The Latest ‘Marvel Snap’ OTA Update Includes Balance Changes to Blob, Hercules, and More – TouchArcade
Another couple of weeks have passed, and that means we were about due for another balancing update for Marvel Snap (Free). Well, it’s here! And it has good news for some players and bad news for others. Developer Second Dinner doesn’t seem terribly afraid of touching recently-released cards the way they once were, and we can see that on full display here. As usual, we’ll go through all of the balance changes and touch a little on what they mean. Weep for Blob.
A whopping eight cards have been adjusted in this OTA update. The good news is that it’s more buff-heavy than nerf-heavy, but that’s going to be cold comfort to some. Let’s start with the big one: Blob. To be fair, I think we all saw this coming. Blob was ripping up the carpet in almost every match-up, and all anyone could do to stop him was to pull a Shang-Chi or Shadow King out of their butts at the last minute. Blob goes from a 6-Cost 4-Power card to a 6-Cost 0-Power card, and his ability has been hit as well. Before, it would merge the rest of your deck into Blob and add its Power to him. It now just merges cards from your deck into Blob until he gains 15 or more Power. Yes, the days of an effortless 50+ Power Blob are over. A swift and heavy action, but probably a necessary one.
Okay, on to the buffs. First, the cards that are gaining a bit of power. Destroyer goes from 6-Cost 15-Power to 6-Cost 16-Power, Viper goes from 3-Cost 4-Power to 3-Cost 5-Power, Selene goes from 1-Cost -1-Power to 1-Cost 2-Power, Elektra goes from 1-Cost 1-Power to 1-Cost 2-Power, and Hercules goes from 4-Cost 6-Power to 4-Cost 7-Power. I think the interesting bits here are Selene and Hercules, as they’re both very recent cards. Herc’s getting adjusted mere days after he left the Spotlight, which is a bit quick by any measure. Selene seems like she didn’t play out at all the way Second Dinner expected her to. Hopefully she’ll see more use now.
There are two other buffed cards in this update. Dazzler gets a simple change in her cost, going from 3-Cost 2-Power to 2-Cost 2-Power. This means she is no longer in the Silver Surfer circle, but I don’t think she was seeing a whole lot of play there anyway. Maybe she’ll do better at a lower cost, but I feel like she’s still going to struggle. Some cards just can’t seem to get any traction, and Dazzler is one of them. She probably needs a boost to the power she gains from full locations, but I can understand the team not wanting to accidentally overshoot that.
Dagger is the other card to get a non-standard boost, but it’s a less obvious one. Before, she was a 2-Cost 2-Power card with an ability that saw her gain +2 Power for every enemy card at a location she moved to. She’s now a 2-Cost 0-Power card, but her ability gains her +3 Power for every enemy card at a location she moves to. The update notes point out that this makes her weaker to Shadow King, but I suspect it won’t be that big of an issue. Unlike with the Dazzler change, I think this one will actually make a good difference for Dagger. She wasn’t that unpopular to begin with, and this extra kick in the pants should help her edge out some competing Move-based cards.
That’s the lot for this time. It’s mostly good stuff, though I will again say that it’s probably not a good thing that new cards are having to be tweaked so soon after release. It’s not a great feeling to spend resources on a card and have it nerfed, or to pass on a card only to see it buffed after you can’t get it anymore. Maintaining the balance of the meta is of course vital, but it’s wild that the team didn’t see certain cards like Blob coming. Well, it is what it is. What do you think of these changes?
