Welcome to the Thunderbolts season! The last balance change attempted to weaken prominent meta decks like Discard and Thanos, but the success of that attempt could be debated. Will this OTA bring Discard and Thanos more in line with other decks? Let's find out!
Summary
Thanos
- [Old] 6/10 - At the start of the game, shuffle the six Infinity Stones into your deck.
- [New] 6/10 - Starts in your opening hand and shuffles the six Infinity Stones into your deck.
Developer Notes
Given the consistent and dominant performance of Thanos, additional changes were inevitable. This is the first stage of a larger range of adjustments we're going to make to the Thanos and Infinity Stones package. Our goal is to focus more heavily on the Mad Titan, with the expectation that narrowing the overall flexibility of Thanos decks will reduce how often these decks take heavy advantage of powerful new cards aimed at other strategies. This may be a more damaging change than you expect to the current builds, as Thanos has almost always claimed the highest winrate in the game when not drawn.
*I like what they did there by sneaking in the word "inevitable" while talking about Thanos. Thanos says, "I am inevitable," and Marvel Snap's devs say, "No, we are inevitable." This has the makings of a classic showdown. Who will prevail? All I know is that I agree with this change, shifting the strategy of how to play Thanos until we see the dev's final stage of Thanos. I think the community agrees that the Thanos decks don't play Marvel Snap in a healthy or, in some cases, in the intended way. I am intrigued to see where this goes from here.*
Time Stone
- [Old] 1/1 - On Reveal: Draw a card and give it -1 Cost.
- [New] 1/1 - On Reveal: Give Thanos -1 Cost next turn. Draw a card.
Developer Notes
We are pursuing changes to more than one of the Stones, but because we're not ready to execute on those just yet we're taking an even heavier hand with the Time Stone for now. Our last change also did very little to the actual winrate of the card, and we'd rather not miss again. It's possible we'll return some strength in the future as other Stones change, though we intend to keep the focus on Thanos as discussed above.
*I am glad they say this is temporary because this change looks bad. I thought their change to the Time Stone was done well, but this doesn't appear to be the long-term solution, so I won't go any further. Stay tuned for the Final Stage of Thanos.*
Miek
- [Old] 1/1 - You can only play this at locations where you are winning
- [Change] 1/1 -> 1/0
Developer Notes
We adjusted Apocalypse slightly in the last patch to tone down Discard decks a little, and it had the desired effect on Apocalypse. However, Miek has since surged out in front on the back of a previous adjustment, and has by far the best winrate in these decks now. That's especially concerning for a 1-Cost card, because we measure winrate when drawn and turn 1 is the least common turn on which to draw a card (ignoring Limbo). This kind of performance in spite of theoretically being much less effective to draw on turns 4, 5, and 6 is a strong indicator we should remove some Power or increase the Cost, and we prefer the former.
*Previously on OTA Balance Updates, we saw Apocalypse nerfed to tone down the Discard archetype. Clearly, that did not provide the impact the devs were looking for, so they pointed the Blunderbuss nerf gun at our only Series 4 card release since January 16th, 2024. So great! Right? I am disappointed this direction to nerf discard wasn't pointed elsewhere within the archetype.*
Crossbones
- [Old] 4/8 - You can only play this at locations where you are winning
- [Change] 4/8 -> 4/10
Developer Notes
There's been a lot of debate around which downside is stronger or weaker between Crossbones and Cull Obsidian–we've decided to let you all settle it in the streets. Either way this is probably Cull's game to lose, just because there are multiple good decks where Cull already shines, but it'll be fun finding out. Plus, we'd like to add a little bit more support for Skaar.
*Question: who is having this debate on Crossbones and Cull Obsidian? Which street is this being settled on? I would like to participate. Let's state the obvious here, playing cards progresses Marvel Snap games along. The player agency Cull has is much easier to achieve over Crossbones. But I would be interested in seeing some deck lists that involve some of the higher-powered, low-cost cards that could open up the ability to play Crossbones more efficiently.*
Sabretooth
- [Old] 3/4 - When this is destroyed, return it to your hand. It costs 0.
- [Change] 3/4 -> 3/5
Developer Notes
Many are saying "3/5 is the new 3/4," and they may be onto something. We've been fairly happy with how many of these 3/5s are working out, and we expect to make more changes over time to balance out the range of Power among our lower-Cost cards as the game grows deeper. Sabretooth is fairly analogous to Black Swan as a "vanilla" card with no effect unless you lean into it during deckbuilding, but Destroy-based decks are also very competitive when it comes to exactly which 12 cards make the cut.
*Poor Sabretooth. The Destroy gang hopped on the bus to Metagame town, and his alarm didn't go off. Has he finally made it to Metagame town? Did they just give Destroy, an already strong metagame deck especially in conquest, another tool?*
Angela
- [Old] 2/2 - After you play a card here, +1 Power.
- [New] 2/0 - After you play a card here, +2 Power.
Developer Notes
Angela's back! The metagame has shifted to create more space for the "small ball" decks that leaned heavily on Angela to scale for late Power, so we're adjusting in kind. Will this be enough to return decks like Silky Smoove to the metagame, or do they need more help? Time will tell.
*Remember when they nerfed Beast? Throughout all of last year Bounce cards were catching strays until the core Bounce mechanic (Beast) was addressed. I am glad to see this change but they need to go back and look at the other cards who got nerfed in the Bounce archetype prior to the Beast change. For example, can Bishop be a 3-Cost with 2-Power again? Can we get Hit Monkey some more power?*
Baxter Building
● [Old] Whoever is winning this location gets +3 Power at the others.
● [Change] +3 -> +4
Developer Notes
Do you get it? Yeah, you get it.
*To answer your question, I get it. Do you get it?*
Blink
● [Old] 5/7 - On Reveal: Swap the last card you played with a higher-Cost card from your deck.
● [Change] 5/7 -> 5/6
BEWDS Notes
If you don't know yet, Blink will be next month's season pass card. Her ability sounds nuts. Of course, it depends on drawing that higher-cost card after Blink's ability is triggered and having the ability to play Blink on turn 5 after playing that optimal low-cost card like Wasp on turn 4. I don't know about you, but playing Wasp on Turn 4 sounds clunky, but the upside sounds tremendous. Does the nerf on Blink's power indicate the upside triumphs over the downside? We will find out once the next season comes out! At least they didn't take a potentially strong card and buff it! Looking at you Red Hulk.
Leagues & More!
In my previous article on the Thunderbolts Developer Update, do you remember that I skillfully predicted that the Red Guardian emote would be in the Season pass reward track this season? I know I do. If I were to look into my crystal ball again, I think the Eternals season will have an emote depicting Arishem approving. What is Arishem approving? It's Leagues! You may also remember that I provided some information on Leagues based on an analysis of the Developer Update video. Here is some more info about Leagues.
- You will earn 100 points for a win, and gain or lose 25 points per cube won or lost.
I hope the 30-minute point booster available for gold refresh shown in the Developer Update video has some type of refresh limit and/or provides 2x losses to cubes as well. We will see what comes out of the testing phase on this new Leagues event. When they said that Leagues were more personal, I hoped they didn't mean financially.
Thank you all so much for your support! New information on Step Up bundles coming to the client will be available very soon, but in the meantime, good luck on your Marvel Snap journey through the Thunderbolts season!