Patch Notes - 6/13

Patch Notes - June 13, 2023

PATCH HIGHLIGHT

New Game Mode: Conquest

• With this patch, we are excited to release a new game mode: Conquest. Found in the “Game Modes” section of the bottom Navigation Bar, players can enter Conquests of varying difficulty, earn Medals by playing games, and get exclusive rewards in the Medal Shop.
• Conquest is unlocked after completing the Recruit Season Pass.
• Check out the Conquest blog post for more information!

GENERAL UPDATES

New to the Token Shop - Mystery Series 3!

• Open Mystery Series 3 cards for 1,000 Tokens to gain an unowned Series 3 card for your collection

Weekend Missions

• Weekend Missions offer more goals and rewards for players, beyond their current Daily Missions and Weekly Missions. With the initial release of this feature, each weekend will have three Weekend Missions:
• Win Games to Earn Credits
• Win Games with Season Pass Card to Earn Gold
• Win Games with Newly Released Card to Earn Tokens
• Each of these reward amounts will vary depending on the difficulty of the mission. There will be Weekly Missions available for each new card release. Weekly Missions for a Newly Released Card are a great way to earn back Tokens with your new cards – essentially reducing the overall Token cost!

Series Drop Updates: Some cards have dropped to a lower series.

• Cards dropping from Series 5 to Series 4:
  • Snowguard
  • Stegron
• Cards dropping from Series 4 to Series 3:
  • Shanna

BALANCE UPDATES

We’ve got one major change this week, and two smaller adjustments we anticipate will make some of our lesser-played cards a lot more fun. We know this patch is coming a couple weeks after High Evolutionary’s release, but bear in mind we implemented these changes well in advance of his release, so we’ll be using OTAs and our next patch to address changes that may be related to that card’s impact on the metagame.

CARD UPDATES

Galactus:

• [Old] 6/2 - On Reveal: If this is your only card here, destroy all other locations.

• [New] 6/7 - On Reveal: If you’re winning this location and this is your only card here, destroy all other locations.

  Galactus is a card we’ve kept a close eye on since release. His ability warps the game, changing the goal for both players from claiming two locations to waging war around cards that “counter” him/his finishers and priority. We don’t mind mixing things up a bit from time to time in that regard, but Galactus’s play rate was moving past the thresholds we set to determine both competitive diversity and also how frequently the game gets reduced to that state. Because Galactus is inherently counterable, we waited to see if the metagame could sort itself out, but it hasn’t. Galactus’s popularity has increased, his winrate has only grown, and many players don’t even enjoy beating him–these are problems worth solving.

  The original design for Galactus is difficult to rebalance, because it has essentially one value we can adjust: Power. However, lower Power can mean that Galactus always loses priority, making post-Galactus counters like Shang-Chi or Enchantress difficult to play. Meanwhile, increases may let you beat these cards more naturally, especially Professor X. Either way, it’s still all about the counters. We considered making him the first true 7-Cost card, but that was just less fun and weaker with the same issues. We also considered full redesigns for Galactus but didn’t find anything that cleared our bar, which is very high.

  Ultimately, we decided to make Power a functional way for us to tune Galactus, which led us to this additional “winning” restriction. Caring about winning this way lets players contest Galactus within the core fun of SNAP–using Power to challenge for locations. Relying exclusively on counters is frustrating because neither player has much control over their appearance, but every deck should have the ability to muster 7 Power. We expect he’ll be stronger in decks that play him on turn 6 after Hobgoblin or Nimrod, but worse in the stronger, more popular Galactus archetypes. If this change proves too much or too little, it’s also given us the ability to tune him further via OTA and find the healthiest spot.

Maria Hill:

• [Old] 2/3 - On Reveal: Add a random 1-Cost card to your hand.

• [New] 2/3 - On Reveal: Add a random 1 or 2-Cost card to your hand.

  We’re giving Maria Hill the ability to roll a 2-Cost card primarily to make her a better thematic parallel to Agent Coulson. We expect this to be a slight buff as you’ll occasionally get a better card from her, and half the time your Quinjet will provide a discount in those scenarios too. Not a huge mover, but a more enjoyable card.

Dazzler:

• [Old] 4/4 - Ongoing: If you have 4 cards at each location, +6 Power.

• [New] 3/2 - Ongoing: +2 Power for each location that’s full on your side.

  Dazzler’s old ability didn’t give enough of a boost to reflect the level of investment that filling your board demands, and never really found a home competing against many of our strongest 4-Cost cards. We decided to give her more incremental boosts as you fill locations, which also lets her benefit from Space Throne, and shifted her rate to 3-Cost. In addition to changing up the competition, she may have a home alongside Brood with Silver Surfer, in Patriot with Ultron, or other shells.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed an issue that caused the Choose Your Card section to appear to be claimable after it’s already been claimed.
• Fixed an issue with Moon Girl and Miles Morales that caused incorrect costs being displayed.
• Fixed an issue with Jessica Jones’ VFX that caused it to appear in the wrong location.
• Added Snowguard’s artist information to each card version.
• Adjusted how Klyntar’s symbiote handles ongoing cards with modified power to be more intuitive and retain the adjusted values
• Sliding off a purchase button without releasing should now cancel the purchase confirmation
• Iron Lad boosters should no longer be missing their art asset.
• Fixed an issue where Crystal’s ink mod could display incorrectly in some views.
• Fixed an issue that would occasionally softlock players when swapping avatars.
• Fixed an issue where your selected deck would unexpectedly change away from your last selected one.
• Variant rarity labels should now be properly localized.
• Players are no longer prompted to swap in variants if all of their decks with that card already use that variant.
• Fixed an issue that occasionally prevented SFX from playing when claiming a new card.
• Upgrade particles should no longer remain visible when you’ve filtered those cards out of the collection view.
• Fixed issues with some text and assets appearing incorrectly.