Welcome to Target the OTA, where we rate the latest balance patch and cook up some stuff for the new meta! This week's OTA takes aim at all of the current most annoying cards! Also, after the buffs to 2-Cost cards in the last couple of OTAs, this one helps out the 1-drop slot.
Just as Kate Bishop has the arrows in her quiver, Second Dinner has OTA balance changes as their balance arsenal. I'll give each change a rating from 0 to 4 arrows and a final overall rating as well. Did Second Dinner hit the target with this OTA or did they miss the mark?
2025-08-28
Ever since Chavez’ rework, she hasn't managed to make waves either at 2/3 or 1/2, despite being a decent card with reasonable stats. At 1/5 with potential synergy upside, more players are going to see that she provides cheap high-roll potential in certain decks.
Grand Hand Buff
I've always loved the idea of using move cards like Doctor Strange and Ghost Spider just for mobility and surprise outside of explicit move decks, so it's nice to see them get buffed in consecutive OTAs. Additionally, giving Ghost Spider an extra point should help the move archetype that was hit by the Vulture/Torch switcheroo, but is seeing a lot of success nonetheless.
Swan Dive
I'm giving this change a good grade for one primary reason: First Steps Surfer is fun! Because she was locked behind the Super Premium Season Pass, fewer players tinkered with her, but she has some solid uses alongside powerful 4-Cost On Reveal cards that can be played right after her. Now that she's hitting Snap Packs, more players will find favorite combos with her.
Prio Fighter
We can all agree that the Fenris package as a whole needed to be toned down. The package roughly consists of Fenris, Mercury/Cannonball, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and often additional ways to destroy cards like Gladiator, Shang Chi, or Killmonger. Second Dinner correctly assessed that a card like Negasonic wasn't the issue—she was being propped up by the package generally and she is a fun card in isolation.
What moving Fenris up the curve means is that you cannot play the easy sequence of Fenris into NTW that made for a lot of fast blowouts. An ideal nerf still leaves the cards playable, and I'm not entirely sure how much play 3-Cost Fenris will see, but this change makes Fenris a lot less splashable. I'll be very interested to see how much more extensively decks will need to build around Fenris to take advantage of him now.
Bull Master
So Fenris wasn't actually the only hit in the Fenris package. Personally, without Fenris I don't really find Mercury/Cannonball to be too offensive. It's a 7 Energy 2-Card Combo. Fenris allowed it to multiply its effect and spread it across multiple lanes. However, Cannonball generally wins his lane, so taking a bit of power from him makes some logical sense.
Juggernaut has been underrated for years and has been the scourge of top MMR for months now. I'm sad to see one of my personal crutches go, but I understand why it's happening. Going from 3 to 4 often kills a card and Second Dinner is being a little too optimistic thinking people will play him out before turn 6, as they mention in the patch notes. 4/6 would have been entirely appropriate. 4/5 Juggernaut might still see play in decks with Storm, Zabu, or decks that have a reliable way to guarantee one lane and need to fight for a second. The other side effect of this is that it leaves Negasonic as the premiere 3-Cost priority queen. She may have lost the perfect Fenris curve, but she will probably see additional play in decks that want to create deterministic win-scenarios in one lane, while attacking another.
The timing is obviously not ideal on this one, and I expect there to be complaints about a Super Premium Season Pass card being nerfed after it becomes more widely available, but I imagine there would be complaints for the opposite scenario too. A loss of 2 power seems a little harsh, but the End-of-turn decks were picking up a bit of steam after an initial dip following the last OTA.
Mad Thinker is still really difficult to play, but the extra power will get more people to try it. The best way to play him is to keep your hand full until the last turn when you dump as much as you can.
Le Penseur
Nightmare was a feared card before release, but variance has kept him from becoming the meta monster some expected. Putting negative 1 power on the board is a major drawback and going to 3/1 will have a bigger impact than you might think.
Plan A and Plan B
Final Rating - 2/4 Arrows
This OTA addressed the main issue with the metagame, the Fenris package, and I like that we got a couple of charged-up 1-Cost cards. However, there's not much that makes you want to run to a deck-builder, with Silver Surfer First Steps and Nightmare coming the closest. I do think the new meta game looks wide open and it's not bad to have a relatively calm OTA after last time's bombshell.