This is our first patch back from our Holiday break, so it’s a bit more focused on polish and balance updates. As we look ahead to 2024, we hope you are as excited as we are!
Balance Updates
Card Updates
Loki
[Old] 4/5 - On Reveal: Replace your hand with cards from your opponent's starting deck. Give them -1 cost.
[New] 4/5 - On Reveal: Transform your hand into cards from your opponent's starting deck and give them -1 Cost.
Developer Notes: Loki has been a force since release, fueling a new archetype that dominated the metagame for a solid stretch. Loki shrugged off our OTA nerf to 4/5–it was a small hit, but probably about half as effective as we'd hoped. We needed another patch to implement a second change, so we took the time to play with some fairly different changes and monitor the metagame. As December began, we even saw Loki falter–Darkhawk, Bounce, and Destroy were all winning the matchup convincingly. Blob-Thanos shook things up a bit, and Loki was able to squeak back into the mix on top.
Once we saw all that, we decided to soften our approach rather than pursue a larger rework. This adjustment will remove The Collector's role as a massive source of Power for Loki decks. The winningest card overall in the Loki decks has rarely actually been Loki–it was usually The Collector. That's actually fairly surprising because drawing The Collector earlier is much better than later when compared to Loki, meaning more "loser" Collectors are in the data. This change will be good for The Collector long-term, because future patches will be able to balance The Collector around its strength in other decks without the burden of Loki's glorious purpose.
Functionality Change: Transformed Cards Didn't Start in Your Deck
Previously, when a card from your starting deck transformed, it still counted as starting in your deck. Transformation was a change to that card, rather than a new card. However, playtesting the change to Loki above highlighted to us how confusing that was–our playtesters strongly felt a transformed card didn't seem like the original object, and we agreed. Moving forward, transforming a card will dissociate it from its past life and be considered a new card. However, transforming a card is still not a zone change, which is why Loki's update will prevent The Collector from receiving a buff. Currently, this change only affects Quinjet.
Ms. Marvel
[Old] 4/5 - Ongoing: Adjacent locations where your cards have unique Costs have +5 Power. [New] 4/4 - Ongoing: Your adjacent locations with 2+ cards and no repeated Costs have +5 Power.
Developer Notes: This is a small change in scope, but we expect it to have a meaningful impact. We released Ms. Marvel without requiring two cards in adjacent locations in part because we found it difficult to clearly communicate the effect when it had multiple conditions. However, something we learned from players was that for many of them, the default assumption was that two cards would be necessary anyway! Because we also weren't psyched about how well Ms. Marvel synergized with Professor X, this change captures better gameplay while shaving off a bit of the strength. Even though we adjusted the words, the card is otherwise the same as before–you just need two cards at an adjacent location instead of one.
Annihilus
[Old] 5/7 - On Reveal: Your cards with 0 or less Power switch sides. Destroy those that can't.
[New] 5/6 - On Reveal: Your cards with Power below 0 switch sides. Destroy those that can't.
Developer Notes: Even though internal playtests successfully "found" most of the Annihilus decks we've seen on top of the metagame, their performance was surprising. In particular, the strength of just playing Annihilus with Sentry and/or Hood in decks with no other synergies has been very good. During design, we widened Annihilus's condition to include 0 in part because we were worried it wouldn't be strong enough restricted to such a tight set of targets, but clearly that's sufficiently strong. Given that's the case, we're restoring our preferred design that requires cards to have negative Power, and taking a little base Power away from Annihilus. That might seem heavy, but Annihilus has been one of the most significant outliers in our card performance data for weeks now, at every level of play. Even more surprising, Annihilus was performing better in our most competitive samples than anywhere else–usually strength flattens up there.
Dracula
[Old] 4/0 - At the end of the game, discard a card from your hand. This has its Power.
[New] 4/1 - At the end of the game, discard a card from your hand to gain its Power.
Developer Notes: We're still monitoring the Discard decks' performance in the wake of losing America Chavez, and one of the cards most damaged by that change was Dracula. In addition to this minor buff, reworking Dracula this way makes his text more clear and provides us with additional balance knobs to buff or nerf him as necessary in the future. We like having more dials to turn.
Angel
[Old] 1/2 - When one of your cards is destroyed, this flies out of your deck to replace it.
[New] 1/2 - When one of your cards is destroyed, this flies out of your hand or deck to replace it.
Developer Notes: Hey, we did it! This change has been in the queue for a while, but we've delayed it to ensure we could implement and test the VFX. Angel's a card we give to players early, so we wanted to be sure we weren't breaking a charming piece of that new player experience.
Quake
[Old] 2/3 - On Reveal: If this is at the middle location, swap the positions of each location.
[New] 2/3 - On Reveal: Swap the positions of the other two locations.
Developer Notes: This is very similar to Angel, although our solution might have been less obvious. We expect Quake might become an interesting alternative to Scarlet Witch and a potent tech card against strategies relying on Storm or Legion.
Kingpin
[Old] 3/4 - When a card moves here on turn 6, destroy it.
[New] 2/3 - When an enemy card moves here, afflict it with -2 Power.
Developer Notes: One of the few remaining "loose ends" in our change to the move mechanic during the last patch was that Kingpin and Fisk Tower remained able to destroy cards thanks to Juggernaut. It's always been a source of confusion for some players, regardless of the outcome, and Kingpin's been weak enough that a rework was worth pursuing. This change makes the interaction with Juggernaut match existing expectations, because we consistently don't let unrevealed cards have their Power modified by other effects. We also made the effect asymmetrical and tried out an aggressive set of numbers to see if we could convince players to consider pairing Kingpin with Polaris or Spider-Man, in addition to being a tech card against cards like Phoenix and Silk. Another upside of this change is it adds good ways to adjust Kingpin via OTA and find the perfect spot.
America Chavez (text only)
[Old] 2/3 - On Reveal: The top card of your deck gets +2 Power.
[New] 2/3 - On Reveal: Give the top card of your deck +2 Power.
Developer Notes: This is a non-functional text update, just to make America better match our default choices for cards.
Bugfix: "After you play a card here…" and similar effects
We have a handful of non-intuitive interactions around “After you play” triggers for complicated coding reasons. The most prominent has been Angela, who would receive her Power when a card that was played to her location but revealed at a different one, thanks to something like Juggernaut. This doesn't match intuition around other uses of the word "play," which typically care about where a card finishes resolving, such as Death’s Domain. But, if she worked "the right way" in that case, it would mean working "the wrong way" with stuff like Spider-Man (she would not get the buff from Spiderman after he moves away). So either way, something would act unintuitively.
To solve that, we implemented a new functionality in this patch that allows us to track where a card began to reveal rather than just where it finished revealing. That means effects like the two above work more intuitively now–Juggernaut will stop unrevealed cards from buffing Angela and she'll now be able to get buffed by Spider-Man, even though he moves away before resolving. This is also going to fix a few of the bugs we've had with Luke's Bar, as cards that got bounced sometimes became untrackable for other triggers.
In the vast majority of cases, this change won't affect your gameplay experience at all. It really did only matter for a few corner cases. However, we're providing the list of cards and locations that have slightly different behavior now below.
Cards
Angela
Titania
Silk
Elsa Bloodstone
Negasonic Teenage Warhead
Werewolf By Night
Echo
Lockjaw
Locations
Altar of Death
Aunt May's
Bar Sinister
Cloning Vats
Danger Room
Death's Domain
Hotel Inferno
Lechuguilla
Luke's Bar
Machineworld
Noor Dimension
Orchis Forge
Quantum Realm
Quantum Tunnel
Shuri's Lab
Sinister London
Tarnax
Vibranium Mines
Vormir
Location Updates
Fisk Tower
[Old] When a card moves here, destroy it.
[New] When a card moves here, afflict it with -4 Power.
Developer Notes: All of the notes for Kingpin above basically apply here. We still want a location that plays spoiler to movement, but without the confusing elements created by occasionally destroying unrevealed cards.
Bug Fixes
Card Logic Fixes in 23.x
Resolved an issue with Jean Grey that was inappropriately causing her to return staged cards to her opponent’s hand
Cleaned up inconsistencies with how some cards’ “After You Player Here” triggers would function after being moved while unrevealed
Shadow King should no longer prevent Mysterio’s power from being set to his actual value upon reveal
VFX & SFX Fixes in 23.x
VFX should now play to indicate album progression
The “Make a Deck” VFX should now properly play when used while claiming a card as an Album reward
Resolved an issue where the “Make a Deck” VFX could loop indefinitely under rare circumstances
Negasonic Teenage Warhead’s VFX should no longer be visible while the card is unrevealed
Fixed an issue that prevented some Ongoing cards from glowing while Spectrum was hovering
Other Fixes in 23.x
Web Shop Purchase Receipt: players will now get an Inbox message receipt when making a purchase in the MARVEL SNAP Web Shop.
In the news section, there is now a red notification pip next to unread articles.
Made a fix to hopefully improve Shop loading times
Reward assets should no longer be visible behind the banner images for Albums
The arrow for previewing a spotlight cache’s associated avatar is no longer obscured if the card has associated token cards (ex: Thanos)
The string for “Starter Deck” should now be properly localized in most languages
Fixed several localizations issues related to Album strings in Japanese
Resolved an issue that caused the Token Shop to not update properly upon earning enough Tokens to make a purchase
Fixed an issue that prevented the Token Shop from updating appropriately after spending Tokens
Fixed an alignment issue with the Album UI itself
Cleaned up Tarnax IV’s background image
Fixed an issue in the FTUE that could result in a softlock for players who attempted to delete their decks
Fixed a few minor UI issues with the FTUE
Addressed an issue with Album toast notifications not appearing when the variant is claimed from a Collector’s Reserver
Fixed an issue that had the header of the Collection screen displaying inappropriately after using the Smart Deck Builder
Cleaned up a small visual artifact that could occur when swapping between the Cards and Albums tabs of the Collection
Fixed an issue that could cause Album progression to not visually update on occasion
Corrected a localization issue that would occasionally result in Thai or Japanese strings not fully displaying within a given text box
Players should now be able to close the card detail view of a Spotlight Cache card by clicking off of the card
Emotes should now be carried over properly when copying decks
Made an adjustment to how new Albums are sorted on the Album screen
The Collection Level UI should no longer clip into the Spotlight Cache chest
Fixed an issue that would result in the Season Pass progress bar varying in width depending on which carousel banner the player was on
Fixed an issue that was preventing Spotlight Cache carousel assets from displaying initially
Adjusted Card Back sizing during the cosmetic preview so that it no longer covers up its name and other UI assets
Made some changes to better align various UI sizing and placement across different devices
Fixed an issue where attempting to Refill Missions with gold would display the wrong error message
PC Fixed Issues in 23.x
[PC] Album rewards should no longer flicker when initially viewed
Bug Fixes in 22.29
Resolved an issue with Blob that was occasionally causing the game to crash
Cleaned up some VFX issues with Blob that were causing input-related issues to occur
Fixed an issue that was preventing Sebastian Shaw’s power from updating appropriately when used with Forge
Addressed an issue that was preventing some players from logging into the game with older accounts
Some users on lower-end devices should no longer receive an Aw Snap error when matchmaking against opponents
Fixed an issue that prevented Featured Mystery Variants from appearing in the Shop
Adjusted the icon of Featured Mystery Variants to be properly centered
Made several localization changes to resolve translation errors
PC Bug Fixes in 22.29
[PC] Removed a phantom red notification pip that would display on the Season Pass
Known Issues List
New Known Issues for Existing Features and Content in 23.x
Uatu’s VFX are temporarily being disabled to address issues with him on locations like Deep Space, expect a proper fix in the next major client update
A Pig created by Spider-Ham targeting an evolved High Evolutionary card is not considered as having no ability text by things such as Washington D.C.
Krakoa’s location text doesn’t properly render when hovering cards over the location after it’s been triggered
Card Back assets may not render properly in all areas of the game for some devices
The top of the Deck Edit UI may not extend to the top of the screen and be partially cut off
The dropshadow of the title asset on the Cosmetics screen may be misaligned
Longer titles may not line break appropriately and overlap the player’s name during the Matchmaking screen
Shop elements can be interacted with in the background of the Fast Upgrade UI
Create New Deck icon is incorrectly displayed vertically
Swapping between favorited variants while editing a deck can result in that variant being visually duplicated in the deck creator
Favorite and Equip buttons may overlap cosmetic names and text on some devices
The “Show” text of the Collection search filter is sometimes vertically misaligned
Some visual artifacts may occur when upgrading cards in post-match
The Sort options for Emotes refers to them as Cards
After buying a card from the Token Shop, the other timers may briefly show an incorrect timer
On rare occasions when using the Smart Deck feature the cards won’t render properly and be invisible in the Deck Editor view
Tapping on the same emote multiple times from the Collection will result in the asset not loading in the preview
After tapping on the Clone button on the drop-down menu of a Deck, that drop-down isn’t closed
When in the “Waiting” state, the End Turn button may blink repeatedly on some devices
PC New Known Issues in 23.x
[PC] Card ability text may be cut off along the bottom of the Collection screen
[PC] Mission progression toast messages can appear in and obscure parts of the Conquest UI
[PC] Album progress indicators aren’t properly centered
[PC] It can be difficult to preview the Spotlight Cache cards from the carousel due to the buttons being too small
[PC] Toggling between the Deck Edit and Cosmetics tabs of the Collection can result in the Favorites button being incorrectly highlighted
Existing Known Issues
Player’s can’t play to Super Skrull’s location when an opposing Jean Grey is in play elsewhere
The transition is abrupt and the screen flickers when opting to go view a deck created by the Smart Deck builder from the Collection Track
The “Nevermind” button will return you to the collection screen rather than the card detail view when opting to not make a deck with smart deck builder
There’s a superfluous tab indicator on the new emotes panel that isn’t accessible
Emote assets blink into existence when viewing Album rewards
Clicking on the “Go To Deck” button after using the Smart Deck builder can briefly display the main menu before transitioning properly to deck edit
The edit deck button collider when selecting a deck isn’t large enough making the right side not responsive
Spotlight caches will not become available after claiming a spotlight key as an album reward while under CL 500
Previewing the Infinity border of a variant in the shop and then tapping the purchase button without completing the purchase will prevent previewing other rarities until closing and reopening the card detail view
The arrows for scrolling between rarity previews don’t grey out when there are no more options in either direction
An On Reveal card played before Wong will see an icon in the card detail view that implies it’s affected by Wong when it hasn’t been
Card ability text overlaps the upgrade text when upgrading during post-match
Symbiote VFX for cards being merged by Klyntar flicker briefly as each card is merged
The asset for some boosters on the Season Pass aren’t rendering in the proper color
Nico Minoru’s VFX aren’t displaying properly when she’s initially drawn to hand
Occasionally cards drawn from the Mind Stone will flicker briefly in hand
Spotlight Cache preview assets are occasionally failing to load on the main menu carousel
The favorites button on the collection screen is sometimes improperly highlighted
On very rare occasions the Shop button on the navigation bar may become unresponsive (restarting the app should correct this)
The string for “Nowhere to Play” extends outside of the UI panel in Japanese
Some VO lines in certain languages are playing at too low of a volume or in the wrong language
In Russian and French, 4+ digit quantities for credits and gold are missing their notation
If you have the S3 claim reward confirmation up at the time that the card timer rolls over, the UI is no longer closable
Attempting to claim multiple rewards from the Collection Level track simultaneously can result in an error occurring
The missiong reward animation fails to play when you tap to complete missions from the main menu carousel
Sometimes newly upgraded infinity variants will have some z-fighting and other visual artifacts occur on the upgrade screen
The flare icon for some infinity split cards is occasionally missing its asset and displaying as a white block
The SOLD text after purchasing a bundle is too large in some languages
Occasional Z-fighting can be seen when card reveals and VFX occur while the player information panels are open
Lady Deathstrike's thumb is partially obscured at the base and framebreak rarity levels
Distorted SFX can occur when scrolling through the CLTR after upgrading a card
Living Tribunal's VFX can repeat if played with certain other cards
Card flare effects aren't playing to full effect
Hulks generated by Gamma Lab show VFX for High Evolutionary but do not receive the updated ability.
VFX associated with High Evolutionary’s evolved cards can occasionally persist after the card or location has been destroyed
The infinity split prompt extends out of frame in Japanese
The pin button persists on the token shop after you’ve claimed that card but does not function
Evolved Shocker’s VFX initially target nothing
[Conquest] Occasionally the exclusive card progress bar doesn’t update appropriately until you’ve switched screens
Missions may not visually update properly when on the missions screen as the timer rolls over
[Conquest] Some oddities with asset layering
Hard restarting your app in the middle of a Fast Upgrade can cause an error to occur after you’ve restarted necessitating another restart to fix
SFX do not play when retreating on turn 1
It can be hard to add or delete letters in the deck name on Android.
Mysterio’s token doesn’t update appropriately in all views when a using a variant.
Spectrum’s VFX for indicating which cards will be impacted by her ability aren’t always displaying
Cards in the Fast Upgrade section occasionally show the incorrect art.
Quantum Realm doesn't reduce the power of cards that have their cost and power swapped.
Some item names in bundles have too-small fonts or can be cut off in some languages.
Series 3 Token shop may show duplicate items before it’s rolled through each card.
If you own all Series 4 and 5 cards as well as all Ultimate variants then the token shop will become inaccessible for Series 3 cards as well
Logging out and attempting to sign in via a different method can result in a hang on the Assembling splash
When Scarlet Witch or Reality Stone changes a location to Project Pegasus or Tinkerer's Workshop, this location can trigger two turns.
Corners of cards can appear cut off when tilted during the card detail view
A long delay can occur an indestructible card such as colossus is played on Murderworld
Infinity Stone card descriptions overlap the art assets in Korean
Upgrade button not greyed out when the player doesn’t have enough credits
[Conquest] Repeatedly tapping on screen as you exit Conquest may cause the UI to break and require a restart to fix
If a player immediately restarts the app after fast upgrading a card they may see the upgrade rollback
Mission packs don't refresh if you're looking at them (need to change screens to see them update)
The favorites icon may unintentionally be highlighted when equipping new cosmetics
The “Set as Favorite” UI can become misaligned when swapping between languages
The 20th deck can occasionally be partially obscured by the UI when scrolling through
Occasionally the word “Free” on the daily 50 credits icon can change to a “0”
The currently selected deck may not always be the deck in focus when opening Deck Selection
The “Claimed” banner on the season pass may be misaligned for some levels
The carousel banners for Weekend Missions occasionally show incorrectly as “Season Missions”
The dropdown menu doesn’t move with the deck list as the player scrolls
The losing player’s avatar in Conquest and Friendly battle will occasionally display incorrectly at match end
The title UI asset can overlap the cardback asset in the cosmetics loadout UI
The glowing border asset for adding/removing a card from your deck is occasionally layered improperly and shows behind other cards
The card asset can obscure various UI elements when being claimed off of the CLTR
Occasionally a miniaturized snapshot of the prior game can be seen when transitioning back to the main menu after a match
PC Specific Known Issues
[PC] Multiple tabs can be highlighted at once if using a touchscreen device
[PC] The "Never Seen Before" UI can overlap the Retreat UI in Friendly Battles
[PC] The background assets of the Conquest UI can briefly disappear when transitioning between UI
[PC] Some UI artifacting can occur at different PC resolutions
[PC] After toggling between portrait and landscape mode the player is occassionally brought to the Collection screen instead of the Main Menu
[PC] The season missions tab isn't properly highlighted when accessing the missions UI from the Main Menu
[PC] Some UI elements on the main menu are missing their hoverstate SFX
[PC] Hovering over the emojis in card detail view while in a match highlights the base emoji as well
[PC] The main menu may flicker briefly when returning to it from other screens
[PC] The “Swap this Variant into All Decks” UI modal doesn’t always close appropriately
[PC] The weekly missions reward UI is missing its blur effect
[PC] Using Fast Upgrade from the Shop can cause some minor but strange UI layering issues with the collection screen
[PC] Mousewheel scrolling doesn’t work in the gaps between avatars in the Avatar selection screen
[PC] Deck names in the collection screen can occasionally overlap
[PC] The loading splash screen briefly displays on screen when completing a purchase from the shop
[PC] Assets may layer or display oddly at the top of the Collection Track for players who have not unlocked Spotlight Caches
[PC] The red notification pip may be missing from the Collection Level tab when there are rewards to claim
[PC] Some cards viewed from the Albums UI are missing their series label
Those are the full patch notes from Marvel Snap's January 9, 2024 update. Visit our Marvel Snap topic page for the latest news on the card battler.