Welcome back to Burning Questions, where we look at what the Snap community is fixating on at the moment. I asked for questions on my Twitter account and got a lot of really interesting responses. (The best ‘bad’ card is Quake of course!) This week we're looking at THE BIG QUESTION, new mechanics, and is Shang Chi being shadow banned? Lets start with the overwhelming number one question we were asked this week was, of course, about series drops.
1) Are there going to be series drops? Some other system? Nothing? Anything?
On 11/20 in the official Discord Stephen said “We will share more info on series drops before the end of the year.”
Then on 12/08 KentErik said “We’re hoping to have an announcement about them before the end of the year.”
You'll notice the second answer is a lot less committal than the first. It's mid-December now and we know the team enjoys a hefty winter vacation, are they going to come in just under the wire with an announcement. The most logical date would be 12/21, the date of the next OTA balance changes.
It does seem strange that we've gone this long with no announcement. Honestly, the fact that there was no announcement about series drops concurrent with the Spotlight Cache change shows that they did not make that change with a solid plan about drops in place.
On 9/24 Stephen said this when asked about series drops:
“This is a hotly debated topic internally at SD and has been for a while. Once we align on the right path forward we will share it with everyone. I know you guys want an answer to this right now but we aren’t ready to share next steps yet.”
In other words there is internal disagreement. That disagreement seems to have lingered up to now.
What other evidence do we have about series drops?
This spotlight cache from February 6th is currently datamined to feature Zabu and Darkhawk. In other words, they're likely not dropping series before then. They are two of the oldest Series 4 cards and the fact that they are not dropping does not bode well for the prospect of series drops returning.
The more charitable read would be they are going to feature these cards one last time before they drop down to series 3 later in the year. Perhaps they'll always use the season pass week to feature series 4 cards that have recently been dropped from series 5, alongside a new card.
There are a few related issues. Namely, series 3 is already big. The new player journey is very different than it used to be. You have much more access to series 4 and 5 cards via Spotlights than before, but the current time to complete series 3 is very long, up to 5 or 6 months.
Does SNAP need to add more series/pools?
— noxe (@noxe_jkl) December 12, 2023
Some of the strain on the system, in particular the new player experience, could be alleviated by adding more series. Add a series 6, add a Big Bad tier of non-dropping cards above that, swap the free card slot in the client for a series 3 or 4 card, and we could perhaps return to regular series drops without making the series 3 completion journey unmanageable.
@seconddinner has recently said they will try not to introduce a rotation system as an answer to the ever growing amount of cards in marvel snap. What system should be in its place?
— E (@jibbajane) December 12, 2023
To make it clear, I don't think they should go with a plan that involves adding more series. I think they should vastly accelerate the series 3 journey. Make the frequency of opening a series 3 card just as fast as it was in series 2. Constantly getting new series 3 cards while also getting some series 4 cards out of spotlights would be great. Talk about a fun new player experience!
Obviously we won't really know what the plan is until they share it with us.
Here is what I think will happen: Series drops will be discontinued but there will be some other change to the acquisition system put in place alongside their discontinuation.
Here is what I think they should do: Make opening series 3 cards a lot faster on the collection track and pair that with predictable series drops to improve the new and returning player experience.
2)
What other new mechanics could be implemented for cards?
— Wayne Bossenger (@WayneBossenger) December 12, 2023
The range of potential new mechanics is as wide as the imagination of the Second Dinner developers. They've shown so far that they are willing to go pretty outside the box when designing cards (Blob! Blob! Blob! Blob!).
However, they have given us a lot of insight into their preferences over the last year. They've been especially candid about what mechanics they won't be introducing.
Here is a list of all of the mechanics they've said they will not or are very unlikely to explore as well as some that they've said they would have to be very careful about including:
- Destroy a card in your hand rather than discard it
- Active deck manipulation, as in searching your deck
- Cards that effect hand size
- Cards that use division, like halving something
- Shuffle draw effects
- Mill, discarding cards from your opponent's deck as a viable strategy
- Cards that can't be discarded, citing that abilities like this are too small or irrelevant to be fun and interesting
- Variant based synergy or cards that behave differently based on which variant you have
- Stealing from an opponent’s hand
- More 0 cost cards
There are a few they've said they would like to explore:
- More cards that reference location in hand, though it is difficult to make work well
- Cards with hefty drawbacks that are still appealing. They've said it's a very difficult bullseye to hit.
- Cards that reference the snap mechanic, like “if/when a player snaps” or that manipulate snaps or cubes.
- 7 cost cards
- Cards that impact timer or game speed (please no!)
Furthermore they've been quite clear about what their guiding principles for new abilities are.
First and foremost they want to make fun cards with sweet effects.
They have been very clear that they want cards that are easy to understand, fit with the fast snappy pace of the game, and are intuitive for new players. They have mentioned several times that this is why they're less likely to make cards that involve making an explicit choice. It isn't likely that we will get “choose a card to discard” or other similar choice-based effects.
They've also said they do weigh how hard a card's effect would be to implement from a technical standpoint. They're less likely to make crazy game shattering effects that are huge time sinks from a programming perspective.
The sky's the limit on card abilities. If you think you've got a crazy ability that fits the above criteria, I'd love to hear it in the comments below!
3)
With the changes to the Ebony Blade and cards like Caiera coming soon, is Shang Chi being pushed out of the meta without a direct nerf?
— Hary Tangle Jr (@HaryTangleJr) December 12, 2023
Yes, absolutely Shang Chi has been intentionally pushed out. It's not even a Shadow nerf, it's an open anti-Shang campaign!
It is clear that the balance team has been attempting to chip away at Shang for several months now.
Reducing Shadow King to a 2-cost partially created a viable competitor for Shang as a tech card. At first Shang Chi was still the more relevant card, but the introduction of other power adding cards and meta shifts towards those cards has left Shadow King as the king of tech cards (for now).
Loki was, from a design perspective, partially designed to lower the viability of tech cards generally and he had a massive effect on Shang Chi. Second Dinner often states that Loki has had a positive effect on the meta and the reduced reliance on tech cards is likely the reason for that. There was collateral damage to cards like Iron Man, but I believe Shang Chi was the target.
The introduction of Alioth can also be seen as an anti-Shang move. With priority he stops an opposing Shang. Think about how he would have been used in decks from 4+ months ago. He also directly competed with Shang as a way to stop an opposing big threat. This is less true now that he's been nerfed, but I think it's likely that was a thought. It also explains why they were a bit reluctant to change Alioth.
Other cards like Werewolf by Night, Ms. Marvel, and over-statted low cost cards like Silk and buffed Medusa have also contributed to decks that can dodge or duck Shang Chi.
The change to only hitting 10 power and above was probably a smaller hit to Shang than the coordinated effort to make him less relevant. Loki especially turned the Shang paradigm on its head.
Shang Chi is currently seen in around 18% of games (since the last patch), which is still quite high and up a bit from the end of last season. However, Shang Chi has historical high play rates in the high 30s, so this still represents nearly his lowest play rate since the game began. It's actually kind of a masterpiece in game balance to slowly shift the game away from him while still keeping him relevant as an important tech card.
I think it's probable that Second Dinner identified Shang Chi as a problem a year ago and have been slowly working towards diminishing the way he looms over the game. Shang Chi is no longer the most important card in the game and, while Caiera is definitely going to further that, I think she's much more of an anti-Killmonger card. As far as the buff to Ebony Blade goes, I think it's very telling that they chose to protect it from both Shang and Shadow King.
That's it for this week's burning questions. Thank you to everyone who contributed questions. We're saving a few for later editions. Hopefully the main question of series drops gets answered soon so we can move on to more fun topics! To contribute a question hit me up on Twitter or leave a comment down below!