Hello and welcome to the 50th installment of Burning Questions where we look at the hottest topics in Marvel Snap. This week we're discussing the return of High Voltage, Hydra Bob, and Rivals designs!
1) With High Voltage coming back, what changes to the mode are you hoping for?
The recent developer video included the surprise announcement that High Voltage will be returning on December 28th!
High Voltage was popular last time, but I feel like near the end of the week decks all started to look the same and the format was very close to becoming stale. While I'm not expecting any changes to HV, I'm hoping we get a couple of tweaks. Second Dinner made some really smart bans the first time, (it was important to recognize the negative effect Black Widow was going to have on the mode) but I'd like to see the format shaken up for the next iteration. There are a couple of ways they could do this.
Different bans
I would love to see High Voltage have a steady rotation of bans. Not because any particular card is too toxic, but simply to keep things fresh. Wong and Alioth were the stars of the format last time so it would be interesting to see what would develop without them. Bans on Shang Chi, Arnim Zola, Wiccan, or other strong High Voltage cards would also give us a more interesting format. I'm not proposing they ban all of these this time around, but an additional 2-3 bans are a great way to avoid this second round feeling stale for an entire week. Hey, maybe they could even unban Galactus just for this version since we just got Galacta added to the game.
Imbalance patch
Back before we had limited time game modes, Second Dinner freshened things up with temporary “imbalance patches.” Essentially, these used the OTA patch system to change some cards. First we got a smaller Valentine's Day patch and then a larger X-Men vs. Avengers patch. While I'm sure the technical work involved to make this live only in High Voltage and not the game as a whole would be a major hurdle, this type of change would be perfect for the mode. I would also be fine with imbalance changes game-wide for the week of High Voltage! This time it could be something Asgardian related and in future iterations they could match the imbalance changes to the season theme to really allow each season to feel like a unique story.
2) Why is Hydra Bob everywhere these days?
While there is definitely a trend of cards being exploited by top players before their usage trickles down to the rest of the playerbase, and Hydra Bob was a favorite pet card of several top players, that doesn't fully explain his recent proliferation. There are a couple of other factors at play in this case.
Bob currently sports a growing 4.28% play rate and a healthy 60.9% drawn win rate (6th best) in the last 7 days.
First, he became less replaceable. Bob was undoubtedly good before, (I even think he was underrated in his initial 1/4 form) but he was always only the best card in his slot by either a small margin or was fully replaceable. In particular, the nerf to Silver Sable has been a major benefit to Bob. In so many decks that Bob is useful in now, Sable was as good or better. It goes to show how huge 1 point of Power can be—Bob became significantly more useful once he gained a 5th Power and was then able to outcompete Sable once she lost a Power
Second, he got some new friends right as his enemies are seeing less play. Galacta is one of the strongest cards we've had in a while and her play pattern is very favorable for Bob. He can be played out as a big 8-Power swing or put in an off lane while you buff a different card. Additionally, Scream was a bit of a problem for Bob and she's dropped off at the beginning of the new season. That's still a strong deck, so I expect it to return. Additionally, Killmonger’s play rate has dipped a bit while Silver Surfer decks have become engrossed in their quest for higher and higher power. I expect Killmonger to make his way back into Surfer lists at some point and destroy is always lurking.
Bob is better than he's ever been and one of the best ways to spend 6000 Tokens currently. Things have moved in a way that all adds up to a productive holiday season for Hydration Robert, but the situation could always shift again down the road with even small changes.
3) What are your favorite Rivals character designs?
We're getting a ton of variants based on the designs from the new Marvel Rivals game. Which ones would I actually consider using as variants in Marvel Snap? Here are my favorites.
The Doom is menacing, Jeff is always cute and Wanda looks really threatening here. Luna Snow is probably my favorite of this bunch. Perhaps because she debuted as a video game character before making her way into the comics, she just has a solid game aesthetic. Although Luna’s other existing variant is also pretty good.
If you're looking for more content about Marvel Rivals, including guides and datamines, be sure you head over to Rivals Codex!
Now let's jump over to the official Marvel Snap discord and grab a couple of developer Questions but… uh… not answers! Here's the deal. Most of the second Dinner team was off for the holidays and several are traveling this week for meetings. The last time Glenn Jones answered a question was a week ago. So I'm going to grab a couple of questions and give my own answers! Bear in mind these are my responses and not the responses of Second Dinner or any of their employees! Let's go!
4) Q: Now that Deadpool's Diner has concluded, was the team satisfied with the mode this time around?
There seems to be a disconnect between fans of the game and official communication about what constitutes success, especially with whether engagement was driven by enjoyment, or simply because there were rewards offered. Do you have methods for differentiating these types of engagement?
My own experience with it was very negative, causing stress and frustration. Yet because of the rewards offered, I felt compelled to continue having a bad time. Is the team concerned about these kinds of effects on players?
Scosco's answer:
People should be careful about extrapolating the sentiment of the player base as a whole from their own feelings. It seemed like quite a few people were more irritated by the Diner this time around and that a large portion of that frustration was due to anxiety surrounding card acquisition. People wanted the “free” card and were willing to grind for it. However, there are plenty of people I've heard from that liked the Diner. Most of these people are those that don't really care for playing on ladder and just enjoy new modes. Just because you and the most highly engaged players seem to dislike something doesn't mean everyone does. The OP has a point about separating engagement and enjoyment. I've long theorized that Second Dinner is conflating the two when it comes to data about Hot Locations. But I think parsing the player data for the Diner will be pretty straightforward. If more people failed to fully complete the Diner, quit immediately after getting the card, or didn't participate at all, those are all indications that the Diner was less popular this time around.
5) Q: Is there any chance we could get the ability to choose a card to unlock in the paid side of the season pass? What might prevent this from being implemented?
Scosco's answer:
We know that Super Premium Season Passes are coming soon, but we're not sure what they'll contain. Personally, I'm looking forward to the new pass. Previously paying an extra $5 essentially got you nothing. It would be really smart for Second Dinner to include a variant for a season 4 or 5 card on that pass. This could be a great way for new players to get more cards to play with. However, it's probably unlikely they'll implement something that allows you to choose a specific card on the pass. The technical lift to create this kind of system isn't nothing and allowing players to choose a specific card adds a lot more value than people realize. I'd rather see this effort go into tweaking the free series 3 card section of the shop. That should absolutely be a selectable card instead of having to wait and hope for a specific card to rotate through.
That's it for this week. Come find me on Bluesky (scosco) and Twitter for decks and comic book talk! Let me know what you would change about High Voltage (if anything) below!
Also, be sure you check out our Rivals content!