The highly anticipated July 12 update for Marvel Snap is finally here. Aside from a whole bunch of card balance changes and updates, this patch also brings the new Spotlight Cache system to the game, allowing players to unlock new cards more quickly. There are also quite a few other minor changes to get into, so here’s a full breakdown of the Marvel Snap July 12 patch.
Marvel Snap July 12, 2023 Card Balance Changes
First off, let’s go over the big card changes in this patch:
Ever since High Evolutionary released in Marvel Snap, we’ve seen a huge shift in the meta as well as the rise of various vanilla cards and new deck archetypes. High Evo Lockjaw and High Evo Control dominated Conquest mode last month, so it’s no surprise to see that Second Dinner is choosing to tone down some of the evolved cards a little. The two cards hit in this patch are Wasp and Hulk.
- “Evolved” Wasp
- [Old] 0/1 – On Reveal: Afflict 2 random enemy cards here with -1 Power.
- [New] 0/1 – On Reveal: Afflict a random enemy card here with -1 Power.
Developer Note: Pretty simple–Wasp is too good. Wasp is specifically fantastic in conjunction with Lockjaw and Jane Foster, playing a more like a +4 bonus on two Lockjaw rolls than just an 0/3. However, she’s also winning more cubes overall than any other High Evolutionary card, so we’re weakening her to meaningfully impact all of these decks.
- “Evolved” Hulk
- [Old] 6/12 – Ongoing: +2 Power for each turn you ended with unspent Energy.
- [New] 6/12 – When you end a turn with unspent Energy, +2 Power. (if in hand or in play)
Developer Note: Similarly, Hulk appears in every High Evolutionary shell we’ve been monitoring, and Hulk strongest there is–even given the unfortunate bug that doesn’t count the last turn of the game, should you happen to have an Energy to spare. This adjustment will remove that issue and also reduce the average Power of Hulk, especially in Lockjaw shells where players could often accumulate Energy without ever drawing Hulk at all.
Surprisingly, Gambit also got hit with a bit of a nerf in Marvel Snap. Previously, players didn’t need to have any cards in hand for Gambit’s destroy effect to trigger, but all that has changed this month. To compensate for the change, Gambit has also gotten a slight power bump. That being said, this means that the Wong/Mystique/Gambit Exodia combo is now completely dead in Marvel Snap.
- Gambit
- [Old] 3/1 – On Reveal: Discard a card from your hand. Destroy a random enemy card.
- [New] 3/3 – On Reveal: Discard a card from your hand. Destroy a random enemy card.
- Now must discard a card to destroy anything (no text change)
Developer Note: For some time now, players have noted a confusing dissonance between Gambit’s effect destroying cards whether you discard a card or not, while Arnim Zola must destroy his target in order to create copies of it. In addition to being inconsistent, Gambit’s creative concept is “throwing” cards at your enemies–if you have no cards to throw, why would it work? Since this is a nerf, and Gambit’s not a highly-played card, we’re compensating him for that loss with +2 Power. The Wong combo decks will suffer a bit, and perhaps need to start including something like Apocalypse or Swarm if they want to blow up the board. However, using Gambit in more traditional decks might be an interesting option.
- Mystique
- [New] Gameplay Change: Now triggers On Reveals if the copied Ongoing card had one (no text change).
Developer Note: Similarly, this is a change to better line up players’ intuitions with outcomes. Whenever a card in our game copies an ability, it implicitly copies the whole text box. When Absorbing Man copies a card with an On Reveal and an Ongoing ability, like Soul Stone or Electro, he gets both, immediately. But when Mystique does, she gets the On Reveal ability without triggering it–even though she was just played, like Absorbing Man. This doesn’t come up often, but we consider it a quality of life improvement. We’ll also make this adjustment to Rogue, just trying it here first.
Finally, after Nakia got hit with a brutal nerf alongside Okoye months ago, Second Dinner is finally powering her up a little. Her new effect gives all cards in your hand +1 Power, and she also gets a small power bump herself. It’s not a crazy change, but she should see more viability now, especially in Surfer decks.
- Nakia
- [Old] 3/2 – On Reveal: Give the 2 leftmost cards in your hand +2 Power.
- [New] 3/3 – On Reveal: Give all cards in your hand +1 Power.
Developer Note: Nakia has been underperforming for a while now, a far cry from her days of dominance during the game’s beta period. In addition, her affect was a little complex, especially for a card debuting in Series 2. We’re trying to address both of those issues with this change, making Nakia a stronger, simpler card to play with. Maybe she finds a new home in the competitive metagame, maybe not–time will tell.
Spotlight Caches
We have a whole guide detailing exactly how Spotlight Caches work in Marvel Snap, but essentially, this new system will feature a select few cards each week, and you have a chance of getting one of them when you open a Spotlight Cache.
You should get a Spotlight Cache every 10 or so Reserves, and if you already own all of the featured cards for that week, you’ll get a variant instead. This new system is intended to make it easier for players to acquire new cards without having to hoard Tokens or Gold. Conversely, this system also makes it such that you’ll receive much fewer Tokens and Gold from the Collector’s Reserves.
Daily Offers and Premium Variants
Finally, the other big change in this month’s patch is the introduction of Premium Variants. Every day, you’ll have the option of purchasing a Premium Mystery Variant in the shop for 800 Gold, and this has the chance of giving you a Rare or Super Rare Variant, and will not include any Pixel Variants.
In addition to that, you’ll also be rewarded with 2,000 Tokens and one Premium Mystery Variant for every 10 purchases you make in the shop. This reward is claimable once per week.
And that’s everything that’s been introduced in the July 12, 2023 patch for Marvel Snap. The patch didn’t exactly shake up the meta game, as Kitty Pryde and the bounce decks are still running rampant, and High Evo decks are still in a decent spot, but make sure to check out our take on the best Jean Grey decks if you’re looking to pick her up from a Spotlight Cache this week.
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