August 1st - Balance Updates

No preamble today, let’s dive right into the updates!

• Loki
  • [Old] 4/5 - On Reveal: Transform your hand into cards from your opponent’s starting deck and give them -1 Cost.
  • [New] 3/5 - On Reveal: Replace your deck with your opponent's starting deck. Give those cards -1 Cost and draw a card.

It took a few shots to land Loki in the right spot, but the goal had been accomplished. However, as time has passed, our preference for using Loki as a buildaround for decks that generate extra cards has shifted. It's proven too stifling to cards like Snowguard and Agent Coulson, who can't really stand on their own anywhere, as well as future designs we've worked on internally.Given Loki's recent resurgence alongside Arishem, it felt like the right time to try capturing that fantasy without diminishing those other cards. We don't want to "banish Loki from Asgard" with this change, so we're erring stronger to avoid that. If we need to come back for a buff or nerf, or if this rework doesn't succeed for other reasons, we'll consider something else. 

• Leech
  • [Old] 5/5 - On Reveal: Remove the text from cards with On Reveal abilities in your opponent’s hand.
  • [New] 4/4 - On Reveal: Remove the text from 6-Cost cards in your opponent’s hand.

This has been a tricky card for us to land where we want it. The last change proved we had enough overlap from other effects to avoid leaning on Leech as an all-purpose answer. However, the function has primarily been a tool for letting decks brute force their strongest stuff through defenses, rather than answering otherwise overpowering strategies.We're going to try narrowing it further and targeting a more specific scope of threats. We're also going to aim weak, in case we're underestimating the effect, to give most honest folk a break from getting Leeched. 

• Doctor Octopus
  • [Old] 5/10 - On Reveal: Pull 4 cards from your opponent’s hand to their side of this location.
  • [New] 4/8 - On Reveal: Pull the lowest-Power card from your opponent’s hand to their side of this location.

The good Doctor had settled into a career as a niche player in the SNAP metagame for quite a while, until Arishem showed up. While Arishem is enabling more aggressive Ock plays, the true lesson has been that when Ock is seeing a lot of play . . . that can get fairly frustrating. Given we find ourselves in a spot where we have a card we kind of don't want people playing in volume, that makes it a solid candidate for a rework. Our goal here isn't specifically a nerf, but rather to continue capturing the fantasy of the card with an implementation that's more fun and will be a healthier addition to the metagame.Plus, 4/8 is a pretty great statline for creative reasons. 

• Widow's Kiss (White Widow)
  • [Old] 0/0 - Ongoing: This has -4 Power. Disable this ability if your side of this location is full.
  • [New] 0/0 - Ongoing: This has -3 Power. Disable this ability if your side of this location is full.

Enough time has passed for White Widow to see the breadth of the card's impact, and it's showing up more often than we aimed for, and in a wider variety of decks. The strength doesn't feel especially far off, so this small tweak down on the effect should help balance things out. 

• Blob
  • [Old] 6/0 - On Reveal: Merge cards from your deck into this until it gains 15 or more Power.
  • [New] 6/0 - On Reveal: Merge cards from your deck into this until it gains 13 or more Power.

One of the winningest cards in Arishem decks has continued to be Blob. The specifics of that gameplay aren't very satisfying, because Blob tends to wind up fairly close to a 6/17 or better without a drawback in these decks. Our goal with Blob is to encourage some meaningful deckbuilding differences or charge a steeper price for the strength, so that's not working out. Turning the knob down will weaken Blob in Arishem while leaving some strength to build around in 12-card decks. 

• War Machine
  • [Old] 4/6 - On Reveal: Until the end of next turn, nothing can stop you from playing cards anywhere.
  • [Change] 4/6 -> 4/7

War Machine hasn't found a consistent home, indicating there's room to add extra Power. A larger contributor to the low play rate may be our revision to Professor X leaving players without enough incentive to find a slot for War Machine, but either way this buff carries fairly little risk. 

• Apocalypse
  • [Old] 6/6 - When you discard this, put it back with +4 Power.
  • [Change] 6/6 -> 6/8

We took some Power away from Apocalypse a while ago, when Discard had reached perhaps the peak of its all-time strength. Since then the metagame has continued to evolve, and Discard has slid backwards. This won't fully reverse the trend, but it's a solid step and we'd like to monitor the results before making additional updates. — That's all for this week. Until next time, happy snapping!