A new season means a new big patch for Marvel Snap. In this article, we will go through what’s new in the August 8, 2023 patch with a little bit of analysis and commentary. At the end of the article, we’ll go through a short recap of the previous OTA update, in case you’ve missed that. Without further ado, here are the August 8 patch notes for the Marvel Snap update.
Marvel Snap August 8 Update – Full Patch Notes Listed
Here they are, folks! Feast your eyes upon these changes. Some cards have taken a pretty big hit.
GENERAL UPDATES
- New Feature – Multi-Upgrade: If you have enough resources, Multi-Upgrade allows you to select the Quality you’d like to target and tap the upgrade button once to directly skip to that Quality level! Save your thumbs and save some time!
- New Feature – Upgrade with Gold: If you are short on Credits and/or Boosters but still want to upgrade a card, you can now upgrade your cards with Gold (up to a limit each day).
- Improved Avatar Selection Flow: Tapping on the Avatar on the Main Menu will now bring up the Avatar Select screen, allowing you to change the current deck’s avatar quickly.
- When you view an upgradeable card in your Collection, and choose not to upgrade it, it will be “marked as read” and will no longer increase the red-dot notification count. Note: This went live in our last patch, but we forgot to put it in the patch notes.
BALANCE UPDATES
CARD UPDATES
Cable
- [Old] 2/2 – On Reveal: Put the bottom card of your opponent’s deck into your hand.
- [New] 2/2 – On Reveal: Draw the top card of your opponent’s deck.
Developer Note: The change to America Chavez starting on the bottom of the deck was predictably damaging to Cable, as drawing your opponent’s Chavez was usually good for them, not you. We didn’t value that too highly because Cable’s play rate was already low, but that was a mistake on our part. Conquest has shown that players really enjoy playing with cards that can give them an information advantage against their opponents. This is a simple enough change, just going to the other end of the deck, but we’ve also gone ahead and updated the template to reflect the action Cable is actually taking, which is drawing a card.
Indeed, it was awkward to get completely stuck with America Chavez and I am surprised it took them this long to update Cable. Now, your opponent will know what you’ve got if they had Howard the Duck!
Magik
- [Old] 3/2 – You can’t play this on turn 6. On Reveal: Change this location to ‘Limbo’.
- [New] 3/2 – On Reveal: Replace this location with ‘Limbo’. Doesn’t work after turn 5.
Developer Note: Our OTA on 7/20 mentioned this was coming, and here it is! This isn’t a large change to Magik, mostly just making her a legal card to play on turn 6. However, it’s worth noting that the VFX behavior has changed a little bit. She used to light up with fire on the last turn you could play her, but now that corona will indicate whether or not you’ll be able to create Limbo based on the turn count.
Boo!
Mister Negative
- [Old] 4/-1 – On Reveal: Swap the Power and Cost of all cards in your deck.
- [New] Gameplay Change: Caps Costs at a maximum of 6. (no text change)
Developer Note: This is a minor change to improve players’ quality of life by adding consistency to in-game interactions. The Peak location has this cap, which it needs because otherwise many cards would become literally impossible to play when the location appears. Mister Negative doesn’t expressly need it, because his decks are built to minimize Power in-deck. However, it’s intuitive for that location and this card to function the same, so we’re lining them up. Plus, it makes Jane Foster shells a little less risky.
Good, now the Living Tribunal won’t be 9-Cost anymore when I “flip” it!
Rogue
- [Old] 3/2 – On Reveal: Steal an Ongoing ability from a random enemy card at this location.
- [New] Gameplay Change: Now triggers On Reveals if the copied Ongoing card had one. (no text change)
Developer Note: As mentioned when we changed Mystique in the previous patch, Rogue is receiving an update to bring players’ expectation around copying card text via On Reveal in line with the outcome. Moving forward, we expect cards that copy text when they Reveal to consistently trigger the On Reveals of cards they copy.
- [Old] 5/4 – On Reveal: Your opponent can’t play cards at this location next turn.
- [New] 3/5 – On Reveal: Move to another location and pull an enemy card from here to there.
Developer Note: All right, this is a big one. Let’s start on the mechanical angle: the previous Spider-Man incarnation was a polarizing card. It prevented your opponent from playing cards at a location, a frustrating experience. It was most popular following Wave into Galactus or in “lockdown” decks, which are both decks that use combinations of cards to reduce the total play space of the game for your opponent. We want some of that–the game needs a variety of strategies. But we don’t want those decks or even one of those cards to be the best in the game. Our best cards should be cool and awesome. But you know who’s cool and awesome? Spider-Man! There’s an irreconcilable dissonance in having one of the most popular characters in the Marvel canon attached to an effect we don’t want to be popular. Discovering Spider-Man in our game should be a great experience. Since launch, we’ve also added more Spider-Verse to the game and seen players enjoy the theme of movement for those cards. So we’re making a change and bringing Peter in line with the rest with a new ability. Will we return the old ability to the game on a new card? Maybe, but for now let’s go with no–it’s not been adding much fun. We don’t take this kind of rework to a card lightly, so we’re happy to hear your feedback through all the usual channels. We don’t intend to start suddenly remaking tons of cards, but understanding your feelings may help us better understand the appropriate thresholds for this action in the future.
Indeed, Spider-Man was not healthy for the game and it was completely unfun to lose to Galactus combo without having a chance to counterplay.
“Evolved” The Thing
- [Old] 4/6 – On Reveal: Afflict a random enemy card here with -1 Power. Repeat this twice more.
- [New] 4/6 – On Reveal: Afflict 3 random enemy cards here with -1 Power.
Developer Note: High Evolutionary has mostly landed in a healthy spot since we made the tweaks to Hulk and Wasp during the last patch, but this is one more small twist of the dial. Cyclops has been really strong still, but we like keeping him strong in High Evolutionary shells based on ensuring a character with his popularity has a solid and satisfying home. The Thing has actually outperformed Scott a bit lately, and this change also makes the afflict curve from Wasp into Cyclops into Thing more elegant, distributing -1 Power to one more card at each stop. It’s a slight buff to Abomination, but a slight nerf to The Thing’s strength as a single card attacking a location.
Thank you for the Nerf!
Related: A Player Has Somehow Reached The Current Maximum Collection Level in Marvel Snap
BUG FIXES
- Fixed a bug that would cause Mirror Dimension to repeatedly morph into another Mirror Dimension in a loop.
- Fixed a bug that would cause players to get stuck on an old Season Pass season.
- Performance improvements and UI/UX bug fixes.
KNOWN ISSUE LIST
- For Windows: Controller and Arrow Keys are unsupported. This may impact Steam Deck usability as it will only be usable with touch controls.
- Using Multi-Upgrade only counts as 1 Upgrade for the “Upgrade a Card” Mission
And now, Marvel Snap OTA update from the previous week.
Related: Is Marvel Snap Pay-to-Win? – Answered
Marvel Snap OTA Update – August 3 2023
Hawkeye
- [Old] 1/1 – On Reveal: If you play a card here next turn, +2 Power
- [Change] …next turn, +2 Power. ->…next turn, +3 Power.
Finally! It literally didn’t see any play.
Hulkbuster
- [Old] 3/4 – On Reveal: Merge this card with a random friendly card at this location.
- [Change] 3/4 -> 3/5
This change legit made me see Hulkbuster decks all day today.
Vision
- [Old] 5/7 – You can move this each turn.
- [Change] 5/7 -> 5/8
Good Shuri backup tool when Red Skull is not there.
Captain Marvel
- 5/6 – At the end of the game, move to a location that wins you the game. (If possible)
- [Change] 5/6 -> 4/5
Welcome to Zabu Deck, Cap’n!
Absorbing Man
- [Old] 4/3 – On Reveal: If the last card you played has an On Reveal, copy its text. (if it’s in play)
- [Change] 4/3 -> 4/5
This is a strong change but I didn’t see a lot of this card. I guess I’ll have to take the dust off the Exodia Hazmat deck.
Conquest Tuning Changes
In addition to the balance changes, this OTA also includes some tuning changes to Medal earn rates in Conquest.
- The medal earn rate in Silver Conquests is greatly increased.
- The medal earn rate in Gold & Infinite Conquests is slightly increased.
Proving Grounds
- Entry – 15 (No Change)
Silver
- Entry – 20 (No Change)
- 1 Win – 150 (+75)
- 2 Wins – 200 (+100)
Gold
- Entry – 75 (No Change)
- 1 Win – 250 (+100)
- 2 Wins – 300 (+100)
- 3 Wins – 350 (+50)
Infinity
- Entry – 200 (No Change)
- 1 Win – 400 (+100)
- 2 Wins – 500 (+50)
- 3 Wins – 600 (+50)
- 4 Wins – 800 (No Change)
- 5 Wins – 1000 (No Change)
That’s all, folks. If you want to try out the new Captain Marvel, check out How does Captain Marvel work in Marvel Snap? Rulings and mechanics explained as well as When did spending thousands of dollars in video games become the new normal?.
