Marvel Snap Patch Notes (May 16th 2023) – Big Ranked Mode Changes!

Just as I finished writing my report about Howard the Duck, a new card just came into Marvel Snap this morning, and we’ve ever got the Patch Notes too! Ain’t this a holiday of great Marvel Snap news? A lot has changed in this major patch, and I don’t want to bug you with a lengthy intro, so here are the Marvel Snap patch notes for May 16, 2023, directly from the Second Dinner. Oh and by the way: Great adjustments have been done to the Ranked mode which will result in less grind. Check out below what’s happening, you’ll be delighted to learn about this!

PATCH HIGHLIGHTS (Marvel Snap News, May 16th 2023)

Kitty Pryde Returns

• Kitty Pryde returns to MARVEL SNAP with a brand new ability. We will grant Kitty Pryde base card to ALL players. For new accounts created after today’s patch, Kitty Pryde will be available in Series 5.

New Feature: Deck Cosmetics Customization

• Cosmetic customizations by deck (card back, title, avatar): Avatars and Titles can now be applied to each deck separately!
• Please Note: The first time you log in to this patch, your active deck will be changed to the first deck in your list. We apologize for this inconvenience!

Related: New Marvel Snap Card – Howard the Duck – Showcase, Decks, Counters, and Synergies

Seasonal Series Drop: Some cards have dropped down to a lower series!

Here’s what the drops will be.

Cards dropping from Series 5 to Series 4:

• Master Mold
• Negasonic
• Nimrod

Series 4 to 3:

• Sentry
• Silver Surfer
• Dazzler
• Shadow King
• Sauron
• Ghost

Cards staying in Series 4:

• Darkhawk
• Knull

An update has been made to our Series Drop article:

Related: Marvel Snap Series Drop Schedule (2023)

GENERAL UPDATES

Ranked Mode

• The number of Cubes required to Rank Up has decreased from 10 Cubes to 7 Cubes.
• The number of Bonus Ranks gained when Tiering up has been reduced from 5 Ranks to 3 Ranks. (Example: When ranking up from Rank 29, a player will go to Rank 33 instead of Rank 35.)

Developer Note: We’re continuing to make adjustments to Ranked Mode that will improve the overall experience for players. The changes coming with this patch feature some adjustments to the matchmaking algorithm and updates to the number of Cubes/Ranks while progressing through the season. There are more changes planned for future patches!

Less grind = Players will be happier. Trust me. Luckily, I have achieved Infinite in two consecutive months. Here’s my experience which you can read.

When purchasing an item from the shop, you must now Press and Hold the button to confirm your purchase. This should help reduce/remove any accidental purchases!

They finally addressed the “accidental” purchase issue because Marvel Snap’s Policy is “no refunds” which is perfectly fine from a certain standpoint. I was so scared to scroll down on my phone for the daily 50 credits!

Added Series 1 and Series 2 labels to cards from those series

AUDIO

Voice Over Updates

• Indonesian VO mixed & mastered
• Thanos VO added for Spanish, French, Japanese, Chinese & Korean

General Updates

• Fixed bug which would over-trigger card flare SFX in the collection screen and in-game

BALANCE UPDATES

This is a light week relative to the excitement of recent patches. The metagame as April ended featured a diverse metagame with healthy win rates and cube gain rates and only a couple of small popularity outliers. We’ll have more news for you soon on the future of our OTA balance patches, but today is mostly just a couple of card reworks.

CARD UPDATES

Kitty Pryde – Released with the new design!

• [Old] 1/0 – You can return this to your hand to gain +2 Power.
• [New] 1/0 – When this returns to your hand, +2 Power. Returns at the start of each turn.

As we previously announced, Kitty Pryde will be returning to the game this week with her new ability. She’ll be Series 5 and awarded to all active accounts today.

How to Get Kitty Pryde in Marvel Snap

You just have it in your collection when you log in. That’s how I got mine. Spotted her as a common when I opened the collection, and was using a PC (Steam) Client at the time. I am not sure how good she will be though. Hoping for the best!

Crystal Change in Marvel Snap

• [Old] 4/4 – On Reveal: If this is at the middle location, shuffle your hand into your deck and draw 3 cards.
• [New] 4/4 – On Reveal: Each player draws a card.

Crystal has been one of a handful of cards seeing incredibly low play and win rates for quite some time now, and an obvious buff candidate. We debated maintaining the direction of the current effect by removing the middle restriction, increasing the cards drawn, etc. But the tricky thing is that we don’t want an effect like Crystal’s to be strong. SNAP decks are only 12 cards and we don’t want those cards to play out the same every time, so we’re very careful about letting players draw cards. This rework aimed to make a simple, appropriate Crystal that could be fun alongside a variety of cards.

No! Why? I mean sure, Ronan the Accuser and Baron Mordo will like it…

Wave Nerf in Marvel Snap

• [Old] 3/3 – On Reveal: Next turn, cards in both players’ hands cost 4.
• [New] 3/3 – On Reveal: All cards cost 4 until the end of the next turn.

Wave’s cost reduction occurs after other effects that reduce card costs. In addition to a text update that clarifies when Wave’s effect begins, we’ve also made a rather large adjustment “under the hood.” Wave will now begin to apply after effects that reduce card costs, rather than before. That means She-Hulk, Death, etc. will always cost 4 while Wave is in effect. We don’t take lightly that this change kills a few decks, but Wave has been far too constraining on our ability to use cost reduction as a synergy reward in future designs. Leaning on Wave is just always better than dedicating your deck to the actual synergy–we’ve seen that with Death since both cards went live, and we’ll continue seeing it without this action.

Death Buff in Marvel Snap

Indeed, this is a buff, but the Wave synergy is out of the window now which makes the Death nerfed when you underline all that has been done.

• [Old] 9/12 – Costs 1 less for each card destroyed this game.
• [New] 8/12 – Costs 1 less for each card destroyed this game.

As Death’s current performance is essentially dependent on Wave and Galactus, we wanted to improve her playability in other decks now that the interaction with Wave has changed. This may not be enough, and if we see Death take a huge dive we’ll come back and look at how these values can be adjusted further to ensure Death remains a meaningful card for dedicated Destroy decks.

Fun times, now when you both pass your turn with that freaky Location that spawns 8 rocks, Death is now FREE to drop.

White Queen (Text-only change)

• [Old text] 4/6 – On Reveal: Draw a copy of the highest-Cost card in your opponent’s hand.
• [New text] 4/6 – On Reveal: Copy the highest-Cost card in your opponent’s hand into your hand.

This is just a text revision to resolve some ongoing confusion about what White Queen exactly does and how it interacts with cards like Widow’s Bite. In the future, we may pursue establishing some kind of shorthand for copying a card into your hand, but for now we’re just going with the clearest expression of the card’s function.

BUG FIXES

• Retreating while Kang is rewinding should no longer cause an Aw Snap error.
• Quake’s shuffling of locations should no longer prevent Shuri’s buff from being applied.
• “Rare” and “Super Rare” labels on cards should now be properly translated.
• Energy UI assets should no longer overlap when gaining extra energy.
• Speech bubble UI should no longer be hidden by cards in hand.
• Sandman and Electro should no longer show their VFX if they’ve been morphed into another card.
• Playing Hulk Buster on Iron Fist should now correctly show the merged card move.
• The “Set as Favorite” text should no longer overlap with the star UI icon in most languages.
• Snowguard (Hawk) should no longer cause an Aw Snap to occur when played on Knowhere with other On Reveal cards.
• Knowhere’s VFX for On Reveal cards should no longer display when the location is disabled by Snowguard (Hawk).
• Unseen cards with reference cards (such as Snowguard) should now show their reference cards when viewed for the first time in the Token Shop.
• Many localization adjustments to the size of the text in Thai.
• She-Hulk adjusted so her fist no longer obscures her power.
• Spaces should be better handled by card search in the collection.
• Cards that have had their power altered by other cards should show the proper adjustments in the card detail view.
• The Season pass should now include the Mystery Variant reward on the Free Track.
• The Weekly Spotlight should now update appropriately when new cards are released and previous cards move into the S4/S5 slot.
• The player’s Token balance should be visible while viewing a card in the Token Shop.
• Jeff should be able to move where he pleases after being returned to hand by Beast
• [PC] Playing Sentry should no longer cause an Aw Snap error.

KNOWN ISSUES LIST

• It can be difficult to interact with the emotes in-match on some devices.
• The Season Pass spotlight card text is too large in some languages.
• Set as Favorite icon overlaps with the text icon in some languages.
• If you have the Series 3 card focused when the shop rolls, the screen will be blank for a moment.
• Banner VFX displays the wrong turn timer when Kang rewinds time.
• It can be hard to add or delete letters in the deck name on Android.
• The reconnecting text doesn’t show all the time when Reconnecting to a Friendly battle.
• Two players snapping on the same turn can cause the displayed energy pips to be incorrect.
• Sandman and Electro may not visually show the power on a location if the location is locked down.
• After the shop rolls over, some assets might be missing (which should be resolved after playing a match).
• The new player flow can be bypassed in some situations and cause the client to break until restarting.
• Spamming the Pin button on items in the Token Shop may cause an Aw Snap error.
• Scrolling through the Shop can conflict with the newly added horizontal scrolling of the Token Shop.
• Claimed Series 3 Cards in the Token Shop can appear to remain claimable until you’ve exited and returned to the shop.
• Mission reward icons may be missing.
• Ongoing abilities delay the merge VFX for Klyntar.
• Mysterio’s token doesn’t update appropriately in all views when using a variant.
• Cards that changed abilities such as Mystique may not show the updated ability text if returned to hand.
• Spectrum’s VFX for indicating which cards will be impacted by her ability isn’t always displayed.
• When played on Sinister London, Omega Red’s copy plays its VFX multiple times.
• Cards in the Fast Upgrade section occasionally show 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..
• New Release cards don’t show your available tokens in the Shop UI.
• Token Shop doesn’t snap to the currently-focused card.
• Several currency/cache icons do not display in front of the UI/background when focused.
• Some variants have artist/variant name text that clips out of the nameplate.
• There can be a visual blip on the shop page.
• Time Stone doesn’t visually grant energy to the orb.
• Snowguard’s Artist Info is missing for its token cards.
• Can edit a deck’s name from the wrong UI if simultaneously pressing both Set Card Back and Edit Deck Name
• Carousel images are occasionally not sized appropriately to the screen’s resolution
• Some elements of the splash screen may be visible across adjacent screens
• The “Next” button in Friendly Battle may be missing its asset on some iOS devices
• Entering long character Deck names can cause some UI elements to be misaligned and overlap
• The carousel UI may not fully extend vertically to the top of the screen for some devices
• The Deck icon shifts when transitioning between the Collection and the Card Selection screens
• Kang’s Rewind button no longer completely covers the End Turn button visually
• If the Nexus’ power level hits the power cap, upon sharing to other locations with 1 or more power it can overflow and wrap around to a negative value
• 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
• Notification pips can sometimes be visible beneath the card detail view
• Sometimes bundle assets can overlap each other
• 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.
• The red pip for daily credits isn’t always visible
• Corners of cards can appear cut off when tilted during the card detail view
• Colleen Wing’s VFX play more than once when discarding a card
• A long delay can occur an indestructible card such as Colossus is played on Murderworld
• Gold and Season XP assets are missing in the expanded mission details view
• Snowguard’s VFX can persist to the reward collection screen
• Infinity Stone card descriptions overlap the art assets in Korean
• The Spanish language option displays incorrectly in the language selection
• Collection Level Trophy Road assets are occasionally slow to load
• The position of the Series Label and Nameplate adjusts slightly when viewing Artist Details
• Player and Opponent text emotes occasionally overlap on some devices
• The upgrade button is not greyed out when the player doesn’t have enough credits
• The Free Series 3 Card in the token shop appears to be claimable again for a short time after claiming it
• [PC] Avatar selection for PC users may be misaligned
• [PC] Navigation buttons may disappear if redirected to the browser via carousel links
• [PC] The Carousel can be hard to scroll.
• [PC] Switching languages after switching between Windowed and Windowed Fullscreen can cause text elements to disappear in the UI.
• [PC] Certain SFX continues to play when the game is no longer in focus.

Source of the patch notes.

There has been an additional announcement regarding card acquisition which we are adding right now.

Card Acquisition Updates

The next few months are going to be truly epic for MARVEL SNAP! We have a new mode coming next month called Conquest, MARVEL SNAP on Windows continues to get polished and prepared for its global launch, and lastly, we’re dreaming up ways of improving the fun of getting new cards. We’ve seen a lot of questions and feedback about how we introduce new cards to MARVEL SNAP. With our next patch on the horizon, we’d like to share some updates about our plans to improve how you acquire new cards. Our goal over the next few months is to find ways for more people to get the chance to play with new cards, more often.

Flexible Series Release

We’ve heard many players express that releasing every new card in Series 5 is interfering with their ability to get excited about those releases. We don’t want you to feel pressured to wait for Series Drops in order to enjoy that content, and we’d like you to be able to play with more new cards each month. Our goal is to make all new card releases feel exciting, accessible, and impactful in MARVEL SNAP. In our future seasons, we’ll be experimenting with releasing some cards directly to Series 4 – starting with two cards released to Series 4 in June. We believe releasing some cards at lower Token cost will increase accessibility and excitement for new cards released each week. We’ll be listening to your feedback to find the right balance between Series 5 versus Series 4 card releases.

Flexible Series Drop

In addition to modifying the Release Series for some cards, we’ll also be taking a look at the Series Drop cadence for cards. Currently all cards are on the same schedule starting in Series 5, dropping to Series 4 and eventually Series 3. However, the reality is that not all cards are created equally appealing to players. Going forward, we’re going to exercise more flexibility in what cards drop series and when. Sometimes this means preserving the Series of a card, as is the case with Thanos and Galactus. Other times this means we may drop a card from Series 5 to Series 3 because we simply want more people to experiment with it. We may even skip a monthly series drop entirely when the meta looks fun and healthy. These decisions will be made on a card-by-card basis based on data and player feedback instead of applying a blanket rule to all cards.

Series 3 Card Acquisition

In a previous patch, we made a few changes for Series 3 players that greatly increased their Token earn rate and introduced the free, seasonal Choose Your Card section. This made new card releases more accessible to these players and ultimately resulted in more cards being collected, but we’ve heard feedback that some players would still like the flexibility to use Tokens for Series 3 cards. In addition to the Choose Your Card section, we’re adding a new way to collect Series 3 cards. In our June patch, we’re updating the Token Shop to include a new section: Series 3 Mystery Card. This option will be available for 1,000 Tokens and can be purchased anytime you have enough Tokens and unowned Series 3 cards.

More Ways to Earn Tokens

Over the last couple of months, we’ve been making adjustments to increase the rate players are able to acquire Tokens. We think there are more improvements to be made here. In the next few patches, we’ll be introducing a couple more features that will reward more Tokens to more players. Our goal is that with these new features increasing the flow of Tokens, players will be able to purchase more new cards, more frequently! The first of these new features will be Weekend Missions.

Weekend Missions:

Weekend Missions offer more goals and rewards for players, beyond their current Daily Missions and Weekly Missions. With the initial release of this feature, each weekend will have three Weekend Missions:

• Win Games to Earn Credits
• Win Games with Season Pass Card to Earn Gold (Author comment: Pay to win. Marvel Snap is now Pay to win.)
• Win Games with Newly Released Card to Earn Tokens (Author comment: How in the earth do you think that this is cool for people who just do not have the new cards? Even I am struggling to keep up with the new releases!)

Each of these reward amounts will vary depending on the difficulty of the mission. There will be Weekly Missions available for each new card release. Weekly Missions for a Newly Released Card are a great way to earn back Tokens with your new cards – essentially reducing the overall Token cost! Thank you for all your feedback and patience as we’re continuing to make updates to MARVEL SNAP. We hope to make a game that we can all play together for years to come!

I thank you for stopping by Prima Games. In case you are looking for more Marvel Snap content, stick around by clicking the game tag under this article, which will guide you to all of our recent content, including decks (with codes), new card analysis, and various news.