Marvel Snap’s two most dominant decks have been nerfed

News

Down with the golden kitten and the silver boy.

To say that the last two Season Pass cards we got in Marvel Snap were pretty damn powerful would certainly be an accurate statement. Silver Surfer was a great fit in Negative decks, allowing for an unpredictable power push on Turn 6. Similarly, Zabu also enabled tons of disruptive combos with Absorbing Man and Spider-Man on the same turn, not to mention Darkhawk, Mystique, Moon Girl , and Rockfall.

Second Dinner has since rolled out two card balance changes (no patch download required) that nerf both cards. Here are the changes:

Zabu
Zabu’s individual map performance was strong, but not outstanding. It didn’t crack our top 5 cards for most of January, where you usually find troublemakers. Zabu’s dominance was only evident when evaluating its clusters, which take longer to surface. In mid-January, we saw three different Zabu decks gain momentum at the top of our leaderboard in terms of winrate, dice win, and population. We knew then that a change would be necessary, but the next patch was already locked, which brings us to today.
3/2 – Ongoing: Your 4-cost cards cost 2 less. (at least 1) 2/2 – Ongoing: Your 4-cost cards cost 1 less. (minimum 1) Zabu’s cost reduction from 2 to 1 reduces the cat’s potential energy reduction, making it harder to hide game-winning amounts of power until turn 6 or empty your hand for Dracula. It also resolves the Spider-Man/Absorbing Man combo, which was stronger than we thought it would be. Pushing it down to 2-cost cards will hopefully return enough haste to keep building around various 4-cost cards fun. We expect Zabu decks to look a little different but still have competitive builds.

Silver Surfer
Silver Surfer’s transformation is oddly linked to Zabu’s. It’s been a top 5 card in a top 5 deck since release, but it stabilized and won cubes more slowly after players got used to it. . . to Zab. During Savage Lands, “Sera Surfer” was an unlikely hero and the best overall deck. However, it also had positive matchups against over 75% of the field, meaning it threatened to become too dominant once we adjusted Zabu.
3/0 – On Reveal: Give your other 3-cost cards +3 power. 3/2 – On Reveal: Give your other 3-cost cards +2 Strength. This change aims to keep the same Surfer decks functional, just weaker. We’re particularly excited to carry Power on Surfer himself because it’s more interesting for both players to find out where he’s being played and we can fine-tune his strength. Unfortunately, those gains come at the cost of some cool Mister Negative decks, which we’ve enjoyed seeing.

Both cards have certainly been knocked over, but they’re totally still viable in Marvel Snap – they just won’t be as dominant as they used to be.

In the meantime, the new Into the Quantum Realm season is now live in Marvel Snap, introducing MODOK as a new Season Pass card. And so far it’s pretty safe to say that MODOK probably won’t be quite as polarizing as Silver Surfer or Zabu.

Marvel Snap is available now on PC and mobile.