Exploring Bastion, New Human Torch, and Imbalance OTA | New OTA Decks | The Snap Chat Ep. 149

What are the impacts of the latest imbalance patch? Which decks are thriving post-OTA? How does the community feel about ranking up and the collection track? Join Alexander Coccia and special guest Ryan Hartman as they chat about this and more on this episode of The Snap Chat and catch Cozy and Alex every week as they discuss all things Marvel Snap.

You’ve been listening to The Snap Chat. Keep the conversation going on x.com/ACozyGamer and x.com/AlexanderCoccia. Until next time, happy snapping!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Special Guest Announcement
• 0:16 Ryan Hartman's Role and PAX Conventions
• 1:34 Marvel Snap Community Contributions
• 2:48 Card Game Enthusiast: From Magic to Marvel Snap
• 4:49 Marvel Snap Card Back Designs and Giveaways
• 11:28 Marvel Snap Card Reviews: Bastion
• 18:54 Marvel Snap Card Reviews: Jim Hammond Human Torch
• 30:42 Marvel Snap Balance Patch Discussion
• 38:03 Discussing Enchantress and Her Impact
• 40:23 Shadow King: A Controversial Nerf
• 42:21 Negasonic Teenage Warhead's Rise and Fall
• 47:24 The State of Cosmo and Red Guardian
• 51:29 Balancing the Game: Challenges and Opinions
• 55:08 Post-OTA Deck Strategies
• 1:01:03 Community Concerns and Suggestions
• 1:16:56 Upcoming PAX Events and Conclusion

Transcript

Alex: 0:00

Hey everyone, and welcome to the next edition of the Snapchat. I'm joined today by a very special guest, someone that I respect greatly in the gaming industry, someone who has done a tremendous amount for Marvel Snap behind the scenes, and I'm excited to get into all of it this week as well as all the topics we're discussing today. We are joined by Ryan Hartman, the Vice President of Penny Arcade, and the head of pax, the Conventions Heard Around the World. Ryan, how are you today? Great, man. Thanks for, uh, thanks for asking me to do this. This'll be fun. Yeah, I'm actually super excited because there's a couple things. First of all, we got some good topics to talk about and, uh, a lot of people might not realize this, but despite the fact that you're one of the busiest guys that I know on the planet who is literally traveling to Australia next week and then, uh, back home in a Philly like a month after or whatever, right. You have so many massive conventions out and it was just Pax PAX Prime was just the other week. It feels like you've made time. Yeah. PAX West, my apologies. These PAX West. Yeah. Actually, what, why did we change the name from Pax Prime to Pax? Was.

Ryan: 0:58

Well, once we started doing more than one show, this was like right when I got hired, I got hired right when like East started. I wasn't always in charge of everything. And the decision was made because Prime sounded like it was better than everything else. And once we started doing regional shows, so it was like east and it was south, we were like, we have to make it west. So they're one doesn't feel like it's branded better than the others.

Alex: 1:21

Yeah,

Ryan: 1:22

fair enough. And perfect sense. Just because it's like its own little like spinoff kind of thing. Like it's, it's a pacs but it's got like a special focus, you know? Yeah. That was the, that was the decision of behind anemic convention.

Alex: 1:34

And despite all of this, you are actually a avid Marvel Snap player. Uh, you play a ton of Snap. Yeah. You love car games as a whole, and I mean, people probably know, listen what

Ryan: 1:42

Dexter says. I get infinite every season. He clowns me and says, I don't, I do most once or twice. I miss if like, PAX is way too busy and I don't have enough. But I think I've only missed, and, and I was in the beta, I've played every season and I've probably not hit infinite, maybe like three or four times in the entire run of the whole game.

Alex: 2:03

Yeah. And I mean, uh, as someone who obviously has the schedule you have and keeping up with the game is, is pretty cool. But also people might not realize this. You are actually kind of the, the mind behind the community meetup that we did in Seattle where we had the, uh, developers from second dinner come by, a bunch of community members. You know, you organized all the, the gifts and giveaways and stuff like that. You're the guy responsible for the PACS card backs that go into the game. The, the bundles, the variance, all those giveaways that have become synonymous with PACS and Marvel Snap. One of the most popular not only Twitch giveaways, but we actually had Twitch drops that were those PACS as well. And you're one of the people behind that. Do you want to kind of, uh, talk about like why you wanted to kind of get involved with Snap and, uh, kind of your inspiration for getting a card back in the game?

Ryan: 2:48

Yeah, I mean, I've, I've played. Lots of card games. I love Tcgs, lcg and all sorts of card games. I'm, I'm super obsessed with card games. I played magic like everyone else did back. I played magic in like middle school when it was like first coming out, like not to age myself. I never was good enough because I was so young. I wasn't like they tour level, but I like went to a bunch of tournaments. But I got really into Versa system in high school and college, which was like upper decks, marble game. I played that at pro level. All my friends, like my social circle of friends that were all gamers, like they were pros at, uh, decipher Star Wars. There was a couple magic pros that were in our circle. Um, they were playing competitive. What else were we playing? Competitive late. I tried to get them in Pokemon right when it first dropped, and I couldn't get anyone interested in Pokemon when I first came in. We weren't really into U gao. Uh, but like still, I stuck with every game. I, I love playing card games. And this one really hooked me when it first came out. Also, I played a ton of Hearthstone. I was super deep in a heart stone, and I had known Ben from he had come and spoken at Pax before. So when he left and then jumped over here and put out a new game just on like his name alone, I was like, oh, I gotta check this out, and I love it. And I, and I, it speaks to how well it's designed that, uh, someone as busy as I am, Ken, still play and keep up at a competitive level.'cause the games are so fast. I also just love that like five minute games, you know, five minute, 10 minute, I guess if they go super long and then you're done and you're on, like, you play another one and you don't get, I don't get as tilted in this game. I'm not playing a game for like 45 minutes. And then you lose and you're like, I just wasted almost an hour and I lost. Like, here. It's like you win, you lose. The time it takes you to go to the bathroom. So you're just able to just jump back on. It doesn't hurt as much. And it's just a really well designed, quick fun game. Like, I really, really enjoy how it's done. And then when it first came out, we were all super into it and then they asked, actually second dinner reached out. First they asked Mike to, or they asked Penny Arcade if Mike wanted to do some card art. And we were like, absolutely. And Mike jumped on it immediately because he got to play with like the Marvel ip, which is, so cool. So he gets to draw like more and Spider-Man and all these things as an artist who wouldn't like, love that opportunity. And then in talking with him, I was like, Hey, would you be intro, can we do a bundle? We do some sort of giveaway at packs. You know, I proposed a bunch of different stuff to them and they were, they were super down and credit to, uh, our designer on our team, Dave, he's the one who has done all the card backs. He and I sit down and like we work through them, but he's the one who makes small happen. He did the Captain America one and he did the most recent one that kind of. Is that, uh, Metro Pass that goes with our, uh, PAX theme. But he did an amazing job and like, sounds like we'll probably do another one next year too, need to actually talk to them after this call.

Alex: 5:40

Yeah. That's amazing. And yeah, like breaking news, we'll probably have another

Ryan: 5:42

one next year.

Alex: 5:43

Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. And uh, yeah, I mean, like those car backs are phenomenal. Obviously the graffiti one was super popular as well, and I like the, it actually comes with this year's came with a border and it came with the, uh, with the, um, the actual variant as well of Miles Morales, which Mike had done, which is remarkably incredible. Um, yeah. And actually I have all the Panera key variants and uh, one of my absolute favorite ones is the key Bishop. I'll show it later, the Key Bishop one.'cause it just, she stands out. Like it's just beautiful. He has such a talent for that kind of stuff. Yeah, and I have to say, you probably have seen Ryan if you're on Twitch, because Ryan Hartman is great, we'll pop into streams all the time and just drop codes, just drop giveaway codes for the card backs and stuff like that. Whether you're in mine or, or decks or huskies or kms or anything like that. I always see you just, just dropping codes, which we all certainly appreciate.

Ryan: 6:33

No, I mean, the community around this game is awesome and I definitely want to, you know, try to, give back as much as I can. I really enjoy like the group that's formed around this game. And then, yeah, so when we put this to bundle together, it was, it was like, Hey, can just give it away for free at packs. It's just a fun promotional. But like I recognize we do four a year, but if you're not in the US or Australia, they're kind of hard to get to. You know, if you're not on like one of the coasts or something, it might be hard to get to if you're in another country, it might be hard to get to. So I was trying to just seed it out there as much as possible with that, you know, while still making it a cool thing and reward a Pax attendee, but also just like try to get it out as much as we can as well. And then they do, they did a cool thing last year where they were like, well, it was almost like a year long exclusive. At the end of the year, they were like, Hey, can we just use the Pax card back that you guys made as giveaways and then just use it as a drop? And I was like, absolutely. Yeah that's totally fine with me. It's your game. You guys go nuts with it. So we'll probably do that again. Uh, we haven't talked about the plans for this second bundle, but I'm, like I said, I'll chat with them. But I think we'll definitely be able to do a third one and then, and then anything else we can do, I will say like, they're pretty cool to work with. They're pretty easy. I like everyone that I've, I've met and I've spoken with at second dinner, they're pretty. They're pretty receptive to, uh, to doing like cool promotional stuff like this anytime I've proposed it. So,

Alex: 7:51

yeah. That's awesome. One thing I wanna go back to quick. You mentioned 10 minute games. Are you like roping your opponents nonstop to get to 10 minutes? I mean, like what are the kind of jacks you're playing where the games take 10 minutes?

Ryan: 8:03

I don't know. I'm thinking about like really long games, I

Alex: 8:05

guess. Yeah. All right. Like five minute games. Yeah. Five minutes probably. Even if you're playing magic, it's hard to get to five minutes sometimes.

Ryan: 8:12

Yeah.

Alex: 8:13

Well, seven turns, I don't

Ryan: 8:15

know if seven turns and they rope every turn, I don't know, feel like I'm gonna have to time it. I'm gonna like play a scumbag game after this and rope every turn and see and like.

Alex: 8:26

And what's funny about what you had said prior to, I wanna go back to, is you talked about how like, obviously you were interested'cause like you were familiar with Ben's Worth and Hearthstone. And it's, it's crazy'cause I was introduced to Hearthstone at PAX East. I remember going down the escalator going into the big, what it feels like an airplane hanger filled with games and stuff. And on the right side it was the Hearthstone booth. No one had ever seen it before. And it, like, it was the rage of the show. It felt like that was like one of the things it was, no one knew it was there. Like I didn't even know it had been announced. Like it, it was just, it just was there. Yeah. I was like, what is that? Is that blizzard? And then I loved her stone as well and um. That's how I got started with Snap when I saw the announcement. Oh, this is Ben Bro's. New game. I applied to the beta just like any other human being would. And um, I was creating Dota content at the time and I didn't even get in on the first wave of the beta. I got in on the second wave and uh, I just fell in love with the game and I told my wife, I'm like, you know what? I don't wanna do Dota stuff anymore. I just wanna play this new Marvel Snap game. I actually am having fun playing it. Can you believe that? And I remember the day before the Snap released my stream count, my average viewership was like three viewers. And then the rest is history. Right? And it's like, it's crazy because I had so much faith in the game. Like I, I, I really did love it and I still love it.

Ryan: 9:39

It's funny you mentioned that, uh, art still launched. That was like one of the first, what was that? That had to have been like 20 13, 20 14, because that was pretty early in the, my, uh, working with Pax. And at the time I was like in charge of all our theater content. So everything that was happening on a stage, like I was coordinating and Blizzard reached out for that like. I wanna say like a month before the show, maybe not even, maybe like three weeks before the show, which is usually way too late to get something together for a pacs not to get inside baseball and like how we run a convention, but like, but it's Blizzard. So I'm like, all right, well I'll find something. We will make it work. Obviously the main theater was, was that was main theater worthy, but we didn't have space for it. But uh, we were able to put it in like one of our big satellite theaters. And also at the time, like Blizzard didn't have a bunch of other games, like people were guessing the world of Warcraft owned the universe, right? So everyone was speculating on like a new, like, a new, uh, uh, a new like massive multiplayer or something. And then and then there were like a card game. And I remember everyone was like, what a card game. And then, but yeah, but then it blew up. It became like this, I think if it was an unexpected hit within Blizzard itself, like it was such a good game. It was so much fun. And, uh, but I remember having like scrambled to get them in and then get all the press. I helped them coordinate and get like all the press in the room and stuff for this big announcement. But I remember having to do that literally like days before the show. There was still things changing and it was still like, oh, we're gonna do this now, we're gonna change that. I'm like, whatever, we'll make it work. It was, it was one of the first panels at that show. It was like the doors opened and then that was like, I had to squeeze it in like super early on the schedule. So it was like doors to the show opened and Liz got a panel in, in a side room. It was crazy, but

Alex: 11:17

yeah. That's awesome. But it's just funny how the grassroots yeah, it's the grassroots of how we all got to where we are today. And, uh, talking about grassroots, we should actually talk about some Marvel Snap cards. And I think we should get started with a review of Bastion. Bastion came out this week and, uh, there was some concern about Bastion, right? Like there was like some whole Hummer around four three, obviously a pretty weak stat line. Borderline a terrible stat line to be honest with you, but. On reveal, add copies of the other cards here to your hand and setting their cards. Their cost to two and their power to three could be potentially very impactful, especially since you are seeing a massive resurgence in something like Cerebral. Cerebral seeing a massive amount of play right now. Victoria Hand is becoming a very popular archetype in and of itself. Now we did warn I was a little hesitant, like, okay, listen, Cozy came in at four Stars. I came in at Three Red's last week was all over. He was at five. He was like singing bastion's praises, and we have not really seen Bastion over perform. Right now. Currently he's running a approximately a 49% win rate according to untapped base statistics. Slightly positive on the, uh, the cube rate side, but almost 9% popularity, which means he's getting some testing in the meta. Ryan, I, I pitch it to you. How has your experience been playing Bastion this past week and, uh, what is your kind of like in review star rating from one to five if you had to pin a star rating on him?

Ryan: 12:40

Yeah

Alex: 12:40

I was coming in, I

Ryan: 12:42

didn't, I didn't see it. Like I didn't, there was something interesting here, but I was like, yeah, my head immediately went to, all right, like cerebro you know, C3. Yeah. And the thing that I was down on was the forecast.'cause I was like I, I also went to like a, a sort of like copy slash pseudo bounce sort of thing where, where my head was going. And I was like, you're, you're activating all this at four. So like, you pop off on five six. Like, I was in the three range. I think there was something there and I was like, people smarter than me can crack this code. But I'm still feeling like it's around a three four. It's not a bad card by any stretch, but like, it's not meta defining, it's not like some sort of archetype defining card. It seems interesting. I think there's still room to explore. Yeah, the Victoria Hand stuff seems to be the most obvious to me. That's where she's really strong. You get her and you do some sort of fri of build, you know, and then pop him in there, and then turning cards with low power or like really good activations at higher levels. So like, oh, if you can get a Iron Man, two, three Iron Man's insane, or you get some really high, five cost card. But then it's like you, you're holding in your hand, you're bouncing this on uh, or you gotta play it on five. So it's like, eh, you gotta, you, you gotta cheat him out early in order to bounce the, and it's like, eh, that was what always got me was the four on Bastion. And I still think that's kind of the problem with him, but maybe it's not a problem.'cause if he's like a three or a two, then he's incredibly busted. So it's like he's probably where he should be.

Alex: 14:20

Yeah, in terms of dials, like this card doesn't have that many dials. It almost looks like it does, but realistically, I think that for the most part, and I don't know this for sure, but I wonder if the design team's like, okay, we want to infuse some power into some different types of archetypes. I think that's been one of their goals we've been seeing over the last little while. They want a wider variety of decks and I don't care what anyone says. I feel like they have actually made a conscious effort to give cerebral some love. And cerebral actually did see some changes, right? He was a two cost at one point. Now he's a three. Cost plus three, which is a lot in terms of pure stats. Cerebral might still be one of the higher stat based decks in Marvel Snap right now. And I think bashing goes perfectly in there. And we saw Cerebro two specifically really take off, and now I think we're seeing Cerebro three start to outperform Cerebro two. But it's gonna take a little bit of time. Now obviously we're in this weird OTA era. We'll talk about that afterwards. Uh, but it's. But Bastion does represent a very interesting card for those particular decks. Now, that's not where it ends though, because you do have Bastion being very good in Victoria hand, Victoria hand's becoming incredibly popular and with Bastion you're able to replicate the borderline on curve your Quinjet and your Victoria hands themselves. I was trying to play this very interesting deck where I had Victoria hand. I actually was running a, um, moonstone as well, which super greedy and it is not in most of those decks. I had like Moonstone Fri and all these ways to copy cards and then really amp up the effect of the Victoria hand. And when you play cards like Misery and Hood, you're able to generate so much value with those hoods, uh, those, those, uh, demons I should say. And ultimately I feel like bastion. Has this, and you brought it up before this balance style play where like you're pulling things back from the, the field of play into your hand and yet they still kind of remain. And in C3 what's interesting is you can place cerebral on curve on turn three, basing it on curve on turn four, and still have a two costed cerebral and your three costed mystique. So you can still get the cerebral mystique combination because you can kind of break the chain with mystique in some degree and still have that newly copied cerebral to play, which I think creates a very flexible and verse style way to approach it. So, overall, I've actually been impressed with Bastion, and you're right, actually, you said something very important that it's probably gonna age well and someone's gonna crack the code because one thing about Marvel Snap is, especially in these first couple weeks, you have an onslaught of cards, an absolute onslaught of cards, and they don't get a chance to breathe all the time. As we get into the middle of the season, the release schedule slows a bit. And things breathe more. So hopefully we see some cooks with bastion.

Ryan: 17:01

Well, yeah. And also like, everyone's going to be, everyone tests the newest card, right? And then in two weeks, like the test is like two weeks later. Like if people are still playing it or if they're still trying to mess with it. It's like when Frankie Wright came out, uh, Frankie Rose everywhere for a week or two. I don't see the other one playing Frankie anymore. See some Frankie Ray builds, but it's like, not really. Right? It's like, so it's like that's the test. If this, like, if he makes, he see does seem to slot best in like a Victoria hand, just car generation build. But it is like this pseudo bounce sort of thing. I, I, um, yeah I like him. I just don't know. Uh, he also goes into like decks that I don't usually gravitate towards too, which is why I am also kind of like mid on him. No, I, I, I think there is something there, but it is like, it does feel like a lot of work. And it's like, and it's like you said, like you need the, you really need the misery, right? Because you play this with like really powerful one drops in a lane and then, but then you got a clogged up lane.'cause what are you gonna put drop 3, 3, 1 drops and then him to get three good, like 3, 2, 3 versions of the back. But then the lane's full. So what you do two and then a misery to pop it, but then it pops him two. So it's like, all right, my entire lane's dead. So it's like, there's a lot of like weird decisions you have to make, like, with those sorts of things. But actually that is a hallmark of a well designed card, right? I like when it's like, it's comes down to a bunch of decisions. When the card plays itself. That's boring to me. This is like, this is a card that requires like some lateral thinking, some smart piloting, some real intricate decisions in the, uh, deck construction, which is probably why I don't play it because I'm dumb and I wanna move fast, then fall onto destruction. I drop a card and I kill it. They're on the next thing. That's all I gotta do.

Alex: 18:45

Three minute games talking about five minute games. I could be done, I could be done in two minutes. We started at 10 minutes. Now we're down to two minutes. Now we're down to two. Exactly. Yeah. Now we're down to two. And you know what, I know that Bastion may age well, but there's been a lot of debate about the new card this week. Jim Hammond, the Human Torch. We needed another human torch in the game. I don't know if you thought that way, Ryan, but I was like, you know what we need, we need another human torch because we don't have enough of them. We haven't released a human torch in three weeks. So let's get another one out there and see what we can do. Now, here's the funny thing. So Cozy and I, when we previewed Jim Hammond, the Human Torch also every time I see Jim Hammond I think, is it Richard Hammond, the guy from Top Gear? I, well, I, I keep thinking about the, there's a guy who races cars. I'm pretty sure it's Richard Hammond. Anyways, um, when I saw the name, I was like, I right here. No, it's okay. Someone in the comments will be like, Alex, yes, it's Richard Hammond. Or some, maybe I'm mixing up their names. I used to love Top Gear. But anyways, so Jim Hammond, human Torch, Cozy and I both came in really low, but we've received some clarification about the effect, and I'll speak on that. So I came in at like one or two stars and Cozy at two. However, we were under the impression that the fallen one was not going to synergize with Jim Hammond. We were under the impression that the fallen one was not gonna count, and I'm gonna put it up on the screen here. But Glenn has verified, and I'll read exactly what the question was. Does fall in one's max energy ramp create bonus energy that Jim Hamid converts into repeatable start of turn power. That was the question from the community. Glenn responded. Jim Hamid checks for positive changes in the energy you're supposed to have from normal game progress. So anything that changes that fall in one Wicken s lock will count. Similarly, havoc will eat bonus energy but never cause a power reduction because Jim doesn't check for negative gains. So the fallen one will work with Jim Hammond, and because of that, this is a totally different card, completely different card, and the upside is significant. Now I do think it's going to be very much tied to the fall in one and it's gonna live or die based on whether or not we're able to cook a fall in one deck that can take advantage of this. But that clarification changed everything. And uh, I'm gonna give you the floor, Ryan, but I'm gonna reconsider my star rating.

Ryan: 21:11

Yeah, I, in, in thinking about this card, like I was just trying to go through like, what are the optimal use cases, right? And it's like, really all I could see is the fallen one. But again, I was so down on this card that it makes me think it might be good because anytime I'm like super up on a card, I know that's dangerous. I'm like, this card is obviously amazing and that's always wrong. And if I'm like, this card is obviously garbage, that's usually wrong. Then I'm like, okay, like my instinct is like, this is a bad card, which tells me like, it's probably not as bad as it seems. Um, the only one I was ever like, this is sucks and it actually sucks, was like Matt Thinker. But because I'm like, whoa, whoa, yeah, what are you gonna use this with, right? Like, what, what is your optimal play line with this card? Because it, it's like, oh, maybe Wcan or maybe Aish aum crapshoot if you get this or not. Right? Or maybe you're certainly, it's a crapshoot if you get'em on a curve. You know, so it's like, are you gonna optimize'em there? Wcan maybe. But then it's like, what do you wanna run in a r wcan? You wanna run quicksilver and you wanna run a domino, right? So it's like, are you gonna risk your one two curve? Like I run one, one and one two, and then I run threes and higher in a, in a wcan deck. So I wanna introduce a bunch of ones and roll the dice there. And I, I don't have the stats in front of me there. There's like a, a math curve on like exactly how many ones you need to have in your deck in order to guarantee you draw one within 12 cards right when you're like first turn. So it's like, I don't wanna play all that and I don't wanna clunk up my deck with one drops when I'm playing a deck that's supposed to be cheating now energy, right? Like a Wiccan deck. You wanna play 1, 1 1 2 threes and mostly you want beef, you want big beefy boys that you drop the six drops and higher five and six drops. So it's like, ah, is that gonna work in a wicked deck? Really? So then it really is just the fallen one. So this is just a utility card that slots. Inside a fall in one combo deck. And then what are you doing in a fall in one combo deck, right? You're dropping sym Spider-Man or, um, uh, uh, Shuri, right? And it's like May or maybe both in conjunction or something. If you can, if you can figure that out. And then I don't even know what you would get off that. So a fall one into Asur would get you 10 on going into, uh, six, right? So what's that? So fall one on five, double 10, you're getting 10 energy into a 11 going into turn six. It would then do the check right at the start of turn it would check and it's like, you should have six energy. You have 10, so you're getting four. So this makes him a one six. It's like, okay, wait A one six. It's like, it was a lot of work just to get a one six when I could have just played black cat at some point, you know, for a one five or, or something like that. He'll have synergy in those scenarios, but it's like, unless there's some other crazy combo here. I'm not seeing other than like you buff the hell out of a fallen one just to get one more like juiced up card. It feels like it would, the stars would have to really align for him to really pop off with fallen one. It feels like it might be a good little, a one, a good little one six utility that you hit sometimes in a fallen one deck, which is fun. It has its place, but it's not gonna set the world on fire in my opinion.

Alex: 24:19

And I mean you touched on a couple really important things. The first is that obviously we're fixating on the fallen one now that we understand that that synergy is gonna be there. But the fallen one released and honestly was not great. It didn't really light the met on fire at all. It didn't generate much excitement and I would suspect that not a lot of people have the fallen one. And as a result you are. Now, if let's say the fallen one deck takes off with Jim Hammond, players now have to invest in two cards, right? To get to the fallen one. Yeah. And the fallen one's primary decks that we're seeing play were kid Omega nimrod decks. So now you're like, kid Omega in, you're so like, I wonder about how deep the average player would have to. Dive into their pocket to actually make Jim Hammond and playing Jim Hammond reasonable. That's another concern I have. And because like, you're probably out the fall in one, Jim Hammond's gonna cost you, uh, your tokens as well. And it's a lot to invest in. What, honestly is a question mark of a card in terms of its actual viability.'cause even in the circumstance you suggest where, you know, you're estimating about, six Power from Jim Hammond. The problem with that is that like, well, martyr's still a one five. Now obviously Martyr is actively trying to lose you the game, but you can just play martyr. You can just slap her down on whatever turn you want. You don't have to go through all these extra shenanigans. Right? And you touch on Aisha. You're right, it's a total crapshoot as to whether or not you're gonna draw ra. You're diluting your deck by a significant amount, and I don't think you're ever in a situation where, especially considering the buff to Domino, you rearrange a wcan base shell to include a whole bunch of one drops and you cut Quicksilver. I don't think you ever do that.'cause exactly as you said, you need the chunky boys. They're all like, you have the extra two energy and you're top decking one drops. You're like, shit like, whoa, like supposed to do with this. Right? So you're right. I think that it's gonna be definitely alongside fallen one in a synergy. I actually think is going to surpass Sheri specifically is Symbio Spider-Man, because you're doubling the power Symbio. Spider-Man has a higher base power level than Sheri. You're gonna run both in the same deck. Usually, like if it's a Nimrod based shell, then you're gonna run both in the same deck.

Ryan: 26:19

Yeah.

Alex: 26:19

But because of the higher base power of Syme Spider-Man, that will give you some additional reach. Right. And usually you can also use Symbio Spider-Man in some other unique ways. It's actually kind of an unsung hero of those Nimrod decks, to be honest with you. I really like the card and actually Sym Spider-Man's fantastic in Frankie Ray Novadeck that you suggested, which are actually making a bit of a comeback because of the changes to Sean Chi with this weird OTA. But I do think that specifically Jim Hammond could get to some insane power, rough math. I can see him easily getting to like, so if you'd play the Sym Spider-Man and then you play the fall in one and you symbi old Spider-Man that like, he's easily over like 10 power. Right. I'm not doing the math in my head right now. I'm kind of just shooting. Yeah. So

Ryan: 27:00

in that scenario, what happens? So you play the fall in one and then on five because you're playing Curve, right? So Spider-Man on four. Yep. Yeah. Fall in one on five. Fallen one on five gives you five energy, but it's five turns so it does nothing but then emerges and triggers again. And that's for what? 12. So then you've got 13 going into six. So then you're getting seven extra power over the turn, right? Am I also misinterpreting how this works? It reads bull is power beyond what you should. Yes. So he does a check at the beginning of every turn and says like, oh, it's turn two and you're starting with three energy. He therefore gets plus one because you got one. Right. So in that scenario you're getting what? Seven. So he's a nine. Right. Forget what number I was at. But anyway, so I mean A one nine, Hey, that's not that his sneeze at, right? Like yeah. So he fits it over, but it's like, so you gotta get him on one and then play him in that instance. And it's like, that's not a bad combo, but it's really wor, he basically only works as far as I could see with that. So I was trying to think through other stuff. I'm like, well, can you like just low key, get some value out of him with playing a s lock and stuff and do some sort of thing with sunspot and like, uh, she Hulk maybe there's some sort of like package there, but I'm like, I don't know as I like think through it, Jennifer Taylor and stuff where you do little bits of cheating throughout the game and maybe that gets you something. But even then it's like you get'em what to like 1, 5, 1 6, 1. I mean that that's not that a sneeze at, if they dropped the one six tomorrow we'd all be like, this is an amazing card. But I don't know,

Alex: 28:33

it just feels like there's a lot of steps involved. You brought up a good point. You did bring up sunspot and I actually do think the Sunspot and Jim Hammond could probably play together relatively nicely. If anything, I think that we're likely to see some sort of hybrid. Nimrod, deck with Jim Hammond and Sunspot being included. That'll probably make sense alongside the fallen one. And that's probably where gonna, you're gonna see the, the highest percentage of like win rate and cube rate and stuff like that. Now again, someone might cook something completely different with Jim Hammond, but sometimes the most obvious thing is the obvious answer. And sunspot is gonna be very synergistic with the likes of Jim Hammond. And not just that, but in the event that you don't draw Jim Hammond sunspot is also in a position where it could utilize that extra energy being generated in the event that you don't have optimum plays. Right. So I do like the color for sunspot. I do think it makes a lot of sense.

Ryan: 29:26

Yeah. I mean, as a, as we're talking through it, just like theory crafting here. There might be something I, I think he's a solid too. Is he like a must purchase card? No. Is he gonna change the meta? No, he's just a thing that will supplement an existing deck. For now. You know, and maybe as more cards come out, maybe he's better. I don't know. Does he work with, uh, is there any sort of scenario he works well with the bastion? No, not that

Alex: 29:52

I could see. No. He seems very narrow in his focus and that's okay. Right. Yeah. As Marvel Snap, I think we're almost at like 400 cards or something like that. As Marvel Snap introduces more and more cards. There's only so many two threes that do plus ones that you can release. Like eventually you have to niche down. And I think that's what we're seeing with a lot of these cards. And actually over the last couple months, I think the designs have been cool. Like, look at what we got in Moira. I think Moira is a really cool card. Sometimes they're gonna land, sometimes they're not. And sometimes they age well. Like we're talking about the fallen one here, this is a card that no one really cared about. And then suddenly you release something like Jim Hammond and the conversation changes. The conversation changes of like, oh wait, wait, maybe we're adding something that makes the fallen one like viable. Right? It didn't feel viable on the launch window, but now it is. Right. And so, um, that is something worth considering for sure. And Ryan, we got so much to talk about today. So much to talk,'cause we need to talk about this absolutely insane imbalance patch. I'm calling it an imbalance patch. The robot imbalance patch, because it might not have been inherently obvious, but they do intend on reverting many of these changes. I did say it in kind of like my, my review video. They're kind of swinging in a very interesting way to see kind of like what sticks, what doesn't. I guess they're kind of taking some information and some data, but they're also just trying to see like, okay, you guys want a shachi nerve. Chachi's nerve, right? So we're gonna go through all of them quickly here, and I love some of your hot takes. So right off the bat here, Shachi goes from a four three that destroys everything in a given location. Over 10 power two, A four, two that only destroys a single card with 10 or more power. This is a very significant Nerf Ryan. First of all, do you think this Nerf sticks? That's how we'll do it. Ryan, do you think the Nerf is gonna stick? And what are your general thoughts? So

Ryan: 31:34

with the new, with the new Let's Patch as it were. I don't, I like it. It's making things weird. It's making things interesting. It's not what we had, but like, I didn't like tech slop before. That was like the prominent deck because it could handle everything. You know what, that was one of the quotes, like when they first designed the game, right? Wasn't it? Like, it's supposed to be like we're building sandcastles and who can make the bigger sandcastle, but you need tech cards to stop what I'm starting to run into, which is just weirdo combo crap because everyone's gonna zone in, oh, what is the most powerful combo? And if there's nothing to stop combos, everyone's just gonna do the same two or three combos, which I'm seeing a million human torch and then living tribunal things at the moment. I keep running into that. Like I was running into that all morning which is ironically now that tech cards are dead, I'm running more tech cards than I ever did.'cause no one's expecting them. It's like, God bless enchantress five drop, I don't care, whatever. She still stops so many of these crazy weirdo combos now. And honestly thinking about it. That's maybe something Hammond has going for him. I'm always incredulous of like a really strong one drop because kill longer existed, but he doesn't affect the whole board anymore. He is only one lane. Like he can diversify power. Like, so it's like that's a, that's actually a bonus for him if you can get him crazy.'Cause like Kill Longer is just not as, as powerful and prevalent and, uh, oppressive to the board as it used to be. But yeah, like Red Guardian taking a hit, but it's like a Minoru hit. He still does his thing. Rogue is still around. I guess there's still, there's still ways to deal with stuff. But the Shank Xi one, but Shank Xi still good. Like how many times do you have like multiple what if you were playing a deck with a lot of like raw, right? Are you gonna put like 3, 4, 10 drops in one lane and then just pray for another lane? You're gonna spread it out, right? Especially if you've got a lead and it's like killing more than one 10 drop in a lane. Steals like a win more scenario anyway. Right? So it's like, okay. I still think he's not that bad. I think he probably still, I think people immediately think he stinks, and I don't think he's probably been nursed enough. Honestly, no. First of all, he's way overheated. It's

Alex: 33:41

necessary. These cards are necessary. Yeah, he absolutely is. He's way overheated. His win rate's always hovering around 51%. Like it's crazy. People hate this card, but realistically he's not that much of a problem. The only circumstance that I can think of where you usually have more than one 10 power card, you can do that in inserter, which is one of the reasons why those, that those decks tend to be doing good right now. Right now. But also some locations like Meir Island will often just casually buff things to 10 power Olle will get things to 10 power and then like wipe that whole lane. So there are some circ circumstances like that, but you are generally correct. Right. I would suspect that we're in a position where you either keep it four two with the old text or you bring it back to like, I don't even know if fourth three is enough. I think that destroying only a single card is enough of a Nerf that I wonder if they do like a four four that does that. But I don't think we're gonna be keeping both. I think that Shachi will be back. In some form, whether it destroys all the cards and stays at a four two or destroys a single car but ends up at four three or four four, I don't think we're gonna see Shanxi remain like this.'cause I think it's just a little too much downside. Now you did bring up Killmonger as well. We'll go there next. Killmonger was a very, I think this is one of the more impactful of the nerves. Like if anything, this is way too far. This is way too far. Killmonger now reads a three three on reveal, destroy all one cost cards here. It used to be a board wide effect. Now it's only an effect for the given location. Could you still use it? Of course. But this is obviously giving some credence to the idea of, well maybe zoo's gonna make a bit of a comeback. But yeah. What are your general thoughts on Killmonger? Do you think it remains this way?

Ryan: 35:21

Yeah, I saw, I mean, I've been running into a lot of zoo lately. And, uh. I don't know. I think he's, I think he's gotta hit all board as powerful of an effect that is like a lot of the game was designed around this car existing. Yeah. And with him gone, like when the cat's away and the mice are going god damn insane. Sorry not to get crass here. But it's cra like, they're like zoo decks can do whatever they want now, and there's some crazy zoo combos. And without, the thing about these cards that were all nerfed in this last thing wasn't that they existed so much as the threat of them existed. Right? Like, even just like what might stop you from running a, a zoo deck or, or plopping stuff down is the fact that you were worried about this card being played. And now that it's taken out of the equation, it, it changes their, your whole choice dynamic when you're constructing a deck and you're playing cards, right? It's like, oh, do I wanna put all this stuff in a lane because I, you know, Shang exists? Well now, you know, Shang doesn't really exist anymore. So like, it changes the way you play, changes the way you're designing your deck. Um, and, and without that implicit threat of these cards just being around it definitely is impacting the game in strange ways. I think he will have, he's one of the ones I think that will have to come back to all board. I don't know that Chang, I think till monger.

Alex: 36:40

I think Killmonger definitely has to come back. Its effect, I think is too crippling because if you think about it, it's also like, it's used primarily, okay, first of all, you have the Sierra control decks, which would use Killmonger as a tech piece, right? But then when you had the incre, like the actual usage of, well, I'm playing Moreira, I'm playing, you know, Deadpool, I'm playing Destroy. And Killmonger's a key component to that. And one of the benefits of Killmonger was, you know, you do have a card like, you know, um, X 23 who bounces around randomly, and you could still activate that card depending on what position your Deadpool was in or whatever, right? With Killmonger, you didn't have to worry about where those were positioned, and now you do. So I think it really, really does limit this card. Is zoo making a comeback? Yes, we're gonna talk about it in the next topic of conversation, but yeah, I would suspect that Killmonger goes back to where he was. I don't think he's even gonna lose power. He felt like one of the necessary evils of Marvel Snap. Uh, especially considering you do have cards like Kira, like if Killmonger's a problem buff Kira, like really? If you buff ra, then she becomes more valuable to play. Make her a three five.'Cause right now she sits at a three four's armor. Yeah. Yeah. Buff armor. I actually think that armor is low key. I can't find RA for whatever. I always make fun of Cozy when you can't find cards and not, and now I can't do it, but RA could easily be a three five and that in an effect, is a Nerf to kill monger. Yeah. So I definitely see that potentially being the case. Like you could go the kaira route. Bring that card back. Now I went to the four drops because I was looking for the enchanters. Enc Charis. Now you did bring it up before. Enc Charis is a five eight from a four six to a five eight. Still the same effect. I'll tell you Enc Charis is still making some of the traditional decks. It was in the, like the likes of Nightmare and Serer. It's still making those shells. I don't think this was that much of a nerve. It is a big nerve, but when I was playing those decks, I'm often holding in Enchanters on turn five. I'm like, wow. They actually, they played something that I can disable like the later you kinda get more perspective as you wait later in the game sometimes. And so I don't actually feel like this was that heavy handed.

Ryan: 38:44

No, I don't either. Like I, I think it's still valuable. I think it's still worth playing. I, um, and just costing a little more doesn't change many of the decisions you make with this card. Um, and like you said, a lot of times you hold it till, end of turn, end of game. Rather you're dropping this on five or six anyway. To mess up some combo. You're throwing priority because you know, a cerebral is coming and you're dropping her on six, you know, that sort of thing. So it's like, okay, all right. Five and a five eight is a good Stalin stat line. Like, it's not like she's understanded for five. So it's like, okay. Like it's not huge, but any sort of Nerf if it says Nerf, like people immediately assume it stinks now. And like, so everyone dropped her for a minute and I think everyone's gonna come back. Because there are so many combo decks right now, like combos are going crazy. And I, and like, yeah, like that's where you hold that, where most people hold their tech is for the end of game. So it's like, make her a six call if you want. It's not gonna matter. You're gonna play her at the end of the game. Same for like, uh, shadow King. It's like he's a two drop, but you hardly ever play him on curve. He's a two drop that you pay on six or five, you know? Yes, exactly.

Alex: 39:52

Yeah. One thing worth noting though, and this is probably the primary avenue for the Nerf, is that no longer are you gonna have those like tech slop decks that kind of run Zbu, and then Honers, ENC, Chaus, Gwenpool, Galata. And they just have like a bunch of answers alongside tech and then they'll also run other, they basically, Sarah Control would run the Zbu, Sarah, and then a whole bunch of tech swap inside, right? Including Red Guardian and stuff like that. And so I guess the Za synergy is removed going to a five, but this one here has felt pretty good. You did touch on it briefly here. Shadow King, honestly, going from a two, two to a three three, this car started as a four four, I think ironically in Marvel Snap. Uh, but that was with the ongoing era of Zbu. Like literally Zbu was an ongoing, that discu discounted, uh, cards. Right? So three. Three. What are your thoughts?

Ryan: 40:42

Yeah, I still run him. He's still good. I mean, especially now, like I said, there's crazy decks that are doing. I'm seeing a lot of like people experimenting with nightmare again and with the ongoing or, or removal of the ongoings with like soran and stuff. Which I, I like those'cause those are just natural beef. But then I see a lot of, um, I see a lot of human torch combo decks and things like that. A lot of bounce, a lot of move balance that are getting some crazy power. And you, you need a card that resets them. If you're, if you can't shang'em and you can't kill longum, you need something. So, uh, I, I do think, like I, I said I do think it's crazy that so many of the tech cards got nerfed. But he's still good at three. And I always would hold him until late game anyway. So it's like, all right, now I can't play like a four and a two on six. I can't do, and I play a three and a three. It's like, okay. It's a slight variation on how like my end of game goes. But it's like I still run in, in a lot of my decks.'cause you have to,'cause there's so much out there.

Alex: 41:44

This is the one where I will admit that I honestly don't know. Like I really don't know if they're gonna revert'em to a two. Two, keep mine as a three. Three because this is one of the ones that has been very contentious. And also because at your middling MMRs and people kind of getting towards infinite shadow, king doesn't see a lot of play. It really doesn't. I feel like it's one of the cards. It does disproportionately get played at higher MMRs in tournament settings and stuff like that, as it should be. Like it's an excellent card, but it doesn't feel like the catchall that Shachi felt like it's played significantly less despite its immensely powerful effect. This one, honestly, I think second enter just. Take as much data as you can and see where it ends up, uh, placing. But, uh, yeah, myself, I, I'm truly not quite sure, and when we're talking about three drops, one of the three drops that was very prevalent in Marvel Snap, that for some people seemed to just come outta nowhere, was Neonic Teenage Warhead. Negasonic sat in the game for the longest time, seeing absolutely no play. Fenris Wolf comes out, people are like, ah, do we play next? Nah, we're not gonna play Negasonic. Then all of a sudden neonics everywhere, especially in the era of initiative based Marvel Snap, you get these, uh, you know, these iron patriot style decks that want to have power on the board early, want to take advantage of positioning. You have the new Galactus first steps that came out last month, and suddenly Negasonic becomes perpetually played across the meta to the point that they had to change it from a three three to a four five. This is a very heavy Nerf. And, um, yeah, I think that, uh, this is one of the ones. I suspect will get reverted, but not right away. I bet you Negasonic. I think they're gonna put her in time out for a little bit. I think this is a car that sits us four, five for a little bit and then once the meta settles down, they'll probably do something else to her to kind of bring her back. But I think she takes a time out.

Ryan: 43:28

Yeah, I think she is. She's another one. She's like shadow king, like she's one that you throw in a lane that you're already winning and uh, you maintain your win. Like, so it's like I actually am still running her in I have a Viv deck that I've been running and I use her just, you know, to maintain the lane that visit. But it's like, she almost like a jug where it's like you drop her you have priority going into six and you drop her in a lane. And that pretty much guarantees in a lot of instances that you win the lane. Especially now, no one's playing around her. And it's like, all right, I know I've got this lane locked now. So it's like, all right, this is a, it's a guaranteed late winner at three or four. And it's like, so I don't know. I don't know if she comes back. I don't know. I have a love hate with her. I didn't like her before I run her, and I hate that I run her, but she's so good. But like, I don't like the surprise factor of like, haha, my trap card, I had priority going into this turn. I dropped her. You didn't know. You had no reason to know this was coming and you lost a card. Haha, I win. I don't love that mechanic but it's so strong. You gotta do it right. So I'm okay with her being nerfed. I don't think the Nerf was enough. I think it's interesting as I'm looking through the OTA stuff too, it's like, and going right before we go into Elias, like Shang Chi is a card. You, you don't want priority, right? You want them to play their big cards and you play the, you want Shang Q second. You want kill longer, you wanna chra a second, you wanna be going second shadow king, you wanna be going second mega. So you wanna go first. You wanna play that first. You wanna have priority and alliance. You want priority. So it's like this is a four to two so far. OTA that affected second versus

Alex: 45:15

first. Right? It's kind of interesting to think of it that way too. And uh, which is just interesting. It is interesting. And also you have cards like Alyth. You talk about like destroying things and making your point of feel bad. The OG Alyth. For those that don't remember, used to just dis like literally delete the card, right? Whether you pour it, that card was just, those cards just disappeared off the field of play. Talking about making the end of the game completely irrelevant. That's what Elias used to do. It doesn't do that anymore. However, it got changed from a six nine to a six six. That is an absolutely gargantuan Nerf because now that the cards still maintain their powers, but they don't have their text, you can still like lose a lane. Like if they play a magneto and you Elia at it, like you still just lose that lane, right? Obviously it was a good catch off or stuff like cerebral being played late, but now you have bastion, so maybe cerebrals plea orders being changed. Alyth, I've not seen a single lyth since this change. It has completely fallen off. So I ask you, do you think they'll revert this at all? I suspect that we're gonna see some more power on eith. I don't know if it goes back to six nine, but I don't think it's gonna stay as a six six.

Ryan: 46:25

I think it has to go back if it wants to get, if they want anyone to play it. I forgot I had it in a deck and was playing a deck the other day and then I lost that three power was, was a big deal. And even though I wiped the cards, I still didn't have enough power in that lane. But like six, six is pretty low. So it's a question of like how oppressive this was in their background data. Like was this an unfun card to play against? Yeah, but it also like, it's so obvious. It's always like you find yourself all the time going into six. I'm like, what beats me? And a lot of times it's like an Ian. All right, how do I play around it? You know? Does this sort of deck run alliance like Ian was way more telegraphed usually. Um, and it, I think this is like a pretty big nerve. I'm speaking anecdotally, the data might indicate it is or it isn't. I'm just like, from what I've seen in personal experience, I've like lost because of that three power because it's so bad at a six power. Um, it is, but maybe this is a significant nerve. Maybe it's not. Yeah, it is. It's pretty

Alex: 47:21

significant. Yeah. Um, and then Cosmo got changed from a three three to a four six. And we have one more card after this, which is maybe one of the biggest nerves we actually saw. But we do have Cosmo window, a four six, and, uh, I mean, I wasn't actually seeing much Cosmo, and this is where you're saying, Hey, uh, we're seeing lots of combo decks making a bit of a comeback here. Cosmo has a four six is, I wouldn't say deleted from the meta because you're often chasing that effect. Right? You're chasing the effect. I had this thought though, that you remove Enchanters from the Ford pool. You add Cosmo from the four pool. Can you then still run a zao based tech slot deck but have Cosmo instead of enchanters? I think the answer's no. Probably, but still I find that interesting. I'm leaning towards Cosal being reverted. I'm curious about your thoughts.

Ryan: 48:08

Yeah, I mean, this feels like almost a Nerf to cerebral because it was one way that Cerebro could hide behind, right? Like well see a lot of C sixes. Four, six is also like a big turn. Um, yeah, it seems not unplayable, but definitely a big Nerf, like this card has to go down early and it, you use it to protect like vulnerable lanes and it's like you're gonna dedicate your entire middle turn of the game to like protecting a lane. It's harder to catch people off guard with it. It's all four is a lot of, uh, power to or energy to invest. This one I feel like goes back, this has to be a three or even, it could be a two cost. Like this has to be just for like the, the general meta I feel like. So this one, this one I found surprising. I also didn't, like you said, I didn't find cosmo like super oppressive in the meta. I didn't feel like it was like something that was crushing. It's just the right before the OTA, the place I saw the most was Yeah, in like protecting cerebral or protecting like certain, moonstone combo lanes or something like that, you know?

Alex: 49:14

Yeah, for sure. And uh, yeah, as I said. Cosmo not seeing the most play was primarily being seen in C3 for the most part, and, uh, now is no longer a part of that. What was not seeing play in C3 and maybe the bane of c three's existence was the red guardian. This was insane. Going from a three, two, he was a three three at launch. Now he's a three zero. With the same effect afflicting negative two power and removing card's text. When I saw this change, it was like they actually took Red Guardian behind the shed and what was also interesting is they just finished selling a like a hundred dollars bundle with red guard, like the me red guardian bundle. Imagine spending a hundred dollars on a red guardian bundle, then the card getting absolutely obliterated like two days later. It goes against the saying that like, oh second enter is gonna buff cars that they're selling in bundles and stuff. Well, this was the opposite case, so that's a check in that box I guess. But for the record, I think this is absolutely getting reverted especially since you do have Cosmo Ghost Rider that's now running rampant in its place. I probably see Red Guard remaining as a three two moving forward. This is probably just a flash in the pan type Nerf.

Ryan: 50:19

Yeah, I agree. Maybe a free one, but like I think they'll put this one back to normal. Red Guardian was probably the best design tech card out of like all the tech cards in the game because it had a good effect. But you could protect against it, right? It's like, oh, you've got a vulnerable card. Put something that weaker that it will hit. There are ways to play around it. There are ways to like kind of sidestep it. It again, good card design and good game design. It puts the decision on the player, right? And like different options and, and play styles. So I thought, I didn't think this was like an incredibly oppressive card to begin with. I'm super surprised this happened. And when you see anything go to zero power, then your brain just goes, I don't know. I'll put it in a Mr. Negative deck. Kind of similar to Cosmo. If anything goes to four, your brain just goes, all right, Zao, can I use it with Zao? And if anything goes to three, you do at least a cursory check where you're like, all right, does this work with Surfer? So it's like, yeah, I see zero power. I'm like maybe in an invest negative deck, but not even Mr. Negative's got a pretty set shell. I don't think this really helps Mr. Negative at any anyway. So yeah, all it does is. Ruin this card.

Alex: 51:28

Yeah, it does. And I guess the next thing that's worth talking about is like, do we think that this approach to balance is a good one? This is obviously, it surprised a lot of people, first of all, the, the way they kind of introduced it with the robot. Text and speak and all that stuff. I think that's kind of funny. They can only do that so often until it gets annoying though. And I think that they're very well, well aware of that. They saw an opportunity given the type of season and they, I guess they've been playing this for some time, can they do like a really big meta shakeup with kind of like, kind of taking tech out in particularly the tech that's popular, right? There's obviously other tech cards that don't see as much play like, I mean, even like a Luke Cage stole a popular tech card. They didn't like remove it from the game. They got a bunch of the real. Like kind of the, the checks and balances tech. And they took it to the wayside for this particular week. And that's why I discussed it as like an imbalance patch. It really is exactly that. They're gonna be reverting much of this and that is their intention. The only problem is, is that when you boot up the game for the first time and it shows you the patch changes, it doesn't say like, Hey, most of these are probably getting reverted in the next couple weeks. There's probably gonna be a lot of really confused casual players out there, and that's maybe something they have to consider moving forward as to how they can communicate how these changes are likely temporary. But for me, as someone who likes making content for the game, enjoys playing the game and honestly appreciates a meta shakeup every once in a while, I absolutely do not mind them taking chances at like, these home run big changes, these big shakeups. In fact, the. X-Men imbalance patch was one of my favorite patches that they had ever done. And so I'm all for these types of things. But I think they should communicate it better because I think there is a lot of confusion out in the community as to whether or not these are permanent changes or whether or not they'll be reverted back over time. So I'm curious to your thoughts as to whether or not you like this approach to balance this like temporary shakeup style, or should we be seeking perfect balance at all costs all the time?

Ryan: 53:21

No I liked the shakeup for sure. It's interesting. This game is very interesting in how it's approached by the developers. And by'cause like there's no real competitive scene, right? So, but they don't have to then account for the competitive scene in a way, I feel like when they made all these changes, we were all like, oh wow. Holy crap. This is crazy. This is meta defining. But then they, it released the statement afterwards saying like, it's probably temporary. Everything will go back to normal. In which case you're exact, they write, they call it a balance in patch or, or a balance, imbalanced patch. But those are fun because we know they're temporary. And also you need a baits to like start from, you know what I mean? It's like we have to establish what the border, the baseline is and then we say, Hey, we're gonna get weird for a couple weeks and do a bunch of weird stuff and it's gonna go back and this is sort of doing it and sort of not. So I think yeah, in the messaging, they need to figure that out because you definitely have to establish what the baseline is. But part of the reason I love this game so much is because of the OTAs and because it's constantly evolving and things like that. So it's like, I welcome it. I wish they would do more stuff like this. But I wish they would, since we know this is all gonna go back to normal, I wish they would've just said it to be in with. Like, Hey, this is just gonna be a weird season. We'll, getting rid of tech cards for a minute and, uh, we'll call, we'll brand it something, we'll call it the slop list season. And for just four weeks it's just gonna be no tech cards. Go wild. See, see what you could come up with. Almost like they're making a new mode without making a new mode. And then go back to a normal, like, so you'd have to establish what the normal is. So I am, I'm waiting to see what comes back and how it comes back though, for sure. Yeah, and I've seen that as well. Missed this. Yeah.

Alex: 55:08

Yeah, for sure. And on that note, we should talk about the best t be playing post OTA and the general archetypes, right? And the decks are still being figured out. But I'm gonna start you with like one that is definitely making a comeback and that is Zoo Gilgamesh is played primarily in zoo, and as we discussed with, uh, with Killmonger being set to the wayside, zoo is making a comeback here. We're seeing a zoo deck right now. And I've been, we've been talking so much about Zu Deck. We talked about it on the decks of the week. Currently with updated stats and more games, it's running a 61% win rate, which is absolutely insane. And a 0.43 Q rate. So we're talking about zoo performing exceptionally well right now, uh, with Kilmore set aside for the next couple of weeks. That is probably surprising no one, because that was the primary check and balance being, uh, being left in place there. In your opinion, what's a deck that's worth playing right now post OTA?

Ryan: 56:00

I used to love Zoo. I'm still running Zoo every now and again, um, with Marrow. Like I still had a Marble Boy package that just ran Kayra and it's so crazy that like with kil logger going, you don't have to run re anymore. And that opens up apparently a world of possibilities all of a sudden. Like it's, uh, it's crazy that, that, that one small. Change, like just taking one card out of the equip. Otherwise, if you weren't running Kyra, then you just had to pray that you weren't running kill longer. Right? Yeah. So it's like that's crazy that that one small change would then boost this to such a high, a high win rate. But it's a good car, it's a good deck that can spread power out. I always really enjoyed zoo. It's also a fairly easy deck to put together. If you were like a lower collection level or you're just chasing a few handful of cards half this deck, half the deck of a solid zoo deck are like a pull three or lower cards, right? Yeah. It's like you only need a couple standout cards to be pretty competitive. And without having to worry about any tech you can. And also what's good, what the bet, what's the best about zoo is you compete in all three lanes. It's like, this is a deck that goes very wide. You can also move around like, uh, weird locations with Shanna and stuff like that, and Squirrel Girl, which will put cards in like dead lanes. Like let's say, uh, there's a lane that will destroy all your cards. It's like, well, squirrel Girl will throw free cards in that lane. You'd be surprised how many just easy wins you get off, things like that. I always really liked zoo. I think it's a good deck. I'm glad that it's competitive now. Even though earlier I was saying how I want kill longer to go back to normal, because I think so much of the game is designed around the existential threat of a kill monitor. But this is a fun deck. I highly recommend it if you are especially like a lower cl. This is a good deck to put together. It's still competitive. I still run it and I do, I was doing all with it, but like I was saying before, the OTA, like it's, it was still kind of one of these fringe decks where you can. How sometimes you'll hit a losing streak and just be like, you just go back from little one of my old trusty standby decks. It's like my Marvel Boys zoo. I never deleted it. Same with like a, just a classic destroy package. Doesn't matter, the meta, doesn't matter what, like a classic destroy deck always can hang around and compete. And

Alex: 58:14

this was like one of those. And another archetype when we're talking about one drops that are having a, a pretty solid impact here. Another one that's worth talking about honestly is going to be the packages that run Beast, like those bounce packages because you're talking about cards that like Silver Sable, rocket, raccoon, Iceman, Nico Manaroo in those Joaquin Phoenix type bounce shells. Because one of the challenges those decks had was that Killmonger would wipe out their turn six. Now you often were able to bounce and give initiative up going into turn six or whatever, but playing with initiative was. Would only take you so far, Killmonger would still wipe those decks out. So when you have the likes of Bounce, you have the Joaquin Torres Falcon, you have the uh, the Falcon himself, you have toxin, you have this shell that'll honestly allow you to do so much bounce work with one drops and now the risk of Killmonger's gone. And so those are starting to make a bit of a comeback. And then of course we talked about it before, but like how can we not bring up Serer? Serer is one of the only examples where you often have more than one 10 power card in a given location because sometimes you're playing col sit in, you gotta throw things down and you gotta get that serer up to power so you can slam down the scar. This is a card that is making a massive comeback. Anderer itself was actually susceptible to the Lac of Shadow King as well. Not just Shachi, but Shadow King. The rest of the deck, not so much, but searcher specifically. So give me an idea, like how confident would you be playing Serer in this meta'cause I feel like it is an excellent call alongside zoo, honestly.

Ryan: 59:45

I think these are, like, Cerner decks are great. Like, uh, I've been running into a lot of them on the ladder. I used to run a lot of like, so on red skull sort of stuff. And it was, those were, I always enjoyed those decks also because like, those are ones where like, you don't have to think where it's just like put big card down, done. Like, I don't, there's not a lot of decisions to make. It's just big stats slamming the board. But which is like the opposite of bounce when we were, we're talking about, uh, 10 minute games. That's bounce for me where I have to like do all these calculations where it's like, all right, I pulled this back. This will get my hand to seven. It won't pull these two. This'll b this will buff these two. I'm like having to run quadratic formulas in my brain. BII enjoy bounce'cause it's fun, but it is a lot of like thinking and a lot of math. That's one you gotta like really be, uh, on top of your game while you pilot, but. Just a solid, big, beefy two digit sta deck. That's great.

Alex: 1:00:45

Yeah, no, it definitely is a lot of fun taking power, boom, slamming on the ground, yeah. It's, it's one of those, those decks and those archetypes, and honestly, if they feel like they play so well because they're, they're really straightforward in their play pattern. They put up significant power and you can confidently win games with them, especially with Shachi on the periphery of the meta. And Ryan, I think that it's time that we go to our Snapchat mailbag. What do you think? We got a couple questions here from the community members here and, uh, we've been having a lot of conversations about like the number of cards being released, the health of the game and stuff like that. And it wouldn't surprise me that a bunch of the questions were along those lines. Uh, so, uh, Copa comes in with a statement that reads another thing that's worth. Another thing that's really detrimental to Snap is that you, when you fall behind, no matter for what reason or how long, there are no catchup mechanics, there's no pity, no welcome back bonus, no nothing. I missed a whole month. Last month. I was just super busy and now I have negative Mevo uh, motivation to get back into the swing of things. And I think that is a common sentiment that it's like once you put the game down, you're not coming back. It's nearly impossible to catch up. And as someone who gets as busy as they do, Ryan, do you ever feel like you, you like you gotta just stay on top or else if you fall behind, you're done? No,

Ryan: 1:02:01

absolutely. That is 100% a real sentiment. And if, uh, if there was one change I could make in this game, it would be like, yeah. Like more, I don't know, not presence, but like more, more focused on new user acquisition. Yeah.'cause it's like. It is hard. Like a card a week is really cool. I, one of the benefits of the game is we're getting a card a week. The meta changes consistently. Yeah. Like all over the place. Right. But one of the detriments is that like, yeah, you miss a week or two, you're two cards behind. You're a season pass behind. All the sudden it's like, yeah you'll never catch up without spending a ton of money. So like a welcome back bonus and that sort of thing, which is not uncommon for a bunch of games. I feel like for a three Yearold game or every year, three, like how long has this been game going on? Feels like that's like a necessary like move to make to try to like boost up new players up to folks like us that are collection complete. Right. Because they take for granted the fact that I'm like, oh, but it's like I'm to collection complete and I'm starting to fall behind. I had to use the last of my tokens to get bastion. I'm not gonna have enough tokens for the next card for, uh. For the, our fifth human torch. So it's like, I don't, like, ooh, also, this would be the first time I'm like, do I wanna invest in that card? You know, that sort of thing. But I think that sentiment from that person is a percent accurate, and I agree with them. And that would be like one thing I would, I would change is uh, yeah, because even like, actually, ironically, like it's for new players. Yeah.

Alex: 1:03:33

Yeah. Like I'm at PS and I'm talking with people and they're saying like, oh, I love the game, but like. I don't, I can't come back. Like it's just, I have no opportunity to kind of bridge the gap that I've now created. And these are people that would likely continue playing if they felt like they could have a positive experience getting back into the swing of things. But they just feel like they're so long gone. And the Met is always evolving to the point where it's like, well, a good thing. It's like they'll never catch up. And I think that is like a, it feels like a hill that seems impossible to climb. Risen comes in with the next question, which reads, it's not even the fact that I don't have enough tokens to buy all of those new cards. It's the fact that there are literally too many cards being released too fast. So the new decks and the cards barely have time to evolve and shine before the new stuff comes out. And Ryan, this is exactly what we were talking about before. Things don't have a chance to breathe.

Ryan: 1:04:23

Yeah. I think if there was like I, I think something that would be beneficial would be a new mode. I, this was like something they talked about in, uh, an old an old like runway plan they released. But it was like talking about some sort of draft mode where if you could, if you didn't have a complete collection but you were able to go in kinda like, like Heart Stone has that mode and you were able to just piece a deck together where you like pick one of three cards sort of thing and build a deck and then just like in the arena and just like battle it out. Like some sort of mode like that, some sort of drafting mode where you could play with cards you don't own just to mess around with them, I think would be enough to bring it back. Old players that aren't complex and would, they would feel less of the pressure to get collection complete, but because there's only one way to play this game and it's to have as many cards as possible and have access to all the best stuff or else you're gonna run up against people, you know who will have it and you don't, you, you also will get frustrated. Right. So it's like, I, I think that's something that would like bridge the gap.

Alex: 1:05:27

No, for sure. And again, these are questions that honestly I, I spend a lot of time thinking about, and I think the second dinner does as well. There are no easy answers. Like you can kinda be like, well just make everything free or like, do, but then like you, like at the same time, like we don't know their business requirements, we don't know their licensing requirements. We don't know, you know, we don't want the game to be completely insolvent because we wanted everything free. But at the same time, it's like, it's a real issue when players feel like they can't play anymore because they can't keep up or they can't even get involved or come back because they'll never catch up. And, uh, yeah, the release schedule feels really intense and like, as you said, like you're, you're out of tokens, right? So the situation you're in is you either you start skipping things or you pulled to the most powerful card in Marvel Snap, which is the credit card, right? And that's basically the only answer you have left. Right? And I think that that's where some people might be like, okay, now I'm in a position where I either pay up or I quit, I guess I quit. And that's a kind of unfortunate thing. And uh, we are seeing more and more of that, uh, in Marvel Snap. Given the circumstance with the number of cards being released and the fact that they've not gotten less expensive. I shouldn't say that because the Snap packs did generally improve the rate of card acquisition, but it was immediately offset by the number of cards being released. Right. So there was no, there was no span of time where people were like, I'm playing catch up. This feels great. It's like, no, I'm just getting wrecked. Right. And I can, I can kind of really feel the player's sentiment there with regards to how that feels. It's easy for me to say,

Ryan: 1:06:50

I'm not a developer or an engineer. It's easy to say like, oh, just make a new mode, you know? Yeah. But with that I know there's a lot going into it, but part of what I was kind of hoping with all these new carts coming out, like they're dropping, like all of a sudden we'll just get a shadow drop of like four new cards outta nowhere. I was hoping that was like precipitating the release of like a draft mode. We're like, Hey, we gotta bump up the card pool because there's a new mode coming and there's still no new mode. And I, it was on the roadmap, so I'm not making it up. I'm just like. Please give us that draft mode, give us a draft mode. And I think that would, I

Alex: 1:07:26

think

Ryan: 1:07:26

it would

Alex: 1:07:26

fix a lot

Ryan: 1:07:27

of issues like with

Alex: 1:07:28

the new players. Grand Arena came close. I think Grand Arena was by far the best mode that they've designed. And if they were to have a kind of a rotating cast of Grand Arena commanders, so to speak, I think that would go a long way. Yeah, that would go a long way. Rob comes in with our next question, which reads regarding infinite grind, difficulty increases. It may be related to bot adjustments too, but I believe it's mostly due to casual players having left the game in droves, leaving behind a player base distilled to very competitive degrees. TLDR, high percentage of player base now sweats, sticking it out during snaps decline. This is a comment in regards, Ryan to the feeling that like getting to, it's been way harder in the past, like way harder now than it's been in the past. It feels way more grinding. And a big part of that is I think that they've increased and improved. Bots. Like the bots are actually like, they're snipers now, man. Like they're doing some soul crushing plays where like they will beat you. Whereas like bots felt like an infusion of cubes in the old system. Now they're like legitimate opponents that you kind of gotta be wary of at times. You still get the odd throw robot, which like will play the 0% win rate play. But, um, there has been a large consensus of at least my community, that people are finding ranking dividend extremely frustrating and a big turnoff. And so I ask you, how has your ranking process been in the last couple of months? And has it felt exhausting?

Ryan: 1:08:52

Yeah, it definitely felt harder in the last, I wanna say, since like the spring, even like now, granted I'm, super busy. I don't play as consistently as other people. I always make sure to get in a couple games a day. I always hit my dailies and then like. Over the weekend, I'll grind a little harder and it's like, I'm just limping infinite. Like right at the end of a season is where I've been, what I've been doing the last few, uh, seasons and like as I'm limping to the finish line, it was incredibly hard. And I'm doing it at the end of the season, season. I'm doing it in the last two weeks of a season, one week, maybe even the last like, five days of a season. And, uh, part of me is thinking like, hasn't everyone already made it to Infinite? Who am I playing against? I'm, aren't I like the last person that would show up at the party? So am I just getting like crushed by like sniper boss or what? But it does feel a little more sweaty than it used to. It used to be an easier climb or, or a steady climb. It feels like it's way more feast or famine, but it's so anecdotal. I'm like, eh, maybe I'm just not making the right plays. You know, I, I'm always like, eh, it's, it's a me thing. So it's hard without seeing any data, it's hard to like point to the game and be like, no, it's the game's fault. I'm like, no, it's probably my fault. But. Enough people are saying it could be, I don't know. And also like, I don't know, I mean, this was the number one mobile game when it dropped, right? So obviously the game player base is deteriorated. All games will, like no Game has the same user base that it had at its peak. I mean, Fortnite is still huge and it's not as huge as it was at its peak though, so it's like all games have the same trajectory of like, and then group, heart Stone was group and it's not dead, but it's not what it was. Right. So it's like, it's hard to like, keep things in perspective. Um, I like we are, we are saying things and we've talked personally. You and I have talked at the meetup, we talked to devs and stuff. They're all aware of it. I'm curious like what is in the pipeline is the only thing. But yes, it has felt grindier at a, at a potato level, me playing on a potato, as you can see with my terrible internet seat. It has felt Grier.

Alex: 1:11:05

I I, I love your answer.'cause like, I like how you took like accountability. Like maybe it's a me problem, whereas everyone, like everyone else everywhere else is like, no, it's this game. I am rank one in any other universe. You know what I mean? I'm just joking. Obviously I've personally felt it to be much more frustrating and it's, it's one of those things where like, my, my pulse on the community is such that, like, I, I do interact with, I interact with competitive players, but I interact with a lot of casual players, a lot of casual players, and, and I love'em. And they're so important to our ecosystem. They really are. Whether you're free to play or otherwise, right. You're so important to the game, so important to me. And, um, when it comes right down to it, they are all unanimously saying the same thing in a very unified voice where it's like breaking up has felt awful these last few months. So there's something that's been changed, there's no doubt about it because I. I can get when like, people are kind of frustrated about things and like I, I get like the, you know, the comment banter, but this has been a very consistent thing I've been hearing over the last two months and it, like, it has this definite start. So someone pushed a button somewhere is my, is my take someone definitely pushed a button somewhere. Yeah. Although at the end of the day. We all have a little bit of accountability. We could all just make better plays and stop throwing cubes. But then we have the Philoso copter coming in with the last question of the day. Philoso copter is not even asking a question. It's more like a statement. 100% agree that the collection track needs to be totally overhauled. It's more of a chore than reward. No, I don't need gold tickets. 1000 tokens or a hundred tokens, I should say, or a damned avatar, floss copter. I'm gonna just count you with one thing. I think we do need the tokens out there, but we talked about last week, Ryan, about how the collection track seems to be a relic of Marvel Snaps past. And if you're going to increase the number of cars being released, why aren't we increasing the rewards on the collection track? Like, why aren't we increasing the number of tokens that we're acquiring so we can actually acquire the damn cards being released? It seems like a relic that needs to be taken a look at, and it, it seems like a forgotten part of Snap's ecosystem.

Ryan: 1:13:06

A hundred

Alex: 1:13:06

percent agree,

Ryan: 1:13:07

a

Alex: 1:13:07

hundred

Ryan: 1:13:07

percent agree. If, uh. If I were anointed the king of Pax and or the king of, uh, marble Snap. And, uh, it was like, all right, you get to make changes to the game. This is one of the first ones. I do this in a draft mode and like, and then new user welcome bundles or something would be like the three big changes. I hate the track. It is a chore just to click the frigging buttons. Like it takes like two seconds per click to like, I gotta watch the animation. And then I, oh boy, I got 30 credits. Oh, I got another gold ticket for a moment play. Um, I've got over like 4,000 on my track of unopened levels of my track. I don't even bother because it takes so long and it's so unfun. There's gotta be I do feel like the game was redesigned. It's like it's gameplay loop in terms of like. You play a game, you unlock your boosters, you do your stats and go through, and then you do your track. Like that is a product of bygone era of this game. This game has been re-engineered in the background, but that hasn't, and it does feel weird. It doesn't feel fun. I don't feel rewarded as a player. I feel it's like there there're, uh, it feels like they're wasting my time in a way. So I would totally rework that. I'd scrap it entirely and like start all over again. But that's, again, these are all easier said than done things. Like, I, I don't, I'm not a game designer, but like, people come to me with like, oh, you should do this at the convention. And I'm like, that's, we took from a million reasons why that's a dumb idea and how much infrastructure changes would be required. So I am, I recognize I'm in a privileged position to just be like, make new things for me. But uh, it does feel like that needs some kind of attention for sure.

Alex: 1:14:53

No, there's no doubt about it. I can, I can only imagine the type. It's so funny, I just laughed at hearing you say that. It's like, you know, Hey Ryan, you know, it would be great at Pax if you had Drake and, you know, Kendrick Lamar do like a rap battle. Like Yeah, that would, that would be cool, wouldn't it? Right. But like, not feasible, right? Not possible. Although I gotta tell you, yeah, you, you've had like some legitimate stars on the stages. Like obviously, uh, like Xavier Woods and stuff like that. Like it, it's so like, anyways, I'm a huge fan of Pax and, uh, I'm so appreciative of everything you've done, not only for Marvel Snap behind the scenes, you're one of the unspoken heroes behind the scenes of Marvel Snaps community. And uh, I wanted to take a second to say thank you for that, uh, because um, as our community kind of ages and you know what, we're in our third year of playing Marvel Snap. Sometimes not all heroes wear capes, and you're one of them. So thank you so much for all that you've done to not only support you know, the, the content creator community and myself, Camm, and, uh, you know, Husky and others that, uh, you know, you've been so kind of, uh. Helpful towards, but also of course for Marvel Snap as a whole with the card backs and all that you do behind the scenes to try to give this, uh, the platform it needs to be the best game it can be.

Ryan: 1:15:59

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Same to you, man. Like I it's all out of legitimately a place of love and enjoyment for this game. I'm not getting anything in return for all this stuff for, I just really like the game. I'm legitimately a fan of it, and I'm just, because I'm a fan and because I do have access at my, like, with Pax and everything to be able to do stuff, I'm just like, Hey, it'd be cool if we did this and then I can try to make it happen. But, uh, but no it is just, uh, it's a great game and I wanna see it succeed. I like, I like the game. I like all the folks over there that I've met. I love the community around it. This is, some games can get pretty toxic and the community around this is. By far, especially like comparatively to other like game communities. Pretty supportive and pretty cool. So it's like, it's been great to see. And, uh, and you, you're a huge pillar of the community, so you know, perhaps you as well. Thanks for all the things you do.

Alex: 1:16:53

Thank you. And that, that means a lot to me. Ryan, thank you so much. And guys, I'm gonna have penny arcades information down below. Uh, you know, you guys have been doing, you guys do lots of streams, lots of, uh, variety content as well. Uh, you also get to see a lot of the panels and stuff you guys post to your main YouTube channel, so that all will be posted down below. Uh, we do have Axxis coming up. Uh, Ryan, do you wanna speak on behalf of, uh, the Penny Arcade or the Pax? I always say Pan Arcade Expo. PAX Unplugged is coming up. You also have PAX Australia, which is like near immediately coming. Do you wanna talk about those dates and, uh, yeah. PAX Australia

Ryan: 1:17:25

is less than a month away. The October 10th to 12th in, uh, Melbourne. And then so if you're in, hey, anyone happens to be in Australia, we'll be giving away. Uh, the Pax card back, it is at every PAX for the year. So we gave it away in Boston, we gave it away in Seattle. We'll be giving it away in Australia and then we'll be giving it away in Philadelphia as well, which is Pax Unplugged. And that's November 21st of the 23rd. It's the week before Thanksgiving. Um, that is our board game show, so that is like, if you like Marvel Snap, you're probably a card game player. You know, and you probably play other card games. That is the show to go to for that sort of stuff. There's tons of card games and board games and all analog games there. And it's a great show, but we'll be giving away the Pax card back there as well. And then I'm sure likely after, uh, after the end of the year, I'm sure there'll be ways to acquire our season two, uh, our second card back. And then hopefully we'll have a new one next year. So.

Alex: 1:18:22

Yeah, for sure. And, um, looking forward to that for sure. And then, uh, again, we have PAX Boston, which is in the new year as well, which is one of my absolute favorites where I learned how to play car games in the first place. But anyways, guys, thank you so much for joining us today. Both Ryan and I say thank you very much for your support and as I said, all the links will be in the description down below so you guys can get all that Pax Goodness going. Thank you so much guys, and we'll see you on that next one.