Sudden changes out of nowhere were announced by Second Dinner, and four cards have seen some changes that will hopefully shake up the meta a bit. Sadly, as you may presume from the title, Shuri and Leech have not been nerfed.
But, enough nitpicking, these changes are good as well. Let’s see what happened. Welcome to Prima Games.
Red Skull and Sunspot got Nerfed in Marvel Snap (April 6, 2023)
Red Skull
5/13 -> 5/12
Ongoing: Enemy cards at this location have +1 Power.
As our previous patch notes discussed, we last adjusted Red Skull to weaken specifically his interactions with Shuri and Taskmaster. Our goal was to keep his strength otherwise flat or even slightly improved and see how things settled once we’d softened Thanos’s grip on the metagame. We know many players disagreed with that approach, and we’re weighing that feedback as we continue to debate internally how “aggressive” our balance updates should be.
In this case, things settled into an improved metagame, but with decks based around Shuri and Taskmaster still too strong for our liking. We recognize Shuri is clearly the true offender here, and we have a balance change for Shuri ready. However, that change to Shuri needs a patch to be implemented–we can’t make it via OTA. So this is an interim adjustment to weaken the Shuri deck just a bit more. We do expect Shuri to remain viable after this Red Skull tweak, but we don’t want to drastically nerf multiple “innocent” cards when we have an incoming nerf to Shuri herself.
Once that change to Shuri is live, will we revert this or previous Red Skull changes? Maybe, but we’re going to give that some time because we’d rather ensure a larger shift in the metagame.
Quote from Second Dinner
Well, in my opinion, they should have just brought the Ongoing back to +2 Power to keep the punishing factor. Indeed, that can be mitigated with Zero, and the interaction with Taskmaster would still be strong, but hey… Shang-Chi exists!
Sunspot
1/1 -> 1/0
At the end of each turn, gain +1 Power for each unspent Energy.
Sunspot is one of the most heavily-played cards in the game. The why is obvious: he’s strong, he’s in Series 2, and he has powerful synergies with other cards like She-Hulk and Infinaut. The opportunity cost for having him in your deck is also very low, since you only have to have 1 spare Energy on any turn to unlock his strength floor, and the ceiling can be very high.
All of this adds up to a solid criteria for a minor nerf, creating space for less-played cards to compete more often for slots in decks. We were curious if nerfing She-Hulk would have any impact on Sunspot, but truthfully we didn’t expect any change and assumed we’d be making this adjustment sooner rather than later. We did evaluate some other changes to Sunspot, but for Series 2 cards we want to retain the elegance of the original design, just a touch weaker. As a default card in both Shuri and Thanos, this change does impact those decks a bit more than others, too.
Quote from Second Dinner
Related: A Player Has Somehow Reached The Current Maximum Collection Level in Marvel Snap
Indeed. It’s the best 1-Drop in the game. Even without Infinaut and She-Hulk in your deck. Literal staple. Let’s see what this does to Sunspot. It’s “just” one power reduction, but it can still work!
Sentry and Shadow King Just Got Buffed in Marvel Snap (April 6, 2023)
Shadow King
4/3 -> 3/3
On Reveal: Set all cards here to their original base Power.
Shadow King’s whole purpose is to fight back against exactly the kind of thing that Shuri’s doing, but this card simply released too weak to be a consideration for most decks. We recognize his status as a Series 4 card that’s used to answer powerful decks, rather than fuel them, which might limit his potential to impact the metagame. However, we’re happy to just give him this boost and see where things land from there.
Quote from Second Dinner
Related: New Marvel Snap April Bundles Revealed – Are They Worth it? – Answered
I don’t think a lot of people will play this card. Maybe in Sera Control? Great way to deal with Taskmaster, but culprits with Ongoing effects will still live (Devil Dino, Darkhawk…). Silver Surfer is out of the meta, so there are not a lot of decks that Shadow King can make an impact against at the moment.
Sentry
4/8 – You can’t play this at the right location. On Reveal: Add a -8 Power Void to the right location.
->
4/10 – You can’t play this at the right location. On Reveal: Add a -10 Power Void to the right location.
Sentry’s a card that just hasn’t found a great home yet. While these number changes aren’t an obviously impactful buff, it does increase the potential reward for running Sentry and the potential damage donating your Void with Viper can do. This is just a change we’ve been interested to try out, so we’re making it here.
Quote from Second Dinner
Related: When Will Kitty Pryde Return to Marvel Snap?
Now, Sentry is Shang-Chiable. And now, I am playing a weird Sera Control Sentry Deck with Viper and Carnage to help me get rid of it (or I can just put it over Cosmo and evade dealing with the issue). Insane value if you hit it. It will be a surprise factor that you can use to gain ranks in the next week until people start adapting to this strategy. Also, games might crash more due to Sentry’s known bug. Wonder if Sentry will have the same fate as Kitty Pryde…
That’s all for this news report, everyone! Second Dinner has announced that soon Shuri will be nerfed, her days are counted, but there’s no mention of Leech being nerfed yet. Also, card balance activities will be happening on a weekly basis from the next patch which is coming out on April 18. Stay tuned to Prima Games since we’ll report on these Patch Notes for sure.
Published: Apr 7, 2023 08:22 am