Marvel Snap September 2023 patch notes buff Snowguard, nerf Absorbing Man
Second Dinner has released the September patch for Marvel Snap.
Today marks the beginning of Marvel Snap’s Loki-themed season. Alongside it, developer Second Dinner has also dropped a hefty new patch. There are a lot of changes and updates, so let’s dive right in.
Marvel Snap September 2023 patch notes
Source: Second Dinner
The patch notes for Marvel Snap’s September 2023 patch notes were shared on Marvel Snap’s Steam Page by Second Dinner today.
General Updates
New Feature: Infinite Rank Revamp
- Infinite Rank Leaderboard: When reaching Infinite, rank will be replaced by your leaderboard standing
- Snap Points: Your standing is determined by your Snap Points (SP) - the more cubes you win, the more SP you get!
Conquest Mode Improvements
- Improved UI/UX experience after completing a Conquest run to remove extra screens
- Mute now saved across multiple battles in the same match
- New improved visuals for Infinite Avatar border!
Audio
- Seasonal Audio: We love our in-game menu music, but we’ve been hoping for some more variety in our lives. Starting this season, we’ll be changing our in-game menu music to match the vibe of each new season.
- Agatha SFX added.
Balance Updates
We have another handful of card updates with this patch! We also wanted to clarify expectations around patch changes to cards. Our goal on "patch day" is to make the adjustments we can't make via OTA. That often includes changes with balance impacts, but it just as often includes interesting changes we want to try out. When they intersect, such as last patch's Spider-Man update, that's great too! Our OTA releases remain our primary tool for balance, as we lock patch changes to cards at least two OTAs ahead of the patch's release. This gives us the most flexibility to react, and keeps things as fresh as possible for all of you.
Card Updates
Blade
- [Old] 1/3 - On Reveal: Discard a card from your hand.
- [New] 1/3 - On Reveal: Discard the rightmost card from your hand.
Developer Note: A solid card in early discard strategies, Blade has dropped off in both popularity and win percentage. As we examined weaker cards that could use a little love, we'd also been thinking about ways we could give a little push to some discard synergy cards, like Hela, Ghost Rider, Swarm, and of course Apocalypse. Because Blade is a card players acquire early on, a change accomplishing both of these goals needed to be clean and simple, and we think this fits the bill. It might not be enough to breathe new life into the daywalker, but we like to find opportunities for small changes with the potential to make some interesting waves.
Soul Stone
- [Old] 1/1 - On Reveal: Draw a card. Ongoing: Enemy cards here have -1 Power.
- [New] 1/1 - Ongoing: Enemy cards here have -1 Power.
Developer Note: It took players a few months to fully grasp the might of Thanos, but since then he's been a metagame mainstay with multiple stints at the top of the heap. We love Thanos, but his combination of flexibility and powerful synergy enablers has proven to be a bit dangerous over time. We decided we wanted to shave a piece of strength out of the kit, and decided to hit two birds with one stone by simplifying the only card in the kit with two abilities. We understand this is a bit ironic, considering the recent changes to Mystique and Rogue to copy the Soul Stone's draw effect, but oh well. While a meaningful loss of Power, we don't expect Thanos to fall out of favor once the dust settles.
Spider-Ham
- [Old] 2/2 - On Reveal: Transform the highest-Cost card in your opponent's hand into a Pig, keeping its Power and Cost.
- [New] 2/2 - On Reveal: Transform the leftmost card in your opponent's hand into a Pig, keeping its Power and Cost.
Developer Note: As we mentioned in the OTA that adjusted Spider-Ham from 1/1 to 2/2, we weren't happy with how damaging his effect was to a few of our cooler 6-Cost cards, especially Apocalypse. However, we liked that Spider-Ham hit a solid sweet spot of disruption without fully denying you the card, and even had some risk due to Destroyer and Infinaut. This change aims to retain those positive elements without applying it exclusively to higher-Cost cards, and also makes the effect a lot easier to play around if you suspect Peter Porker might be paying you a visit. The trigger will still hit 6-Cost cards slightly more often, since they'll tend to migrate leftward in your hand as you wait to play them, but Apocalypse will safely hide on the right if you can keep discarding him.
Snowguard
- [Old] 1/2 - While in your hand, this transforms each turn into a Hawk or a Bear.
- [Old] Hawk: 1/2 - On Reveal: Ignore all location abilities next turn.
- [Old] Bear: 1/2 - On Reveal: Trigger the effect of this location.
- [New] 1/2 - On Reveal: Add the Hawk and Bear auroras to your hand.
- [New] Hawk: 2/3 - On Reveal: Ignore all location abilities until the end of next turn (or the game).
- [New] Bear: 2/3 - On Reveal: Trigger the effect of this location.
Developer Note: It feels like every patch includes at least one wacky, unexpected card change these days, so here's one for today! Snowguard has turned out to be a largely unsatisfying card for players, posting poor stats on both popularity and actual wins. Our goals for Snowguard were to create a novel tool for Hot and Featured locations that might also see some play in Conquest decks looking to surprise the enemy, but we fell short. In revising the design, we aimed to:
1. Make her stronger. Granting both the Hawk and the Bear is more total Power on-curve, and decreases the variance around whether either is useful.
2. Give her deckbuilding identity. A few decks (and more to come) already care about adding material from outside your starting deck to your hand.
3. Reduce confusion. Results weren't matching intuition around the Hawk, so we extended the window to start after it resolves. We also added text clarifying the effect won't last through the end of the game, even if you Hawk on the final turn.
4. If possible, let her variants stay in play. Leaning into summoning instead of transforming cleanly solved this.
Absorbing Man
- [Old] 4/5 - On Reveal: If the last card you played has an On Reveal, copy its text. (if it’s in play)
- [Change] 4/5 -> 4/4
Developer Note: What is this, an OTA patch? After last week's balance updates were locked, but before they went live, we saw a huge surge in the strength and popularity of decks based on the Forge + Brood + Absorbing Man curve. We knew our changes weakened other top decks, and that the new kid was already becoming a Big Deal in ranked and Conquest. We're often happy to let things breathe for a minute when a new deck appears, but this case was unique because it risked an especially dull metagame to let it ride until our next OTA. We decided to make a change now, and we'll evaluate it again with the data gathered from the most recent weekend post-OTA.
Bug Fixes
Previous Release Bugs Fixed (Not Caught in 18.x Notes)
- Fixed an issue that prevented some inbox assets from displaying correctly.
- Fixed an issue that prevented the Conquest reward conversion screen from displaying when the season rolled over
- Fixed an issue that allowed some players to purchase expired Conquest rewards for a short time
- Cleaned up some issues where Conquest assets would display incorrectly in various languages
- Resolved a UI hitch that would occur when scrolling between Conquest towers in some languages
- When at the power cap, The Nexus will no longer cause other locations to wrap around to a negative value
- Maria Hill's card art should once again be visible players who play in Vietnamese
- Fixed an issue that was causing some navigation buttons to disappear within the carousel for PC
- Resolved a flicker that would occur for PC clients in Conquest during matchmaking
- Cards in the token shop should no longer appear purchasable after already being owned by the player
- Matchmaking should no longer briefly fade to black!
- Fixed an issue with text occasionally overlapping the Daily Offer punch card
- Featured Cards in the Spotlight Cache should now actively update when acquired elsewhere throughout the app
- Fixed an issue where an error was occurring upon closing the PC client
- High Evolutionary’s VFX should no longer persist after Attilan activates
- The name of your chosen deck should once again display during the matchmaking screen
- Mission reward icons should no longer be missing
- Fixed an issue that prevented Mister Negative from capping costs at 6
- Resolved an issue that resulted in a blurry overlay when accessing the shop from the post-match upgrade screen
- UI elements behind the retreat confirmation prompt should no longer be interactable
New Bug Fixes (19.x)
- Deck carousel feels less sticky now.
- Collecting Mission Rewards without loading delay.
- Sandman and Electro and Daredevil SFX now fade out, rather than looping until turn end.
- Fixed bug blocking Space Stone trigger SFX.
- Should no longer be able to navigate between menus while the Settings window is open
- Fixed an issue that sometimes caused Sandman and Electro from displaying the power of a locked down location
- Cards that changed abilities such as Mystique should now show the updated ability text if returned to hand
- Omega Red's copy should no longer spam its VFX on Sinister London
- Fixed an issue that prevented Time Stone from incrementing the displayed energy number
- The carousel should be a bit easier to scroll on PC
- Fixed an issue that would sometimes cause the "Next" button in Friendly Battles to be missing its asset
- Gold and Season XP assets should no longer be missing when viewed in the mission details
- Snowguard's VFX should turn off appropriately when the game ends and not persist to the post-match screen
- VFX for the Mystery Premium Variant icon should no longer display weirdly while scrolling
- Fixed an issue that could cause the Daily Offer Punchcard progression pips to display weirdly
- Resolved an issue where claiming a card off of a Season Pass could cause the claim screen to display incorrectly
- Fixed an issue that caused users in some languages to hang at the initial loading screen
- Carousel images should no longer be cropped along the top on some iPhones
- Season Pass rewards should no longer clip through the assets along the top of the screen when scrolling
- Fixed an issue where tapping on the Gold icon in the Conquest shop could lock users out of the game mode
- Cleaned up some font sizing issues with the multi-upgrade feature in Vietnamese and Japanese
- Multi-upgrade should now count appropriately for mission progress
- Fixed a small asset sizing issue with the Free Credits claim button
- Fixed an issue where the claim button for Season Pass items wasn't properly localized in most languages
- Resolved an issue where certain devices could try to resize the game which could lead to many UI issues
That’s everything in the September 2023 Marvel Snap patch. For all your Marvel Snap news, stick with Shacknews.
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replyDonovan Erskine posted a new article, Marvel Snap September 2023 patch notes nerf buff Snowguard, nerf Absorbing Man
