Marvel Snap’s September 5 update patch notes: Snowguard rework

The September 5 update to Marvel Snap includes some massive changes that will hit some of the biggest decks in the meta.

As Marvel Snap moves into September and the season of Loki, developer Second Dinner is looking to take a bit of power off of some of the most overpowered decks in the game.

Along with those nerfs to cards like Absorbing Man and Spider-Ham, Marvel Snap will give a full makeover to one of the game’s most frustrating cards, Snowguard.

Let’s dive into the September 5 patch notes to see what the latest update is bringing to Marvel Snap!

Snowguard rework headlines latest patch

Snowguard has been one of the most frustrating cards to use, almost unusable since it was released.

Previously, Snowguard was meant to be a card that could be used to surprise enemies by taking advantage of the location where they were played. Unfortunately, Snowguard simply wasn’t reliable enough to warrant a permanent spot in any deck.

Snowguard

• Old [1/2] – While in your hand, this transforms each turn into a Hawk or a Bear.
  • [Old] Hawk: [1/2] – On Reveal: Ignore all location abilities next turn.
  • [Old] Bear: [1/2] – On Reveal: Trigger the effect of this location.
• New [1/2] – On Reveal: Add the Hawk and Bear auroras to your hand.
  • [New] Hawk: [2/3] – On Reveal: Ignore all location abilities until the end of next turn (or the game).
  • [New] Bear: [2/3] – On Reveal: Trigger the effect of this location.

Now, Snowguard has been reworked to add both the Hawk and the Bear cards to the player’s hand, which will allow players to manipulate locations much in the same way that Legion did while he was dominating the meta.

But Snowguard wasn’t the only card to get changes in the latest patch notes. Let’s delve deeper into the other updates in this update.

GENERAL UPDATES

New Feature: Infinite Rank Revamp

• Infinite Rank Leaderboard: When reaching Infinite, rank will be replaced by your leaderboard standing
• Snap Points: Your standing is determined by your Snap Points (SP) – the more cubes you win, the more SP you get!

Conquest Mode Improvements

• UI/UX experience after completing a Conquest run to remove extra screens
• Mute now saved across multiple battles in the same match
• New improved visuals for Infinite Avatar border!

Audio

• Seasonal Audio: We love our in-game menu music, but we’ve been hoping for some more variety in our lives. Starting this season, we’ll be changing our in-game menu music to match the vibe of each new season.
• Agatha SFX added.

Additional card adjustments in Marvel Snap’s September 5 update

Blade

• [Old] 1/3 – On Reveal: Discard a card from your hand.
• [New] 1/3 – On Reveal: Discard the rightmost card from your hand.

A solid card in early discard strategies, Blade has dropped off in both popularity and win percentage. As we examined weaker cards that could use a little love, we’d also been thinking about ways we could give a little push to some discard synergy cards, like Hela, Ghost Rider, Swarm, and of course Apocalypse. Because Blade is a card players acquire early on, a change accomplishing both of these goals needed to be clean and simple, and we think this fits the bill. It might not be enough to breathe new life into the daywalker, but we like to find opportunities for small changes with the potential to make some interesting waves.

Soul Stone

• [Old] 1/1 – On Reveal: Draw a card. Ongoing: Enemy cards here have -1 Power.
• [New] 1/1 – Ongoing: Enemy cards here have -1 Power.

It took players a few months to fully grasp the might of Thanos, but since then he’s been a metagame mainstay with multiple stints at the top of the heap. We love Thanos, but his combination of flexibility and powerful synergy enablers has proven to be a bit dangerous over time. We decided we wanted to shave a piece of strength out of the kit, and decided to hit two birds with one stone by simplifying the only card in the kit with two abilities. We understand this is a bit ironic, considering the recent changes to Mystique and Rogue to copy the Soul Stone’s draw effect, but oh well. While a meaningful loss of Power, we don’t expect Thanos to fall out of favor once the dust settles.

Spider-Ham

• [Old] 2/2 – On Reveal: Transform the highest-Cost card in your opponent’s hand into a Pig, keeping its Power and Cost.
• [New] 2/2 – On Reveal: Transform the leftmost card in your opponent’s hand into a Pig, keeping its Power and Cost.

As we mentioned in the OTA that adjusted Spider-Ham from 1/1 to 2/2, we weren’t happy with how damaging his effect was to a few of our cooler 6-Cost cards, especially Apocalypse. However, we liked that Spider-Ham hit a solid sweet spot of disruption without fully denying you the card, and even had some risk due to Destroyer and Infinaut. This change aims to retain those positive elements without applying it exclusively to higher-Cost cards, and also makes the effect a lot easier to play around if you suspect Peter Porker might be paying you a visit. The trigger will still hit 6-Cost cards slightly more often, since they’ll tend to migrate leftward in your hand as you wait to play them, but Apocalypse will safely hide on the right if you can keep discarding him.

Absorbing Man

• [Old] 4/5 – On Reveal: If the last card you played has an On Reveal, copy its text. (if it’s in play
• [Change] 4/5 -> 4/4

What is this, an OTA patch? After last week’s balance updates were locked, but before they went live, we saw a huge surge in the strength and popularity of decks based on the Forge + Brood + Absorbing Man curve. We knew our changes weakened other top decks, and that the new kid was already becoming a Big Deal in ranked and Conquest. We’re often happy to let things breathe for a minute when a new deck appears, but this case was unique because it risked an especially dull metagame to let it ride until our next OTA. We decided to make a change now, and we’ll evaluate it again with the data gathered from the most recent weekend post-OTA.

Bug Fixes

Second Dinner also revealed several bug fixes that were included in this patch. While many of them had to do with VFX glitches, some of the more notable fixes were instances where the Nexus would give other locations negative power and Sandman’s SFX lingering even long after the card had been played.