goal that Series Drops had and we want to see how much Snap Packs kind of gets us to that goal. And if there's still a gap there, we have Series Drops and potentially other things that we can do to close the gap.
Scosco's Note:
Matt missteps here by being a little too eager to please and not be the bearer of bad news. He really should have been more clear that Series Drops may not be deemed necessary in the future and that Snap Packs are partially intended to accomplish a similar goal as Series Drops. Essentially, however, he did explain that, just not as explicitly as I would have liked. Then, on April 29th, the Snap Pack explainer blog was posted on the official Marvel Snap website and included this answer:
Griffin reiterated the policy on May 29th.
And again on July 11th.
Following Matt’s initial equivocation, the answer has been consistent. They did not say there would be no Series Drops, but they did say they were being reevaluated, which means there was never a planned series drop. This is another case when being more clear would have benefitted them, but they definitely didn't promise Series Drops. Will they return? Who knows? I doubt they'll return any time soon and I'm not sure they are even the best solution within the current system, but I also don't think they've fulfilled Matt's promise that “this isn't the end, this Snap Packs release that we have here. This is the beginning of a new system that's very flexible and that we can build off of.” They've introduced Themed Bundles, but beyond that, they haven't yet addressed the issues caused by a growing pool of costly Series 5 cards.
3) What characters do you most want to see added to Snap?
Enmiga recently posted the September version of their Marvel Snap's Most Wanted Poll. If you haven't voted yet, be sure to head over there and do so ASAP! We'll be getting an update on the results on Wednesday so keep an eye out for that to see if your favorites made the cut! Here are my top 5 from the list and one I want to see added to future polls!
- Toad
- Deathbird
- Longshot
- Siryn
- Purple Man
And one I wanted added: Singularity
4) Question:
When this OTA gets undone, will it take up a whole OTA week?
In two weeks will the next OTA be "here's a list of us undoing the card changes from last OTA. See ya next time!"
Apologies if I worded this poorly. This was a cool idea and I'm (very apprehensively) interested in seeing what happens. But I would love to know if next OTA will be a reset AND normal balance changes? More so continued cool buffs to old/poorly performing cards.
Answer:
We'll include a normal-sized balance update along with any reversions in two weeks.
-Glenn
Scosco's Note:
I'm curious what data will be used to make those additional adjustments given we'll be in a pretty weird metagame. I think Victoria Hand was pretty clearly the best deck before this OTA and shows no signs of stopping. Hopefully there is at least a small nerf to that deck. Victoria herself could go to 2/2 and Misery could certainly lose the extra power they gave her, and then some. Other decks will be harder to analyze. Invisible Woman End of Turn may see more subtle benefits from the nerf to Killmonger. Agatha/Hela might actually be subtly hurt as more opponents pack Stardust in their decks as one of the remaining useful tech cards.
5) Question
Was C2 a reason for Shadow King getting hit?
Answer:
No, not at all. C3 has been the best-performing Cerebro deck lately, actually.
Scosco's Note:
This is pretty interesting to me. I felt like C2 was the better deck generally, but it struggled going up against C3. My understood hierarchy of Cerebro was C2>C3>C5. It does make sense that C3 has gained ground given all of the new cards it's gained lately like Omega Sentinel and Cobra (no, really, it's useful against Victoria Hand decks). Now that we're in a low-tech meta, could other Cerebro decks gain some traction or will Rogue and beefy Enchantress still ruin the party? PoopBalloon on Bluesky shared the cool C4 deck below. I've always rooted for C4 because of the naming serendipity with the common plastic explosive.
Curb Four Enthusiasm by PoopBalloon
Bullseye_qwerty, most known for playing Mr.. Negative decks shared a C6 list! Now, that's one you hardly ever see!
C6 by bullseye_qwerty
Well, I'm off to test some Cerebro 0 with Red Guardian! See you next week! Come find me on social media for more Snap and comics talk! Let me know what you think of the tech-pocalypse!