The metagame has been in excellent shape for the last couple weeks, with a lot of different decks enjoying success and many new cards spawning fascinating innovations. We want to keep that going with today's OTA, so our focus is largely on improving underused cards.
- Luke Cage
- [Old] 2/3 - Ongoing: Your cards here can’t have their Power reduced.
- [New] 3/4 - Ongoing: Your cards can’t have their Power reduced.
Last year, we found Luke Cage was having a big impact on the metagame relative to the opportunity cost of playing with him. Giving up turn 2 to play a card that had the potential to neutralize multiple later-turn plays from an entire class of card effects was a bit too generous, since Luke asked nothing more than to be in play.We decided to adjust Luke to be a stronger card that concentrates on one location, like Armor, and learn what that might change. Since then, Luke has underperformed with that change even in the decks we thought would still play the effect happily, such as Cerebro-3. So we're taking the other route and returning Luke's effect to be global but at a higher Cost.
- Hulkbuster
- [Old] 3/5 - On Reveal: Merge this with one of your cards here.
- [Change] 3/5 -> 2/3
Because the strongest Destroy deck by far was all about Deadpool, we also wanted to look at weakening some of the best ways to make huge Deadpools. Hulkbuster was one such card, but it's also a fun card for other strategies, like Move and the occasional kooky brew. Since the real problem was how much Power Hulkbuster was adding to Deadpool, we decided to keep it fairly efficient on rate and just shrink down the numbers. Hopefully this change actually creates some opportunity for play alongside things like Multiple Man and Werewolf By Night while weakening Deadpool specifically–we want to keep Hulkbuster a solid card.
- Heimdall
- [Old] 6/8 - On Reveal: Move your other cards one location to the left.
- [Change] 6/8 -> 6/9
In our ongoing evaluation of 6-Cost cards, we think Heimdall is ripe for a boost. Having 8-Power used to protect Heimdall from Shang-Chi, but now that Shang-Chi's threshold increased we can likewise boost up some of these 8-Power big cards for a little extra oomph.
- Spider-Man 2099
- [Old] 4/6 - The first time this moves to any location, destroy an enemy card there.
- [Change] 4/6 -> 5/9
Spider-Man 2099 has been a below-average card for quite a while–never one of the worst, but also not a true contender. We're open to considering more significant adjustments, but in the interim we've decided to experiment with a stat change. As we noted around Hercules in another update, we'd like to try and get some "big move" cards into fighting shape. 2099 represents an opportunity for us to explore the kinds of effects and statlines cards need to exist in that space while potentially giving an underperforming card some new life.
- Ghost
- [Old] 1/2 - Ongoing: Your cards are always revealed last. (Their On Reveal abilities happen last.)
- [Change] 1/2 -> 3/5
Ghost has a similar story to Spider-Man 2099. While we evaluate potential changes, we're going to take advantage of a stat improvement to learn more about the effect and its potential impact. We think it's fair to position the effect like a small drawback in the current metagame, as "fixing" reveal priority comes with greater risk. Most of the current strength came from Ghost being a 1-Cost Ongoing card, but there are other options for that in Spectrum decks today (and likely the future).
That's all for this week. Until next time, happy snapping!